4 8 5 5 6 1 Ainei'ican Local Elalects By St. Louis Public Liibrary "~^ AMERICAN LOCAL DIALECTS A Series of Lists Compiled by The St. Louis Public Library Second Edition Price. Ten Cents St. Louis 1915 AMERICAN LOCAL DIALECTS A Series of Lists Compiled by The St. Louis Public Library Second Edition Price, Ten Cents St. Louis 1915 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION npHE following lists appeared first in the I\Ionthly llulhtin ■*• of the St. Louis Public Library, beginning in February, 1913, and ending in June, 1914. They were assembled in the same form in a reprint pamphlet issued in 1914, in which the names of the compilers appeared for the first time. In the present edition the type has been re-set, the size has been altered and some additions and changes have been made. Each of the lists has been compiled and annotated by a person familiar with the local peculiarities of speech. It should be borne in mind that none of the lists is in- tended to be complete, and that the annotations are primarily to characterize the degree of accuracy or the local peculiari- ties of the dialect used, although they may occasionally touch on other points of interest. The word "dialect" is used throughout in the popular rather than in the strict philological sense. ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK St. Louis Public Library August, 1915 285199 ST, LOUIS PUBLIC LIBRARY TABLE OF CONTENTS. Page Preface 3 New England, by Arthur E. Bostvvick 5 The Pennsylvania German, by C. C. Ziegier 10 The Middle West, by Clara Chew . . 13 Missouri, by Wm. Clark Breckenridge 15 The Southern States, by Mary D. Pretlow 19 The Creoles of Louisiana, by Flelen Tutt 25 The Cowboy Country, /;v Genevie\e Pierson 29 The Negro, by Helen Tutt 31 Canadian French, by Helen Tutt 35 Index to Authors 37 AMERICAN LOCAL DIALECTS NEW ENGLAND. By Arthur E. Bostwick. Brown, Alice. B3' oak and thorn. 914.2 Country'- neighbors. High noon. Meadow-grass. One-footed fairy; and other stories. 70 Tiverton tales. ]Miss Brown's short stories of New England have more humor than those of Miss Wilkins, and although without the broad humanity of ]Miss Jewett's, are in some respects unsurpassed. The dialect (Massachusetts, like that cf Miss Wilkins) is accurate. Churchill, Winston. Coniston. Air. Crewe's career. The scenes are laid in New Hampshire and the dialect is inci- dental, but no exception can be taken to it. Cooke, Rose (Terry). Somebody's neighbors. Connecticut dialect, sometimes acutely and amusingly char- acteristic. Dix, Edwin Asa. Deacon Bradbury. Prophet's Landing. Very faithful dialect. An attempt to indicate clipped pronun- ciation by elision, rather more than is usual, gives it an odd look as printed. Fuller, Anna. Pratt portraits. A little thin, but homely and pleasant. The dialect of homely but educated persons. Greene, S. P. (McLean). Cape Cod folks. Vesty of the Basins. Rollicking dialect somewhat exaggerated and giving the im- pression that the auth r is poking fun at all concerned. The famous libel suit elicited by "Cape Cod Folks" showed that some of the originals felt this impression strongly. Evei-ything is very funny, and, barring the tendency toward caricature, true to life. 6 ST. LOUIS PUBLIC LIBRARY Haliburton, Thomas Chandler. Sam Slick, the clockmaker. As a humorous work, this was once highly regarded, but hardly by those who know the New Englander intimately. It is a c llec- tion of newspaper sketches by a Nova Scotian, whose Yankee is the stage variety, about as true to life as those of Captain Marryat and other English writers. As satire, the book is worth reading, be- cause it shows what Yankee foibles a Nova Scotian thought it worth while to ridicule in the early '30's. Holley, Marietta. My opinion and Betsy Bobbet's. 817 Samantha at Saratoga. 817 These and the other numerous works of the author are the literary descendants of the Widow Bedott and the best of them run that classic a close second. "Josiah Allen's Wife" is the same type of woman as the widow and says the same kind of things. Begin- ning with pure fun the series finally degenerated more or less into an "informational" type, in which facts about the World's Fair or European travel are worked in to make the books "improving." The dialect goes somewhat further than Widow Bedott in the direc- tion of caricature. Holmes, Oliver Wendell. Elsie Venner. The guardian angel. There is little obtrusive dialect in Holmes' books, but it is carefully discriminated. The uneducated, the partly educated, the aristocrat, the farmer and the city dweller, each has his proper mode of speech. In no books is the speech of the educated New Englander more carefully set down. Howells, William Dean. An imperative dut}\ The Kentons. The Lady of the Aroostock. Landlord at Lion's Head. The minister's charge. Rise of Silas Lapham. There is not much dialect in Howells but many of his char- acters are made to use New England idioms, and when those represented as uneducated depart fr( m the King's English, they do so in ways indigenous to New England. A trick peculiar to Howells is his use of italics in a dialectal way, to denote local peculiarities of emphasis. Jewett, Sarah Orne. Country doctor. Country of the pointed firs. • Deephaven. King of Folly Island, and other people. Marsh Island. AMERICAN LOCAL DIALECTS -Tales of New England. IMiss Jewett reproduces the Kew England atmosphere more faithfully than any other writer. Her setting is tlie part of Maine about Deer Isle and the dialect of her characters has the Maine peculiarities. It is the speech of persons of good ancestry and sound ideas, shrewd and kindly, but with limited formal edu- cation. Kipling, Rudyard. Captains Courageous. Seafaring dialect, having little in common with the ordinary New England idiom. Some of it, as in Disko's version of "Skipper Ireson's Ride," is delicious. The Gloucester fishermen are sym- pathetically drawn, and we forgive much that isn't so, because it is Kipling. Lincoln, Joseph Crosby. Cy Whittaker's place. Cap'n Eri. Mr. Pratt. The dialect is of the seafaring variety and rather superficial. The upper-class characters talk rather stilted English. Aims to present characters of the type celebrated by Jacobs in England. Lowell, James Russell. Biglow papers. 811 A classic in Yankee dialect. There is an interesting treatise on the subject in the introduction, but the acute reader will find that the dialect exemplified in the "papers" does not always correspond with the explanation. A weakness that detracts from the veri- similitude of this and similar work is that the letters and verses are supposed to be written by a person who uses dialect. Such a person would net portray his own aberrant pronunciation. He would pronounce "get," yit, but he would not write it in that way. The Biglow Papers, despite their deserved reputation, are not written as a dialectal New Englander would write them. MacKaye, Percy. Yankee fantasies. 812 Interesting episodes in dramatic form. The dialect, as well as the New England character, as therein portrayed, is somewhat fantastic. The work of a keen observer, but not one "to the manner born." The introduction has some good analysis of New England peculiarities of speech. Those of the plays are mostly New Hampshire idioms. Page, Thomas Nelson. Under the crust. Short stories of the Maine coast. Interesting as containing Maine dialect written down by one whose work has generally led him into a different field. Pool, Maria Louise. Roweny in Boston. In the first person. Against human nature. In a dike shanty. ST. IvOUIS PUBIvIC LIBRARY -Sand 'n' bushes. This writer's dialect is perfect. If her stories were as good she would occupy a high rank. Unfortunately her novels are of the second class or lower. "In a dike shanty," which is not a novel, is her best book and is well worth reading. Reed, Myrtle. Lavender and old lace. Amusing sketches, but the dialect does not ring true. It is that of the amused outsider. Even the great test word, "guess," is not used correctly. Altogether unconvincing. Richards, Laura E. Captain January. 