tained in our dictionaries, gives by no means a correct idea of the number of such words which we actually make use of. The greater part of our household, colloquial, and poetical expressions are Saxon, and so are all those important words called particles, on which the whole structure of speech hinges; whereas an immense number of the words derived from other sources belong exclusively to the language of books, and many even to particular sciences.

There is another fact to be observed, which is, that these different classes of words are not used in the same proportion by all members of society. Persons without education, and who are consequently not familiar with the language of literature, employ almost exclusively in their conversation the simple and expressive Saxon terms; while persons belonging to the more favored classes of society, supply the place of many of these terms by others derived from the language of books. The old words thus discarded, which are often far more expressive and more consonant to the genius of the language than the apparently more elegant novelties by which they are supplanted, are from that time considered as the exclusive property of the common people, and receive the name of provincial, colloquial, or vulgar.

But notwithstanding all this, the common speech often enters largely into composition, and in some instances constitutes the chief excellence of a writer. In dramatic composition the colloquial language predominates. In Shakespeare we find every variety of diction of which the English language is susceptible, from the loftiest flights of the statesman and philosopher to the familiar language of the lowest of the people. In Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Shirley, and the other dramatic authors, we find the familiar idiom to be the most prevalent.

If we examine the literature of other countries, we shall find that the colloquial tongue has been employed in written compositions of a similar kind and with equal success. In addition to Aristophanes and Plautus among the ancients, Cervantes may be mentioned as an example in Spain, and the writings of Rabelais and Molière in France. The colloquial dialect is generally more ancient than the literary language; as the latter is constantly changing, while the former remains nearly stationary.

If any person will take the trouble to examine the early dictionaries of the English language, or the dictionaries of which English forms a part, he will be surprised at the large number of words which have become so completely obsolete as to be undeserving a place in modern compilations. Even the English dictionary of Bailey, which, at the time Dr. Johnson published his, was the standard, abounds in words which are now never used in composition. This class of words was employed by authors from Chaucer's time, or about the year 1400, to the beginning of the seventeenth century. By the middle of that century they had ceased to be used in books, but were preserved in dictionaries for a century longer. The great mass of

them, however, are found in one or more of the numerous provincial dialects of England to the present day.

The dialects of the English language now spoken in England have existed from a very early period. It is not pretended by writers on the subject that any are of recent origin. "In early times," says Dr. Bosworth, "there was clearly a considerable dialectic variety in the writings of men residing in different provinces. The differences observable in the language of the most cultivated classes would be still more marked and apparent in the mass of population, or the less educated community. These, from their agricultural pursuits, had little communication with the inhabitants of other provinces; and having few opportunities and little inducement to leave their own neighborhood, they intermarried among each other, and, from their limited acquaintance and circumscribed views, they would naturally be much attached to their old manners, customs, and language. The same cause operating from age to age would keep united the greater part of the population, or the families of the middle stations of life; it may, therefore, be well expected that much of the peculiarity of dialect prevalent in Anglo-Saxon times, is preserved even to the present day in the provincial dialects of the same districts. In these local dialects, then, remnants of the Anglo-Saxon tongue may be found in the least altered, most uncorrupt, and therefore its purest state." *

In an ethnological point of view the English dialects afford important materials for elucidating that portion of English history which relates to the early colonization of Great Britain; for, if history were silent on the subject, a philological test applied to the dialects of the country would show what nations contributed to its colonization.

The Edinburgh Review for April, 1844, in an article on the Provincialisms of the European Languages, gives the following results of an inquiry into the number of provincial words which had then been arrested by local glossaries:

"Admitting that several of the foregoing are synonymous, superfluous, or common to each county, there are nevertheless many of them which, although alike orthographically, are vastly dissimilar in signification. Making these allowances, they amount to a little more than 20,000; or, according to the number of English counties hitherto illustrated, to the average ratio of 1478 to a county. Calculating the twenty-six unpublished in the same ratio (for there are supposed to be as many words collected by persons who have never published them), they will furnish 36,428 additional provincialisms, forming in the aggregate 59,000 words in the colloquial tongue of the lower classes, which can, for the chief part, produce proofs of legitimate origin."

Since the above was written, a most important contribution to this department of literature has been made in the publication of " A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs, and Ancient Customs, from the fourteenth century. By J. O. Halliwell. 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1847." This admirable work actually contains 50,000 words, a great portion of which are illustrated by extracts from manuscripts. It will be found by most persons to amply supply the place of the numerous separate glossaries for studying the dialects of England, while it affords indispensable assistance for the correct understanding of the early writers. A still later publication of the same description, and which has constantly been consulted with advantage in preparing the second edition of the present work, is the "Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English, containing words from the English writers previous to the nineteenth century, which are no longer in use, or are not used in the same sense, and words which are now used only in the provincial dialects. Compiled by Thomas Wright, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1857."

