[ Footnote 123: ] Observe that we are speaking of an individual’s speech as a whole. It is not a question of isolating some particular peculiarity of pronunciation or usage and noting its resemblance to or identity with a feature in another dialect.
[ Footnote 124: ] It is doubtful if we have the right to speak of linguistic uniformity even during the predominance of the Koine. It is hardly conceivable that when the various groups of non-Attic Greeks took on the Koine they did not at once tinge it with dialectic peculiarities induced by their previous speech habits.
[ Footnote 125: ] The Zaconic dialect of Lacedaemon is the sole exception. It is not derived from the Koine, but stems directly from the Doric dialect of Sparta.
[ Footnote 126: ] Though indications are not lacking of what these remoter kin of the Indo-European languages may be. This is disputed ground, however, and hardly fit subject for a purely general study of speech.
[ Footnote 127: ] “Dialect” in contrast to an accepted literary norm is a use of the term that we are not considering.
[ Footnote 128: ] Spoken in France and Spain in the region of the Pyrenees.
[ Footnote 129: ] Or rather apprehended, for we do not, in sober fact, entirely understand it as yet.
[ Footnote 130: ] Not ultimately random, of course, only relatively so.
[ Footnote 131: ] In relative clauses too we tend to avoid the objective form of “who.” Instead of “The man whom I saw” we are likely to say “The man that I saw” or “The man I saw.”
[ Footnote 132: ] “Its” was at one time as impertinent a departure as the “who” of “Who did you see?” It forced itself into English because the old cleavage between masculine, feminine, and neuter was being slowly and powerfully supplemented by a new one between thing-class and animate-class. The latter classification proved too vital to allow usage to couple males and things (“his”) as against females (“her”). The form “its” had to be created on the analogy of words like “man’s,” to satisfy the growing form feeling. The drift was strong enough to sanction a grammatical blunder.