HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE H03002 1/8/03 "DIALECTS IN HARDY'S TXT QUESTION"
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Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 12:57:56 -0800
From: Betty Cortus <hardycor@owl.csusm.edu>
Subject: Unidentified subject!
The following query comes from a new member of our group. Welcome to our ranks Luis!
I hope some of our members are able to help you with information.
Betty
My name is Luis Segura and I'm a Spanish teacher who is preparing the thesis for my doctoral studies in the university of Alicante Spain. Nowadays I'm focusing on a paper for a lecture about the importance of dialects in Hardy's texts especially in The Mayor of Casterbridge (its role and relation with the psychology of the characters and if it is a response to the establishment of a standard, represented by Oliphant, Sweet, Wyld and others).
If you were so kind may you help me with some information or bibliography, as well as webs, about the topic of the dialects in Hardyâs books?
Congratulations for your site
Luis Segura
lsegura@nova.es
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From: "Patrick Roper" <patrick@prassociates.co.uk>
Subject: RE: Unidentified subject!
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 12:25:23 -0000
It may be from too early a period to help you, but Daniel Defoe has some interesting comments on West Country dialects and on Dorsetshire in his 'Journey from London to Land's End' (1722).
The following anecdote from Somerset of a boy in school reading aloud is interesting, and I am sure TH would have enjoyed it. (I suspect the boy was not reading but had memorized the text and translated it to his own dialect).
Defoe writes: His lesson was in the Canticles, v. 3 of chap. v. The words these:- "I have put off my coat. How shall I put it on? I have washed my feet. How shall I defile them?" The boy read thus, with his eyes, as I say, full on the text:- "Chav a doffed my cooat. How shall I don't? Chav a washed my veet. How shall I moil 'em?" How the dexterous dunce could form his mouth to express so readily the words (which stood right printed in the book) in his country jargon, I could not but admire.
There are plenty of web editions of this Defoe.
Patrick Roper
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Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2003 08:31:05 -0500
From: Rosemarie Morgan <rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu>
Subject: RE:Dialect
Luis,
Wilkinson Sherren's *The Wessex of Romance," published in 1908 (London, Francis Griffiths) and thus contemporaneous with Hardy, not only features a chapter on dialect but also sections on local customs, superstitions, settings, and folklore. Extracts from Sherren's book can be found on TTHA's *Resources* page:
http://www.yale.edu/hardysoc/Resources/Resources.htm
Good Luck!
Rosemarie Morgan
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Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 13:25:03 -0800
From: Betty Cortus <hardycor@owl.csusm.edu>
Subject: Re: Dialect
Dear Luis,
I have been trawling through the archives to see if I could find anything in earlier discussions bearing even remotely on your topic. Here, for what they are worth, some old comments on Hardy's use of dialect. buena suerte!
Betty
Date: Mon, 06 Nov 2000 06:58:34 -0500
Subject: Re: Dumbledores--"Humble Bees"
From: "Philip & Andrea Allingham" <apalling@tbaytel.net>
In *The Mayor of Casterbridge* Hardy uses the dialectal expression to mean "humble Bees"; see Chapter 20: Elizabeth starts to use the King's (i. e., 'standard' or London) English--"she no longer spoke of 'dumbledores' but of 'humble bees'...." Philip Allingham
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 06:55:46 -0500
Subject: Re: Dumbledores--"Humble Bees"--"Bumblebees"
From: "Philip & Andrea Allingham" <apalling@tbaytel.net>
Rosemarie:
My 1938 *Webster's* (while I admit that it's hardly up to date) indicates that "dumbledore" is "provincial," whereas "bulblebee" comes from the Latin "bombus" (buzzing). It may be that all three terms are equally "provincial" or equally "standard," and that Elizabeth-Jane is deluding herself in preferring one form to the other as "respectable," i. e., more appropriate to her new station in life. Since Hardy loved those old Dorset expressions, he may be exposing his heroine to a little satire here.
