72 . KANSAS UNIVERSITY QUARTERLY. 



may have changed so much that it will seem like another language, 

 and our descendants will write learned theses to prove that we pro- 

 nounced 'cough' like cow or like cuff. A new language will have grown 

 out of an old one, but no one know how it came about. Careful dia- 

 lect study will help explain it. 



Kansas is a peculiarly favorable field for dialect study. We have 

 here side by side representatives from nearly every state in the Union, 

 and from a dozen foreign countries. The observer has here what else- 

 where he must travel over half the world to find. In a district where 

 the people are all natives, the speech is so nearly homogeneous that it 

 is difficult to find any one who recognizes the peculiarities of his own 

 language, but here the contrast of strange tongues strikes us immedi- 

 ately and we become conscious early of the fact that all men do not 

 speak alike. 



Study of dialect may be classified under the heads of pronunciation, 

 grammar and vocabulary. Of these the last two are the easiest, and 

 may be carried on by almost any one with pleasure and valuable re- 

 sults. Pronunciation is the most difficult of these matters to study, as 

 competent observation and reports can be made only by one who has 

 made a thorough study of Phonetics. To those who might wish to 

 take up the study of this branch of the subject. Sweet's Primer of 

 Phonetics, and Grandgent's "Vowel Measurements" and "German and 

 English Sounds" are recommended. 



In the study of dialect vocabularies it may become of the greatest 

 importance to establish the exact locality of a word and the origin of 

 the persons by whom it is used. For instance, in a family of my 

 acquaintance the word 'slandering':^sauntering was familiar. It was a 

 great puzzle to me until I learned that some of the children had been 

 in the care of a German maid. The German word 'schlendern' sug- 

 gested the unquestionable source of the peculiar word. As a 

 source of information regarding the origin of the foreign elements 

 of our population when their native speech shall have been for- 

 gotten, but when the influence of it will be left in vocabulary and 

 pronunciation I have thought that a map of the state with the 

 location of all the foreign settlements of even quite small size would 

 be of interest and in time of great value. In the following pages I 

 transmit the results of my inquiries so far as received. It is my inten- 

 tion to make the report complete and to publish the map, when as com- 

 plete as it can be made, in colors. Unexpected difficulties have 

 delayed the work and prevented its being complete. I depended for my 

 information upon the County Superintendents of the State, a class of 

 unusually intelligent and well-informed men and women. But in not 

 a few cases there seems to have been a suspicion in the mind of my 



