Excerpt from Transactions of the Philological Society, 1903-1906

To those who are engaged or interested in dialect studies I need not give an explanation why I undertook to study an English dialect, although as a stranger I was in an unfavourable position compared with most dialect investigators. I could not speak the dialect; I could not, like Wright in his excellent Windbill Grammar, proceed from speech sensations and a vocabulary acquired already from childhood, or like Elworthy, in his exhaustive work on the dialect of West Somerset, base my description on experience gained during years of intercourse with the natives. For even after picking up as much of sounds and phrases as I was able to during the time I stayed in Wiltshire, I could not, to tell the truth, speak a single sentence in the dialect without at the same time thinking of the positions and movements of my tongue and lips; and even thus my ability was limited to the expressions to which I had devoted a special study. This was decidedly to my disadvantage, and I therefore owe my readers a report of the method of bringing together my material, to serve as a guarantee for the general accuracy of my collections.

One difficulty of obtaining real dialect pronunciation is included in the fact that the peasantry throughout the country usually have two different pronunciations, one which they use to one another and one which they use to the educated. This difficulty, however, is chiefly felt when the educated only get into occasional and superficial contact with the people, and, as I am inclined to believe, is considerably lessened through frequent intercourse and Sincere attempts to share in their interests. For even if at first they try to speak more grander like, they will soon fall back on the idiom that is the most convenient to their organs of speech.

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