As it does not fall within the scope of these inquiries to discuss the languages to which the English bears a relationship, we shall pass over these, and come at once to the Anglo-Saxon. This forms the basis of the English language, and is to be considered as the mother-tongue, upon which many words and phrases from other languages, at successive periods, during a space of fourteen centuries, have been engrafted.

The Saxons brought their language into Britain in the year 449, when the invasion under Hengist took place. What the language was at this period it is impossible to show, as no writings of the time have come down to us. It probably approached nearer to its immediate progenitor, the Low German and Moso-Gothic, than the form it assumed several centuries later, when we first find written documents.*

*It is true that the celebrated Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf is considered to be contemporary with Hengist. But its editor, Mr. Kemble, states that the poem as contained

The large number of invaders who followed Hengist compelled the ancient inhabitants to retire; and in about a century the whole country was formed into a Saxon kingdom, wherein their language took the place of the Celtic. This language, thus introduced and so firmly established, has been called pure Saxon by the learned Dr. Hickes in his "Thesaurus Veterum Linguarum Septentrionalium."

The languages of the Angles and Saxons were closely allied to each other In fact, from a comparison of the earliest specimens that have come down to us, it is evident that they were merely dialects of the same tongue, spoken by people living contiguous to each other. The other Gothic invaders, or colonists of Britain, who have left traces of their language, are the Jutes of Jutland and the Friesians of Friesland.

The Danes made their first descent on the English coast in 787, and were soon repelled. Successive invasions followed, and when Charlemagne compelled them to retreat before his victorious armies, they sought a refuge in Britain, laying waste the country and plundering wherever they came. The Saxons always got rid of them as soon as possible, either by force of arms or contributions of money. Yet in many instances they established colonies, and after 230 years of warfare they succeeded in raising a Danish king to the throne of England in the year 1017. His reign, however, was short; for in twenty-four years the Danish dynasty was extinct, and a Saxon king again succeeded.

This is the period where Dr. Hickes places the second stage of the Anglo-Saxon language, being that in which it was affected by the Danish invasions, receiving new words or dialectical changes. Mr. Forby, in his remarks on the dialect of East Anglia, says that no part of England was more completely overrun or longer occupied than this; but he denies that a number of words sufficiently large was imported to give a new color and character to the Saxon tongue.*

"The French element appeared in our language with the battle of Hastings (A. D. 1066), perhaps in a slight degree during the reign of Edward the Confessor." It is the dialect spoken in the northern parts of France, and denominated Norman French, which has had the greatest influence upon the English language.

Those parts of Great Britain which have contributed most to our provincialisms are the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, and the Scottish Borders. It was chiefly from these counties that New England was colonized; hence their peculiarities of language are most numerous in the New Eng

in the Cottonian MS., British Museum, is not so old; and there occur in it Christian allusions which fix this text at least at a period subsequent to A. D. 597.

* Forby's Introd. to the Vocab. of East Anglia, p. 31.

† Latham on the English Language, p. 45. 1st edit.

B*

land States. The provincialisms used in the districts referred to have been collected and published in Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 2 vols. 12mo. London, 1830; Moor's Suffolk Words and Phrases, 12mo. London, 1823; Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, with their etymology, 3d edition, 2 vols. 12mo. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1846; and Carr's dialect of Craven in the West Riding of York, 2 vols. 12mo. 2d edition, London, 1828.

AMERICAN DIALECTS.

DIALECTS originate in various ways. First, by the proximity of nations speaking different languages, in which case many words and phrases are borrowed from one into the other; witness the Scotch and Irish dialects of the English. Secondly, by migrations. This is the most fruitful and permanent source of dialects. We see its effects in the language of England; for the immigrations of various nations into Great Britain from the Saxons down to the period of the Norman conquest are yet distinctly marked in the dialects of that country.

In the United States it is easy to point out causes, which, in the course of a few generations, will materially affect the English language in the particular districts of country where those influences are at work. Dialects will spring up as marked as those of Great Britain. A free intercourse may in some cases check the permanency of these dialects; but in those parts of the country aside from the great thoroughfares, where a dialect has once become firmly established, a thousand years will not suffice to eradicate it.

The State of New York was originally settled by the Dutch. The number of their colonists was never large, nor did they extend their settlements beyond the valley of the Mohawk and lands adjacent; yet we find even in this thickly settled State, after a lapse of two hundred years, that they have left evident traces on our spoken language. In the cities of New York and Albany many Dutch words have become incorporated into the common speech. In some of the inland villages of Dutch origin, the inhabitants still use the language of their fathers; and there are even individuals who never spoke any other.

a class of

The words so adopted by us embrace geographical names, words which the first colonists of a country or the primitive inhabitants themselves generally leave to their posterity or to the subsequent occupants. Many of the other words which the Dutch have left us are terms belonging to the kitchen. These have been preserved and handed down by cooks and domestic servants, until from constant use they are become familiar to