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False Dialect

False Dialect image
Parent Issue
Day
19
Month
February
Year
1895
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

JLue nood oí negro talk that has cnscolored OTir recent literature is not a dialect. It consists chiefly of the vnlgarism, the niispronunciation and misuse of ■words that come of a lack of edncation and polite association. Hartlly any of it is even provinoialism, and still less is the survival of old forms and usages. Nor is it duo in any appreciable degree to locality. In faot, it arisos from condition almost wholly and is rnerely the lingo of our lowest classes, with sraall distinction on accotint of race and color. It is kitchen talk, as distinguished from that of theparlor, and, although it may occasionally offer us a word or phrase having some philological or historical interest, it does not approach the dignity of a dialect. The bad grammar of illiterate ignorauce, without rule or art, it even lacks the consistency in error with which some of our writers seek to invest it, for it recognizes uo precedent and follows no analogy. And yet the real lingo is not half so bad as it is represented in print, where it is eought to set it before us phonotically. It is obvious that the ordinnry speech of any of our white comnmnities would look very much like a jargon if subjected to the same phonetio procoss. In our conimon conversation very few of us are purists, and a precisión is generally regarded as affected and

Article

Subjects
Ann Arbor Argus
Old News