American Voices

American Voices
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AMERICAN VOICES
How Dialects Differ from
Coast to Coast
Edited by Walt Wolfram

and Ben Ward
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Editorial material and organization © 2006 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
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First published 2006 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
1 2006
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
American voices : how dialects differ from coast to coast / edited by Walt
Wolfram and Ben Ward.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4051-2108-8 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-4051-2108-4 (alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4051-2109-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-4051-2109-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. English language—
Dialects—United States 2. English language—Variation—United
States. 3. English language—Dialects—Canada. 4. English language—
Dialects—Caribbean Area. I. Wolfram, Walt, 1941– II. Ward, Ben, 1962–
PE2841.A77 2006
427′.973—dc22
2005017255
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Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
1 Language Evolution or Dying Traditions?

The State of American Dialects 1
Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes
Part I The South
2 Sounds of the South 11

Guy Bailey and Jan Tillery
3 Defining Appalachian English 17
Kirk Hazen and Ellen Fluharty
4 If These Hills Could Talk (Smoky Mountains) 22
Christine Mallinson, Becky Childs, Bridget Anderson,
and Neal Hutcheson
5 Doing the Charleston (South Carolina) 29
Maciej Baranowski
6 The Lone Star State of Speech (Texas) 36
7 Speaking the Big Easy (New Orleans, LA) 42
Connie Eble
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8 Sounds of Ole Man River (Memphis, TN) 49
Valerie Fridland
Part II The North

9 Yakking with the Yankees (New England) 57
Julie Roberts, Naomi Nagy, and Charles Boberg
10 Beantown Babble (Boston, MA) 63
Jim Fitzpatrick
11 Mainely English 70
Jane S. Smith
12 Steel Town Speak (Pittsburgh, PA) 77
Barbara Johnstone and Scott Kiesling
13 New York Tawk (New York City, NY) 82
Michael Newman
14 Expressions of Brotherly Love (Philadelphia, PA) 88
Claudio Salvucci
15 Maple Leaf Rap (Canada) 93
J. K. Chambers
Part III The Midwest
16 An Introduction to Midwest English 101

Timothy C. Frazer
17 Straight Talking from the Heartland (Midwest) 106
Matthew J. Gordon
18 Words of the Windy City (Chicago, IL) 112
Richard Cameron
19 Different Ways of Talking in the Buckeye State (Ohio) 118
Beverly Olson Flanigan
20 Spirited Speech (St. Louis, MO) 124
Thomas E. Murray
21 Saying Ya to the Yoopers (Michigan’s Upper Peninsula) 130
Beth Simon
vi Contents
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Part IV The West
22 Getting Real in the Golden State (California) 139

Penelope Eckert and Norma Mendoza-Denton
23 Desert Dialect (Utah) 144
David Bowie and Wendy Morkel
24 Dialects in the Mist (Portland, OR) 149
Jeff Conn
25 Arizona’s not so Standard English 156
Lauren Hall-Lew
Part V Islands
26 Topics from the Tropics (Hawai’i) 165

Miriam Meyerhoff
27 Speaking Strictly Roots (West Indies) 172
Renee Blake
28 Gullah Gullah Islands (Sea Island, SC, GA) 178
Tracey L. Weldon
29 Islands of Diversity (Bahamas) 183
Walt Wolfram, Becky Childs, Jeffrey Reaser, and Benjamin Torbert
30 Dialects in Danger (Outer Banks, NC) 189
Walt Wolfram
31 Fighting the Tide (Smith Island, MD) 196
Natalie Schilling-Estes
32 From Cod to Cool (Newfoundland, Canada) 203
Sandra Clarke
33 The World’s Loneliest Dialect (Tristan da Cunha) 210
Daniel Schreier
Part VI Sociocultural Dialects
34 Bridging the Great Divide (African American English) 217

John Baugh
Contents vii
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35 When Linguistic Worlds Collide (African American English) 225
Walt Wolfram and Benjamin Torbert
36 Talkin’ with mi Gente (Chicano English) 233
Carmen Fought
37 Stirring the Linguistic Gumbo (Cajun English) 238
Megan E. Melançon
38 From the Brickhouse to the Swamp
(Lumbee Vernacular English) 244
Walt Wolfram
39 More than Just Yada Yada Yada (Jewish English) 251
Cynthia Bernstein
40 Fading Future for Ferhoodled English
(Pennsylvania German) 258
Marion Lois Huffines
Notes on Contributors 264
viii Contents
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List of Illustrations
1 Dialect areas of the United States, based on telephone