70 Mrs. Richards ought to know New England, but the talk of her dialect characters seems now and then a little stagy. Sanborn, Edwin W. People at Pisgah. By a brother of Kate Sanborn. This book is pure farce, and its dialect, though purposely exaggerated, is delicious. Not so well known as it deserves. Sanborn, Kate. Adopting an adandoned farm. 817 Not a dialect stor>% but the dialect, where quoted, is good, though reported from the standpoint of a humorist. Slosson, Annie (Trumbull). Dumb foxglove; and other stories. Sketches, consisting largely of the dialect talk of rural char- acters. Dialect mostly that of Connecticut, and perfect in its way. Smith, F. Hopkinson. Caleb West. The author is always interesting as a teller of tales, and the old diver is one of his most attractive characters. His speech is not convincing from the purely New England standpoint, and possibly Mr. Smith did not intend it to be. Sailormen's dialect is never purely local: they pick up idioms as they go. Stowe, Harriet (Beecher). Poganuc people. Oldtown folks. Oldtown fireside stories. Mrs. Stowe's dialect is that of western Connecticut, which she reproduces with accuracy and sympathy, having been born and reared in Litchfield, where her father Lyman Beecher was long pastor. The whimsical, dry New England humor crops out often In her sketches, which are a wholesome antidote for the one-sided view, inspired by more recent writers, that life in New England is essentially dreary and colorless. Swett, Sophie. Flying Hill Farm. 70 Mate of the "Mary Ann." 70 For children. The dialect is that of one or two characters introduced for humorous purposes. It is human and good. AMERICAN IvOCAIv DIALECTS 9 Trowbridge, John T. Neighbor Jackwood. Coupon bonds. The "Jack Hazard'' series [for bo3'sl. 70 Trowbrulg-e's dialect (Massachusetts) is very accurate. He suc- ceeds especially in rendering the bi-ief mock-sententious style of talk of the Xew Eng-land "hired man," such as the "Mr. Pipkin" of several of the juvenile tales. The author's place in literature is higher than is usually accorded him. Waller, AI. E. Sanna. The scene is laid on Xantucket Island and the dialect is sup- posed to be of that locality. It contains English provincial forms never heard by the annotator on Nantucket. Wasson, George S. Cap'n Simeon's Store. The green shaJ^ Home from sea. The first-named book contains a very good presentation of the talk of old New England seafaring men around the stove of the general store at a "cove" village. Wharton, Edith. Ethan Fronie. Pure tragedy, with just sufficient dialect to help it on and localize it. The idiom is never used as a comic relief and is not obtruded. Whitcher, Frances M. Widow Bedott papers. 817 A dialectal tour de force, not now^ as well known as it deserves. The endless, torrential talk of a wordy, opinionated, yet shrewd and kindly old Yankee woman could not be better set down, although the whole is decidedly caricatured. Sets the pace for a whole class of similar books, none of which has been so well done. Whitney, Mrs. A. D. T. Faith Gartney's girlhood. 70 Mrs. Whitney's stories, which are mostly for partly-grown girls, were once highly regarded. They have a certain elephantine play- fulness, and their background is correct. This and the incidental dialect which is accurate and characteristic make them valuable. Wiggin, Kate Douglas. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Rose o' the River. Dialect introduced chiefly as humorous relief. Wilkins, Mary E. Fair Lavinia; and other stories. Humble romance; and other stories. Love of Parson Lord; and other stories. [ New England nun; and other stories. 10 ST. LOUIS PUBLIC LIBRARY Pot of gold; and other stories. 70 Young Lucretia; and other stories. 70 Miss Wilkins touched her high-water mark early, in her realis- tic short character sketches of rural New England life. Her dialect in these is never exaggerated, very characteristic, and never ob- truded for its own sake. The sad side of New England life is emphasized in these stories, and one needs parallel reading, like Mrs. Stowe's "Oldtown" books, or Sarah Orne Jewett's stories, to supplement the picture; but in their limited field the tales stand unsurpassed. THE PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN. By C. C. Ziegler. The Pfalzisch Dialect. The Pennsylvania German is somewhat akin to several other German dialects, but most nearly resembles the Pfalzisch, its rela- tion to the latter being that of daughter to mother. For the great majority of Pennsylvania Germans were immigrants from the Rhine province called the Palatinate, Die Pfals. In confirmation of this compare Harbaugh's Harfe, Barter's Boonasticl and Ziegler's Druuss ini Dcheem (see below) with the Pfalfiisch dialect as found in the following. Barack, Max. Der Drumbeder vun Wallstadt. Miin., F. Bassermann, 1880. Rheinschnoke; Schnurrige Erzahlungen in Pfalzer Mun- dart. Stut., J. Engelhorn. n. d. Paelzer Duwack. Nadler, K. G. Froehlich Palz, Gott Erhalts! Lahr, M. Schannenburg, 1881. BOOKS AND ARTICLES ABOUT THE DIALECT. Gibbons, Mrs. P. E. Pennsylvania Dutch, 1874. 917.84 Essays on manners and customs and the dialect of the Penn- sylvania Germans with special reference to religious sects in Pennsylvania. The author claims to have lived twenty years in Lancaster County. Heydrick, B. A. Provincialisms of Southeastern Pennsylvania. (In German American Annals. Old ser. v. 9, pp. 370-81. V. 10, pp. 32-52. 1907-8.) Ref. 973. Prettyman, William. Dialectal pecularities in the Carlisle ver- nacular. (In German American Annals. Old ser. v. 9, pp. 67-79. 1907. Ref. 973 AMERICAN LOCAL DIALECTS 11 BOOKS WRITTEN IN THE DIALECT. Bahn, Rachel. Poems. 1869. Contains ten poems in Pennsylvania German, mostly sentimen- tal and religious. Not well- done artistically. The verses on "Vocal ]Music" begin: "Wie soothing vocal music is!" which is far from being Pennsylvania German. Fisher, H. L. 'S Alt Marik-Haus Mittes in d'r Schtadt, un Die Alte Zeite. En Centennial Poem in Pennsj'lfanisch Deutsch. 1879. (Illustrated.) The English Preface contains much historical and linguistic matter. The Poems are descriptive of the old times and customs among the Pennsylvania Germans, and are rich in folk-lore. The glossary of 52 pages is valuable. Harbaugh, Henrv D. D. Harfe. Gedichte in Pennsylvanisch- Deutscher. Mundart. [cl9021. 839 This is the pioneer work in Pennsylvania German poetry and still stands at the head. The book contains only about fifteen poems but they are of sterling quality. "Das alt Schulhaus an der Krick" and "Heemweh" are the longest and best. Their trans- lations into English by the author are of great value to students of the dialect. Wherever the dialect is read Harbaugh's "Harfe" is known and heartily appreciated. Dr. Harbaugh was very popular as a preacher in the Reformed Church, and wrote a number of theological volumes, the best known of which is "The Future Life." Harter, T. H. Boonastiel: a volufne of legend, story and song in "Pennsylvania Dutch." 1904. 839.4 Humorous and philosophical sketches and stories reprinted from the Middleburgh (Pa.) Post and The Keystone Gazette, Bellefonte, Pa., of which papers the author was editor. The sketches are very ably written, and the only thing detracting from their philological worth is the awkward English orthography. Holsbuck, Solly, pseud. Pennsylvania German poems. 