High Tider

Last updated

High Tider
Hoi Toider
Native to North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland
Region Outer Banks, Pamlico Sound, Chesapeake Bay
Ethnicity Americans
Native speakers
Unreported
Early forms
Language codes
ISO 639-3 –
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

High Tider, Hoi Toider, or Hoi Toide English is a family or continuum of American English dialects spoken in very limited communities of the South Atlantic United States, [1] particularly several small islands and coastal townships. The exact areas include the rural "Down East" region of North Carolina, which encompasses the Outer Banks and Pamlico Sound —specifically Ocracoke, Atlantic, Davis, Sea Level, and Harkers Island in eastern Carteret County, and the village of Wanchese —plus the Chesapeake Bay, such as Smith Island in Maryland, as well as Guinea Neck and Tangier Island in Virginia. [2] The High Tider sound has been observed as far west as Bertie County, North Carolina; the term is also a local nickname for any native-speaking resident of the relevant North Carolina region.

Contents

These dialects do not have a name that is uniformly used in the academic literature, with "Hoi Toider" used for the Outer Banks and mainly Ocracoke; rather, a variety of names exist based on location, such as Down East, Outer Banks, or Chesapeake Bay English, dialect, brogue, or accent. [3] Most speakers in the Outer Banks themselves refer to their dialect as "the brogue". [4] Ocracoke English and Smith Island English are the two best-studied varieties, with the linguists Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling researching them in detail since the 1990s onwards. [5]

The 2006 Atlas of North American English does not consider these dialects to fall under the Southern U.S. regional dialect since they do not participate in the first stage of the Southern Vowel Shift, but they share commonalities as full members of the larger Southeastern regional super-dialect in fronting the /oʊ/ and /aʊ/ vowels, exhibiting the pin–pen merger, resisting the cot–caught merger, and being strongly rhotic with a retroflex /r/ .

History

The term "hoi toide" appears in a local colloquial rhyme, "It's high tide on the sound side", often phonetically spelled "hoi toide on the saind soide" [hɒɪˈtɒɪdɑnðəˈsaɪndsɒɪd], [6] as a marker of pronunciation to sharply differentiate speakers of the Outer Banks brogue from speakers of the mainland Southern dialects. The phrase was first recorded as a significant identifier of the dialect in 1993, and has since been used frequently for "performative" purposes by native speakers to demonstrate the dialect to outsiders. [7]

With a long history of geographical and economic isolation from mainland North Carolina, Outer Banks areas such as Ocracoke Island, Harkers Island, and Atlantic developed a distinct dialect of English. Linguists who have studied this dialect note that it has "roots ... in a number of Early Modern English dialects", [8] spoken in different parts of Britain between about 1650 and 1750. Following settlement, the dialect of these island communities developed in relative isolation for more than 250 years.

High Tider shares features with other dialects of the Atlantic coast of the U.S. Certain pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammatical constructions can be traced back to a mixture of the colonial English dialects of Ireland (including Scots-Irish dialects), eastern England, and southwestern England (compare the West Country dialects). [9] The distinctness of the High Tider dialects has survived because of the inherent isolation of islands and these communities continuing to depend on traditional trades, like fishing, boat building, and decoy carving. Indeed, the coastal tourism trade is relatively recent, beginning only in the 2000s, on islands like Ocracoke, [10] [11] and still minimal on Smith Island.

As many as 500 islanders on Harkers Island are directly descended from the Harkers Island and Outer Banks original settlers that first developed this distinct dialect. Linguists from North Carolina State University, East Carolina University, and other academic institutions continue to conduct research on the island dialect. [10] It has been in slow decline in the 21st century. [12]

Phonological features

The chart below lists the vowel sounds in two High Tider accents: one of Smith Island (Maryland) in the Chesapeake Bay and the other of Ocracoke (North Carolina) in the Outer Banks. The symbol "~" is used here to indicate that pronunciations on either side of it form a spectrum of possibilities. The symbol ">" indicates that the pronunciations to its left are more widespread and pronunciations to its right are more marginal. Phonologically, these two example accents are united under the High Tider dialect primarily by their similar /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ vowels; both also show a greater or lesser degree of "vowel breaking" (or drawling) of the front vowels especially when positioned before the ⟨sh⟩ consonant /ʃ/ .

