Cumberland, or Wales.

The characteristic feature of their dialect, and the remark applies of
course equally to the Devonian which is identical with it, is the sound
of the French _u_ or the German _u_ given to the _oo_ and _ou_, a sound
that only after long practice can be imitated by natives of the more
eastern counties. Thus a "roof" is a _ruf_, "through" _is thru_, and
"would" is _wud_. The county might consequently be divided into a
"Langue d'oo" and a "Langue d'u."

An initial _w_ is pronounced _oo_. "Where is Locke?" "Gone t' Ools, yer
honour." "What is he gone there for?" "Gone zootniss, yer honour." The
man was gone to Wells assizes as a witness in some case. In a
public-house row brought before the magistrates they were told that
"Oolter he com in and drug un out." ("Walter came in and dragged him
out.") _Ooll_ for "will" is simply _ooill_. An _owl doommun_ is an old
oooman. This usage seems to be in accordance with the Welsh
pronunciation of _w_ in _cwm_.

There are other peculiarities that seem to be more or less common to all
the Western Counties, and to have descended to them from that Wessex
language that is commonly called Anglo-Saxon--a language in which we have
a more extensive and varied literature than exists in any other Germanic
idiom of so early a date, itself the purest of all German idioms. It is
a mistake to suppose that it is the parent of modern English. This has
been formed upon the dialect of Mercia, that of the Midland Counties; and
it cannot be too strongly impressed upon strangers who may be inclined to
scoff at West Country expressions as inaccurate and vulgar, that before
the Norman Conquest our language was that of the Court, and but for the
seat of Government having been fixed in London might be so still; that it
was highly cultivated, while the Midland Counties contributed nothing to
literature, and the Northern were devastated with war; and that the
dialect adopted, so far from being a better, is a more corrupt one.

The peculiarities to which I allude as common to all the Southern
Counties are these: The transposition of the letter _r_ with another
consonant in the same syllable, so that _Prin_ for _Prince_ becomes
_Purn_, _fresh fursh_, _red ribbons urd urbans_--a change that certainly
is more general and more uniformly carried out in the Langue d'u district
than in the Langue d'oo, but cannot be quite exclusively appropriated by
the former.

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