Appalachian English

Last updated

Appalachian English
Region Southern United States, Appalachia
Ethnicity Appalachians
Early forms
Language codes
ISO 639-3 –
Glottolog appa1236
Appalachian dialect region of United States.png
Appalachia (in white) overlaid with dialect regions defined by the 2006 ANAE. Southern American English is the dominant dialect in the region.

Appalachian English is American English native to the Appalachian mountain region of the Eastern United States. Historically, the term Appalachian dialect refers to a local English variety of southern Appalachia, also known as Smoky Mountain English or Southern Mountain English in American linguistics. [1] This variety is both influential upon and influenced by the Southern U.S. regional dialect, which has become predominant in central and southern Appalachia today, while a Western Pennsylvania regional dialect has become predominant in northern Appalachia, [2] according to the 2006 Atlas of North American English (ANAE). The ANAE identifies the "Inland South", a dialect sub-region in which the Southern U.S. dialect's defining vowel shift is the most developed, [3] as centering squarely in southern Appalachia: namely, the cities of Knoxville and Chattanooga, Tennessee; Birmingham, Alabama; Greenville, South Carolina; and Asheville, North Carolina. [4] All Appalachian English is rhotic and characterized by distinct phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon. It is mostly oral but its features are also sometimes represented in literary works.

Contents

Extensive research has been conducted since the 1930s to determine the origin of the Appalachian dialect. One popular theory is that the dialect is a preserved remnant of 16th-century (or "Elizabethan") English in isolation, [5] [6] though a far more accurate comparison would be to 18th-century (or "colonial") English. [7] Regardless, the Appalachian dialect studied within the last century, like most dialects, actually shows a mix of both older and newer features, [7] with particular Ulster Scots immigrant influences. [8]

Appalachian English has long been a popular stereotype of Appalachians and is criticized both inside and outside the speaking area as an inferior dialect, which is often mistakenly attributed to supposed laziness, lack of education, or the region's relative isolation. American writers throughout the 20th century have used the dialect as the chosen speech of uneducated and unsophisticated characters, though research has largely disproven these stereotypes; however, due to such prejudice, the use of the Appalachian dialect is still often an impediment to educational and social advancement. [9]

Along with these pejorative associations, there has been much debate as to whether Appalachian English constitutes a dialect separate from the American Southern regional dialect, as it shares many core components with it. Research reveals that Appalachian English also includes many grammatical components similar to those of the Midland regional dialect, as well as several unique grammatical, lexical, and phonological features of its own. [10]

Phonology

Phonetics

Phonemic incidence

Research suggests that the Appalachian dialect is one of the most distinctive and divergent dialects within the United States. [16]

Grammar

Pronouns and demonstratives

"Them" is sometimes used in place of "those" as a demonstrative in both nominative and oblique constructions. Examples are "Them are the pants I want" and "Give me some of them crackers."

Oblique forms of the personal pronouns are used as nominative when more than one is used (cf. French moi et toi). For example, "Me and him are real good friends" instead of "He and I are really good friends." Accusative case personal pronouns are used as reflexives in situations which, in American English, do not typically demand them (e.g., "I'm gonna get me a haircut"). The -self/-selves forms are used almost exclusively as emphatics, and then often in non-standard forms (e.g., "the preacher hisself"). Second person pronouns are often retained as subjects in imperative sentences (e.g., "You go an' get you a cookie"). [27]

The possessive absolutive forms, Standard yours, his, hers, theirs, and ours appear as yourn, hisn, hern, theirn, and ourn. [28] The possessive absolute form of "yinz/yunz/you'uns" is yournses.

Pronouns and adjectives are sometimes combined with "'un" (meaning "one"), such as "young'un" to mean "child", "big'un" to mean "big one", and "you'uns" to mean "you all". [29] "Young'n'" and "'big'n'" also are common in Northern England. [30]

The word element "-ever" is sometimes reversed in words such as "whatever" ("everwhat"), "whoever" ("everwho"), and "however" ("everhow"), but the usage remains the same (e.g., "Everwho did this is in big trouble"). [31]

Verbs

Conjugation of the verb "to be"

The conjugation of the verb "to be" is different from that of standard English in several ways, and sometimes more than one form of the verb "to be" is acceptable in Appalachian English. [32]

Divergence from standard English conjugation of the verb "to be" occurs with the highest frequency in the past tense, where grammatically plural subjects also take the singular form "was" rather than "were". Thus, the paradigm of the verb "to be" in Appalachian English more closely resembles the paradigm for other non-"be" verbs in English, where the past tense takes a single form, regardless of number or person. [32]

The use of the word ain't is also one of the most salient features of this dialect. While "ain't" is used to some extent in most American English dialects, it is used with much greater frequency in the Appalachian dialect. [33] Similarly, the phrase "it is" frequently appeared as "it are" in Appalachian English as late as the mid-twentieth century.

Conjugation among other verb types

While the greatest amount of divergence in subject-verb concord occurs in the past tense of the verb 'to be', [32] certain types of plural subjects have an effect on concord across various types of verbs. However, plural subjects continue to show the greatest frequency of non-concord. [34] The example below is taken from Wolfram & Christian (1976 :78):

Conjoined noun phrases:

  • "Me and my sister gets into a fight sometimes."
  • "A boy and his daddy was a-huntin'."

