Should your correspondents James S. Harry and E. C. H. be acquainted (and I doubt not but they are) with the song, in which a German inquires "What is his native land?" and having called over some of the principalities, as Prussia, Suabia, Bavaria, Pomerania, Westphalia, Switzerland, Tyrol, he cries disdainfully, "No! no! no! my fatherland must be greater:" at last, despairing, he asks to name him that land, and is answered, "Wherever the German tongue is heard:"—should James S. Harry and E. C. H. recollect these words, they will conceive that such a people must have several tribes, and each tribe their peculiar dialect, founded on prescribed rules, and to which individually equal justice is due.
The dialects of the Deutsche Sprache, the German language, are the Ober Deutsche and Nieder Deutsche, Upper German and Low German: from the former dialect has, in course of time, proceeded the Hoch Deutsche Sprache, the High German language, now used exclusively as the book language by the more educated classes throughout Germany.
The principal dialects of the Ober Deutsche are the following:
1. The Allemanic, spoken in Switzerland and the Upper Rhine.
2. The Suabian, spoken in the countries between the Black Forest and the River Lech.
3. The Bavarian, spoken in the South of Bavaria and Austria.
4. The Franconian, spoken in the North of Bavaria, Hessen, and the Middle Rhine.
5. The Upper Saxon or Misnian, spoken in the plains of Saxony and Thüringia.
These dialects differ from each other, and particularly from the High German language, with regard to their elements.
The Ober Deutsche dialects differ from each other by the introduction of peculiar vowels.