Slang
distinct language. But insistence is laid upon the fact that the transformation of a dialect into a language is a process that usually has required centuries. The transformation of the original Latin language into the modern Latin languages, so called, which include Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Provencal, Romance, Roumanian, etc., illustrates the slowness of the process. These languages remained Latin dialects until the fifth or sixth century. In fact, in the Italian, for instance, the vulgar Latin dialect became Italian only in the thirteenth century, and then mainly through the initiative and works of Dante.
Dr. C. O. Mailloux—Excerpt from a letter to the N. Y. Herald.
Slang has no country, it owns the world; and if language exists beyond our little globe, slang is punctuated by the stars. Sometimes it is called dialect; but dialect is less elemental than slang, which is nearer universal. Slang is the voice of the god that dwells in the people. It is a spiritual law. It is the coarsest of crude matter. it is the rude artisan that carves ugliness into beauty. It is the drunken workman that defaces his work. It is the jade who defiles a statue. It may be anything.
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