Page:The ancient language, and the dialect of Cornwall.djvu/69

 49 ^'It does not follow however, from this that there is no such thing as bad grammar. The term has two meanings, if signifies the actual representation of a language and the formal scheme of a language. " Language as a fact, must be taken as it is, and repre- sented as it best may be, " If language at all times and in all places, stands in the same relation to its ideas as an exponent it is equally good as a language.^' But, whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the elegance or the rudeness of a language or dialect, one thing seems very certain, that at no distant time, that arch-enemy of all dialects, the modern school-board, will rapidly bring about a great change in Cornish speech. Already, to a large proportion of Cornish people, especially the young, the Cornish dialect is become almost a dead language, and many of the words are to them as unintelligible as Sanscrit. The greater intercommunication during the past fifty years has made a great change, and this has been much accelerated since the opening of the Cornwall railway in 1859. Formerly, instead of one Cornish dialect there were many, which differed more or less from each other, indeed, even in adjoining parishes there were different modes of speaking. Still, taken as a whole, there was, and is, a marked distinction between the dialect of Cornwall and the other parts of the kingdom. Eude as the patois of Cornwall may appear to stran- gers, yet no Cornishman familiar with it, listens to it other D