DIALECT. In speaking of a people having essentially all one language, but living extended over an extensive territory, the name of dialects is given to those varieties or peculiar forms which that language assumes among the various tribes or other local divisions of the people. It is clear that the wider the separation comes to be between the several tribes, and the more they differ in mode of life and other circumstances, the more marked will the differences of D. become. Also, when a particular tribe of this people increases in numbers, and also extends its territory, the same process is repeated, and its D. becomes broken into a number of sub-dialects. The principal check to this tendency to seemingly endless subdivision of language, is furnished by an increasing degree of common culture and civilization. Where this is wanting, as in Africa and among the native populations of America, the subdivision is practically endless.
Another element is introduced into the problem by the fact, that the civilization of some tribes develops itself more richly and ripens earlier than that of others, while some even undergo decline; this must occasion corresponding differences of dialect. Further, one dialect may become dominant over one or more of the others, through various influences, the chief of which is the power of poetry, especially if favored by external relations. Finally, if to superior manifestations of oratory and poetry in any dialect, the conservative aid of writing be added, there is created a written language, which passes current among other tribes to the same extent that the literature of which it is the vehicle finds favor. It is not always the dialect most perfect in itself, nor yet that of the most powerful tribe or division of a people, that comes to be the written language. Accidental circumstances have, in many cases, decided the rivalry. The Bible happened to be translated by a high German, Luther, into his native dialect; other works on the then all-engrossing subject of religion followed in the same dialect; happily, too, the art of printing had just attained the perfection necessary to give these produc tions general circulation. It was this concurrence of circumstances that decided that high German should in future be the spiritual bond among the wide-spread German people. For there were other dialects whose claims to the distinction were at that time equal, if not higher. See also ENGLISII LANGUAGE.
When a dialect has thus become the vehicle of written communication, and of the higher kinds of oral address, its character and position become changed; and it stands henceforth in a sort of antagonism to the other dialects, and even to that out of which itself sprung. For written language is chiefly employed in the higher departments of human thought and activity. The intellectual and moral elements, therefore, predom inate in it over the sensible; and what it gains in dignity, precision, and pliancy, it loses in richness of inflection, in friendly familiarity and naturalness. In conflict with this standard speech, the dialects must go to the wall. They live for a considerable time, it is true, even in the mouth of the educated classes, becoming, however, gradually more and more confined to the most necessary and familiar forms of intercouse, and losing their characteristics in the stream of the written language. They thus become, after a time, the exclusive possession of the lowr orders, in which position they pre serve many relics of old grammatical forms long after these have disappeared in the language of literature, but without the power of advancing or of being enriched by the products of deep thinking; and though they may abound in single expressions of great beauty and delicacy, the general character comes to be low and coarse. But so long as a language lives, the literary standard and the dialects never cease to act and react on one another.
The chief points of difference between the dialects of a language and the standard fall under four heads. The first consists of differences in the elementary sounds or
letters, each dialect having a tendency to substitute some one or more vowels or con sonants for others. Thus, the standard English bold, is in Ireland bowld; in Scotland, Multi,. what, where the it is nearly evanescent, becomes, in a Scotsman's mouth, or rather throat, chwat, and in Aberdeenshire Scotch, fat—f in this sub dialect being regularly substituted for wit, or rather hw. 2. Each dialect has peculiarities of grammar: In many parts of England and in Scotland, the plural of eye is not eyes, but even, or een, like oxen. The habitual use of be where the standard grammar prescribes am, is, are, etc., is prevalent in large districts of England. Of this kind is the use of the strong conjugation for the weak, or vice versd; as Loup, lap, luppen, for leap, leaped, leaped. 3. Peculiarities of vocabulary; These individual words current in one or more districts, but unknown to the standard vocabulary, are properly provincialisms. They are generally genuine words of an older stage of the language, that have survived longer in some localities than in others. Some provincialisms, as beam or bairn, for child, marrow for fellow or match, to greet for to weep, are common to Scotland and the n. of England. Others are more local, as to cleam, for to fasten or cement; heppen, a Yorkshire term for pretty near; thrippa, in Cheshire, to cudgel. The exclusion of such words from the standard language is often accidental, and ninny of them might be and are with advantage resumed; ex., marrow, gloaming, etc. 4. Peculiarities of intonation: This is sometimes, though with little propriety, called accent, which means strictly the stress laid upon a particular vllable of a word. There are no doubt local peculiarities of this kind too. The ten dency of standard English, especially the more recent, is to throw the accent toward the beginning of the word; in Scotland, the tendency lingers to say enry' for very. But peculiarities of intonation lie iu the different ways in which the pitch of the voice is managed—in the musical accompaniment of articulation. Differences in this respect give rise to the monotonous drawl of one district, the angry querulous tone of another, the sing-song of a third, etc.
So long as dialectic varieties of language were looked upon indiscriminately as cor ruptions and barbarities, they were only noticed by scholars that they might be avoided. A inure rational philology, without trenching upon the rules of good writing, considers them as essential parts of the speech of a people, and a knowledge of them as necessary to any thorough investigation of the genius of that speech.
It is obvious that dialect is entirely.a relative' term, and that what we call by that name in one connection, we may call a language in another connection. Thus, Greek and Latin may be called sister-dialects of that primitive language from which it is held that they, as well as the other members of the Indo-European family, branched off. See ARYAN Speaking of Greek by itself, however, it is a language, and Ionic, Doric, Attic, etc., are dialects of it. The same holds good with the others. In practice, however nearly related the speech of two peoples may be, we do not apply the term dialects, unless the peoples are mutually intelligible and have a common, literary stand ard. Intelligibility does not go for much, but political relations enter more or less into the notion. Scotch is sometimes spoken of as a distinct language from English; and yet in no part of Scotland is the common speech so unintelligible to an Englishman as is that of Somerset, which is always a "dialect." This arises from Scotland being thought of as a separate country, which it once was; and its speech as the vehicle of a peculiar literature. See AMEItLCA\tSMS.—Dialect is not to be confounded with artifi cialities, such as the jargon of thieves.