I wish, whenever it is expedient, to add "The Lifted Veil" and "Brother Jacob," and so fatten the volume containing "Silas Marner," which would thus become about 100 pages thicker.
Letter to William Allingham, 8th March, 1877.
Mr. Lewes feels himself innocent of dialect in general, and of Midland dialect in especial. Hence I presume to take your reference on the subject as if it had been addressed to me. I was born and bred in Warwickshire, and heard the Leicestershire, North Staffordshire, and Derbyshire dialects during visits made in my childhood and youth. These last are represented (mildly) in "Adam Bede." The Warwickshire talk is broader, and has characteristics which it shares with other Mercian districts. Moreover, dialect, like other living things, tends to become mongrel, especially in a central, fertile, and manufacturing region, attractive of migration; and hence the Midland talk presents less interesting relics of elder grammar than the more northerly dialects.
Perhaps, unless a poet has a dialect ringing in his ears, so as to shape his metre and rhymes according to it at one jet, it is better to be content with a few suggestive touches; and, I fear, that the stupid public is not half grateful for studies in dialect beyond such suggestions.
I have made a few notes, which may perhaps be not unacceptable to you in the absence of more accomplished aid:
1. The vowel always a double sound, the y sometimes present, sometimes not; either aäl or yaäl. Hither not heard except in c'moother, addressed to horses.
2. Thou never heard. In general, the 2d person singular not used in Warwickshire except occasionally to young members of a family, and then always in the form of thee—i.e., 'ee. For the emphatic nominative, yo, like the Lancashire. For the accusative, yer, without any sound of the r. The demonstrative those never heard among the common people (unless when caught by infection from the parson, etc.). Self pronounced sen. The f never heard in of, nor the n in in.
3. Not year but 'ear. On the other hand, with the usual "compensation," head is pronounced yead.
4. "A gallows little chap as e'er ye see."
5. Here's to you, maäster.
Saäm to yo.