ABSTRACT
Special languages are the result of social divisions. In principle, therefore, they are as natural as dialects, but they are always born of the very heart of a common language, from which they usually continue to draw their sustenance. It is an established fact to-day that linguistic peculiarities never have an identical area of distribution, in other words, that the isoglossal boundaries do not coincide, but are independent of each other. Even within the French domain we can establish dialectical divisions by selecting certain special features which suffice to define the dialect. Between the speech of Picardy and Walloon, or between the dialects of Picardy and Normandy, however, there are other distinctive characteristics which make it possible roughly to fix the boundaries of these dialects. In Greece, the epic dialect was not the lyric dialect; and in the drama two different dialects were employed for dialogue and chorus.