Collective noun phrases:

  • "Some people makes it from fat off a pig."
  • "People's not concerned."

Other plural noun phrases:

  • "...no matter what their parents has taught 'em."
  • "The cars was all tore up."

Expletive 'there':

  • "There's different breeds of 'em."
  • "There was 5 in our family."

A-verb-ing (a-prefixing)

A notable feature of Appalachian English is the a-prefix which occurs with participle forms ending in -ing. [35] This prefix is pronounced as a schwa [ə]. [36] The a-prefix most commonly occurs with progressives, in both past and non-past tenses. For example, "My cousin had a little pony and we was a-ridin' it one day" [37] Common contexts also include where the participle form functions as an adverbial complement, such as after movement verbs (come, go, take off) and with verbs of continuing or starting (keep, start, get to). Examples include "All of a sudden a bear come a-runnin'", and "He just kep' a-beggin'". [38]

Phonological rules and restrictions apply to a-prefixing; for example, it can only occur with verbs accented on the initial syllable: a-fóllowin but not a-discóverin or a-retírin. [39] [40] Moreover, it cannot occur on –ing forms functioning as nouns or adjectives; the forms must function as verbs. Thus, sentences like the movie was a-charmin are ungrammatical. [40] 'A' can only be a prefix of verbs or complements of verbs with –ing. [40] However, the a-prefix may not be attached to a verb which begins with an unstressed syllable, such as discover or retire.

While much less frequent or productive, the a-prefix can also occur on participles ending in -ed, such as "a-haunted" [41]

The a-prefix has been found to occur most frequently in more animated or vivid narratives, as a stylistic device. [42]

Studies suggest that a-prefixing is more common with older speakers and might therefore disappear completely in a few years. [43] Because of the considerable difference of a-prefixing frequency according to age (the frequency varied between 10% and 50%), Walt Wolfram (1976) supports the "(...) contention that a-prefixing is a phenomenon that is dying out in Appalachia". [44]

A-prefixing can be traced back to the 16th century: The construction reached its height from 1500 to 1700 and developed out of using the preposition "on" and a verbal noun ending in -ing. Only used in formal and educated writing in the 17th century, it became nonstandard in the 18th century. [45] Montgomery (2009) argues that a-prefixing developed from the preposition "an"/"on" in Early Middle English and suggests that it arose from the loss of the -n from "on" in examples like "hee set before his eyes king Henrie the eight with all his Lordes on hunting in his forrest at Windsore" (Thomas Nashe, "Unfortunate Traveller", 1594). [46]

'Liketa'

In Appalachian English, the form 'liketa' functions as an adverb and occurs before the past form of a verb. 'Liketa' carries a meaning similar to "on the verge of" or "came so close that I really thought x would", where x is the subject of the verb. It comes from a compression of the phrase "likely to". [47]

  • "I liketa never went to sleep last night."
  • "And I knew what I'd done and boy it liketa scared me to death."

'Liketa' also imposes a notion of impossibility on the clause in which it appears, distinguishing it from the word 'almost'. For example, "They almost made it to the top of the mountain" is allowed but not "They liketa made it to the top of the mountain." 'Liketa' does not carry the same notion of partial truth as 'almost'. [47]

Other verb forms

  • Sometimes the past participle of a strong verb such as "do" is used in place of the past tense. For example, "I done it already" instead of "I did it already" or in the case of the verb "see", "I seen" instead of "I saw". "Went" is often used instead of "gone" as the past participle of the verb "to go". She had went to Ashland. Less frequently, "gone" is used as the simple past tense: "I gone down to the meeting, but wasn't nobody there." "Done" is used with the past tense (or a past participle commonly used as a past tense, such as "gone") to express action just completed, as in "I done went/gone to the store".
  • Some English strong verbs are occasionally conjugated as weak verbs in Appalachian English, e.g. "knowed", and "seed".
  • The construction "don't...no" is used with transitive verbs to indicate the negative, e.g. "He don't know no better." This is commonly referred to as the double negative, and is either negative or emphatically negative, never positive. "None" is often used in place of "any", as in "I don't have none."
  • Verb forms for the verb "to lay" are used instead of forms of the verb "to lie". For example, "Lay down and hush." The same occurs with "set" for "sit", [48] and "leave" for "let".
  • "Might could|would|should" is sometimes used where a speaker of standard English would say "might be able to" or "could maybe". [36] It is often used as a sort of equivalent to "If it weren't for X", such as "I might would, if I had any to spare." This is found in Scots as well. [49]
  • Verbs ending in -st, -sk, and -sp take the syllabic -es rather than Standard -s, pronounced /ɪz/, e.g. "costes". [27]

Nouns

Double nouns

Some nouns are spoken in pairs, the first noun describing the seemingly redundant second noun, as in "hound dog", "Cadillac car", "widow woman", "toad frog", "biscuit bread", or "rifle gun". [50]

