Free trader-journal. (Ottawa, Ill.) 1916-1920, 1919-04-23
WHERE sHlKEsPEARE's In
cLlSH is STILL SPOKEN.

|. II is said that when the Kentucky
moun,ainer begins to read at all, 10
displays so marked a preference for
Shakespeare that 1t is invariably the
works of that poet that have most
frequently to be rebound in any IL
brary to which he has access. The
reason he himself gives for this pre-
dilection is that the things shape
speare makes his characters do al
ways seem so natural"
So also must seem the things he
makes them say. Words and turns
Of expression employed by ShSie-
spearc and in the King James YER
sion Of tho Bible are OF such common
occurrence in the mountain speech
that it is quite possible for native
student Of his own peoples peculiar
characteristics 10 argue, with no
small show Of reason. that the rur-
est English on earth is that OF the
Kentucky mountains-howeyer unpoi-
igbcd and crude Il may be granmaii'
cally. Another asserts that this racy
idiom is the one roal literary dialect
as vet produced in America.
lust because the mountaineers are,
for the most part. either illiterate or
allie to see few newspapers. they
have sterotypcd forms of expression.
For them the language is in the same
state of nuidity and nuX that ii was
for Shakespeare and his cohtemp0r-
aries, so that they are always Tree
to vary and invent, and are often
forced TO feel around, as it We're, not
only for the right word, but for their
/ own word, which, since they have 4
r natural osthetic instinct for verbal
= shapes and sounds, gives their speech
[ n remarkable sense OF freshness ana
= stylistic distinction. Moreover. the
Y very fact that their vocabulary Is eX'
/ tremely limited tends to foster a
> fanciful and figuratiye form OF eX'
e preston, as in the case OF the ola
i preacher who referring TO the Whlte
0 haired among his auditors. called
= Gown a blessing upon those whose
heads were bloomin' for the grave
/ But what at first sight appears
= / most corrupt oT tollolui"' 49,
e proyes on closer acquaintance to pos
t sess unexceptionally linguistic ere
e dentials. What, for example, coult
y naesibly have a more bucolic or Boeo
tian flavor than the use of the Verl
+ 40 talk" in the sense of TO court o
y TO WOO? Yet, in King Lear" w
o. find Regain saying, precisely
r MY lord is dead Edmund and
X. have talked"
b In Shakespeare also we lind "hoip
II for helped" a form of the preterit
r common in the mountains, as ais
i, "whup" for whipped" "wFop" 70
n wrapped" "clomb" for climbed"
n mountain man becomes suddenl
n bereft of his senses, it is said of hi
es that che TUX franzy spell" and TIN
a rustic pronunciation has the autho
as ity of no less poet than Sir Phil
Il Sidney.
at There is also sound logic, IL nj
literary authority, for AIRY" az
IS mary" which are nothing more
les than contractions Of "eer a" al
n "ne',r corruptions, if one choos
'5 tr notably euphonious and conye
en- icnt-and the forms 'farder" n
az "urder" for farther" and "furthe
Ct lave exactly the same justiIicatH
from an chronological point of vic
u AS murder" which used 10 be WI
'e1 ten "murther"; while the imperson
"o nronoun hit" is no mere cockneyis
70 for cit, but the original Angiosa
% on form of the word.-Harper's Ma
-. azine.