The truth of this remark was confirmed by Mr Bramble from his own
experience; but he accounted for it on another principle. He
said, the same observation would hold in all languages; that a
Swiss talking French was more easily understood than a Parisian,
by a foreigner who had not made himself master of the language;
because every language had its peculiar recitative, and it would
always require more pains, attention, and practice, to acquire
both the words and the music, than to learn the words only; and
yet no body would deny, that the one was imperfect without the
other: he therefore apprehended, that the Scotchman and the Swiss
were better understood by learners, because they spoke the words
only, without the music, which they could not rehearse. One would
imagine this check might have damped the North Briton; but it
served only to agitate his humour for disputation. -- He said, if
every nation had its own recitative or music, the Scots had
theirs, and the Scotchman who had not yet acquired the cadence of
the English, would naturally use his own in speaking their
language; therefore, if he was better understood than the native,
his recitative must be more intelligible than that of the
English; of consequence, the dialect of the Scots had an
advantage over that of their fellow-subjects, and this was
another strong presumption that the modern English had corrupted
their language in the article of pronunciation.
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