Measurement nouns

Measurements such as "foot" and "mile" often retain their singular form even when used in the plural sense. For example, "That stick is 3 foot long", or "We need 6 foot of drywall". [28] This is found in the Scots language. [51]

Adverbs

The word right can be used with adjectives (e.g., "a right cold morning") and along with its standard use with adverbs, can also be used with adverbs of manner and time (e.g., "right loud" or "right often"). [52]

Vocabulary

Being part of the greater Southern United States, the dialect shares many of the same terms of the South. In its relation to south of the Midland, it has several terms in common with its North Midland counterpart, including poke (paper bag), hull (to shell), and blinds (shutters). Certain German-derived words such as smearcase (cottage cheese), however, are present in the North Midland dialect but absent in the Appalachian dialect. [53]

The following is a list of words which occur in the Appalachian dialect. These words are not exclusive to the region, but tend to occur with greater frequency than in other English dialects: [54]

Origins

Early theories regarding the origins of the Appalachian dialect tend to revolve around popular notions regarding the region's general isolation and the belief that the region is culturally static or homogenous. [8] The tendency of Appalachian speakers to retain many aspects of their dialect for a generation or more after moving to large urban areas in the north and west suggests that Appalachian English is conservative rather than isolated. [84]

Beliefs about Appalachia's isolation led to the early suggestion that the dialect was a surviving relic of long-forgotten forms of English. [84] The most enduring of these early theories suggested that the Appalachian dialect was a remnant of Elizabethan English, a theory popularized by Berea College president William Goddell Frost in the late 1800s. [85] However, while Shakespearean words occasionally appear in Appalachian speech (e.g., afeared), these occurrences are rare. [57] David Hackett Fischer (1989) linked the dialect to the Southern Scots and Northumbrian English dialects of northern England, southern Scotland and Ulster. [86] However, many aspects of this theory have been questioned by linguists, with Michael Ellis (1992) arguing that the dialect is difficult to attribute to a single source. [87]

Montgommery (1991, 1995) identifies 18 characteristics of Appalachian grammar, including the use of might could for might be able to, the use of "'un" with pronouns and adjectives (e.g., young'un), the use of "done" as a helping verb (e.g., we done finished it), and 22 words such as airish ("airy") as being derived from the Scotch-Irish, Scottish and Northumbrian dialects of English. [88] [89] [54] [90] The use of double negatives was common in England during the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in the Northern English Cumbrian dialect. [86] Montgommery also identified several features, such as the use of the "a-" prefix (e.g., "a-goin'" for "going") and the attachment of "-ed" to certain verbs (e.g., knowed), as originating in Southern and Midland English dialects. [91] The use of "it are" (usually pronounced "it err") in place of "it is" was common among the rural population of the English Midlands and South in the 1500s, 1600s and 1700s, and was correspondingly common amongst British colonists, in particular English colonists in the original thirteen colonies. The phrase fell out of use in England sometime in the early 1800s; however, it remained in use in the Appalachia region of North America until the mid-to-late twentieth century. [92] [93] A few items characteristic of Appalachian grammar originate, via British English and Scots dialects, in the Old Norse language, having taken root in Britain with Scandinavian settlement there during the Viking Age (c. 800–1050 CE). Two such items are constructions with the word "till" to tell the time of day ("quarter till five") and the use of "at" in place of "that" as both a demonstrative and relative pronoun (Old Norse at ("that")). [87]

Some speech habits which can be traced back to the rural areas of northern England and the Midlands include the h-retention (e.g., hit for it), the use of the word right in the place of very (e.g., "right cold"), and the presence of words such as yonder. [83] Similarly the word "afeared" was common in northern England and the Midlands throughout the 1500s, 1600s and 1700s, though fell out of use in the early 1800s when it was supplanted in literary English after 1700 by the word "afraid". The word was used frequently in the work of Shakespeare. In Appalachia the word simply remained in use and did not get completely supplanted by the word "afraid", unlike in most of the English-speaking world. [54] [94] Though the word "afeared" originates in northern England and throughout the Midlands, it is nonetheless incorrect to refer to the word "afeared" as "Elizabethan" because it was commonly used in England long after the Elizabethan era (including throughout the 1600s). [95]

Some pronunciation features reminiscent of those in the Scottish Lowlands and Ulster can also be heard, such as the pin-pen merger and goose fronting, the Scotch-Irish and English settlers had a strong influence on the Appalachian dialect, [8] linguistic analyses suggest that Appalachian English developed as a distinctive dialect among English-speaking people in North America. [17] The Appalachian dialect retains a number of speech patterns found in Colonial American English but largely discarded in Standard speech, such as "r" intrusion (e.g., "warsh" for "wash") and a "y" sound in place of "a" on the end of certain words (e.g., "okry" for "okra"). [17] The southern drawl is of an unknown American origin, although some of its characteristics suggest a relationship with the drawl of Ulster accents. [96]

Native American influences in the Appalachian dialect are virtually nonexistent except for place names (e.g., "Appalachia", "Tennessee", "Chattahoochee River", "Cheoah Mountains"). While early settlers adopted numerous customs[ which? ] from tribes such as the Cherokee and Shawnee, they typically applied existing words from their own languages to those customs. [36]

