“ Thus it may be incorrect, from the historical point of view, to say that “dialect” varieties of a language represent degradations of the standard language. A “literary” accepted language, such as modern English, represents the original language spoken in the Midlands, with accretions of Norman, French, and later literary and scientific additions from classical and other sources, while the present-day “dialects” preserve, in inflections, pronunciation and particular words, traces of the original variety of the language not incorporated in the standard language of the country. ”