Sufficient importance does not seem to have been hitherto attached to watching the growth and change of living languages. We have devoted our philological energies to the study of dead tongues which we could not pronounce, and have therefore been compelled to compare by letters rather than by sounds, and which we know only in the form impressed upon them by scholars of various times. The form in which they were originally written is for ever concealed. The form in which they appear in the earliest manuscripts has practically never been published, but has to be painfully collected from a mass of various readings. The form we know is a critical, conjectural form, patched up by men distinguished for scholarship, but for the most part entirely ignorant of the laws which govern the changes of speech. The very orthography is medieval. We are thus enabled to see as little of the real genesis of language, in form, in sound, in grammatical and logical construction, in short in the real pith of philological investigation--the relation of thought to speech-sounds--as the study of a full-grown salmon would enable us to judge of the marvellous development of that beautiful fish. Such studies as the present will, I hope, serve among others to stimulate exertion in the new direction. We cannot learn life by studying fossils alone. ALEX. J. ELLIS. KENSINGTON, 23 APRIL, 1872. CONTENTS. CHAPTER. I. People, History, Location, Condition, pp. 1-6. II. Phonology, pp. 7-16. § 1. Use of the Alphabet, p. 7. § 2. Vowels, p. 8. § 3. Dipthongs, p. 9. § 4. Nasal Vowels and Dipthongs, p. 10. § 5. Consonants, p. 11. § 6. Stein or Schtein? p. 12. § 7. Vowel changes, p. 13. § 8. Dipthong changes, p. 14. § 9. Words lengthened, p. 15. § 10. Words shortened, p. 15. III. Vocabulary (of peculiar words), pp. 17-23. IV. Gender, pp. 24-27. § 1. Gender of English Words in Pennsylvania German, p. 24. § 2. The German Genders, p. 26. V. § 1. The English Infusion, p. 28. § 2. Newspapers, p. 29. VI. Syntax, pp. 34-40. VII. Comparisons with other Dialects, pp. 41-48. § 1. PG. not Swiss, p. 41. PG. Poem, p. 42. § 2. PG. not Bavarian. Specimen, with PG. translation, p. 43. § 3. PG. not Suabian, p. 44. Curious colloquy, p. 44. § 4. PG. not Alsatian, p. 45. German-French example, p. 46. § 5. PG. is akin to several South German Dialects, p. 46. Examples, p. 47. VIII. Examples of PG., pp. 49-56. § 1. Wiider aa˛geschmiirt! (Prose), p. 49. § 2. Wii kummt ſ? (Prose), p. 52. § 3. Will widd'r Biiwǝli sei˛ (Verse), p. 55.