Relation to the Ozarks

The traditional Appalachian dialect spread to the Ozark Mountains in northern Arkansas and southern Missouri. Ozark and Appalachian English have been documented together as a single Southern Mountain dialect of the United States. [97] [1] [98]

Appalachian terms found in Ozark English include fireboard, tow sack, jarfly, and brickle and similar speech patterns also exist, such as epenthetic h (hit instead of it), the use of the "a-" prefix ("a-goin'" for "going"), and the d-stop in place of certain "z" sounds (e.g., "idn't" for "isn't"), all of which is seen in other dialects of older Southern American English. Studies have shown that Ozark English has more in common with the dialect of East Tennessee than with the dialect of West Tennessee or even Eastern Arkansas. [99] Other distinctive features of Ozark English include phonological idiosyncrasies (many of which it shares with Appalachian English); [97] certain syntactic patterns, [100] [101] such as the use of for to, rather than to, before infinitives in some constructions; [102] [103] and a number of lexical peculiarities. [104]

Controversies surrounding Appalachian English

Linguistic boundaries of Appalachian English

The systematic study of linguistic boundaries in the United States has advanced, succeeding its inception in 1949. The systematic study of linguistic boundaries in the United States was established by Hans Kurath. [105] Hans Kurath was an American linguist who is acknowledged for his role as chief editor of the Linguistic Atlas of New England. The Linguistic Atlas of New England was the earliest, complete linguistic atlas of a broad region. [106] Furthermore, many of Hans Kurath's initial ideas about linguistic boundaries are under discussion in the modern-day. [105] Appalachian English is one of the linguistic boundaries constructed by Hans Kurath. The origins of Appalachian English can be traced back to Scottish-Irish ancestors, and include unique grammatical and lexical differences [87] Appalachian English can be found in the following states: Ohio; West Virginia; Kentucky; North Carolina; Northern Georgia; Northern South Carolina; western Virginia; Alabama; and Tennessee. [107] Notwithstanding, when it comes to determining its specific boundaries, some linguists believe that the boundaries should be fuzzy lines. These fuzzy lines should provide rough ideas of boundaries, rather than hard lines, because there is a lot of dialectic variety within these small areas that is often difficult to differentiate. [105] The reality is a range of dialectic variants are commonplace in the Appalachian area of the country. Categorizing all of these different variants under one umbrella may actually further complicate the process of studying the variants of Appalachian speech. Appalachian English is thought to be the oldest form of English to date-including the Shakespearean dialect-which can be a factor contributing to the myth of the dialect being outdated. [108]

