If, they ask, the negro has
corrupted the English of the South, why is it that he has not also
corrupted the language of the West Indies--British and French? French
negroes speak like French persons of white blood, and British West
Indian negroes often speak the cockney dialect, without a trace of
"nigger." Moreover, it is pointed out that in southern countries, the
world over, there is a tendency to soften the harsh sounds of language,
to elide, and drop out consonants. The Andalusians speak a Spanish
comparable in many of its peculiarities with the English of our own
South, and the south-Italians exhibit similar dialectic traits. Nor do
the parallels between the north and south of Spain and Italy, and of the
United States, end there. The north-Italians and north-Spaniards are the
"Yankees" of their respective countries--the shrewd, cold business
people--whereas the south-Italians and south-Spaniards are more poetic,
more dashing, more temperamental. The merchants are of the north of
Spain, but the dancers and bull-fighters are Andalusians. And just as
our Americans of the North admire the lazy dialect of the South, so the
north-Spaniards admire the dialect of Andalusia, and even imitate it
because they think it has a fashionable sound--quite as British
fashionables cultivate the habit of dropping final _g_'s, as in
"huntin'" for "hunting.
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