not understand or which are at any rate strange to him; and he is
sure to notice that such words as seem to be familiar to him are, for
the most part, strangely pronounced. Such differences are especially
noticeable in the use of vowels and diphthongs, and in the mode
of intonation.

The speaker of the "standard" language is frequently tempted to
consider himself as the dialect-speaker's superior, unless he has
already acquired some elementary knowledge of the value of the science
of language or has sufficient common sense to be desirous of learning
to understand that which for the moment lies beyond him. I remember
once hearing the remark made--"What is the good of dialects? Why not
sweep them all away, and have done with them?" But the very form of
the question betrays ignorance of the facts; for it is no more
possible to do away with them than it is possible to suppress the
waves of the sea. English, like every other literary language, has
always had its dialects and will long continue to possess them in
secluded districts, though they are at the present time losing much of
that archaic character which gives them their chief value. The spread
of education may profoundly modify them, but the spoken language of
the people will ever continue to devise new variations and to initiate
developments of its own. Even the "standard" language is continually
losing old words and admitting new ones, as was noted long ago by
Horace; and our so-called "standard" pronunciation is ever
imperceptibly but surely changing, and never continues in one stay.

In the very valuable _Lectures on the Science of Language_ by
Professor F. Max Mueller, the second Lecture, which deserves careful
study, is chiefly occupied by some account of the processes which he
names respectively "phonetic decay" and "dialectic regeneration";
processes to which all languages have always been and ever will be
subject.

By "phonetic decay" is meant that insidious and gradual alteration in
the sounds of spoken words which, though it cannot be prevented, at
last so corrupts a word that it becomes almost or wholly unmeaning.
Such a word as _twenty_ does not suggest its origin. Many might
perhaps guess, from their observation of such numbers as _thirty,
forty_, etc., that the suffix _-ty_ may have something to do with
_ten_, of the original of which it is in fact an extremely reduced
form; but it is less obvious that _twen-_ is a shortened form of
_twain_. And per