1906. These verses are pervaded by a rollicking rural humor that is doubtless appreciated by the countrymen of Mr. Sawbuck. The orthography is unfortunately English or nearly so, and that of some incorporated English words is nondescript. Ziegler, Charles Calvin. Drauss un Deheem. Gedichte in Pennsylvanisch Dietsch. 1891. 831. A small volume of nearly forty short poems and translations. Among the subjects are: "Die Alte Lieder"; "Es Schneckehaus"; "Kitzel mich net!"; "An mei Peif"; "Dar Rewwer un Ich"; "Dar Nadurgeischt." "Zum Denkmal" is a series of poems in memory of the author's mother, written in imitation of Tennyson's "In memoriam." Three sonnets are noted — a rare thing in Pennsyl- vania German poetry. Among the translations are Longfellow's 12 ST. lyOUIS PUBLIC LIBRARY "Snowflakes" and "Hymn to the Night" and Bryant's "Thana- topsis." An appendix gives peculiarities of Pennsylvania German pronunciation and expression. STORIES CONTAINING THE DIALECT. Martin, Mrs.. Helen (Reimensnyder.) The betrothal of Elypholate. 1907. A collection of short stories of Pennsylvania German life. "The narrow escape of Permilla" is especially noteworthy. Dialect good. The crossways. 1910. A Southern woman marries an "educated" son of a prosperous Pennsylvania German farmer and goes to live among his people. The story is chiefly the crossing of the diffeiing temperaments of husband and wife and the final adjustment. Melodramatic, char- acters overdrawn, dialect good. His courtship. 1907. A college professor spends a summer on a farm and discovers a life mate in Eunice, an adopted daughter and household drudge, who talks like a book when she speaks at all. The mystery is explained when she turns out to be an heiress from a cultured family who has pursued her education by stealth in a supposedly haunted part of the house. Contains some of the dialect of the better class of Pennsylvania Germans. Sabina; a story of the Amish. 1905. Sabina is the young daughter of Levi Wilt, a Pennsylvania German farmer of the Amish faith. That she is not "in the world" is further suggested by certain psychic phenomenon surrounding her which add mystery to her simple love story. Dialect good. Tillie; a Mennonite maid. 1906. A strong picture of the growth and development of an emotion- al child and her constant struggle against her environment among the Pennsylvania Germans. Joseph Getz, the father, is a type of the prosperous Pennsylvania German farmer "wonderful near" tind insistent in the matter of parental authority. The author is thor- oughly familiar with the life of the people she has drawn and is at her best in this book. Dialect very good. Pattee, Fred Lewis. House of the black ring. 1905. ^V very ordinary story of a. haunted house among the "Seven Mountains" in Pennsylvania. Gives some manners and customs among the Pennsylvania Germans and some dialect in poor form. Singmaster, Elsie. When Sarah saved the day. 1909. 70 Sarah was a sturdy little Pennsylvania German girl who be- lieved "in schooling." Left alone with a younger brother and "the twins" she held the day against her uncle until an older brother William came home AMERICAN LOCAL DIALECTS 13 to care for them. Told with vigor and in the dialect of English- speaking Pennsylvania Germans. While written for children the book has considerable literary quality. When Sarah went to school. 1910. 70 Continues "When Sarah saved the day." Contains almost no dialect. THE MIDDLE WEST. By Clara Chew. The speech of the Middle West is easily distinguished in conversation, but it is characterized by the manper of pro- nouncing certain words, those containing the letter "r," for instance, rather than by the use of any idioms peculiar to the section. For this reason the books on this list may not seem to represent the Middle West fairly, since only books that have strongly marked dialect have been chosen. Catherwood, Mrs. M. (H.) Mackinac and lake stories. In these stories of the French and Indians and the early fur traders of Mackinac, the author gives us a vivid picture of the Lakes, with their romantic life. Eggleston, E. The Graysons. Founded on an anecdote of one of Lincoln's early lawsuits. His character is introduced with a simplicity which is refreshing in contrast with later "hero-worshiping" stories in which he appears. The dialect of the Illinois farmers is very good. Hoosier schoolboy. 70 Hoosier schoolmaster. Both these stories tell of backwoods life in Indiana "before the war," but they are not otherwise connected. They are true to life in dialect and" in characterization, according to a man familiar with the time. Gale, Z. Christmas. Friendship Village. While the author Is telling the everyday life of a Wisconsin vil- lage as one of its inhabitants would tell it, she shows us how must interest, how much comedy and tragedy everyday life holds. Garland, H. Rose of Dutcher's Coolly. After he has said on the first page that Rose is an exceptional girl, the author feels at liberty to take her where he pleases, from a Wisconsin farm to the most e.xclusive circles in Chicago in a few years. There is little dialect, but it is well used. 14 ST. LOUIS PUBLIC LIBRARY Jackson, C. T. The midlanders. This is one of the "truest" stories ever written about the Middle West, in spite of the too sensational climax. The scene is southern Iowa, but such towns as "Rome" may be found all over the prairie states. The dialect prevades the book, without being unduly prominent. Kester, V. The just and the unjust. The most striking and original person in the small Ohio town of this story is the boastful little lamplighter, who was unwillingly dragged into so many real adventures. His speech is typical of his class in a general way, but he never hesitates to invent new ex- pressions for unusual occasions. Neff, E. Miss Wealthy, deputy sheriff. Miss Wealthy probably never used the dialect she is accused of, but she is a delightful person, as are all her companions, even the bank robber. O'Higgins, H. J. A Grand Army man. Not a war story, as the title suggests, but the story of an Indiana veteran and his adopted son. While the events are not strikingly novel, the characters are well-drawn, and the old stage- driver's talk is well represented. Parrish, R. Don McGrath, a tale of the river. The "show boats" of the Mississippi river are floating theaters or circuses, and their arrival at a river town causes far more ex- citement than the coming of a grand opera company to the city. It is doubtful, though, if the private lives of the actors are as thrilling as those of the show people in this story. Peake, E. E. The little king of Angel's Landing. "Angel's Landing" is located on the Ohio bank of Southern Illi- nois, a section of the state which has been neglected by novelists; and its little king is a child who was crippled in the steamboat dis- aster from which he was rescued. The speech of the people and the little boy's part in the affairs of the town are well told, and there is a "happy ending." Riley, J. W. Neghborly poems; and Dialect sketches. 