the reign of Edward the Confessor." It is the dialect spoken in the northern parts of France, and denominated NormanFrench, 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 England 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

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

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 languages. 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.

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The words so adopted by us embrace geographical names, class of 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 all. Among these terms are cookey, cruller, olykoke, spack and applejees, noodlejees, rullichies, koolslaa, pit.

The terms for various playthings, holidays, &c., preserve among children their original Dutch names; as, scup, snore, hoople, peewee, pile, pinkster, paas. Other words confined to children are pinky, terawchy.

Articles of wearing apparel in some instances retain their Dutch names; as, barraclade, clockmutch.

Besides these there are terms, the use of which is not confined to the districts originally colonized from Holland, but has been extended to New England and several of the Northern States, and even to Canada; such as stoop, a porch, boss, a masterworkman, &c.

If a few Dutch colonists mingled with the English have been able to engraft so many words on our language, what may we not expect from the hundreds of thousands of Germans in the

State of Pennsylvania? There the German language will doubtless exist for centuries; for although they are situated in the midst of an English-speaking population, far more numerous than themselves, and although the government and laws are conducted through the English language, still the tendency of a people of common origin to cling together, the publication of newspapers, almanacs, and books in German, and the cultivation to some extent of German literature, will tend to preserve the idiom and nationality of the people. It is true the language is already much corrupted, and in the course of time it must give way to the English; but it will leave behind it an almost imperishable dialect as a memento of its existence. In the States of Ohio and Texas, where there are large settlements of Germans, a similar result must follow.

In the State of Illinois is a colony of Norwegians. These people before coming to America sent out an agent, who selected and purchased for them a large tract of land in one section of that State. They were accompanied by their clergyman and schoolmaster. They are thus kept together, and will for a long time preserve their language and nationality. But it must also eventually give way, after engrafting on the English language in that vicinity a Norwegian dialect.

There are large settlements of Welsh emigrants in the States of Pennsylvania and New York. In the latter, in Oneida County, one may travel for miles and hear nothing but the Welsh language. These people have their newspapers and magazines in their native tongue, and support many churches wherein their language alone is preached. The Welsh, however, are not in sufficient numbers, nor are they sufficiently isolated, to retain for any length of time their native form of speech; neither can they produce any sensible dialectical change in our language,' owing to the great difference between it and their own. They will, however, add some words to it.

In the State of Louisiana, which was colonized by the French, and in Florida, which was colonized by the Spaniards, there are many words of foreign origin, scarcely known in the Northern States. The geographical divisions, the names of rivers, mountains, bays; the peculiarities of soil and climate; all that re

lates to the cultivation of the earth, the names of fishes, birds, fruits, vegetables, coins, &c., &c., retain to a great extent the names given them by the first possessors of the country. The same classes of words are preserved in Lower Canada, where they were originally given by the French. We have adopted them into our own tongue, where they will for ever remain in use. Among the words of French origin are bagasse, banquette, cache, chute, bodette, bayou, sault, levee, crevasse, habitan, portage,

voyageur.

The Spanish colonists in Florida, and our intercourse with Mexico and the Spanish main, were the means of introducing a few Spanish words. Since the annexation of Texas, New Mexico, and California, our vocabulary has received numerous additions from this source. These consist of geographical terms, as arroyo, acequia, barranca, canyon, cienega, cieneguita, faralones, loma, mesa, mesilla, playa, ojo, sierra, jornada; of names of articles of food, as tortilla, frijoles, atole, pinole, chile; and of various other terms, as arriero, adobe, corral, chaparal, pistareen, rancho, ranchero, lariat, lasso, fandango, stampede, serape, tinaja, vamos,

vaquero.

The Indian terms in our language, as might be supposed, are numerous. First, as to geographical names. These abound in every State in the Union, though more in some States than in others. In New England, particularly on the coast, Indian names are very common. Nearly all the rivers, bays, and prominent landmarks bear them, as Housatonic, Connecticut, Winnepesaukie, Quinnebaug, Pawcatuck, Merrimack, Kennebec, Penobscot, Narragansett, Passamaquoddy, &c. In other parts of the country, too, the rivers retain their aboriginal names, as the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Susquehanna, Roanoke, Altamaha, Chattahoochee, Alabama, &c., &c. And the same may be said of the great lakes; as, Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan, as well as the lesser ones of Seneca, Cayuga, Canandaigua, Oneida, Winnipeg, Winnebago; and also of nearly all the bays, mountains, and numerous geographical divisions and localities. Many of the aboriginal names, however, have been discarded for others less appropriate. In New England, the towns and villages were chiefly named after the towns in England from which the early

colonists emigrated. In the State of New York there is a strange discrepancy in the names of places. Before the Revolution, the people seemed to prefer the aboriginal names: not only the rivers, lakes, hills, &c., but many of the towns, received them. After the war, the names of distinguished statesmen and soldiers were applied to the new counties and towns. Besides geographical names, the Indian languages have supplied us with: 1st, many names of beasts and fishes, as caribou, cayman, chipmuk, moose, ocelot, opossum, raccoon, skunk, manitee, squeteague, menhaden, pauhaugen, seuppaug, quahaug, terrapin; 2d, of plants, as persimmon, chincapin, pecan, tuckahoe, maize, kinnikinnik, tobacco, - particularly preparations of them for food, as samp, hominy, succotash, supawn, from Indian corn, and, from the cassava plant, mandioca and tapioca; 3d, names of articles known to and used by the Indians, and which the Europeans did not possess, as canoe, hammock, moccasin, wampum, sewan, wigwam, tomahawk, pemmican, tepee, toboggin; and, 4th, names applied by Indians to themselves in their various relations, as inca, cazique, cockarouse, mingo, sachem, sagamore, squaw, pappoose.

The greatest perversions of the English language arise from two opposite causes. One of them is the introduction of vulgarisms and slang by uneducated people, who, not having the command of proper words to express their ideas, invent others for the purpose. These words continue among this class, are transmitted by them to their children, and thus become permanent and provincial. They are next seized upon by stumpspeakers at political meetings, because they are popular with the Next we hear them on the floor of Congress and in our halls of legislation. Quoted by the newspapers, they become familiar to all, and take their place in the colloquial language of the whole people. Lexicographers now secure them and give them a place in their dictionaries; and thus they are firmly engrafted on our language. The study of lexicography will show that this process has long been going on in England, and doubtless other languages are subject to similar influences.

masses.

But the greatest injury to our language arises from the perversion of legitimate words and the invention of hybrid and other inadmissible expressions by educated men, and particularly