Two bodies of immigrants, one from the Eyder, and the other from the Scheldt, even if they left their respective localities on the same day of the same month, would most probably differ from one another; and that in the same way that a Yorkshireman differs from a Hampshire man.
On the other hand, two bodies of immigrants, each leaving the very same locality, but one in 200 A.D., and the other in 500 A.D., would also, most probably, differ; and that as a Yorkshireman of 1850 A.D. differs from one of 1550 A.D.
[§ 682]. The subsequent changes which may affect the dialect of an immigrant population are chiefly referable to either, 1. Influences exerted by the dialects of the aborigines of the invaded country; 2. Influences of simple growth, or development. A dialect introduced from Germany to a portion of Great Britain, where the aborigines spoke Gaelic, would (if affected at all by the indigenous dialect) be differently affected from a dialect similarly circumstanced in a British, Welsh, and Cambrian district.
A language which changes rapidly, will, at the end of a certain period, wear a different aspect from one which changes slowly.
[§ 683]. A full and perfect apparatus for the minute philology of the dialects of a country like Great Britain, would consist in—
1. The exact details of the present provincialisms.
2. The details of the history of each dialect through all its stages.
3. The exact details of the provincialisms of the whole of that part of Germany which contributed, or is supposed to have contributed, to the Anglo-Saxon immigration.
4. The details of the original languages or dialects of the Aboriginal Britons at the time of the different invasions.