811 Very few of Riley's works would be out of place in a list of books containing Middle Western dialect, for he can set down grown-up people's talk as well as he can write children's verses. Tarkington, B. The gentleman from Indiana. A political story in which the editor, who is always prominent in small town stories, is the hero, with the assistance of the heroine who took charge of his paper in a crisis, without his knowledge. The dialect is that of the various classes of the village and the slang of a college town where part of the action takes place. AMERICAN LOCAL DIALECTS 15 Thanet, O., pseud. Stories of a western town. These stories of Iowa life are told by an author who has the happy faculty of making us see and hear her friends as she saw and heard them. Thompson, \i. Alice of Old Vincennes. The scene of this historical romance is the Vincennes of the days before its capture by George Rogers Claris, and though the dialect is not very good, the manners and customs of the time are well described. Watts, M. S. Nathan Burke. An excellent story, botli in matter and manner, of an Ohio town in the eighteen-tliirties. The hero, who began as a choreboy, be- came prominent and wealthy, and dropped altogether the uncouth speech of his youth, but his development proceeds very naturally. MISSOURI. By William Clark Breckenridge. Baskett, James Newton. As the light led. Only a few words of dialect. At you-all's house. Sweetbrier and thistledown; a story. This latter is a sequel to "At You-All's House," and brings in some of the same characters. The dialect in all three of these books is the dialect of Middle Missouri — the Counties of Audrain, Callaway and Boone. These counties were settled principally by people from Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee and their dialect is the pure Southern dialect, in many cases, purer English than is spoken in England today. Mr. Baskett's dialect is perfect. Beach, Edgar Rice. Joshua Humble, a tale of St. Louis. Contains some good dialect which might more properly be des- ignated the vernacular of the ignorant. The book is deficient in dialogue, but contains some good delineations of character and careful studies of motives. The home of Joshua Humble is "The Old Glasgow Mansion." Carter, John Henton. Duck creek ballads, (poems.) Log cabin poems. 811 The log of Commodore Rollingpin. (Stories and poems.) 817 The man at the wheel. (Short stories.) 817 Out here in Ol' Missoury. (Poems.) 811 Not all the stories and poems in these volumes are in dialect. The dialect used is that of the back-woodsman and riverman in 16 ST. IvOUIS PUBLIC LIBRARY their palmy days. John Henton Carter (Commodore Rollingpin) was a part of this river life from a boy up, and no one was better fitted than he to depict it. Carter is the "Boswell" of the back- woodsman and riverman. Books dealing with life on the Mississippi by those possessing knowledge are f<»w. Churchill. Winston. The crisis. A charming story by a gifted writer dealing with life in St. Louis principally before and during the Civil War. Not elemen- tal enough for the time it depicts. It is to be regretted that a stronger hand did not wield the brush with which this picture was painted. He was a native St. Louisan, and should have felt more strongly about that of which he writes. Historically, he is slovenly and inaccurate. He makes use of what purports to be Negro dialect, Southern dialect and Yankee dialect; but his dialects are no more historically correct than his facts. Clemens, S. L. The adventtires of Tom Sawyer. 70 An appreciation of boyhood by one who had once been a boy himself and had never forgotten it. Shows a keen, sympathetic understanding of the genus "boy" and a profound knowledge of the motives which move him. The book is largely autobiographical, hence its value. It contains the best known examples of a boy's "trade-terms." The dialect used is that of a river town in Mis- souri before the Civil War. Mark Twain was our greatest delineator of western character and possessed to an almost Shakespearean degree Shakespeare's rare ability to endow the children of his brain with life. The characters in the books here noted are made fcr us living, sentient beings. When he removed from the West and became the clown of the East, Mark Twain cut loose forever fr( m all creative forces and lost the opportunity of his genius. His realization cf this made him pessimistic in his later writings. The adventtires of Huckleberry Finn. A continuation of the life of Tom Sawyer and his friend Huck, but not so natural. In a note entitled "Explanatory" to this volume, Mark Twain says: "In this book a number of dialects are used, to-wit: the Missouri Negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary 'Pike County' dialect and four modified varieties of this last." This statement must not be taken seriously; it is merely a sample of Mark Twain's humor. He does not stand high as a dialect writer, although some of the dialect in these two works, namely, that of the uneducated, is quite good. Gildehaus, Charles. Hester of the hills, a romance of the Ozark Mountains. The scene is laid in the neighborhood of "SVulfing's log cabin on the 600 acres he owns at Stone Mill, 15 miles south of Arlington, on the Big Piney in the Ozarks. The dialect is poor, so pcor that it is not even the vernacular of the ignorant and is not always con- sistent. It is used principally for the purpose of showing the wide social gap existing between the "poor white trash" to which the heroine belonged and the highly educated class from which the hero came. The contrasts are strong, and drawn with the eye of an artist. AMERICAN LOCAL DIALECTS 17 Hough, Emerson. The purchase price, or the Cause of Com- promise. This book purports to give a picture of life, in the edge of the Ozarks. near Ste. Genevieve, during llie four or five years subse- quent to 1850. The author did not l. Little shepherd of Kingdom Come. ^ Hell fer sartain. Trail of the Lonesome Pine. ^ The three titles given here contain perhaps the best com- bination of dialect and stories that Mr. Fox has written. He has a sure eye for the dramatic, and he feels and makes his reader feel the romance that is a traditional part of Kentucky, l^lis dialect is accurate and characteristic and at the same time very picturesque. Furman, LucJ^ Mothering on Perilous. Tales of the people of the Kentucky mountains. The dialect is rich and there is little of the hopelessness that is usually found in stories about mountain folk. Glasgow, Ellen. Voice of the people. Deliverance. Battle ground. Miller of Old Church. "The Voice of the I'eople" represents the author's best work, for its atmosphere and truth to the character of the people she 22 ST. LOUIS PUBLIC LIBRARY depicts is perfect. The strength of Miss Glasgow's pictures does not lie in her dialect. It is rather in her use of Virginian expres- sions and her true-to-life settings. Gray, John T. Kentucky chronicle. This contains some rather good dialect, but it is entirely inci- dental. Hall, Eliza Calvert. Land of long ago. Aunt Jane of Kentucky. Stories of nice but exceedingly provincial people. In both stories one person does most of the talking, so that there is little variety. There is, however, a good deal of philosophy and some keen insight. The dialect is gocd but belongs no more to Ken- tucky that it does to her sister states Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina. Harben, Will N. Novels. All of Will N. Harben's books contain Georgia dialect of which this author is a master. The stories themselves are well told and full of kindly humor. They are simple, direct, human, which perhaps accounts for their great popularity with men. Harris, Joel Chandler. Shadow betw^een his shoulder blades. Mingo. Free Joe and other Georgia sketches. Joel Chandler Harris wrote nothing that is in any way com- parable to his Uncle Remus stories, but his second best is far ahead of the best work of most dialect writers, and these Georgian sketches contain excellent dialect. The best story is "Free Joe," in which the white people appear only as a frame for the darkey of that name. Harrison, Henry Sydnor. Queed. Very characteristic of Virginia, but of dialect there is little. Some illiterate talk. ^ Harte, Bret. Colonel Starbottle's client. In this story the Southern dialect is good yet it is the way it is used rather than the dialect itself that makes it convincing. Johnston, R. M. Old times in