Stereotypical views of Appalachian English

In addition to the linguistic boundary debates, Appalachian English is surrounded by stereotypical views of the area and the people living in it. A sense of "Appalachianism" is positively correlated with a shortage in access to environmental influences. These environmental influences include the following: housing; schooling; employment; medical assistance; and money. [109] Appalachian English is often viewed by outsiders as a dialect of uneducated people. Individuals from Appalachia tend to be perceived as low-income and lower class, regardless of the individual's actual situation. [110] Historically, these ideas originated prior to the onset of the American Civil War. [109] Appalachian stereotypes are damaging to natives of the area. Consequently, natives hide or modify their accent when visiting or moving to areas outside of Appalachia. This is done in fear of accent discrimination. Accent discrimination undermines intelligence and the character of an individual. [109] Furthermore, easier access to social relations via the internet has expanded the quantity of negative beliefs associated with individuals from Appalachia. [109] Despite all of the debates surrounding this dialect and whether or not its boundaries are legitimate and correct, to the people of Appalachia, their variety of English is central to their identities regardless of how it is seen by linguists, as well as outsiders. [110] According to expert linguist Kirk Hazen, "Appalachia is the most misunderstood region in the nation". [111] There are roles/portrayals of the language that have inspired it to be falsely associated with a stereotypical "hillbilly". Thus, creating misjudgments from non-Appalachians about the region. [111]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 Wells (1982), p. 527.
  2. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 148, 150.
  3. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 254.
  4. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 129, 146, 256.
  5. ↑ Montgomery (1995), pp. 17–18.
  6. ↑ Cooper, Horton. "History of Avery County", Biltmore Press, (1964)
  7. 1 2 Montgomery (2004), p. 246.
  8. 1 2 3 Montgomery (2006), pp. 1000–1001.
  9. ↑ Montgomery (2006), pp. 999–1001.
  10. ↑ Wolfram, Walt 1941– (December 21, 2015). American English : dialects and variation. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN   9781118390221. OCLC   919068264.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  11. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 129, 131.
  12. ↑ Kirk Hazen, "African-American Appalachian English". The Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), p. 1006.
  13. 1 2 Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 248.
  14. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 69–73.
  15. ↑ Montgomery (1995), pp. 20–21.
  16. ↑ Wolfram & Christian (1976), p. 1.
  17. 1 2 3 4 Montgomery (2006), p. 1004.
  18. ↑ Withgott, M. Margaret; Chen, Francine R. (1993). Computational Models of American Speech. Center for the Study of Language (CSLI). p. 27. ISBN   978-0-937073-98-8.
  19. ↑ "The American Heritage Dictionary entry: holler". American Heritage Dictionary. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  20. ↑ Bridget Anderson, "Appalachian English in the Urban North", The Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), p. 1011.
  21. 1 2 P., Wylene. "The Dialect of the Appalachian People". West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  22. ↑ Wolfram & Christian (1976), pp. 58–59.
  23. ↑ Wolfram & Christian (1976), p. 62.
  24. ↑ MKL Ching (December 1996). "GreaZy/GreaSy and Other /Z/-/S/ Choices in Southern Pronunciation". Journal of English Linguistics. 24 (4): 295–307. doi:10.1177/007542429602400405. S2CID   143998129.
  25. ↑ David Walls, "Appalachia". The Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 1006–1007.
  26. ↑ "How do you pronounce Appalachia? – Southern Appalachian English". College of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  27. 1 2 "Grammar and Syntax of Smoky Mountain English (SME) | Southern Appalachian English". www.artsandsciences.sc.edu. Retrieved May 7, 2022.
  28. 1 2 "Grammar and Syntax of Smoky Mountain English (SME) | Southern Appalachian English". artsandsciences.sc.edu. Retrieved May 7, 2022.
  29. ↑ Montgomery (2006), pp. 1002–1003.
  30. ↑ Todd, Jessica Lilly , Roxy (June 13, 2015). "Inside Appalachia: Do We Talk Funny? "Ap-pal-atch-un" vs "Ap-pal-ay-shun"". wvpublic.org. Retrieved March 14, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  31. ↑ Montgomery (2006), p. 103.
  32. 1 2 3 Wolfram & Christian (1976), p. 77.
  33. ↑ Wolfram & Christian (1976), p. 116.
  34. ↑ Wolfram & Christian (1976), p. 78.
  35. ↑ Wolfram & Christian (1976), p. 69.
  36. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Montgomery (2006), p. 1003.
  37. ↑ Wolfram & Christian (1976), p. 70.
  38. ↑ Wolfram & Christian (1976), p. 71.
  39. ↑ Wolfram & Christian (1976), p. 72.
  40. 1 2 3 Wolfram, Walt, and Natalie Schilling-Estes. American English: Dialects and Variation. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2008.
  41. ↑ Wolfram & Christian (1976), p. 74.
  42. ↑ Wolfram & Christian (1976), p. 73.
  43. ↑ Frazer, Timothy C. "More on the Semantics of A-Prefixing." American Speech, 65.1 (1990): 89–93.
  44. ↑ Wolfram & Christian (1976), p. 76.
  45. ↑ Wright (2003), p. 59.
  46. ↑ "A-prefixing | Yale Grammatical Diversity Project: English in North America". ygdp.yale.edu. Retrieved March 14, 2019.
  47. 1 2 Wolfram & Christian (1976), p. 91.
  48. ↑ "set | Southern Appalachian English". artsandsciences.sc.edu. Retrieved May 7, 2022.
  49. ↑ Eagle, Andy. "Wir Ain Leed – Auxiliary and Modal Verbs". scots-online.org. Retrieved May 7, 2022.
  50. ↑ Edward Everett Dale, "The Speech of the Pioneers", The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Summer, 1947), pp. 117-131
  51. ↑ Eagle, Andy. "Wir Ain Leed – Nouns". scots-online.org. Retrieved May 7, 2022.
  52. ↑ Wolfram & Christian (1976), pp. 101–102.
  53. ↑ Montgomery (2006), pp. 1001–1003.
  54. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Montgomery (2006), p. 1002.
  55. 1 2 Thornton, Richard Hopwood (1912). An American Glossary: Being an Attempt to Illustrate Certain Americanisms Upon Historical Principles. Vol. 2. Lippincott. p. 601. a form of the older English phrase, "e'er a." The negative form is "nary" (not any), the AE pronunciation of the archaic "n'er a." Both are widely used in AE. When the word "one" follows, the "w" sound is dropped to form one word, "ary'ne" [pronunciation: AR-in]/"nary'ne" [pronunciation: NAR-in]. When the word "one" is emphasized, however, the "w" sound returns ("ary ONE"/"nary ONE"). Example: "Have ye got any money?" Reply: "NO, I hain't got nary penny. Have YOU [emphasized form of "ye"] got ary'ne?" Contrary to a widespread myth current among non-AE speakers, the word is not followed by the indefinite article (which in fact is built into it).
