DIALECT (Lat. dia/cctus, from nk. IS142.E.Kroc, dinfrktos. dialect. diseourse, dialegestka i, to converse, from ot4, din, through Atyur, /rgrin, to say). The name dialect is given to those varieties or peculiar forms which a language assumes among the various tribes or other local divisions of a people. It is clear that the wider the separation come, Io be between the several tribes. and the more they differ in mode of life and other eireumstances, the more marked will become the differences of dialect.
Also, when a particular tribe of this people in creases in numbers and extends its territory. the; same process is repeated, and its dialect is brok en into a number of sub-dialects. The principal check upon this tendency to seemingly endless subdivision of language is furnished by an in (Teasing degree of common vulture and civiliza tion. 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 more richly and ripens earlier than that others, while some even undergo decline; this must occasion corresponding of dja lect. Further, one dialect may become (huninant over one or more of the others, through various influences. the chief of these being the power of poetry, especially if favored by external rela tions. Finally, if to superior manifestations of oratory and poetry in any dialect, the conserva tive aid of writing be added. there is created a written language: and this passes current among other tribes to the same extent that the litera ture 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 all-engross ing subject of religion followed in the same dia lect ; happily, too, the art of printing had just attained the perfection necessary to give these productions general circulation. It. was this con
currence of circumstances that decided that High German should in future be the spiritual bond between the widespread German people. For there were other dialects whose claims to the distinction were at that time equal, if not higher. See also ENGLIS:II 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 it sprang. As written lan guage is chiefly employed in the higher depart ments of human thought and activity. the intel lectual and moral elements predominate in it over the sensible; and what it gains in dignity, precision, and pliancy, it loses in richness of in flection, 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 month of the edu cated classes, but they are gradually more and more confined to the most necessary and familiar forms of intercourse. and lose their characteris tics in the stream of the written language. They thus become, after a time, the exclusive posses sion of the illiterate, in which position they pre serve many relies of old grammatical forms long after these have disappeared from the language of literature. But so long as a language lives, the literary standard and the dialects never cease to net and react on one another.
The chief points of difference between dialects and the standard tongue fall tinder four heads. The first consists of differences in the elementary sounds, each dialect having a tendency to substi tute sonic one or more vowels or consonants for others. Thus. the English bold is, in Hyland. butc/d: in Scotland, bunk!; what, where the it is nearly evanescent. becomes, in a lima tC, mout 11, or rat her throat. elf tea t, and. in Aberdeenshire Scotch. fa —f in this dialect being re!rularly substituted for wit, or rather h w.