middle Georgia. These stories are slight and not very interesting but they are full of local colour and the dialect is quite perfect. Kester, Vaughan. Prodigal judge. The scene is laid in North Carolina and Tennessee. It is a pretty good story in spite of being overdrawn. The characters, most of them, use "Southern dialect" and use it naturally and well. AMERICAN LOCAL DIALECTS 23 Longstreet, A. B. Georgia scenes. McAnally Coll. 817. Characteristic sketches, once widely read over the United States and still eminently readable. The author, a well known Georgia public man (1790-1870), draws a perfect picture ol" his time and his dialect is of course faithful. MacGowan, Alice. Judith of the Cumberlands. Wiving of Lance Cleaverage. Written by one who knows the Tennessee mountain folk and their dialect as few have an opportunity to know them. The stories are told with sympathetic insight. Marriott, Crittenden. Sally Castleton, Southerner. A very readable little tale of war time in Virginia. The dialect is incidental. Page, Thomas Nelson. Stories. Thomas Nelson Page's stories have little of the Virginia dialect that is made by shortening words and changing the sound of the vowels and the c's. His is a dialect of expression. His character studies are fine. Indeed, he does not create; he interprets and photographs. Sometimes he may touch up the negative, but never so that the likeness is changed. His heroes belong "to the realm where sincerity dwells and the heart still rules, the realm of old- time courtesy and high breeding." Page, Walter H. The Southerner. This book, written by a distinguished Southerner about the land of his birth, presents so interesting a point of view that it is included in this list in spite of the fact that it contains very little dialect. Parrish, Randall. My lad}^ of the South. The dialect is rather good— more "Southern" than local. The speech of the illiterate characters is better than that of the edu- cated ones. Pool, Maria Louise. In Buncombe County [North Carolina]. So sketchy that it can hardly be called a story. It is inter- esting because the expressions and dialect are quite true, and yet you do not at all get the impression that North Carolinians are speaking. Rice, Alice Hegan. Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. Mrs. Wiggs' dialect is as perfect as her philosophy and kind- ness. Rives, Amelie, Trix and Over-the-moon. This story has little literary value but is an excellent picture of life in Albemarle County, Virginia, and contains some excellent dialect. 24 ST. LOUIS PUBLIC LIBRARY "Skitt' [H. E. Taliaferrol. Fisher's river [North Carolina]. 817 It would be hai'rt to find a truer North Carolina dialect. No one could possibly doubt the author's statement that he "was raised thar." The sketches are unfortunately badl.\' handled and uninter- esting- Smith, C. H. Bill Arp's scrap book. 817 This author is still popular in the South and at one time was a great favorite. His humor and philos. phy are kindly and unevolved. The dialect (Georgia) is good but not particularly so. i/ Smith, F. Hopkinson. Colonel Carter of Cartersville. Colonel Carter's Christmas. ^ Taken together these two tales make the best Southern story ever written. Colonel Carter and Chad inust also be taken together, for near the typical Virginian always hovers a faithful darkey. In dialect, atmosphere and feeling, it is the last word. Stewart, Charles D. Partners of Providence. [Mississippi Val- ley.] Written in the slangy lingo that belongs to no part of the United States in particular and to all parts in general. Breezy and entertaining. Stockton, Frank R. Late Airs. Null. This supposedly Virginian story is too Stocktonesque to sug- gest any particular state or locality. Stowe, Harriet (Beecher.) Uncle Tom's Cabin. From ^very point of view, dialect included, this is the work of a stranger. Streeter, John Williams. Doctor Tom. The scene of this story is the Appalachian inountains in the South. Feuds and lawlessness abound. Story and dialect are not bad. Stuart, Mrs. Rtith McEner3\ In Simpkinsville [short stories]. j\Irs. Stuart is a master of Southern dialect as she is of humor and pathos, and this collection of her stories is a fine example of her never failing art. Thompson, W. T. Chronicles of Pineville. 817 Of no literary value but said to be a good "picter," given in dialect, of the Cracker of fifty years ago. Tourgee, Albion W. Fool's errand. It would be impossible to judge of the accuracy of this story unless one had lived during the terrible reconstruction days in the South. To the Southerner of today, every incident and word in it seems foreign. AMERICAN LOCAL DIALECTS 25 Watterson, Henry, cd. Oddities in Southern life and char- acter. 817 A collection of dialect stories by Southern humorists. In some of them the local colour is perfect; in all the dialect is faithful col. Watterson s introduction and annotations are interesting and valuable. Wister, Owen. Lady Baltimore. This delectable story contains no dialect to give it a place in a dialect list, but it can not be left out because no writer has more completely caught the spirit of the South. :Mr. Wister's insight IS startling: and his wit is keen, but he laughs with— not at— the Charlestonians he so admirably portrays. THE CREOLES OF LOUISIANA. By Helen Tutt. The Creole dialect is the patois spoken bv the descendants of the French and Spanish settlers in the West Indies and Louisiana, sometimes modified by African influences. It is a unique ex- ample of a language arrested in the making. Alcee Fortier, Lafcadio Hearn, Alfred ]\Iercier and George Cable are its most distinguished students and exponents. Cable gives some of its characteristics in his The Creoles of Louisiana as follows. "Its [New Orleans'] languid airs have induced in the Creole's speech great softness of utterance. The relaxed energies of a luxurious climate find publication, as it were, when he turns final k into g; changes Ih, and t when not initial, to d; final p to b. drops initial h, final Ic. and t after k; often, also, the final d of past tenses; omits or distorts his r, and makes a languorous z of all s's and soft c's except initials. On the other hand, the old Gallic alertness and wire-edge still asserts itself in the confusing and interchanging of long e and short / — sheep for ship, and ship for sheep — in the fiattening of long /, as if it were coming •through cane-crushers, in the prolonging of long a, the intrusion of uncalled-for initial h's, and the shortening and narrowing of nearly all long and broad vowels. "The African slave in Louisiana — or, it may lie more correct to say, in St. Domingo, before coming to Louisiana — corrupted the French tongue as grossly, or even more so, than he did the English in the rice plantations of South Carolina. No knowl- edge of scholarly French is a guarantee that the stranger will un- derstand the 'Creole' negro's gombo. To the Creole saug pur this dialect is an inexhaustible fountain of amusement . . . [he] 26 ST. IvOUIS PUBLIC LIBRARY does not tolerate its use in polite conversation, and he is probably seldom aware that his English sparkles and crackles with the same pretty corruptions." Fortier says in his Louisiana folk-tales : "The dialect spoken by the negroes in Lower Louisiana and known by philologists as the Creole dialect is an interesting subject for study. It is not merely a corruption of French, that is to say, French badly spoken, it is a real idiom with a morphology and grammar of its own. It is curious to see how the ignorant African slave trans- formed his master's language into a speech concise and simple, and at the same time soft and musical. WORKS ABOUT THE CREOLE DIALECT. Fortier, Alcee. Louisiana studies, pt. II. Customs and dialects. 