Welsh Journals

incognita even to the regular visitor the dialect of the Englishry. After I had been living in the peninsula a year, I had become fascinated by this strange tongue and at odd moments I had managed to scrape together about two hundred Gower words and expressions, of which I was very proud. I had realized for some time that an analysis of the dialect might be the key to most of the ethnological problems relating to the Gower English and that someone ought to be noting down as much of it as remained. I went on jotting, but it was a slow business. One or two Gower men helped me actively many were willing but found it difficult to recall to order the everyday words they were using, many were as reluctant to discuss their rustic speech as they might be about revealing their income tax. Recently, to my relief, I learned that Mr. Horatio Tucker, of Overton, whose articles on Gower have been delighting readers of the Swansea Evening Post in the last few months, has been applying himself to the dialect of Gower for many years. He would not admit to being called an expert on the subject but he has been recording and compiling a glossary with an admirable thoroughness he has the indispensable advantage, too, of being a true native of Gower, and he has been familiar with the dialect himself since he was a boy. Mag- nanimously, Mr. Tucker has placed this excellent glossary at the disposal of the Gower Society and he has accepted our invitation to prepare a publication on the dialect of Gower, with the collaboration of any who are able and willing to assist. The following article is a foretaste of what we may expect, and we have asked him to add a short selection from his glossary, as an introduction to a subject on which so little work has been done up to the present. Mr. Tucker feels that his collection is far from being complete, and that there are many Gower folk who could contribute dialect words and local variations which have so far not been recorded. If the natives of Gower wish to help piece together their own interesting history-this is one of the ways they can do it. Anyone who would like to help is invited to communicate either with Mr. Tucker or the editors of the Journal they may well be able to supply details which will prove useful additions to the very valuable work that Mr. Tucker has undertaken. J.M.T. THE DIALECT SPEECH OF GOWER The next few decades will most certainly see the complete eclipse of dialect speech in Gower. Many powerful factors are working together to flatten out regional distinctions of the English tongue- not the least of which is the broadcast of standard English by the B.B.C. The Gower dialect has been neglected by scholars in the past, and consequently, many old words have died out without being recorded. The vocabularies of Gower speech which have been com-