[SPECIMENS OF DIALECT]

We have thought it advisable to supplement the brief examples of folk-talk which will be found in the body of this work by a few somewhat longer specimens, which may be taken as accurately representing the speech current at the present time among the villages in North Wilts. Mr. Slow has kindly added a similar specimen for South Wilts. The extracts from Akerman exemplify the North Wilts speech of some fifty or sixty years ago.

[EXTRACTS FROM THE GENUINE REMAINS OF WILLIAM LITTLE].[1]

By J. Y. Akerman.

(From Wiltshire Tales, pp. 165-179.)

[North Wilts.]

I.

There be two zarts o' piple in this here world ov ourn: they as works ael day lang and ael the year round, and they as dwon't work at ael. The difference is jist a graat a-year, and they as dwon't work at ael gets the graat—that's zartin!