Pure vowels (monophthongs)
English diaphoneme Smith Island Ocracoke Example words
/æ/ [æ~a] [13] [æ] [14] grab, lack, trap
/æ/ before /d,l,m,n,s,t,z/ [æə~ɛə] [14] bad, dance, half
/æ/ before /ɡ,ŋ,ʃ/ [æɪ] [14] ash, bag, tank
/ɑː/ [note 1] [ɑ̈ː~aː] [13] [ɑ̈ː] [13] ~[ɑː] > [ɒ] [14] blah, calm, father
/ɒ/ lot, fox, sock
/ɒ/ before /ʃ/ [ɒɪ] [14] wash
/ɔː/ [ɑo] > [ɑː~ɑ̈ː] [13] [ɔː~oː] [13] [14] > [ɑo] [13] dog, hawk, saw
/ɔː/ before /d,f,l,s,t,v,z/ [oə]all, cross, flawed
/ɛ/ [ɜ~ʌ] [13] [ɛ] [13] [14] kept, method, wreck
/ɛ/ before /d,ð,f,l,m,n,s,t,v,z/ & esp. /ʃ/ [ɜ~ʌ] > [eɪ] [13] [eɪ] [13] ~[ɛə] [14] dress, fresh, mesh
/ɪ/ [ɪ] [14] blip, dig, tick
/ɪ/ before /d,ð,f,l,m,n,s,t,v,z/ & esp. /ʃ,tʃ/ [ɪ~ɛ] > [iɪ][iɪ] [13] ~[ɪə] [14] ditch, fish, kit
/iː/ [əɪ~ɜɪ] [13] [ɪ̈ɨ] > [ɪɨ] [14] beam, chic, fleet
/iː/ before /l/ (& occasionally /n,z/ )[iə]eel, real
/i/ word-final[ɪ] [13] [i] > [ɪ] [13] money
/ʌ/[ɜ~ɛ] [13] [ɜ~ɛ] [13] [14] bus, flood, what
/ʌ/ before /ʃ/ [ɜɪ] [14] gush, hush, Russia
/ʊ/ before /ʃ/ [ʊ][ʊɪ] [14] cushion, push
/uː/ [ɪ̈ː] [13] [ʊu~ɪ̈ː] > [uː] [13] [14] food, glue, lute
Diphthongs
/aɪ/ [ɒɪ~ɑɪ~ʌɪ] [13] [14] [əɪ] [15] ride, shine, try
/aʊ/ [ɜɪ] > [aʊ~äɪ] [13] [aʊ~äɪ] [14] now, loud, sow
/aʊ/ before /s,θ,t,tʃ/ [aʊ] > [ɐʊ] [14] house, ouch, scout
/aʊ/ before /l,r/ [aʊ]howl, power, tower
/eɪ/ [æɪ~aɪ] [13] [ɜɪ~ɛɪ] [14] lame, rein, plate
/eɪ/ before /l/ [eə] [14] nail, sail, pale
/ɔɪ/ [ɔɪ]boy, choice, moist
/oʊ/ [œʊ] > [oʊ] [14] goat, oh, show
/oʊ/ unstressed and word-final[ɚ] [13] fellow, mosquito
R-colored vowels
/ɑːr/ [ɑɚ~ɑːɻ] [14] barn, car, park
/aɪər/ [ɑɚ~ɑːɻ] [14] fire, lyre, tired
/ɛər/ [ɛɚ] > [æɚ]bare, bear, there
/ɜːr/ [əɻ~ɚ][ɝ~ʌɻ]burn, first, learn
/ər/ [əɻ~ɚ]doctor, letter, martyr
/ɔːr/ [oʊɚ~oʊɻ]course, shore, tour

The phonology, or pronunciation system, of High Tider English is highly different from the English spoken in the rest of the United States. The High Tider dialect is marked with numerous unique phonological features and sound changes:

