COLUMBUS NYE,
_Pastor of a Church in Bungtown Corner._
It remains to speak of the Yankee dialect. And, first, it may be
premised, in a general way, that any one much read in the writings of
the early colonists need not be told that the far greater share of the
words and phrases now esteemed peculiar to New England, and local there,
were brought from the mother country. A person familiar with the
dialect of certain portions of Massachusetts will not fail to recognize,
in ordinary discourse, many words now noted in English vocabularies as
archaic, the greater part of which were in common use about the time of
the King James translation of the Bible. Shakespeare stands less in need
of a glossary to most New-Englanders than to many a native of the Old
Country. The peculiarities of our speech, however, are rapidly wearing
out. As there is no country where reading is so universal and newspapers
are so multitudinous, so no phrase remains long local, but is
transplanted in the mail-bags to every remotest corner of the land.
Consequently our dialect approaches nearer to uniformity than that of
any other nation.
The English have complained of us for coining new words. Many of those
so stigmatized were old ones by them forgotten, and all make now an
unquestioned part of the currency, wherever English is spoken.
Undoubtedly, we have a right to make new words, as they are needed by
the fresh aspects under which life presents itself here in the New
World; and, indeed, wherever a language is alive, it grows. It might be
questioned whether we could not establish a stronger title to the
ownership of the English tongue than the mother-islanders themselves.
Here, past all question, is to be its great home and centre. And not
only is it already spoken here by greater numbers, but with a far higher
popular average of correctness than in Britain. The great writers of it,
too, we might claim as ours, were ownership to be settled by the number
of readers and lovers.
As regards the provincialisms to be met with in this volume, I may say
that the reader will not find one which is not (as I believe) either
native or imported with the early settlers, nor one which I have not,
with my own ears, heard in familiar use. In the metrical portion of the
book, I have endeavored to adapt the spelling as nearly as possible to
the ordinary mode of pronunciation. Let the reader who deems me
over-particular remember this caution of Martial:--
'Quem recitas, meus est, O Fidentine, libellus;
Sed male cum recitas, incipit esse tuus.'
A few further explanatory remarks will not be impertinent.
I shall barely lay down a few general rules for the reader's guidance.