PATTERSON ON NEWFOUNDLAND DIALECT. xlv 



with some intermixture of North American Indians and Africans, and 

 other elements in less proportion. These all brought with them various 

 folk-tales, legends and superstitions, and as these different races remain 

 in a large measure distinct, they retain them to a good degree still. As 

 they mix with other races and become more educated, they may lose 

 them, but often the intermixture tends to their wider extension. In the 

 same way there arises an interchange of \vords and phrases, which form 

 dialectic peculiarities more or less widely spread according to circum- 

 stances. 



Recently my attention was directed to the folk-lore and folk-speech 

 of Newfoundland. I had not more than begun to mingle with her 

 people till I observed them using words in a sense different from what 

 I had ever heard elsewhere. This was the case to some extent in the 

 speech of the educated, in their law proceedings and in the public press, 

 but was of course more marked among the uneducated. Among the 

 latter particularly I found, in addition, words in use which were entirely 

 new to me. Further intercourse convinced me that these peculiarities 

 presented an interesting subject of study, and after some enquiry I pre- 

 pared two papers, the first of which was read before the Montreal branch 

 of the American Folk-lore Society, and published in the American 

 Folk-lore Journal for January- March, 1895, and the other was read 

 before that society at their late meeting and published in the same 

 journal. It has been thought desirable that the results of my enquiries 

 should be brought under the notice of Nova Scotian students, and I 

 have therefore consented to condense my two papers into one adding 

 such additional information as I have since received and to present it 

 before the Institute of Science. 



It may seem strange that I should have directed such particular 

 attention to the dialectic forms of Newfoundland, where I was quite a 

 stranger, while there remains a similar field in Nova Scotia quite unculti- 

 vated. But it was just because I was a stranger that my ear at once 

 caught the sound of unusual words, or of words used in unusual senses, 

 and I was led to these investigations. Equally interesting forms of 

 speech are perhaps to be found in Nova Scotia, but they await the 

 investigations perhaps of some stranger who may come to sojourn 

 among us. 



In explanation of the origin of these peculiarities it is to be kept in 

 view that the most of the original settlers of Newfoundland came either 



