into say three great branches, the Britannic, the American, and the 

 Australian, differing perhaps as do the Danish, the Swedish, and 

 the Icelandic, the last named, like the Britannic, representing the 

 parent speech. Under the old conditions of the world, this 

 separation would take place with even greater rapidity than was 

 ever the case in former times, inasmuch as men are now projected 

 to greater distances, and thrown into new and strange modes of 

 life, which involve new trains of thought, and require new modes 

 of expression. But the restraining forces, namely, the ever- 

 increasing personal inter-communication, the interchanges of the 

 press, and — most effective agent of all — the possession of a 

 common literature coming home to all, are so entirely new in the 

 experience of the world, that the past affords no guide whatever 

 for the future. 



I am disposed, then, to come to the general conclusion, that 

 unless circumstances should arise which it would be unreason- 

 able to contemplate, it is impossible that the literary language 

 should ever be other^vise than one and the same throughout the 

 English-speaking domain. And, if that view hold good, I take it 

 to be equally impossible that the language should split up into 

 three or into any number of branches. 



At the same time, within the limits of a literary language 

 essentially uniform, there is room for a very considerable diversity 

 of spoken dialects, and this is, I think, the direction which the 

 course of events will take. I think it even possible that such 

 diversities of dialect may, in the course of time, become so great 

 as to amount to something like a diversity of language within the 

 fold of the common language ; so that there would be two 

 languages — the language of every day life, and that taught in the 

 schools. The speech of the miners of the Far West, for instance, 

 as made familiar to us by the writings of Bret Harte and others, 

 has even in this short time become something differing very 

 considerably from standard English, and yet these men read and 

 enjoy the works of the best English authors. This is not a new 

 thing to us even in Europe. In Germany, for instance, there is, 

 in addition to the High German which has become the standard 



