Every attentive reader of Shakespeare's works knows that he uses many words which are now obsolete in English speech and literature, but which are still in use among those who speak what some call the Scottish dialect. Such words as greet, neif, wee, etc., are no longer considered English; they are now looked upon as Scotticisms, and their use, in ordinary speaking and writing, is considered a mark of want of education and polite training. But although this is now the case, it was not so in Shakespeare's time. In his day these words formed part of the English language; they were used in literature of the highest class, and he puts them in the mouths of those who were supposed to speak correctly. On the other hand he places what is commonly known as "dialect" language in the mouths of the Irish captain Macmorris and the Scots captain, Captain Jamy, and in the case of the latter it certainly was not with a desire to cast ridicule upon a man whom Captain Fluellen describes as "of great expedition and knowledge in th' aunchient wars," and "a marvelous falorous gentleman." So, too, with Edgar and his Somersetshire dialect and the broken English of Fluellen; these are given as illustrations of the speech of foreigners and country bumpkins. In the Scottish dialect of Captain Jamy, Shakespeare undoubtedly imitated the speech of some uneducated countryman of whom many might be found in London. Of such dialects examples which differ widely from each other may even now be found in every district in Scot

land, but in the face of all this there has never been a time in which the works of Allan Ramsay and of Burns were not intelligible throughout the length and breadth of the land. The literary language of the south of Scotland bears the same relation to many of the spoken dialects that the language of Tennyson and Macaulay bears to the dialects of Devon and of Somersetshire. These dialects of the Scottish language as well as those of the English speech were, in general, peculiar to certain localities, and while they tended to become fixed as dialects they also tended to diverge more and more from their neighbors as time rolled on. This was more strongly marked in the days before intercommunication became so easy and so general. Before the days of railroads there were in the British Isles many places whose inhabitants found it difficult to understand the speech of those living twenty miles away. Nor is this so much to be wondered at when we remember that in these same places even the weights and measures varied to such an extent that the terms of purchase of each district had to be translated into those of the others, just as we now translate meters into yards and quarts into the corresponding amount in litres.

Dialects which arise in this way and which at some time are living and spoken tongues are the only true dialects, and have nothing in common with the socalled dialect writing in which certain novelists and professional humorists indulge. These writers seem to think that

any one who can disfigure the English language by bad spelling and worse grammar has the ability to write in "dialect." This is a great mistake. The dialect which they use is not spoken any. where neither in heaven above nor on the earth beneath, and if, by some sad fatality, it should be spoken in hell it

JOHN PHIN, Ph.D.

would no doubt add greatly to the sorrows of Satan.

Neither is the so-called "Kail yard" (Anglice, "cabbage-garden") literature a fair representation of the Scottish language, or of any of its dialects. Much of it is mere literary Scotch, badly written or spoken, although, of course, there are some notable exceptions.

The Scottish words in Shakespeare readily fall into three classes, and a care

ful consideration of the characteristics of each class will greatly lessen the difficulty of reaching the true meaning of some of the obscure passages in that writer's works.

In the first class we must place those words which, though at one time used by writers of good English, are now entirely obsolete. In this class are such words as barm, bairn, greet, ifecks, makeless, mickle, neif, pash, reek, wee and many others. These words offer no difficulty to the general reader; they are sure to command his attention and then, if they are not already understood, he will find them all explained in any good Scotch dictionary or in any of the glossaries which are appended to the ordinary editions of Shakespeare's works.

In the second class we find words which, though formerly used both as verbs and nouns, are not now so employed. Of this class the word colleague is an example. It would be difficult to find this word used as a verb in recent literature, but as a noun it is quite common. In Shakespeare we find it as a verb in Hamlet, Act I, Scene 2, line 21, and in the verses written by Burns on Captain Grose, it is used in the same way: "Wi' deils, they sav. Lord safe's colleaguin."

Words of this class rarely introduce any difficulty or ambiguity.

But there is a third class of words which to the general reader probably give rise to more misunderstanding that any other. These are words which, while retaining their original form, have entirely changed their meaning. As a consequence of this the reader feels no doubt as to the meaning of the words in any sentence; he thinks he understands them fully while all the time he has an entirely erroneous idea of what the poet