  56. ↑ Harold Farwell, "Logging Terminology." The Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), p. 1021.
  57. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Montgomery (2006), p. 1001.
  58. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "NCLLP Appalachian English". North Carolina Language and Life Project. September 12, 2008. Archived from the original on December 13, 2021. Retrieved November 13, 2013.
  59. ↑ "Oxford Dictionary" (U.S. Edition 2018)
  60. ↑ "On and On: Appalachian Accent and Academic Power". southerncultures.org/. June 23, 2020.
  61. ↑ Susan Brown, "Biscuits and Salt-Rising Bread." The Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), p. 917.
  62. ↑ "308 – The Pop Vs Soda Map". strangemaps.wordpress.com. August 19, 2008. Archived from the original on August 19, 2008. Retrieved August 13, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  63. ↑ "Benjamin J. Cramer Collection". etsu.edu. February 2, 2008. Archived from the original on February 2, 2008. Retrieved August 13, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  64. 1 2 University of South Carolina, College of Arts and Science. "Dictionary: Southern Appalachian English" . Retrieved March 20, 2007.
  65. 1 2 Wolfram & Christian (1976), p. 97.
  66. ↑ Described as "Upper Southern U.S." in The American Heritage Dictionary (4th ed.), which suggests it is related to words such as "grease", but it is used more broadly, as in "The children made a big gaum, th'owin papers and books all over the place" or "They really gaumed the room up." See: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gaum In The Melungeons: Resurrection of a Proud People (Mercer University Press, 1997).
  67. ↑ Shelby Lee Adams, "Of Kentucky", New York Times (Sunday Review), November 13, 2011, p. 9.
  68. ↑ Michael Ellis, "Appalachian English and Ozark English". The Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), p. 1007.
  69. ↑ University of South Carolina, College of Arts and Science. "Dictionary: Southern Appalachian English". Archived from the original on September 24, 2008. Retrieved October 23, 2008.
  70. ↑ University of South Carolina, College of Arts and Science. "Dictionary: Southern Appalachian English". Archived from the original on September 24, 2008. Retrieved October 23, 2008.
  71. 1 2 Montgomery (2006), p. 1000.
  72. ↑ "Results – word use: paper container from store". Harvard Dialect Survey. April 3, 2007. Archived from the original on April 3, 2007. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  73. ↑ Kenneth Gilbert, "Greens". The Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), p. 935.
  74. ↑ Harry Caudill, Night Comes to the Cumberlands (Boston: Little, Brown, 1963).
  75. ↑ Earley, Tony (1998). "The Quare Gene: What Will Happen to the Secret Language of the Appalachians?". The New Yorker. Vol. 74, no. 28. pp. 80–85.
  76. ↑ Example quoted from Robert Parke, "Our Southern Highlanders", Smoky Mountain Historical Society Newsletter 3, no. 4 (September 1977), p. 8.
  77. ↑ "Appalachians Are Finding Pride in Mountain Twang". news.nationalgeographic.com. August 11, 2007. Archived from the original on August 11, 2007. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  78. ↑ Fischer (1989), p. 653.
  79. ↑ Davy Crockett, James Shackford, et al. (ed.), A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1973), p. 18.
  80. ↑ "Smart". Southern US Dialect/Glossary. The Dialect Dictionary. Archived from the original on April 26, 2012. Retrieved December 4, 2011.
  81. ↑ "American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth edition". 2000. Retrieved March 31, 2007.
  82. ↑ Ellis, Encyclopedia of Appalachia, p. 1007.
  83. 1 2 Montgomery (1995), p. 30.
  84. 1 2 Montgomery (1995), p. 17.
  85. ↑ Montgomery (1995), p. 18.
  86. 1 2 Fischer (1989), p. 654.
  87. 1 2 3 ELLIS, MICHAEL (1992). "On the Use of Dialect as Evidence: "Albion's Seed" in Appalachia". Appalachian Journal. 19 (3): 278–297. ISSN   0090-3779. JSTOR   40933361.
  88. ↑ Montgommery, Michael (1991). "The Roots of Appalachian English: Scotch-Irish or British Southern?". Appalachian Journal. 3 (3): 177–191. JSTOR   41445611.
  89. ↑ Montgomery, Michael, and Joseph S. Hall. Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2004.
  90. ↑ Montgomery (1995), pp. 22–27.
  91. ↑ Montgomery (1995), pp. 28–29.
  92. ↑ Appalachian Speech by Walt Wolfram, Donna Christian, Center for Applied Linguistics Center for Applied Linguistics, 1976. Pp. 114, 120
  93. ↑ Higgs, Robert J. (1995). Appalachia Inside Out: Culture and custom. University of Tennessee Press. p. 513. ISBN   978-0-87049-876-3.
  94. ↑ "Definition of afeared". dictionary.com. July 10, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  95. ↑ Mountain Speech in the Great Smokies, United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1941, pg. 10
  96. ↑ Montgomery (1995), p. 21.
  97. 1 2 Williams, A. Lynn (2003). Speech Disorders: Resource Guide for Preschool Children. Cengage Learning. p. 43. ISBN   0-7693-0080-4.
  98. ↑ Dillard, Joey Lee; Blanton, Linda L. (1985). Toward a Social History of American English. Walter de Gruyter. p. 83. ISBN   978-3-11-010584-1.
  99. ↑ Michael Ellis, Encyclopedia of Appalachia, pp. 1007–1008.
  100. ↑ Suzette H. Elgin (1981). "The Ozark WHICH/THAT". The Lonesome Node. 1 (2): 2–7.
  101. ↑ Suzette H. Elgin (1983). "On Cows and the Ozark English Auxiliary". The Lonesome Node. 3 (2): 9–16.
  102. ↑ Henry, Alison (1995). Belfast English and Standard English: Dialect Variation and Parameter Setting. Oxford University Press. p. 81. ISBN   978-0-19-508292-0.
  103. ↑ Rebecca Haden (1993). "Notes on the For–To Complement in Ozark English". Ozark English Quarterly. 1: 7–8.
  104. ↑ American Dialect Society (1918). Dialect Notes. American Dialect Society. p. 472. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  105. 1 2 3 Johnson, Ellen (1994). "Yet Again: The Midland Dialect". American Speech. 69 (4): 419–430. doi:10.2307/455860. JSTOR   455860.
  106. ↑ "Hans Kurath | American linguist | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved April 28, 2022.
  107. ↑ Luhman, Reid (September 1990). "Appalachian English stereotypes: Language attitudes in Kentucky*". Language in Society. 19 (3): 331–348. doi: 10.1017/S0047404500014548 . ISSN   1469-8013. S2CID   144649957.
  108. ↑ Williams, Cratis (1978). "Appalachian Speech". The North Carolina Historical Review. 55 (2): 174–179. ISSN   0029-2494. JSTOR   23534761.
  109. 1 2 3 4 Walker, Matthew (2012). "Discrimination based on national origin and ancestry: How the goals of equality have failed to address the pervasive stereotyping of the Appalachian tradition". HeinOnline. Retrieved March 22, 2022.
  110. 1 2 American voices : how dialects differ from coast to coast. Walt Wolfram, Ben Ward. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. 2006. ISBN   1-4051-2108-4. OCLC   60766979.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  111. 1 2 Shaffer, Aishina (June 12, 2017). "The "H" word: fighting negative language stereotypes in Appalachia".