Lexical features

These island dialects exhibit unique vocabulary in regular usage. Some examples include mommick, meaning "to frustrate" or "bother", yethy, describing stale or unpleasant odor, and nicket, meaning a pinch of something used as in cooking. The islanders have also developed unique local words used in regular conversation, including dingbatter to refer to a visitor or recent arrival to the island, and dit-dot, a term developed from a joke about Morse code, and used to describe any visitor to the island who has difficulty understanding the local dialect. [25]

In the 1991 film The Butcher's Wife , the main character Marina is from Ocracoke, North Carolina, and exhibits features of Hoi Toider dialect.

Notes

  1. ↑ Older High Tider speakers may pronounce this sound as [æ~æə].

Related Research Articles

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hyde County, North Carolina</span> County in North Carolina, United States

Hyde County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 4,589, making it the second-least populous county in North Carolina. Its county seat is Swan Quarter. The county was created in 1705 as Wickham Precinct. It was renamed Hyde Precinct in 1712 and gained county status in 1739.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smith Island, Maryland</span> Census-designated place in Maryland, United States

Smith Island is a collection of three distinct island communities – Tylerton, Rhodes Point, and Ewell, Maryland – on the Chesapeake Bay, on the border of Maryland and Virginia territorial waters in the United States. The island is the last inhabited island in Maryland that is not accessible by vehicle. Most of the islands are eroding due to tidal currents and sea level rise; a study conducted in 2008 by the DNR reported that Smith Island is expected to completely erode by 2100 if no action is taken.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harkers Island, North Carolina</span> Census-designated place in North Carolina, United States

Harkers Island is a census-designated place (CDP) in Carteret County, North Carolina, United States. The population of Harkers Island was 1,207 at the 2010 census. Harkers Island is unincorporated and receives most public services, including law enforcement and public education, from Carteret County. A membership cooperative provides the island with electric and water services. Major industries on the island include fishing, boat building, tourism, and waterfowl decoy carving.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ocracoke, North Carolina</span> Census-designated place in North Carolina, United States

Ocracoke is a census-designated place (CDP) and unincorporated town located at the southern end of Ocracoke Island, located entirely within Hyde County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 948 as of the 2010 census. In the 2020 census, the population had dropped to 797 people.

A vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language.

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".

Eastern New England English, historically known as the Yankee dialect since at least the 19th century, is the traditional regional dialect of Maine, New Hampshire, and the eastern half of Massachusetts. Features of this variety once spanned an even larger dialect area of New England, for example, including the eastern halves of Vermont and Connecticut for those born as late as the early twentieth century. Studies vary as to whether the unique dialect of Rhode Island technically falls within the Eastern New England dialect region.

North American English regional phonology is the study of variations in the pronunciation of spoken North American English —what are commonly known simply as "regional accents". Though studies of regional dialects can be based on multiple characteristics, often including characteristics that are phonemic, phonetic, lexical (vocabulary-based), and syntactic (grammar-based), this article focuses only on the former two items. North American English includes American English, which has several highly developed and distinct regional varieties, along with the closely related Canadian English, which is more homogeneous geographically. American English and Canadian English have more in common with each other than with varieties of English outside North America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outer Banks</span> Barrier islands in North Carolina, United States

The Outer Banks are a 200 mi (320 km) string of barrier islands and spits off the coast of North Carolina and southeastern Virginia, on the east coast of the United States. They line most of the North Carolina coastline, separating Currituck Sound, Albemarle Sound, and Pamlico Sound from the Atlantic Ocean. A major tourist destination, the Outer Banks are known for their wide expanse of open beachfront and the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The seashore and surrounding ecosystem are important biodiversity zones, including beach grasses and shrubland that help maintain the form of the land.

In the history of English phonology, there have been many diachronic sound changes affecting vowels, especially involving phonemic splits and mergers.

