EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



have found a criterion which enables us to dis- 

 tinguish between the words that are alike in two 

 languages because one has borrowed them from 

 the other, and words that are alike because they 

 are simply modified forms of the same aboriginal 

 word. This supremely important point can be 

 here treated but roughly ; yet I hope that, with 

 a few illustrations, it may be rendered intelli- 

 gible. 



One of the chief reasons for the divergence of 

 a language, originally uniform, into two or more 

 distinct dialects is to be found in those differ- 

 ences of pronunciation which arise, one hardly 

 knows how, in different localities. The most cu- 

 rious feature of these differences is that they are 

 often so extremely systematic. Every one has 

 heard of the Englishman who inquired, " If a 

 haitch and a ho and a har and a hess and a he 

 don't spell 'orse, what in thunder does it spell, 

 you know ? " The infallible accuracy with which 

 the cockney omits his h where it belongs, and 

 supplies it where it does not belong, has always 

 excited my wondering admiration. Were there 

 any caprice in the usage, it would seem less mar- 

 vellous. But so unerring is the instinct that 

 when a friend of mine once purposely spelled 

 his name out as U-t-t-o-n he was correctly an- 

 nounced by the waiter as Mr. HUTTON ! Is not 

 this what our High German friends, with equal 

 felicity, and in illustration of a similar point, 



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