Is het algemeen beschaafd armoedig?
It must be remembered that dialect is less able to express the higher interests of the mind: people whose minds are awake and developed cannot be confined to a dialect. The Common-speech is in itself richer in colour and opens wider vistas and there is plenty of room in it for that picturesque variety which in the opinion of many people can only be retained by the preservation of dialects. If we think out logically and bravely what is for the good of society, our view of language will lead us to the conclusion that it is our duty to work in the direction which natural evolution has already taken, i.e. towards the diffusion of the common language at the cost of local dialects.
O. Jespersen: Mankind, nation and individual from a linguistic point of view, blz. 81.
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