976.3 An exhaustive and interesting study, about eighty pages, of the Creole dialect, carefully differentiated according to locality, and enlivened by anecdotes. Alexander DeMenil says "his study of the Creole dialect is simply wonderful; he has reduced to an art what was before individual peculiarity; he actually finds a grammar for this patois." Harrison, J. A. The Creole patois of Louisiana, (In American journal of philology, v. 3, pp. 285-296.) Ref. 405 Hearn, Lafcadio. Gombo Zhebes; little dictionary of Creole proverbs, translated into French and English, with notes. 398.9 This study contains a Creole bibliography, which however, refers chiefly to historical and descriptive works in French. WORKS OTHER THAN FICTION CONTAINING THE DIALECT. Bigelow, J. Wit and w-isdom of the Haytians. (In Harper's magazine, v. 5L 1875.) 050 When John Bigelow went to Hayti, in 1854, his chief interest in the island was in its political aspect, but he became interested in the proverbs which the Creoles* used freely in their conversation and made n tes wliich he elaborated many years later and pub- lished in a series of four magazine articles. The sayings are given in the Creole African French, with his English versions and com- mentaries. Eustis, Celestine. Cooking in old Creole days, la cuisine Creole. 63c A compilation of Creole recipes, given in both English and French, with words and music of Creole songs, accompanied by AMERICAN LOCAIv DIALECTS 27 humorous sketches, interspersed. "Weir Mitchell writes, in his pre- face to the book, of "the gay songs which were considered need- ful to be sung in the making of a Gumbo or of a Jumballaya . . . Many will be charmed by the pretty little songs in the Creole patois of the far Southern Kitclien." Fortier, Alcee. Bits of Louisiana folk-lore. 15 Louisiana folk-tales in French dialect and English trans- lation. 15 Collections of animal folk-tales, songs and poems as told by the negTues of Lower Louisiana. The text is given in the French- Negro patois and is followed by an English translation and critical notes on the dialect. B'rer Rabbit figures as tlie wily hero in these tales under the French title Compair Lapin. NOVELS AND TALES CONTAINING CREOLE DIALECT. Class 69B. Cable, George W. Bonaventure, a prose pastoral of Acadian Louisiana. Dr. Sevier. Gideon's band. In the mother of the heroine Mr. Cable has drawn a charming picture of the lovable Creole woman. -The Grandissimes. -Old Creole days. Fortier says of Cable "He is a novelist of some talent, especially in his short stories, and presents tableaux with force, but his descriptions of Creole life and his types of the Creole gentlemen and lady are utterly incorrect." Nevertheless, the best known and first known tales with Creole dialect are those of Cable, and a wide audience, unconscious of what may seem to the native exaggeration or too heavy shading, has delighted in Madame Delphine and Narcisse, and all the others with whom he has peopled his romantic New Orleans. As he was a native of New Orleans and lived there until middle life he was certainly not an outsider in this enchanted city which he has drawn. Chopin, Mrs. Kate. Bayou folk. A night in Acadia. Two volumes of short stories, some of them only a few pages in length, but each leaving with the reader a distinct picture of Creole life. The Creole and the Negro dialects are clearly differen- tiated. "The facility and exactness witli which Mrs. Chopin handles the Creole dialect, and the fidelity of her descriptions of 28 ST. LOUIS PUBLIC LIBRARY that strange, remote life in the Louisiana bayous, is remarkable. But she writes of (what she calls) her 'own people,' for by in- heritance of birth and by marriage, and I may add — by inclination, she is herself a Creole." — A. N. DcMcnil. Hearn, Lafcadio. Chita, a memory of Last Island. A vivid and remarkable story which contains only a few pages of Creole dialect, but anything by Hearn should be included, as he is a master of its variations. Youma, the story of a West-Indian slave. A tragic and moving narrative of the devotion of a Creole negress, f ster-mother and nurse to the child of a white family of high position. The dialect is an African-French patois which Hearn calls "the soft and musical speech of slaves." Jones, Alice I. Beatrice of Bayou Teche. The story of a slave girl of Creole and Negro parentage. Describes the plantation life on one of the Louisiana bayous and contains some Creole dialect, but more of the negro. King, Grace E. Tales of a time and place. A collection of charming stories of Creole life, some of which contain a little dialect. Lesperance, J. My Creoles, a story of St. Louis and the southwest twenty-five vears ago. {In Missouri republican, Jan.-May, 1878.) ' Ref. 071 This is the best novel yet written depicting Creole life in St. Louis, many of the localities being easily I'ecognizable years after- ward. The characters were drawn by one who understood the Creole. — IV. C. Breckcnridgc. Mercier, Alfred. L'habitation St. Ybars. 69e A Louisiana story, in which life before the war on a large sugar plan-tation is very well described. Although of great interest as a novel, it is of still greater importance for the student of philology. Dr. Mercier, who is a master of the Creole patois, uses it freely in his book. It is a pity that the book has not been translated into English. — Fortier. Stuart, Mrs. Ruth (]\IcEnery.) The river's children. Abcut forty pages, the introductory and concluding chapters contain a great deal of the Acadian Creole dialect. The remainder of the book is rich in Negro dialect. Fortier characterizes Mrs. Stuart as "one of the most gifted of Louisiana's daughters." Her Story of Babette contains a little Creole patois. AMERICAN LOCAL DIALECTS 29 THE COWBOY COUNTRY. By Genevieve Pierson. The cow-boy dialect, which consists of a few slang phrases and words coined by the cow-boys in response to the need of their peculiar work and mode of life, is not used to any great extent bj' the most popular writers of Western stories, such as Connor, Grey and Bindloss. Bailey, Mrs. A. (W.) The sage brush parson. The adventures of Clement Vaughan, in clerical coat and Xevada sombrero, and his devoted attempts to uplift the com- munity. The incidents are real and amusing. Very little dialect used. Bower, B. M. Chip of the Flying U. Flying U Ranch. Flying U's last stand. In this series the dialect is only incidental but quite accurate. The activities of the Flying- U Ranch and the "Happy Family" get rather tiresome in the third book of the series. Lonesome trail. Long shadow. Bower's bioks have a suggestion of Bret Harte and sometimes of Wister, though they are not nearly s well done, fie shows a knowledge of the country and cow-boy life. The dialect is quite good. Coolidge, Dane. Flidden water. Bat Wing Bowles. Coolidge uses dialect freely and creates a very natural Western atmosphere. The story of Bat Wing Bowles is built on the rather wornout theme of the Englishman who turns cow-boy. Grey, Zane. Heritage of the desert. A story of the Mormons which contains inadequate descriptions of the natural wonders of Colorado. The dialect consists only of an occasional word peculiar to this region. Henry, O., pseud. Heart of the West. A collection of short stories, very readable and entertaining and strikingly human. He uses little dialect. 