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 14:06:15 +0000
From: Birgit Plietzsch <bp10@st-andrews.ac.uk>
Subject: Kimberlin
I am stuck about the origin of the word "kimberlin". Hardy uses it in _The Well-Beloved_ as an expression used by inhabitants of the Isle of Slingers to refer to people from the mainland Wessex. I cannot find "kimberlin" in either Barnes's _Glossary of the Dorset Dialect_ or in the online OED. Does anybody know whether "kimberlin" was used on the Isle of Portland as Hardy suggests it?
If not, what could have been the source for Hardy's usage?
Thanks for any information,
Birgit Plietzsch
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 07:57:12 -0800
From: Betty Cortus <hardycor@owl.csusm.edu>
Subject: Re: Kimberlin
Birgit, Ralph Elliott, in _Thomas Hardy's English_ defines it as follows:
"Another example of patois occurs in _The Well-Beloved_, where Hardy uses words distinctive of Portland speech: "kimberlin," a local variant of "comeling," denotes an outsider, as Hardy glosses: '"kimberlins", or "foreigners" as strangers from the mainland of Wessex were called.'" Betty Cortus
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From: "Jeanie Smith" <jean_e_smith@hotmail.com>
Subject: Dialect
Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 17:11:25 -000
Dear Luis
I hope these will assist you and good wishes for your studies
Chapman, Raymond. The Language of Thomas Hardy. Basingstoke: Macmillan, = 1990.
Cooper, Andrew R. " 'Folk-Speech' and 'Book-English': Re-Presentations = of Dialect in Hardy's Novels." Language and Literature 3.1 (1994): = 21-41.
Ferguson, Susan L. "Drawing Fictional Lines: Dialect and Narrative in = the Victorian Novel." Style 32.1 (Spring 1998): 1-17.
Payne, K J. "Wessex Dialect." Lore and Language 11.2 (1992-1993): = 155-97.
Taylor, Dennis. Hardy's Literary Language and Victorian Philology. = Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.
Jeanie Smith
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From: "Segura" <lsegura@nova.es>
Subject: Re: RE:Dialect
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 19:41:21 +010
who share the same passion for Hardy's work as I do. Secondly thanks a lot for the information you've given me, which I found really helpfull for the research about dialect.
Rosemarie I went to the address you forwarded me about Wessex dialect which widened my view about the dialect and helped me understand more the context.
Betty I read the book "Thomas Hardy's English" which you recomended and I'm reading one titled "the language of Thomas Hardy" by Raymond Chapman; do you know it?
Thanks again, I'll inform about ideas about the use of the dialect in "The Mayor of Casterbridge" and other books.
Luis Segura
Gracias
s, I'll inform about ideas about the use of the dial
Luis Segura
Gracias
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From: "Jeanie Smith" <jean_e_smith@hotmail.com>
Subject: Dialect
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 19:44:44 -0000
Dear Luis I hope these will assist you and good wishes for your studies Chapman, Raymond. The Language of Thomas Hardy. Basingstoke: Macmillan,1990. Cooper, Andrew R. 'Folk Speech' and 'Book English': Re-Presentations of Dialect in Hardy's Novels. Language and Literature 3.1 (1994):21-41. Ferguson, Susan L. Drawing Fictional Lines: Dialect and Narrative in the Victorian Novel. Style 32.1 (Spring 1998):1-17. Payne, K J. Wessex Dialect. Lore and Language 11.2 (1992-93_:155-197 Taylor, Dennis Hardy's Literary Language and Victorian Philology. Oxford: Clarendeon Press, 1993. Jeanie Smith
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Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 16:51:52 -0500
From: Rosemarie Morgan <rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu>
Subject: Re: Dialect
Thanks Jeanie -- and just to add that all of these titles and more can be found on TTHA's MEMBERS' ONLY PAGE (Members' Research and Resources), on "Jeanie's Bibliography."
http://www.yale.edu/hardysoc/Welcome/welcomet.htm
Cheers,
Rosemarie
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