İngilizce Kitabın Türkçe Adı: İngiltere'nin Batı Lehçesi; Özellikle Somersetshire - The Dialect of the West of England; Particularly Somersetshire

Produced by Miranda van de Heijning, David Starner,

and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

  "Goo little Reed!
  Aforn tha vawk, an vor me plead:
  Thy wild nawtes, mâ-be, thâ ool hire
  Zooner than zâter vrom a lâre.
  Zâ that thy Maester's pleas'd ta blaw 'em,
  An haups in time thâ'll come ta knaw 'em
  An nif za be thâ'll please ta hear,
  A'll gee zum moor another year."—The Farewell.

THE Dialect of the West of England

PARTICULARLY SOMERSETSHIRE;

WITH A GLOSSARY OF WORDS NOW IN USE THERE; ALSO WITH POEMS ANDOTHER PIECES EXEMPLIFYING THE DIALECT.

BY JAMES JENNINGS,

HONORARY SECRETARY OF THE METROPOLITAN LITERARY INSTITUTION,LONDON.

BASED ON THE SECOND EDITION,

THE WHOLE REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ENLARGED, WITH TWO DISSERTATIONSON THE ANGLO-SAXON PRONOUNS, AND OTHER PIECES,

BY JAMES KNIGHT JENNINGS, M.A.,

Late Scholar and Librarian, Queens' College, Cambridge; Vicar of
Hagbourn, Berkshire; and Minister of Calcott Donative,
Somersetshire.

TO THA DWELLERS O' THA WEST,

  Tha Fruit o' longvul labour, years,
  In theäze veo leaves at last appears.
  Ta you, tha dwellers o' tha West,
  I'm pleas'd that thâ shood be addresst:
  Vor thaw I now in Lunnan dwell,
  I mine ye still—I love ye well;
  And niver, niver sholl vorget
  I vust drâw'd breath in Zummerzet;
  Amangst ye liv'd, and left ye zorry,
  As you'll knaw when you hire my storry.
  Theäze little book than take o' me;
  'Tis âll I hâ just now ta gee
  An when you rade o' Tommy Gool,
  Or Tommy Came, or Pal at school,
  Or Mr. Guy, or Fanny Fear,—
  I thenk you'll shod vor her a tear)
  Tha Rookery, or Mary's Crutch,
  Tha cap o' which I love ta touch,
  You'll vine that I do not vorget
  My naatal swile—dear Zummerzet.

JAS. JENNINGS.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

In preparing this second edition of my relative's work, I haveincorporated the results of observations made by me during severalyears' residence in Somersetshire, in the centre of the district.I have also availed myself by kind permission, of hints andsuggestions in two papers, entitled "Somersetshire Dialect," readby T. S. Baynes in 1856, and reprinted from the Taunton Courier,in London, in 1861.

During the forty years which have elapsed since the first edition,very much light has been thrown on the subject of ProvincialDialects, and after all much remains to be discovered. I considerwith Mr. Baynes that there is more of the pure Anglo-Saxon in thewest of England dialect, as this district was the seat ofclassical Anglo-Saxon, which first rose here to a national tongue,and lasted longer in a great measure owing to its distance fromthe Metropolis, from which cause also it was less subject tomodern modification.

I shall be happy to receive any suggestions from Philologicalscholars, which may increase the light thrown on the subject, andby which a third edition may be improved.

Hagbourn Vicarage, August, 1869.

PREFACE.

The usefulness of works like the present is too

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