30 ST. LOUIS PUBLIC LIBRARY Hough, E. Story of the cow-boy. 917.8 Girl at the Halfway House. A tale of striving and suffering in the West in its early wilder days, so dear to the true Westerner who feels with the hero that "wild yearning to follow the frontier till the West shall sink into the sea and even then to follow until he comes to some Fortunate Island where such glorious days should die no niore." The dialect is good, but occurs rather sporadically. Knibbs, H. K. Sundown Slim. The dialect, though incidental, is natural and convincing. Lewis, A. H. Sunset trail. Wolfville. Wolfville nights. These are all stories of the West in the earlier days when the first law of the land was that of the gun. The slangy illiteracies more or less common to men of this class make up the dialect. Mulford, C. E. Hopalong Cassidy. A narrative of ranch life in Texas in its earlier days. The story moves along amidst a great deal of gunplay and local slang which, however, seems more natural than the dialect generally em- ployed in Western stories. The style is rather crude and ama- teurish. and Clay, J. W. Buck Peters, ranchman. The dialect is natural and the local color good in this exciting tale of early Montana days when the rustlers were constantly at work. Pattullo, G. The untamed. A group of short stories giving a very amusing account of a round-up with its accompanying trials and mishaps. Only a slight sprinkling of dialect, but a continuous genuine Western atmos- phere. Raine, W. M. Texas ranger. The hardships of a state ranger in Texas when the rustlers were constantly in evidence and the only rights recognized were those of the strongest. The dialect seems a little forced and unreal. White, Stewart Edward. Westerners. Rules of the game. White is the best of the writers of so-called "Western stories." His style is good, the stories have plot and the dialect is char- acteristic. AMERICAN LOCAL DIALECTS 31 Wister, O. Lin McLean. The Jimmyjohn Boss. The dialect in this, as well as in his other Western stories, is perfect and the stories are full of a dry humor which seems characteristic of the West. He shows his perfect familiarity with the country he writes about. Members of the family. The author will probably never do anything- to compare with the Virginian. Though he figures from time to time in this volume the reader feels that the added touches only dim the first im- pression. The Virginian. Owen Wister has a more sympathetic and natural style than any other writer of Western stories, and the Virginian is his master- piece. There could never be another Virginian nor even another "Em'ly." THE NEGRO. By Helen Tutt. Allen, T. L. Flute and violin. Only two stories in this collection contain negro dialect, but those two. King Solomon of Kentucky and Two gentlemen of Ken- tucky, are such masterpieces of characterization and dialect that they could not be omitted. Cable, G. W. Gideon's band; a tale of the Mississippi. A story of rival shipowners on the Mississippi River in the palmy days of steam boats. A negro nurse is an important char- acter and there are songs of negro deck hands. Calhoun, F. B. Miss Minerva and William Green Hill. The dialect of this amusing little tale loses none of its force through being put into the mouth of a white child who has passed his sh rt life in ihe care of an old darlvcy nurse on equal terms with her own numerous brood. The scene is laid in Tennessee. Chesnutt, C. W. The conjure woman. • The wife of his youth, and other stories of the color line. Stories of his own race written by a negro. The dialect is not confined to any one locality, and the point of view is that of an educated man, keenly alive to the tragedy of the negro. Christensen, A. M. H. Afro-American folk lore. 15 A variation < f the legends of Brer Rabbit and other animals. These are the tales as told around cabin fires on the Sea Islands of South Carolina. They are so little removed from the African sources that untranslated African words occur in many places. 32 ST. LOUIS PUBLIC LIBRARY Church, J. W. Deep in piney woods. Not especially well written, but interesting a.s a study of Voodooism and Voodoo dialect grafted on a community of Georgia negroes. Clemens, S. L. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. - — — Pudd'nhead Wilson. As a river pilot Mark Twain had ample opportunity to study the negro, and his stories are full of the racy, vigorous Missouri and Mississippi River dialect. His negroes are very much alive, with all their racial virtues and failings. Cooney, D. T. A study in ebony. Very good character studies of the negroes in central Missouri. Their modes of thought and philosophy of life are quite accurately portrayed in the monologues of the old woman and the little girl wlio are the chief characters. Culbertson, A. V. At the big house. 15 j^^nimal tales found chiefly among the negroes of Southeastern Virginia and the Cherokee Indians of North Carolina. The legends of both races are given in negro dialect. The rabbit, which plays the leading part in so many of the stories, is always Mr. Rabbit in the Indian versions, and usually "Miss Molly Cotton-tail" in the negro tales. The dialect resembles that of Harris. Dickson, H. Old Reliable. Old Reliable is a crafty old Mississippi darky, whose idiosyn- cracies arq shrewdly depicted, but the sketch is not an unkindly one. The Ravenels. A story of a Mississippi plantation after the war. Harris, J. C. The chronicles of Aunt Minervy Ann. The lively chronicles of the deeds and opinions of Aunt Min- ervy Ann, ex-slave, cook and guardian angel of a Georgia family, are given for the most part in her own words and a dialect that is beyond criticism. Nights with Uncle Remus. 15 Told by Uncle Remus. 15 Uncle Remus and his friends. 15 Uncle Remus, his songs and his sayings. "15 The classics of negro folklore and dialect. Harris and Thomas Nelson Page, by reason of sympathetic comprehension of the negro and life-l( ng familiarity with his speech, added to marked literary ability, easily take first place as writers of negro dialect. AMERICAN LOCAL DIALECTS 33 Home, ;M. P. M. Mamma's black nurse stories. 398.2 The author of this collection of West Indian folklore stories about animals says in her preface "The negro's quaint broken English people new to the country find it rather difficult to under- stand at first, and a short glossary has therefore been inserted. It is curious to note the many idioms that have dropped out of use in England, and local Scotticisms that survive in the slow soft speech of the West Indian Creole." Jones, C. C. Negro mj-ths from the Georgia coast told in the vernacular. 15 The stories of Buh Rabbit and Buh Wolf and the Tar Baby, etc., are told here in a very distinct dialect peculiar to the negroes of the swamp region of Georgia and the Carolinas. More akin to Chi'is- tensen's stories of the Sea Island negroes than to the inland narratives, but in all the collections the moral is the same, "Buh Rabbit too schemy." Macon, J. A. Uncle Gabe Tucker. 817 Sentiments, reflecticns and songs from the negro quarters. A good deal of shrewd observation and philosophy is couched in the homely darkey dialect of Virginia. Owen, M. A. Ole Rabbit's plantation stories. 15 There is in Missouri, as "all along the Border," a mixed race of negro and Indian descent, wlio have inherited a vast stock of the traditions of both races. ... In the vast amount of sorcery, magic, medicine and fetishes recorded [in this book], we find the African Voodoo ideas very strangely mixed with the Indian . . . very valuable and curious. . . . The Negro-English of this book differs greatly from that of other parts of the U. S. — Charles God- frey Leland. Page, T. N. In ole Virginia. Marse Chan. Pastime stories. Delectable stories of Virginia negroes, so faithful to the dialect and to the blended qualities of shrewdness bordering on slyness, loyalty to their white folks and lasting affection for them, that one old negro, to whom Marse Chan was read aloud, exclaimed "Lordy, Boss, a nigger must 'a wrote that." Pendleton, L. B. King Tom and the runaways. 