1905.] The Scientific Study of Dialects. 87 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, March 31, 1905. 



Sir James Crichton-Browne, M.D. LL.D. F.R.S., Treasurer 

 and Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Professor Joseph Wright, M.A. Ph.D. D.C.L. LL.D. Litt. D. 



The Scientific Study of Dialects. 



The subject of this discourse is the scientific study of dialects, a 

 branch of Hnguistic research which has received considerable atten- 

 tion amongst German and Scandinavian philologists ; but in this 

 country the scientific study of the modern dialects is still in its 

 infancy, and is likely to remain so until the average educated 

 Englishman gets an accurate conception of what a dialect really is. 

 An incident which happened to the lecturer some years ago will 

 serve to illustrate the ordinary educated Englishman's ideas about a 

 dialect. Having spent a great deal of time in writing an historical 

 grammar of his own village dialect, a copy of the book was sent to a 

 distinguished classical scholar, who regarded it as an elaborate philo- 

 logical joke, and regretted that so much valuable time should have 

 been wasted in trying to reduce to system and order what was after 

 all merely barbarisms, corruptions, and mispronunciations of the 

 " Queen's English." If a distinguished classical scholar, well versed 

 in the ancient dialects of Greece and Italy, could express himself thus 

 about the philological value of modern dialects, there is Uttle wonder 

 that educated Enghshmen who have devoted no attention to the 

 scientific study of languages should have such vague notions of what 

 a dialect really is. Most educated people seem to think that the 

 lower classes have been endowed by nature with imperfect organs of 

 speech, and that they are incapable of speaking even their own 

 dialect with anything like system and consistency. In the course of 

 the lecture Dr. Wright hoped to show that in reality it is the literary 

 language which is full of irregularities, anomalies, and inconsistencies, 

 and that there is a wonderful uniformity and regularity in the sound- 

 system and grammar of the modern dialects. Before entering upon 

 the subject proper, he discussed briefly the respective merits of 

 modern dialects and literary languages in the study of the science of 

 language in general and of comparative grammar and phonetics in 

 particular. When a man wishes to become a comparative philologist 

 the first thing he does is to learn a number of languages which 

 belong to the same family, e.g., Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Old Bulgarian, 

 Old Irish, Gothic, etc. After he has acquired a pmctical knowledge 