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American English</span> Varieties of English native to the United States

American English (AmE), sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States; the de facto common language used in government, education and commerce; and an official language of most U.S. states. Since the late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide.

North American English is the most generalized variety of the English language as spoken in the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), vocabulary, and grammar of American English and Canadian English, the two spoken varieties are often grouped together under a single category. Canadians are generally tolerant of both British and American spellings, with British spellings of certain words preferred in more formal settings and in Canadian print media; for some other words the American spelling prevails over the British.

African-American English is the set of English sociolects spoken by most Black people in the United States and many in Canada; most commonly, it refers to a dialect continuum ranging from African-American Vernacular English to a more standard American English. Like all widely spoken language varieties, African-American English shows variation stylistically, generationally, geographically, in rural versus urban characteristics, in vernacular versus standard registers, etc. There has been a significant body of African-American literature and oral tradition for centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homograph</span> Distinct words with identical written forms

A homograph is a word that shares the same written form as another word but has a different meaning. However, some dictionaries insist that the words must also be pronounced differently, while the Oxford English Dictionary says that the words should also be of "different origin". In this vein, The Oxford Guide to Practical Lexicography lists various types of homographs, including those in which the words are discriminated by being in a different word class, such as hit, the verb to strike, and hit, the noun a strike.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Appalachia</span> Geographic region in the Appalachian Mountains of the Eastern United States

Appalachia is a geographic region located in the central and southern sections of the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States. Its boundaries stretch from the western Catskill Mountains of New York into Pennsylvania, continuing on through the Blue Ridge Mountains and Great Smoky Mountains into northern Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, with West Virginia being the only state in which the entire state is within the boundaries of Appalachia. In 2021, the region was home to an estimated 26.3 million people, of whom roughly 80% were white.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madí language</span> Arawan language spoken in Brazil

Madí—also known as Jamamadí after one of its dialects, and also Kapaná or Kanamanti (Canamanti)—is an Arawan language spoken by about 1,000 Jamamadi, Banawá, and Jarawara people scattered over Amazonas, Brazil.

Southern American English or Southern U.S. English is a regional dialect or collection of dialects of American English spoken throughout the Southern United States, though concentrated increasingly in more rural areas, and spoken primarily by White Southerners. In terms of accent, its most innovative forms include southern varieties of Appalachian English and certain varieties of Texan English. Popularly known in the United States as a Southern accent or simply Southern, Southern American English now comprises the largest American regional accent group by number of speakers. Formal, much more recent terms within American linguistics include "Southern White Vernacular English" and "Rural White Southern English".

In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, age group, or other social group.

There are a variety of pronunciations in Modern English and in historical forms of the language for words spelled with the letter ⟨a⟩. Most of these go back to the low vowel of earlier Middle English, which later developed both long and short forms. The sound of the long vowel was altered in the Great Vowel Shift, but later a new long A developed which was not subject to the shift. These processes have produced the main four pronunciations of ⟨a⟩ in present-day English: those found in the words trap, face, father and square. Separate developments have produced additional pronunciations in words like wash, talk and comma.

