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Dialect   Listen
noun
Dialect  n.  
1.
Means or mode of expressing thoughts; language; tongue; form of speech. "This book is writ in such a dialect As may the minds of listless men affect. Bunyan. The universal dialect of the world."
2.
The form of speech of a limited region or people, as distinguished from ether forms nearly related to it; a variety or subdivision of a language; speech characterized by local peculiarities or specific circumstances; as, the Ionic and Attic were dialects of Greece; the Yorkshire dialect; the dialect of the learned. "In the midst of this Babel of dialects there suddenly appeared a standard English language." "(Charles V.) could address his subjects from every quarter in their native dialect."
Synonyms: Language; idiom; tongue; speech; phraseology. See Language, and Idiom.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dialect" Quotes from Famous Books



... answer the design of his commission... ate, drank, slept, danced, dressed, and painted himself with the Indians, so that it was not easy to distinguish him from the natives,—he married also with them, and being endued with a strong understanding and retentive memory he soon learned their dialect, and by gradual advances impressed them with a very ill opinion of the English, representing them as fraudulent, avaritious and encroaching people; he at the same time inflated the artless savages ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... man lowered his bow and said something in a dialect so uncouth, that the poor girl did not understand him. Indeed, she perceived, to her horror, that he was half-witted, and could articulate ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... Fourth Kingdom, and as it were the Centre and Middle of the whole Island, and is not to be equalled for fluency of Speech and politeness of Idiom or Dialect by any Inhabitants of the other Kingdoms, and in Policy and Morality transcends them all. Herein the Lords and Peers abounded, and the very Populace excelled in in stature and habit of Body: Their King was Behechio by name and who had a Sister called Anacaona, ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas

... had a harsh untunable voice, his father's, but harsher, and he spoke the drawling dialect of ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... gentlemen of color, were the favorites. Pianos of execrable tone, played by youths with defective complexions, or by machinery, were a close second. Before one place, a crowd blocked the sidewalk; and there Ben stopped. A vaudeville performance was going on within—an invisible dialect comedian doing a German stunt to the accompaniment of wooden clogs and disarranged verbs. A barker in front, coatless, his collar loosened, a black string tie dangling over an unclean shirt front, was temporarily taking ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... story, remember), for my sake—the more especially because I have never abused my privilege of introduction. The place is not above two miles from here, and the stream (which we call, in our county dialect, Glenwith Beck) runs through ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... in society, what seems, is. Enough that thy colloquies expose thee to scandal. There is but one remedy. Thou must yield thy place to another. It is meet that thou forthwith instruct in that barbarous dialect some matron of unblemished repute and devout aspirations; no mere ignorant devotee, however, but a woman of the world, whose prudence and experience may preserve the holy man from the pitfalls set for him by the unprincipled. Manifestly ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... The American Dialect Society is doing good work in hunting out and interpreting many of these contributions of childhood to the great mosaic of human speech, and it is to be hoped that in this effort they will have the co-operation of all the teachers of the country, for this branch of childish activity ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... following story exemplifies the difficulty which occasionally arises in courts of justice, when witnesses use provincial terms with which the judge is not familiar. Mr. William Russell, in past days deputy-surveyor of 'canny Newcastle,' and a genuine Northumbrian in dialect, brogue, and shrewdness, was giving his evidence at an important trial in the Newcastle court-house, when he said—"As I was going along the quay, I saw a hubbleshew coming out of a chare-foot." Not aware that on Tyne-side the word 'hubbleshew' meant 'a ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... it is sometimes called the Shamrock Hymn," said Miss Huntley, "because St. Patrick used the little green shamrock leaf to explain to the chiefs the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The original is in a very ancient dialect of the Irish Celtic, and was preserved in an old manuscript book written on parchment. It always reminds me of the 'Benedicite omnia opera' of our prayer-book; the thought is the same in both: 'O ye spirits and souls ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... Little risk does he run of a review of his decisions or of an appeal to the Emperor at Pekin. He spoke loud and with much rapidity and emphasis, and often beat impatiently on the floor with his foot. He used the mandarin tongue, and whether cognizant of the dialect of the prisoners or not, he put all his questions through an interpreter, who stood at his left, a handsomely dressed old man, who wore a gold chain with a dependent ivory comb, with which while he spoke he frequently combed a small and scanty ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... people, yet naturally indolent, from the character of the climate they inhabited. They had some definite idea of God and heaven, and were governed by patriarchs or kings, whose word was their only law, and whose age gave them undisputed precedence. They spoke the dialect of the Lucayos, or Bahamas, from which islands it is presumed by historians they originated; but it would seem more reasonable to suppose that both the people of the Bahamas and of the West India isles came originally from the mainland; that is, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... sky, if used as a feminine; if used as a masculine, as it is still in the Veda, it is the sky as a man or as a god—it is Zeus, the father of gods and men. You know, of course, that the whole language of ancient India is but a sister dialect of Greek, Latin, of German, Keltic, and Slavonic, and that if the Greek says es-ti, he is, if the Roman says est, the German ist, the Slave yeste, the Hindu, three thousand years ago, said ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller

... dialect of St. Giles's in his furious attacks on the learned Dalechamps, the Latin translator of Athenaeus. To this great physician he stood more deeply indebted than he chose to confess; and to conceal the claims ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... habit and appearance of folly. It is usual to laugh at the witticisms of these jesters, even when they are the most severe; and the sovereign himself respects their privilege. The tribe to which Kerreem Khan belonged, speak a language which, from its rudeness, is denominated "the barbarous dialect." As this prince was one day sitting in public, he commanded his jester to go and bring him word what a dog, that was barking very loud, wanted. The courtiers smiled at this sally of their monarch. The jester went, and, after ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various

... been remembered in this way, they all went off to their work, some looking unconcerned, others embarrassed. The second girl blushed a deep crimson when she heard her motto. The Hunter, who was gradually learning to understand the local dialect, listened to this lesson with astonishment, and after it was over he asked what the purpose of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... lived very modestly until the end, and appeared to spend nothing; and he only kept one old servant, who spoke to him in the Basque dialect. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... beard was most startling, and in the thicket of hair twinkled above high cheek-bones two very merry blue eyes. He was indeed an outlander, but yet a Thibetan in language, habit and attire. He spoke the Lepcha dialect with an indescribable softening of the gutturals. It was not so much a ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... will find a distinct race of men, who are of Scandinavian origin, and I believe that their ancestors brought the legend with them." To this it may be added that philologists have long since traced the rude dialect of Oberhasli to its Scandinavian sources, and the physical characteristics of the people mark them as of different racial ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... Fools' is written in the dialect of Swabia, and consists of vigorous, resonant, and rhyming iambic quadrameters. It is divided into 113 sections, each of which, with the exception of a short introduction and two concluding pieces, treats independently of a certain class ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt

... and was settled in the gloomy narrow valley of Mont d'Or, when, about four in the afternoon of the 25th of June, I heard the beat of a drum to call the inhabitants of the hamlet together. When it had ceased I heard a hairdresser from Bresse proclaim in the provincial dialect of Auvergne: "The King and Queen were taking flight in order to ruin France, but I come to tell you that they are stopped, and are well guarded by a hundred thousand men under arms." I still ventured to hope that he was repeating only a false report, but he went on: "The Queen," ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... of his orations have come down to us, and they are excessively polished and elaborated; but they were written to be read, they were not extemporary. His language is the purest and most refined Attic dialect. Lysias, 458 B.C., was a fertile writer of orations also, and he is reputed to have produced as many as four hundred and twenty-five; of these only thirty-five are extant. They are characterized by peculiar ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... stream; the giant trees—sycamores, pawpaws, cork elms, catalpas, walnuts, and what not—which everywhere are in view in this woodland world; the strange and lovely flowers we saw; the curious people we met, black and white, and the varieties of dialect which caught our ear; the details of our charming gypsy life, ashore and afloat, during which we were conscious of the red blood tingling through our veins, and, alert to the whisperings of Nature, were careless of the workaday world, ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... right here on the Kanawha. But what I started to talk about was not the hills, the rivers, and the caves, but the people." He spoke slowly, deliberately, this sturdy, well-groomed hillsman. Like Sergeant York of the Tennessee Mountains Bruce Crawford can, if need be, drop easily back into the dialect of his people. And he is an accomplished writer. "I don't care enough about it to follow the profession of writing," he said, and fire glowed in his gray eyes. "But as old Uncle Dyke Garrett used to ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... of the two, evidently the chief on board, examined us with great attention, without saying a word; then, turning to his companion, talked with him in an unknown tongue. It was a sonorous, harmonious, and flexible dialect, the vowels seeming to admit of ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... English kings. The former, the raising of the money, was more difficult. Two years passed, and still it was not all paid. The royal prisoner, weary of his long captivity, complained bitterly of the neglect of his people and friends, singing his woes in a song composed in the polished dialect of Provence, the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... broadened into something like the dialect of his boyhood. Stanton finished the paper on which he had been engaged and stepped aside from his desk. His face was heavily preoccupied and he kept an eye always on the door leading ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... reveal character or advance the story; and that it must be in keeping with the theme and maintain the tone used at the beginning. A commonplace dialogue must not suddenly become romantic in tone, and dialect must not lapse ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... Braj Bakha dialect of Hindi, we find quoted in the Akhlak-i-Hindi, "Tale of the old ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... ago. Students of the Odyssey for the most part are so engrossed with the force of the zeugma, and of the enclitic particle [Greek]; they take so much more interest in the digamma and in the AEolic dialect, than they do in the living spirit that sits behind all these things and alone gives them their importance, that, naturally enough, not caring about the personality, it remains and always ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler

... which few could hope for; and an old friend of mine informs me, in one of his letters, that, coming from London, travellers first met their troubles about Salisbury, The languages of France, of Holland, and of Germany, the peculiarities (in tongue) of Scotland and Ireland, the broad dialect of Somersetshire, the tinckling accent of Wales, and the more polished tones of metropolitan residents, were all, at the same moment, to be heard clashing and contending. There were bells ringing, and chamber-maids ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... was laid. And a clever Haworth man, who had somewhat risen in the world, and gone to settle in Liverpool, read the novel, and was struck with some of the names of places mentioned, and knew the dialect in which parts of it were written. He became convinced that it was the production of some one in Haworth. But he could not imagine who in that village could have written such a work except Miss Bronte. Proud of his conjecture, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... crowd of blocks which march down the slope with much more speed than they journeyed when united in the higher-lying fields. In this condition and in this part of the movement the snow-ice forms what are called the seracs, or curds, as the word means in the French-Swiss dialect. Slipping and tumbling down the steep slope on which the seracs develop, the ice becomes broken into bits, often of small size. These fragments are quickly reknit into the body of ice, which we shall hereafter term the glacier, and in this process ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... the dialect used help make the characters live, so the speeches have been written in the way in which these men and women would talk. This means that sometimes the character may use what seems to you unusual English. The punctuation helps, too, to ...
— Caesar Rodney's Ride • Henry Fisk Carlton

... finds that the word amosgepotically, used by A. B., is utterly mysterious and incomprehensible. He hopes his translation of the bit of Greek will shield him from imputation of ignorance: and thinks the word may be referred to the "obscure dialect" out of which sprung aneroid, kalos geusis sauce, and Anaxyridian trousers. To lump the first two phrases with the third smacks of ignorance in a Greek critic; for [Greek: anaxuridia], breeches, would have turned up in the lexicon; ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... clear voice shouted, and then followed endearing words of Eastern dialect. A few seconds, and a joyful bark announced the delighted animal, who leapt up rapturously, his paws on the shoulders of his little master. The boy's eyes shone as he raised them to Dr. Rayne, fearlessly, but the voice trembled as he urged: 'If I might just see him now and then, we should neither ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... closely bound up. "Manchester," he writes with enthusiasm, "is the place for all men of bargain and business." His pen acquires a curiously exulting animation as he describes the bustle of its streets, the quaintness of its dialect, the abundance of its capital, and the sturdy veterans with a hundred thousand pounds in each pocket, who might be seen in the evening smoking clay pipes and calling for brandy-and-water in the bar-parlours of homely taverns. He prospered rapidly in this congenial atmosphere; ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... about them, instead of reading about them,—which I commend to you also, as much the more scholarly practice of the two. To the end, though he knows all about the celestial hierarchies, he is not strong in his letters, nor in his dialect. I asked Mr. Tyrwhitt to help me through with a bit of his Italian the other day. Mr. Tyrwhitt could only help me by suggesting that it was "Botticelli for so-and-so." And one of the minor reasons which induced me so boldly to attribute these sibyls to him, instead of Bandini, is that ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin

... circles. On this occasion I received singularly delightful proofs of the spirit of extravagant gaiety manifested on these evenings at the inn, in which I also took part. A master carpenter, named Lauermann, a little thick-set man, no longer young, of comical appearance and gifted only with the roughest dialect, was pointed out to me in one of the inns visited by our friends as one of those oddities who involuntarily contributed most to the amusement of the local wags. Lauermann, it seems, imagined himself an excellent singer, and as a result of this presumption, evinced interest only in those in ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... given. Some of the unascertained words probably also belong to that language. Neither was I able to collate the Wasco or Kalapuya, but have assigned them on the opinion of others. The former, also called Cathlasco, the dialect of the Dalles Indians, is a corrupted form of the Watlala or Upper Chinook. With the Chihalis, Yakama, and Klikatat, and the Nisqually, I ...
— Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, or, Trade Language of Oregon • George Gibbs

... He grunts at one like the fatted pig at the Agricultural Shows, and expects one to understand the meaning which he attaches to these grunts. This proves him to be sanguine but unintelligent. He cannot understand any dialect but his own,—which is convincing evidence to non-Kelantan Malays that he is a born fool,—and he is apt to complain bitterly of the accents of strangers, whereas, to all but his own countrymen, it is his accent which appears to be the real grievance. ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... or Mandarin (Putonghua, based on the Beijing dialect), Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghaiese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, Gan, Hakka dialects, minority languages (see ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... south, where the Cantonese and farther inland the Hakka dialects are spoken, and proceeding northwards, we pass in succession the following dialects: Swatow, Amoy—these two may almost be regarded as one—Foochow, Wenchow and Ningpo. Farther north we come into the range of the great dialect popularly known as Mandarin (Kuan hua or "official language"), which sweeps round behind the narrow strip of coast occupied by the various dialects above-mentioned, and dominates a hinterland constituting nearly four-fifths ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... by Aristotle the counterpart of dialect and that especially because it teaches the manner by which enthymemes may be utilized in communal matters, without a doubt poetic is also to be thought a part of logic, because it discloses the use of examples in fictitious matters.... ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark

... said in the broadest vernacular dialect, as, indeed, was everything that dropped from the fishermen's lips. We take the liberty of modifying it a little, believing that strict fidelity here would entail inevitable loss of sense to many ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne

... of a northern dialect in the compositions show this suggestion to be in a great degree real. The poems of minstrelsy, however, claim something more than dialect—the martial spirit, ever fever-heat on the borders of the kingdoms of England and Scotland; the age of ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green

... along shore, from Connecticut river to Eastport, Maine. These critters give full scope to the Hills and Hacketts of the stage, and the Sam Slicks and Falconbridges of the press, to embody and sketch out in the broadest possible dialect of Yankee land. One of these "tarnal critters," it is my purpose to draw on for my brief sketch, and I wish my readers to do me the credit to believe that for little or no portion of my yarn or language am I indebted to fertility ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... loitering about in the churches, monasteries, catacombs, markets, listening to that Little Russian dialect which is so sweet on the lips of the natives, though it looks so uncouth when one sees their ballads in print, and by gazing out over the ever beautiful river and steppe, I came at last to pardon Kieff for its ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... from her head, along her back, to the very tip of her tail, which he retained each time in his grasp for a moment, ere he recommenced operations), "I highly disapprove of the absurd practice, so common with young men of the present day, of expressing their ideas in that low and incomprehensible dialect, termed 'slang,' which, in my opinion, has neither wit nor refinement to redeem its vulgarity, and which effectually prevents their acquiring that easy yet dignified mode of expression which should characterise the ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... pointed to the fire and said 'Give me some, brother!' He pulled me out of the straw; I was so stiff, I couldn't move. I sat by the fire, and ate black bread and turnips, and drank coffee; while he stood by, watching me and muttering. I couldn't understand him well—he spoke a dialect from Hungary. He asked me: How I got there—who I was—where I was from? I looked up in his face, and he looked down at me, sucking his pipe. He was a big man, he lived alone on the river, and I was tired of telling lies, so I told him the whole thing. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the mouth of every one, and such as a superficial dilettante might easily pick up; or do they, either of themselves or from the conjunctures in which they are employed, exhibit a consummate acquaintance with the dialect and habits of the people to which they refer? Besides, it should be remembered that French is a language far more familiar to well-educated people in England, than Spanish ever was to the French, and that Smollett had lived much in France; whereas Le Sage knew ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... of the boat he found a gang of Italian labourers returning to the States after some job in the Provinces. They smoked their pipes and whined their Neapolitan dialect together. It made Mavering think of Dante, of the Inferno, to which he passed naturally from his self- denunciation for having been an infernal jackass. The inscription on the gate of hell ran through his mind. He thought he would make his life— his ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... who inhabit the eastern side of Formosa, it is said, use a Malay dialect, and have no resemblance whatever to the Mongols. Who can fully explain the little known Ainos, who formerly occupied the whole, or nearly the whole of Japan? The unmistakable traces of Malay influence every where in the islands of the Pacific can have but ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin

... are interested in Dialects will require all the special Dictionaries which have been published, and these may be found in the Bibliography now being compiled by the English Dialect Society, but those who do not make this a special study will be contented with "A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs, and Ancient Customs, from the Fourteenth Century, by J.O. Halliwell" (fifth edition, London, 1865, 2 ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley

... cackling their welcomes in French, whilst the Baroness was looking about her in a way so gentle as to baffle all description, nodding graciously first to one and then to another, and then adding in her flute-like voice a few German words in the pure sonorous dialect of Courland—all this formed a truly remarkable and unusual picture, and my imagination involuntarily connected it with the ghostly midnight visitant,—the Baroness being the angel of light who was to break the ban of ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... illumined by a single petroleum lamp for fear of attracting mosquitoes, where a broken old lackey, in an old stable jacket, handed round the dishes among the fumes of onion; Alvise's fat mother gabbling dialect in a shrill, benevolent voice behind the bullfights on her fan; the unshaven village priest, perpetually fidgeting with his glass and foot, and sticking one shoulder up above the other. And now, in the afternoon, ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee

... rough, ugly, shock-headed Scotchman, standing up in the Caledonian chapel, and dealing "damnation round the land" in a broad northern dialect, and with a harsh, screaking voice, what ear polite, what smile serene would have hailed the barbarous prodigy, or not consigned him to utter neglect and derision? But the Rev. Edward Irving, with all his ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... month on my own leisure afternoons. He rarely came empty-handed; either he had a book to read, or brought one to be exchanged. When the weather permitted, we always sat in an arbor at the end of a spacious garden, and—in Boswellian dialect—"we ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... eager to arrive in old chivalrous romantic Spain. In little more than half an hour we arrived at a brook, whose waters ran vigorously between steep banks. A man who was standing on the side directed me to the ford in the squeaking dialect of Portugal; but whilst I was yet splashing through the water, a voice from the other bank hailed me, in the magnificent language of Spain, in this guise: "Charity, Sir Cavalier, for the love of God bestow an alms upon me, that I may purchase ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... outside. We saw the Sirdar reviewing his Egyptian and Sudanese troops at Khartum, formally inspecting the schools, hospitals, barracks and prisons around Port Sudan, decorating veterans with medals, and addressing in every native dialect the political and religious leaders of the people. We found that no men appreciated the care and skill of the Red Sea Province hospital more warmly than Arabs from the ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst

... the bischop, according to the custome, demanding of him if he know Latin, if he had learned his Rhetorick, read his philosophy, studied the scooll Divinity and the Canon Law, etc., the preist replied quau copois,[142], which in the Dialect of bas Poictou (which differes from that they speak in Gascoigne, from that in Limosin, from that in Bretagne, tho all 4 be but bastard French) signifies une peu. The bischop thought it a very doulld[143] answer, and that he bit to be but ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... as much as their tongues, with the advantage, that the ocular dialect needs no dictionary, but is understood all the world over. When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue another, a practised man relies on the language of the first. If the man is off his center, the eyes show it. You can read in the eyes of your ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... canoe. Sweet music was heard in the air as he seated himself; and while the wondering multitude stood gazing at their beloved chief, he was silently wafted from sight, and they saw him no more. He passed to the Isle of the Blessed, inhabited by Owayneo [Footnote: A name for their Great Spirit in the dialect of the Iroquois.] ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... his arm-chair. Was it, indeed, Mademoiselle Marguerite who was speaking, the proud young girl with a queenlike bearing, whose voice rang out like crystal? Was it she indeed, who imitated the harsh, coarse dialect of the lower classes with such accuracy of intonation? Ah! at that moment, as her past life rose so vividly before her, it seemed to her as if she were still in the years gone by, and she fancied she could still hear the voice of ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... one meet with an intelligent person among them, to inquire whether, in their jargon, they still retain any Greek words: the Greek radicals will appear in hand, foot, head, water, earth, etc. It is possible that amidst their cant and corrupted dialect many mutilated remains of their native language might ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... English girl, Kate, spoke a language to be marvelled at. At the beginning I could understand nothing, she invented so many new words; then I fell absolutely in love with this queer, amusing dialect. All maimed, strange, ridiculous terms became delightful in her mouth. Every evening, on the terrace of the Casino, we had long ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... both liftes and felles the syllab that it possesseth, and combynes the markes of other tuae, thus ^. Of this we, as the latines, hes almost no use. But the south hath great use of it, and in that their dialect differes more from our's then in ...
— Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue - A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles • Alexander Hume

... end first and upside down, according to German construction, and sprinkle in a German word without any essential meaning to it, here and there, by way of flavor. Yet he always made himself understood. He could make those dialect-speaking raftsmen understand him, sometimes, when even young Z had failed with them; and young Z was a pretty good German scholar. For one thing, X always spoke with such confidence—perhaps that helped. And possibly the raftsmen's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... he said, speaking in the Tagalog dialect. "If he lives, he may make us a useful prisoner;" and a few minutes later Larry felt himself picked up and borne away, first in a man's arms and then on horseback. He tried to "locate" himself, but when he opened his eyes all went swimming before them, and he was glad enough to sink back ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer

... her ravings were taken down from her own mouth, and were found to consist of sentences coherent and intelligible each for itself but with little or no connection with each other. Of the Hebrew, a small portion only could be traced to the Bible; the remainder seemed to be in the Rabbinical dialect." ...
— The Trained Memory • Warren Hilton

... stories, reprinted from the author's contributions to the "Atlantic," "Harper's," "The Galaxy," &c., will be found like "Somebody's Neighbors," to show "that profound insight into Puritan character, and that remarkable command of Yankee dialect, in which Mrs. Cooke has but one equal, and no superior. These exquisite chronicles are full of high local color, pathos and piquancy, and their perusal is attended with alternate tears and smiles. Their narration is vigorous and spirited, ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 1: Curiosities of the Old Lottery • Henry M. Brooks

