a, year-a, yerry; chur-a,
churray. When "eye" is written "y-eye," it is to be pronounced "yi." In
such words as "back," "ax," _a_ has the sound of _ah_. They are written
"bahk," "ahx."

Professor J. A. Harrison of the Washington and Lee University,
Lexington, Virginia, has recently written a paper on "The Creole Patois
of Louisiana,"[i_21] which is full of interest to those interested in the
study of dialects. In the course of his paper, Professor Harrison says:
"Many philologists have noted the felicitous [Greek: _aithiopizein_] of
Uncle Remus in the negro dialect of the South. The Creole lends itself
no less felicitously to the _recit_ and to the _conte_, as we may say on
good authority. The fables of La Fontaine and Perrin, and the Gospel of
St. John have, indeed, been translated into the dialect of San Domingo
or Martinique; lately we have had a Greek plenipotentiary turning Dante
into the idiom of New Hellas; what next? Any one who has seen the
delightful 'Chansons Canadiennes' of M. Ernest Gagnon (Quebec, 1880)
knows what pleasant things may spring from the naive consciousness of
the people. The Creole of Louisiana lends itself admirably to those
_petits poemes_, those simple little dramatic tales, compositions,
improvisations, which, shunning the regions of abstraction and
metaphysics, recount the experiences of a story-teller, put into
striking and pregnant syllabuses the memorabilia of some simple life, or
sum up in pointed monosyllables the humor of plantation anecdote."
Professor Harrison alludes to interesting examples of the Creole negro
dialect that occur in the works of Mr. George W. Cable, and in
"L'Habitation Saint-Ybars," by Dr. Alfred Mercier, an accomplished
physician and _litterateur_ of New Orleans. In order to show the
possibilities of the Creole negro dialect, the following _Conte Negre_,
after Dr. Mercier, is given. The story is quoted by Professor Harrison,
and the literal interlinear version is inserted by him to give a clue to
the meaning. The Miss Meadows of the Georgia negro, it will be
perceived, becomes Mamzel Calinda, and the story is one with which the
readers of the first volume of Uncle Remus are familiar. It is entitled
"Mariage Mlle. Calinda."

1. Dan tan le zote foi, compair Chivreil ave compair
Dans temps les autres fois, compere Chevreuil avec compere

2. Torti te tou le de ape fe lamou a Mamzel Calinda.
Tortue etaient tous les deux apres faire l'amou