New England English is, collectively, the various distinct dialects and varieties of American English originating in the New England area. Most of eastern and central New England once spoke the "Yankee dialect", some of whose accent features still remain in Eastern New England today, such as "R-dropping". Accordingly, one linguistic division of New England is into Eastern versus Western New England English, as defined in the 1939 Linguistic Atlas of New England and the 2006 Atlas of North American English (ANAE). The ANAE further argues for a division between Northern versus Southern New England English, especially on the basis of the cot–caught merger and fronting. The ANAE also categorizes the strongest differentiated New England accents into four combinations of the above dichotomies, simply defined as follows:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hejazi Arabic</span> Variety of Arabic spoken in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia

Hejazi Arabic or Hijazi Arabic (HA), also known as West Arabian Arabic, is a variety of Arabic spoken in the Hejaz region in Saudi Arabia. Strictly speaking, there are two main groups of dialects spoken in the Hejaz region, one by the urban population, originally spoken mainly in the cities of Jeddah, Mecca, Medina and partially in Ta'if and another dialect by the urbanized rural and bedouin populations. However, the term most often applies to the urban variety which is discussed in this article.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">English language</span> West Germanic language

English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, whose speakers, called Anglophones, originated in early medieval England on the island of Great Britain. The namesake of the language is the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to Britain. It is the most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the global influences of the former British Empire and the United States. English is the third-most spoken native language, after Standard Chinese and Spanish; it is also the most widely learned second language in the world, with more second-language speakers than native speakers.

Older Southern American English is a diverse set of American English dialects of the Southern United States spoken most widely up until the American Civil War of the 1860s, before gradually transforming among its White speakers, first, by the turn of the 20th century, and, again, following the Great Depression, World War II, and, finally, the Civil Rights Movement. By the mid-20th century, among White Southerners, these local dialects had largely consolidated into, or been replaced by, a more regionally unified Southern American English. Meanwhile, among Black Southerners, these dialects transformed into a fairly stable African-American Vernacular English, now spoken nationwide among Black people. Certain features unique to older Southern U.S. English persist today, like non-rhoticity, though typically only among Black speakers or among very localized White speakers.

Chippewa is an Algonquian language spoken from upper Michigan westward to North Dakota in the United States. It represents the southern component of the Ojibwe language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Midland American English</span> Variety of English spoken in the United States

Midland American English is a regional dialect or super-dialect of American English, geographically lying between the traditionally-defined Northern and Southern United States. The boundaries of Midland American English are not entirely clear, being revised and reduced by linguists due to definitional changes and several Midland sub-regions undergoing rapid and diverging pronunciation shifts since the early-middle 20th century onwards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern American English</span> Class of historically related American English dialects

Northern American English or Northern U.S. English is a class of historically related American English dialects, spoken by predominantly white Americans, in much of the Great Lakes region and some of the Northeast region within the United States. The North as a superdialect region is best documented by the 2006 Atlas of North American English (ANAE) in the greater metropolitan areas of Connecticut, Western Massachusetts, Western and Central New York, Northwestern New Jersey, Northeastern Pennsylvania, Northern Ohio, Northern Indiana, Northern Illinois, Northeastern Nebraska, and Eastern South Dakota, plus among certain demographics or areas within Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Vermont, and New York's Hudson Valley. The ANAE describes that the North, at its core, consists of the Inland Northern dialect and Southwestern New England dialect.

Texan English is the array of American English dialects spoken in Texas, primarily falling under Southern U.S. English. As one nationwide study states, the typical Texan accent is a "Southern accent with a twist". The "twist" refers to inland Southern U.S., older coastal Southern U.S., and South Midland U.S. accents mixing together, due to Texas's settlement history, as well as some lexical (vocabulary) influences from Mexican Spanish. In fact, there is no single accent that covers all of Texas and few dialect features are unique to Texas alone. The newest and most innovative Southern U.S. accent features are best reported in Lubbock, Odessa, somewhat Houston and variably Dallas, though general features of this same dialect are found throughout the state, with several exceptions: Abilene and somewhat Austin, Corpus Christi, and El Paso appear to align more with Midland U.S. accents than Southern ones.

Kiwai is a Papuan language, or languages, of southern Papua New Guinea. Dialects number 1,300 Kope, 700 Gibaio, 1,700 Urama, 700 Arigibi, 3,800 Coast, 1,000 Daru, 4,500 Island, 400 Doumori. Wurm and Hattori (1981) classify Arigibi as a separate language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York accent</span> Sound system of New York City English

The sound system of New York City English is popularly known as a New York accent. The accent of the New York metropolitan area is one of the most recognizable in the United States, largely due to its popular stereotypes and portrayal in radio, film, and television. Several other common names exist based on more specific locations, such as Bronx accent, Brooklyn accent, Queens accent, Long Island accent, North Jersey accent. Research supports the continued classification of all these under a single label, despite some common assumptions among locals that they meaningfully differ.

In the sociolinguistics of the English language, raising or short-a raising is a phenomenon by which the "short a" vowel, the TRAP/BATH vowel, is pronounced with a raising of the tongue. In most American and many Canadian English accents, raising is specifically tensing: a combination of greater raising, fronting, lengthening, and gliding that occurs only in certain phonological environments or certain words. The most common context for tensing throughout North American English, regardless of dialect, is when this vowel appears before a nasal consonant.

References

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.