70 A good story for boys of life in Georgia before the Civil War, which very accurately portrays the affectionate relations exist- ing between the white families and their negro slaves. The dialect is not exaggerated. Pratt, L. Ezckiel. .\ little negro boy at Hampton Institute is the central figure. His vivid imagination and gift for narrative in a dialect from which 34 ST. IvOUIS PUBLIC LIBRARY all harsh sounds have been blurred or elided, make him at once the joy and despair of his teacher and the conscientious Northern woman who are together struggling to develop the visionary into a practical member of society. Seawell, M. E. The victory. The negro dialect in this novel of lowland Virginia is only inci- dental, but what there is of it is good. Smith, F. H. Colonel Carter of Cartersville. This might justly be called Two gentlemen of Virginia, for the old negro servant is as admirable and lovable as the Colonel. The dialect of both master and man is perfect. Stuart, Mrs. R. (M.) George Washington Jones. Moriah's mourning. Napoleon Jackson. The river's children. No one has caught the humor of the negro more accurately than Mrs. Stuart, nor contrasts it more effectively with pathetic scenes. Her characters speak in the dialect of Arkansas and the lower Mississippi. Thanet, O., pseud. By inheritance. A sympathetic study of a young negro of mixed race who has been given a university education and then takes up his life in a community of ignorant blacks, some of them his own kinspcople. The contrast between his Harvard precision of manner and speech and the easy superstitious nature and broad dialect of the Arkan- sas negro is well drawn, as is his reluctant comprehension of his own inheritance of his race's weaknesses. Thruston, Mrs. L. (M.) Called to the field. A story of Virginia home life during tlie Civil War in which a black Mammy and her son play important parts in action and dialogue. The dialect is life-like. Young, M. Behind the dark pines. Mammy tales of Brer Rabbit, Brer Possum, Mister Mocking Bird, Miss Red Bird and their kin who live in that delightful land of mystery "Behime de dark pines." The dialect is good and the stories have a considerable background of folklore. They are briefer and simpler than the inimitable Uncle Remus tales. Plantation bird legends. j398 The stories told by the daughter of an old negro woman reputed to be a witch, on a plantation in the far south. The spirited illustrations by J. M. Conde. which follow admirably the character- ization in the text, add to the interest of the quaint legends, apho- risms and songs whose origins are in African folklore 'in "de fur back times." The dialect is distinctive and seems good. AMERICAN LOCAL DIALECTS 35 CANADIAN FRENCH. By Helen Tutt. French as spoken bj' Canadians of French descent has claims to be considered a dialect in itself. The books listed be- low contain not this, but English as spoken by French Canadians. Dr. Geo. H. Locke, librarian of the Toronto Public Library, writes as follows in answer to a query about such books : '"Let me say that tliere is a very decided difficulty in the matter of books containing English, as spoken by the Canadian French. Dr. W. H. Drummond's poems, and E. W. Thomson's 'Old Man Savarin' are practically the only books of any im- portance in which occurs this dialect. The Canadian French are very jealous of their own language and literature, and there has been very little use made of it in the way indicated in your let- ter. For instance, Sir Gilbert Parker is supposed by many to have used it, but it was rather the use of the country than of the language itself. There are of course many magazine articles by people who think they are using the dialect, but to those of us who have had any experience, their efforts are very much beside the mark." Amsbary, W. B. The ballads of the Bourbonnais. [cl904.] 81L04 A collection of poems in the French-Canadian dialect as spoken by descendants of a colony which was established in Kankakee County, Illinois by settlers from Canada about the middle of the last century. "Bourbonnais is a typical French settlement, with not a single American resident." Catherwood, Mrs. M. (H.) Mackinac and lake stories. Dialect in one story of the collection. Connor, R. pseud. Black Rock. The doctor. Man from Glengarry. The prospector. In each of these books one minor character speaks the French Canadian dialect. Parker, Sir. G. Battle of the strong. Lane that had no turning. Northern lights. A little dialect in these volumes. 36 ST. LOUIS PUBLIC LIBRARY Saunders, M. Rose a Charlitte; an Acadian romance. Thompson, E. W. Old man Savarin, and other stories. The author ranks with Drummond as a writer of the patois of the habitant. Drummond, W. H. Poetical work. 1912. The great fight; poems and sketches. 1908. — — The habitant; and other French-Canadian poems. Johnnie Courteau, and other poems, 1901. Voyageur, and other poems. 1905. Jamais, dans ce portrait d'un nouveau genre, le plus subtil des critiques puisse surprendre nulle part le coup de crayon de la caricature! — L. Frechette, in his Introduction to The habitant. 811 811 1905. 811 811 811. AMERICAN LOCAL DIALECTS INDEX TO AUTHORS. Allen. J. L. 31 Amsbarv. W. B., 35 Balm, k., 11 Bailev, Mrs. A. (\V.) 29 Banks, N. H., 19 Barack, M., 10 Barton, W. E., 19 Baskett, J. N., 15 Beach, E. R., 15 Bell, L., 20 Bigelow, J., 26 Bonner, S., 20 Bower. B. U., 29 Bowman, J. L., see Le Con- nor, H. P.. pseud. Brown, A., 5 Burke, T. A., ed.. 20 Burnett. R H., 20 Cable, G. W.. 20. 27, 31 Calhoun. F. B.. 31 Carter, J. H.. 15 Carter, M. N., 20 Cathervvood, Mrs. M. (H.), 13, 35 Chesnutt. C. W., 20. 31 Chopin, Mrs. K.. 27 Christensen. A. M. II., 31 Churcli. J. W., 32 Churchill, W.. 5, 16 Clemens, S. L., 16, 32 Connor. R., 35 Cooke, R. CT.). 5 Coolidge, D., 29 Coonev, D. T.. 32 Craddock, C. E.. 20 Culhertson, A. V., 32 Dickson, H.. 21, 32 Dix. E. A., 5 Dixon. T.. jr.. 21 Drummond, W. II., 36 Edwards, H. S., 21 Eggleston, E., 13 Elliott, S. B., 21 Eustis, C, 26 Fisher, H. L., 11 Fortier, A., 7. 26, 27 Fox. J., jr., 21 Fuller, A., 5 Furman, L., 21 Gale, Z., 13 Garland, H., 13 Gibbons, Mrs. P. E., 10 Gildehaus, C, 16 Glasgow, E., 21 Grav, J. T., 22 Grey, Z., 29 Greene, S. P. (McL.), 5 Haliburton, T. C, 6 Hall, E. C, 22 Harbaugh, H. D. D., 11 Ilarl^en, W. N., 22 Harris, J. C, 22, 32 Harrison. H. S., 22 Harrison, J. A., 26 Harte, B.. 22 Harter T. H., 11 Hcarn. L.. 26, 28 Henrv. O., lyscud., 29 Hevdrick, B. A., 10 Holley, M., 6 Holmes, O. W., 6 Holsbuck, S., pseud.. 11 Home, M. P. M.. 33 Hough. E.. 17, 30 PIo wells. W. D.. 6 Tack.son, C. T., 14 Icwett, S. O., 6 Johnston. R. M.. 22 Jones, A. L. 28. 33 Jones, C. C, 33 iiH5199 38 ST. LOUIS PUBLIC LIBRARY Kester, V., 14, 22 King, G. E., 28 King, W., 17^ Kipling, R., 7 Knibbs, H. K, 30 Le Connor, H. P., pseud., 17 Lesperance, J., 28 Lewis, A. H., 30 Lincoln, J. C, 7 Longstreet, A. B., 23 Lowell, J. R, 7 MacGowan, A., 23 MacKaye, P., 7 Alacon, J. A., ZZ Marriott, C, 23 Martin, Mrs. H. (R.), 12 Mercier, A., 28 Monteith, J., 17 Mulford, C. E., 30 Nadler, K. G., 10 Nefi, E., 14 O'Higgins, H. J., 14 Owen. M. A.. 15 Page, T. N., 7. 23, 3-> Page, W. H., 23 Parker, G., 35 Parrish, R.. 14, 23 Pattee, F. L., 12 Pattullo, G., 30 Peake, E. E, 14 Pendleton, L. B., Z2> Pool, M. L., 7, 23 Pratt, L., dZ Prettyman, W., 10 Raine, W. M., 30 Reed, M., 8 Rice, A. H., 23 Richards, L. E., 8 Riley, J. W., 14 Rives, A., 23 Rollingpin, Commodore, sec Carter, J. H. Sanborn, E. W., 8 Sanborn, K., 8 Saunders, M., 36 Saunders R. D., 18 Seawell, M. E., 34 Singmaster, E., 12 "Skitt," 24 Slosson. A. (T.), 8 Smith, C. H., 24 Smith, F. H., 8, 24, 34 Stanley, Mrs. C. (A)., 18 Stewart, C. D., 18, 24 Stockton. F. R., 24 Stowe, H. (B.), 8. 24 Streeter. 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