DIALECT, a characteristic manner of speech, so any variety of a language (from Gr. btaXecros, conversation, manner of speaking). In its widest sense languages which are branches of a common or parent language are its "dialects" as Attic, Ionic, etc. and the various Romance languages of Latin. Where there have existed side by side, as in England, various branches of a language, such as the languages of the Angles, the Jutes or the Saxons, and the descendant of one particular language has predominated, the traces of the others remain in the "dialects" of the districts where once the original language prevailed. Thus "dialect" varieties of a language need not, historically, represent degradations. A "literary" accepted language, such as modern English, represents the original language spoken in the Midlands, with accretions of various sources, while the present-day "dialects" preserve traces of the original local variety of the language. See the articles on languages (English, French, etc.).