Pacific Northwest English is a variety of North American English spoken in the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon, sometimes also including Idaho and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Due to the internal diversity within Pacific Northwest English, current studies remain inconclusive about whether it is best regarded as a dialect of its own, separate from Western American English or even California English or Standard Canadian English, with which it shares its major phonological features. The dialect region contains a highly diverse and mobile population, which is reflected in the historical and continuing development of the variety.

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:

English diphthongs have undergone many changes since the Old and Middle English periods. The sound changes discussed here involved at least one phoneme which historically was a diphthong.

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.

<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.

Tylerton is an unincorporated community located on Smith Island in Somerset County, Maryland, United States. Tylerton can be accessed via a ferry from Crisfield, Maryland. It is a waterman village of 50 residents. Attractions in the community include the Inn of Silent Music and The Drum Point Market, which sells beverages, homemade Smith Island cakes, crab cakes and other Chesapeake Bay specialties. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Smith Island Study Center is located in Tylerton.

Walt Wolfram is an American sociolinguist specializing in social and ethnic dialects of American English. He was one of the early pioneers in the study of urban African American English through his work in Detroit in 1969. He is the William C. Friday Distinguished University Professor at North Carolina State University.

In North Carolina, Down East refers to two areas of Eastern North Carolina. The first is the historical group of coastal communities east of Beaufort in Carteret County. The second is anywhere east of I-95 in North Carolina in the coastal plain region.

Natalie A. Schilling is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University.

References

  1. ↑ Wolfram & Schilling-Estes 1997 , pp. 1, 69
  2. ↑ Wolfram & Schilling-Estes 1997 , p. 78: "The verb usages that we have found on Ocracoke help strengthen the connections we've already established between the brogue and other dialects that developed in isolated areas like Appalachia and Tangier and Smith Islands".
  3. ↑ Subtitles of articles by Walt Wolfram et al. commonly include such a range of terms, such as in "The Story of the Ocracoke Brogue" (1995), "The Invisible Outer Banks Dialect" (1996), "The Distinct Sounds of the 'Hoi Toide' Brogue" (2001), etc.
  4. ↑ Wolfram & Reaser (2014 :101)
  5. ↑ Wolfram & Schilling-Estes 1997
  6. ↑ Wolfram & Schilling-Estes (1997 :123)
  7. ↑ Wolfram & Reaser (2014 :105)
  8. ↑ Wolfram & Schilling-Estes (1997 :10)
  9. ↑ Wolfram & Schilling-Estes (1997 :10)
  10. 1 2 North Carolina Life and Language Project (2006). Linguistics at North Carolina State: Harkers Island. Retrieved July 28, 2006.
  11. ↑ Bender, et al. (2004). Linguistic Diversity in the South: Changing Codes, Practices and Ideology. University of Georgia Press:
  12. ↑ Carlton, Brian (June 24, 2019). "The US island that speaks Elizabethan English". BBC . Retrieved June 24, 2019.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Schilling-Estes, Natalie (1997). "Accommodation versus Concentration: Dialect Death in Two Post-Insular Island Communities." American Speech, Vol. 72, No. 1 (Spring, 1997). Duke University Press. pp. 16-17.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Howren, Robert (1962). "The Speech of Ocracoke, North Carolina." American Speech, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Oct., 1962). Duke University Press. pp. 163-175.
  15. ↑ Schilling (1997 :26, 29)
  16. 1 2 3 Thomas (2006 :12)
  17. ↑ Wolfram & Schilling-Estes (1997 :53–4)
  18. ↑ Schilling (1997 :26, 29)
  19. ↑ Wolfram & Schilling-Estes (1997 :58)
  20. ↑ Wolfram & Schilling-Estes (1997 :59)
  21. 1 2 Wolfram & Schilling-Estes (1997 :60)
  22. 1 2 Wolfram & Schilling-Estes (1997 :61)
  23. ↑ Wolfram & Schilling-Estes (1997 :62)
  24. ↑ Thomas (2006 :10)
  25. ↑ Prioli, Carmine and Martin, Edwin (1998). Hope for a Good Season: The Ca'e Bankers of Harkers Island. John F. Blair Publisher, July, 1998.

Bibliography

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.