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Show 18 WESTERN WILDS. Iowa and Minnesota were doubtless settled by the best class of im-migrants that ever left the East. Their laws are favorable, their insti-tutions progressive. Born republicans, these new- comers fell, by nat-ural law, into free and progressive commonwealths. At first view one would say that our mother English was in danger of being lost, and that a new language would, ere long, rise in these mixed communities. But English is the language of progress, and that tongue in which laws are written and courts conducted will in time become the ver-nacular of any new country. In no part of America is a purer English spoken. The native of Indiana finds, when settled beside the Yankee, that he must drop some of his " Hoosierisms ;" while the accent and idiom brought from " Down East " are insensibly modified, till the children of both compromise on the written language. Two hundred years ago when a man spoke in the British Parliament it was known on the instant what shire he represented ; travel and civilization have since made the cultured Northumbrian and East Angle to be of one speech. No grammar of the " Hoosier " language has ever been published. Before it becomes extinct, as have so many dialects, it may be well for one who spoke it in his childhood to fix a few of its idioms. It abounds in negatives. Unlike English and Latin, an abundance of negatives is held to strengthen the sentence. " Don't know nothing" is com-mon. " See here," says the native, looking for work, to the farmer, " you don't know o' nobody what don't want to hire nobody to do nothin' nowhere around here, don't you?" " No," is the reply, " I don't." " I reckon " is a fair offset for the Yankee " I guess " the one, as> commonly used, about as reasonable as the other. But it is on the verb to do that the " Hoosier " tongue is most effective. Here is the ordinary conjugation : Present Tense. Regular, as in English. Imperfect Tense. I done it, you done it, he done it. Plural We ' uns done it, you ' uns done it, they ' uns done it. Perfect Tense. I gone done it, you gone done it, he gone done it. Plural We ' uns gone done it, you ' uns gone done it, they ' uns gone done it. Pluperfect. I bin gone done it, you bin gone done it, etc. First Future. I gwine to do it, you gwine to do it, etc. Second Future. I gwine to gone done it, etc. Plural We ' uns gwine to gone done it, you ' uns gwine to gone done it, they ' uns gwine to gone done it. Philologically this language is the result of a union between the rude |