... neither the Old English nor the northern dialect could be understood by the writer or the reader, and ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... speaks a word of money. No man imagines that the Gauls, Goths, Vandals, Huns, Lombards, Saxons, Normans, made their inroads or conquests by the strength of the purse; and if it be thought enough, according to the dialect of our age, to say in answer to these things that those times are past and gone: what money did the late Gustavus, the most victorious of modern princes, bring out of Sweden with him into Germany? An army that goes upon a golden leg will be as lame as if it were a wooden one; but proper forces ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... habit. A slight nervous trepidation seized her, however, as she drew near to Grassy Spring, and noticed the look of surprise with which a stalwart African, standing by the gate, regarded her. Riding up to him she said, good-naturedly, "How d'ye, uncle?" having learned so much of negro dialect from Rachel, who was a native ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... Animal. — N. animal, animal kingdom; fauna; brute creation. beast, brute, creature, critter [US dialect], wight, created being; creeping thing, living thing; dumb animal, dumb creature; zoophyte. [major divisions of animals] mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish, crustacean, shellfish, mollusk, worm, insect, arthropod, microbe. [microscopic animals] microbe, animalcule ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... big "He Wolf" among the outlaws, a man of quick intelligence who did not seem to care much whether he or the other fellow died. To him who wants the ornate trappings of the motion-picture bad man or the dialect which makes some desperadoes popular in fiction, Ringo would prove a disappointing figure as he showed up in ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt

... peety." Bog would then catch it up, and toss it aloft, all whirling with curls, laces, and blue ribbons, and would say, "Cud-je-wod-je now, cud-je-wod-je now, cud-je-wod-je now," at each tossing; and the child, with the marvellous instinct of eighteen months, would understand this mysterious dialect, and then would smile through large blue eyes that looked ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... his astrologer, translated Aristotle's "History of Animals." Frederick studied ornithology, on which he wrote a treatise, and possessed a menagerie of rare animals, including a giraffe, and other strange creatures. The popular dialect of Italy owed much to him, being elevated into a written language by his use of it in his love-sonnets. Of the poems written by himself, his son Enzio, and his friends, several have been preserved, while his chancellor, Peter de Vincis, is said to ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... vaults; and I will not consent to enter it. Here, of my own free will, I take my stand for the right, and refuse your sanctions! No woman that I know of has ever yet done that. Other women have fallen, as men choose to put it in their odious dialect; no other has voluntarily risen as I propose to do.'" She paused a moment for breath. "Now you know how I feel," she continued, looking straight into his eyes. "Say no more at present; it is wisest so. But go home and think it out, and talk it over ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen

... of the proposed railway, and offered his services in building and equipping the road. Mr. Pease was at once pleased with the man. "There was," said he later, "such an honest, sensible look about him, and he seemed so modest and unpretending. He spoke in the strong Northumbrian dialect, and described himself as 'only the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... although their replies at times appear more smart than respectful. Once a Cockney manufacturer was taking part in a school examination and asked a boy pompously—"W'at's the capital of 'Olland?" "H," was the unconsciously smart reply given. And that recalls a good dialect story, under the early Board system, which tells how an English clergyman and a Lowland Scotsman entered one of the best schools in Aberdeen. The master ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford

... and making a few small additions. It does not allude to the original from which it is taken; it is quite free from mysticism and Neo-Platonism. In length it does not exceed a fifth part of the Timaeus. It is written in the Doric dialect, and contains several words which do not occur in classical Greek. No other indication of its date, except this uncertain one of language, appears in it. In several places the writer has simplified the language of Plato, in a few others he has embellished ...
— Timaeus • Plato

... the teased, half laugh of aged vanity as he bent a baffled scrutiny at the back-turned face of an ideal Indian Queen. It was not merely the tutoiement that struck him as saucy, but the further familiarity of using the slave dialect. ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... Poem Expostulations of M. Dumon Jasmin's Defence of the Gascon Dialect Jasmin and Dante 'Franconnette' dedicated to Toulouse Outline of the Story Marshal Montluc Huguenots Castle of Estellac Marcel and Pascal The Buscou 'The Syren with a Heart of Ice' The Sorcerer Franconnette accursed Festival on Easter Morning ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles

... English, and I have tried to represent the thing she did speak, which was neither honest Scotch nor anything like English. Alas! the good, pithy, old Anglo-Saxon dialect is fast perishing, and a jargon of corrupt English taking ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... which the other frequently used, and which, he said, he had been many years trying to get at the meaning of,—the copulative Is! He was the best intellectual fencer of his day. He made strange havoc of Fuseli's fantastic hieroglyphics, violent humours, and oddity of dialect.—Curran, who was sometimes of the same party, was lively and animated in convivial conversation, but dull in argument; nay, averse to anything like reasoning or serious observation, and had the worst taste I ever knew. His favourite critical topics were to abuse Milton's Paradise Lost, and Romeo ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... is likewise made into parchment, not to write the history of their ancestors upon, but to cover small drums, the rattle of which, on fairdays and fetes is sure to set the peasants dancing. This fact is alluded to in a song of our province, written by a shepherd-poet, in the pleasing dialect of Le Morvan, of which the following is a ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... Dialect Old Fashioned Roses Griggsby's Station Knee Deep in June When the Hearse Comes Back A Canary at the Farm A Liz Town Humorist Kingry's Mill Joney Like His Mother Used to Make The Train Misser Granny Old October Jim ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley

... little Dutch girl, and was charming in the picturesque Holland headgear, and a tight-waisted, long-skirted blue gown, that just cleared the tops of her clattering wooden sabots. She talked a Dutch dialect, or rather, what she imagined was such, and if not real Hollandese, it was at ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells

... to Heathfield. Arriving at that wayside station, he asked the elderly functionary who acted as station-master, porter and station cleaner the nearest way across country to Flegne, and, receiving the most explicit instructions in a thick Norfolk dialect, set out with ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees

... a prone and speechless dialect] I can scarcely tell what signification to give to the word prone. Its primitive and translated senses are well known. The authour may, by a prone dialect, mean a dialect which men are prone to regard, or a ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... on a little more gasoline and started for the frat house. We didn't have to whistle any more. Ole was right behind us. We could hear him thundering on the pavement and pleading with us in that rich, nutty dialect of his to stop and have our heads ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

... longest known to posterity for that remarkable series of papers written in what he called the Yankee dialect and designed at first to stop the extension of slavery and afterwards to suppress it. These are called "Biglow Papers" because the chief author is represented to be Hosea Biglow, a typical New England farmer. The immediate occasion of the first series of these Papers was the outbreak ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... on his hands, felt overstockings that come up to his knees, and, perhaps, a silvery-gray coon-skin coat on his back, walks beside, crying, 'Gee, haw!' even as is written in American stories. And the speech of the driver explains many things in regard to the dialect story, which at its best is an infliction to many. Now that I have heard the long, unhurried drawl of Vermont, my wonder is, not that the New England tales should be printed in what, for the sake of argument, we will call ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... Nothing was more needed than such an effort if any fine literature were to arise in Italy. In this unformed but slowly forming thirteenth century the language was in as great a confusion—and, I may say, as individual (for each poet wrote in his own dialect) as ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... servant employed in laying the cloth, their ears were of a sudden invaded by a strange tumultuous noise in the next room, occasioned by the overthrow of tables, chairs, and glasses, with odd unintelligible exclamations in broken French, and a jargon of threats in the Welsh dialect. Our young gentlemen ran immediately into the apartment from whence this clamour seemed to proceed, and found a thin, meagre, swarthy figure, gasping, in all the agony of fear, under the hands of a squat, thick, hard-featured ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... become distinct through a process of continuous divergence. The same diffusion over the Earth's surface which has led to the differentiation of the race, has simultaneously led to a differentiation of their speech: a truth which we see further illustrated in each nation by the peculiarities of dialect found in several districts. Thus the progress of Language conforms to the general law, alike in the evolution of languages, in the evolution of families of words, and in the ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... development. In Britain, Gaul, and Spain they were displaced and absorbed by the Germanic races. And now for long centuries no Keltic people of importance has maintained its independence; the Gaelic of the Scotch Highlands and of Ireland, the native dialect of the Welsh and of Brittany, being the scanty remains of that great family of related tongues which once occupied more territory than German, Latin, and Greek combined. The solution of the Irish question may lie in the fact that the Irish are fighting against the inevitable; that they ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... assistants with polished boots, and some even with kid gloves and a silver-banded cane. Here and there was a farm-hand in corduroys and hob-nailed, cowdung-spattered boots, puffing at a broken old clay pipe, and speaking in the "Darset" dialect. At the station they had to have another "wet" in the refreshment room, and by the time the train was due to start a ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave

... for freedom, and at the same time shows that instinct teaches him, as it teaches all our domestic animals, to know the path of safety better than it can be learned in the school of fanaticism, or from the dialect of fools. ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit

... but probably not much above his deserts. We see no reason why he should not have been brave, honourable, accomplished. His careless committal of the ring to the ground (which he was commissioned to restore to Cesario), bespeaks a generosity of birth and feeling. His dialect on all occasions is that of a gentleman, and a man of education. We must not confound him with the eternal old, low steward of comedy. He is master of the household to a great Princess; a dignity probably conferred upon him for other respects than age or length of service. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... had now been nearly two months in Holland, and were beginning to understand the language, which is not difficult to acquire, and differed then even less than now from the dialect spoken in the eastern counties of England, between whom and Holland there had been for many generations much ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... of Lismore, a fine soldierly-looking man, with orders and badges;—his brother, an agreeable man, whom I met at Lowther Castle this season. He composes his own music and sings his own poetry—has much humour, enhanced by a strong touch of national dialect, which is always a rich sauce to an Irishman's good things. Dandyish, but not offensively, and seems to have a warm feeling for the credit of his country—rather inconsistent with the trifling and selfish quietude of ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... I had a strong conviction that the Runic alphabet and dialect were simply an invention to mystify poor human nature, I was delighted to find that my uncle knew as much about the matter as I did—which was nothing. At all events the tremulous motion of his fingers made ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne

... French fashion.' From Mr. Smith's pages it would be easy to select examples of the complete assimilation which was attained centuries ago. Caitiff, canker, and carrion came to us from the Norman dialect of French; and from their present appearance no one but a linguistic expert would suspect their exotic ancestry, Jury, larceny, lease, embezzle, distress, and improve have descended from the jargon of the lawyers who went on thinking in French after they were supposed to be speaking ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English

... Which Sir Reginald has the honour of your service?" asked the Squire, to whom Leonard's broad Somersetshire dialect seemed to present ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge

... rustic table-d'hote, and I had on each side of me and in front of me men in blouses who talked in patois or in French, as the mood suited them. I had already perceived that, as I drew nearer to Bordeaux, the Southern dialect became more and more a jargon, in which there were not only many French words, but French phrases. These men in blouses were rough sons of the soil, but I soon gathered that some of them were very well off. In provincial France dress counts for ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... said, as, standing on tiptoe, she scanned his face. He was asleep, and in her own dialect Muggins talked to herself about him as he lay there ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... General's dochter, is cairryin' on an awfu' rig the noo at the Castle"—Kildrummie fell into dialect in private life, often with much richness—"an' the sough o' her ongaeins hes come the length o' Muirtown. The place is foo' o' men—tae say naethin' o' weemin; but it's little she hes tae dae wi' them or them wi' her—officers frae Edinburgh an' writin' men frae ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... out his toes exactly as he ought; or make a becoming bow to so much mock consequence as surrounded them. I know not in what language to describe their notions. We have already admitted that Mr. Bunce does not pretend to vie in purity of dialect with the certificate of Mr. Elias Benedict. Suppose we also admit that he cannot hold competition with Roe as a profound linguist—with Mr. Thompson in fairness, high mindedness, openness and candor—nor with Mr. Linnendoll in belleslettres—and that he would not make ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector

... newly-arrived foreigner. In Shanghae or Hong Kong, say to your Chinese ma-foo, who claims to speak English, "Bring me a glass of water," and he will not understand you. Repeat your order in those words, and he stands dumb and uncomprehending, as though you had spoken the dialect of the moon. But if you say, "You go me catchee bring one piecee glass water; savey," and his tawny face beams intelligence as he obeys ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... a poet, fancy'—and the Duchess quoted some of the lines of the voceratrice, in the spirited Corsican dialect, admirably suited to her contralto voice. But to the 'important ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... REWLE. A Treatise on the Rules and Duties of Monastic Life, in the Anglo-Saxon Dialect of the Thirteenth Century addressed to a Society of Anchorites, being a translation from the Latin Work of Simon de Ghent, Bishop of Salisbury. To be edited from MSS. in the Cottonian Library, British Museum, with an Introduction, Glossarial Notes, &c., by the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various

... To make the going more trying Birnier wore light moccasins intended for camp use instead of his high field boots. Once when a long thorn penetrated the flank of his shoe he stopped to extract it. The corporal shouted at him; the soldier behind called him unmentionable names in the dialect and pushed him with his foot. The insult and the heat of the sun maddened him. He leaped to his feet. The corporal raised his gun promptly and jeered. For a moment Birnier stood trembling with passion; then he closed his ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... People, derived from one Andrew Cant, who, they say, was a Presbyterian Minister in some illiterate Part of Scotland, who by Exercise and Use had obtained the Faculty, alias Gift, of Talking in the Pulpit in such a Dialect, that it's said he was understood by none but his own Congregation, and not by all of them. Since Mas. Cant's time, it has been understood in a larger Sense, and signifies all sudden Exclamations, Whinings, unusual Tones, and in fine all Praying ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... personal peculiarities of Carlyle that the man can never be popular. This hyperborean literary giant, speaking a Babylonian dialect, smiting remorselessly all pretenders and quacks, and even honest fools, was himself personally a bundle of contradictions, fierce and sad by turns. He was a compound of Diogenes, Jeremiah, and Dr. Johnson: like the Grecian cynic in his contempt and scorn, like the Jewish prophet in his melancholy ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord



Words linked to "Dialect" :   frontward, eye dialect, euphonious, forrard, Mandarin dialect, Flemish dialect, Kuchean dialect, forwards, dialectal, accent, Shanghai dialect, bang, Aeolic dialect, forward, forrad, Min dialect, spang, Hakka dialect, Doric dialect, Yue dialect, Turfan dialect, Gheg dialect, idiom, Arcadic dialect, Beijing dialect, Ionic dialect, dialect atlas, Wu dialect, non-standard speech, dialect geography



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