survey data 1
2 A group of Confederate soldiers awaits orders during
the re-enactment of a Civil War battle 11
3 A farmer hoes beans in the mountains 17
4 A creek running through the Great Smoky Mountain
National Park 22
5 Historic building in Charleston, South Carolina 29
6 A traditional Texas welcome 36
7 Bourbon Street, New Orleans during Mardi Gras 42
8 Paddle steamer docked on the Mississippi River 49
9 A row of houses on Martha’s Vineyard 57
10 Boston street scene 63
11 The joys of eating Maine lobster 70
12 Downtown Pittsburgh from the West End overlook 77
13 New York contemplating the Hudson River 82
14 Professionals in Philadelphia 88
15.1 Urban life on Toronto’s Yonge Street 93
15.2 The literacy gap 96
16 Hiding in a wheatfield 101
17.1 A typical barn in the cornbelt 106
17.2 The pattern of vowel changes known as the Northern
Cities Shift 109
18 Work on a construction project in the Chicago River
North area 112
19.1 Dusk falls in Dayton, Ohio 118
List of Illustrations ix
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19.2 Traditional dialect boundaries based on the Linguistic
Atlas of the United States 120
20 St. Louis skyline and Gateway Arch 124
21 Ice fishing is a popular pastime among the “Yoopers” of
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula 130
22 Soaking up the rays in southern California 139
23 The chapel at Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Utah 144
24 Fishing on the banks of the Willamette River,
Portland, Oregon 149
25 Monument Valley, Arizona 156
26 Place of Refuge, located on the Big Island, Hawai’i 165
27 Women preparing crayfish, Jamaica 172
28 South Carolina river basin 178
29 Governor’s Island, Bahamas 183
30 Ocracoke Island 189
31 Fisherman, Smith Island, Maryland 196
32 Excavations have proven that the Vikings were
the earliest European visitors to Newfoundland 203
33 Edinburgh, Tristan da Cunha 210
34 Young man in the city 217
35 Boy in a field 225
36 Time out on the railroad tracks 233
37 Boaters at the mouth of Bayou Cane, Louisiana 238
38 Lumbee girls 244
39 Young Orthodox Jews 251
40 An Amish buggy in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania 258
x List of Illustrations
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Preface
The collection of dialect profiles that led to American Voices began inno-
cently. But it was hardly by accident. In fact, it developed from a shared
vision by the co-editors of this volume. In 1997, publisher Ben Ward
launched a magazine dedicated to bringing language issues to the atten-
tion of allied service professionals and to the American public in an at-
tractive, readable format. Linguists sometimes talk about the need to make
language issues more accessible to the general public; the editors of Lan-
guage Magazine made it happen. It was a bold venture, premised on the
assumption that many people were curious about language apart from the
highly specialized field of linguistics. If the development and distribution
of Language Magazine over the last several years is any indication, the
assumption of interest was more than justified.
Meanwhile, Walt Wolfram’s sociolinguistic research over several dec-
ades taught him that just about everyone is curious about dialects. After
all, one can hardly avoid noticing and wondering about language differ-
ences in daily interactions with people from all walks of life. The problem,
however, is bridging the chasm between highly technical, microscopically
detailed studies of language variation and popular, broad-based levels of
interest. With all due respect to linguists, they often have a way of trans-
forming inherently interesting subject matter into jargon-laced presenta-
tions that are comprehensible only to the few thousand professional
linguists in the world. This collection of articles is intended to do better. It
attempts to translate the detailed research of professional dialectologists
into readable descriptions for those who are curious about language dif-
ferences but have neither the background nor the desire to be professional
linguists. We systematically attempt to cover (for the most part) a range of
North American English dialect communities, including both well-known
Preface xi
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and rarely recognized cases in which speakers may not even be thought to
speak a dialect. By selecting our dialect profiles in this way, we hope to
convince readers that everyone really does speak a dialect – and that they
are all of interest. We also attempt to cover a few major sociocultural
varieties, though our focus is on regional space rather than social place.
Chapters in the book, all of which appeared originally in Language Maga-
zine, are not intended to be read in sequence since they are independent
articles that do not build on each other; in fact, we would suggest that the
reader choose articles on the basis of interest and curiosity.
The idea for this collection was born in 2000 when Ben Ward contacted
Walt Wolfram about writing an article for Language Magazine on the
unique Ocracoke dialect spoken on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Though Wolfram was quite happy to do so, he wondered if it might be
more appropriate to write a more general article on the state of American
dialects, and suggested that this might be followed up by an ongoing series
of articles highlighting some of the notable dialects of North American
English – and slightly beyond. The seed was planted. Germination and
cultivation of the idea was another matter. Who would write these art-
icles? Could linguists actually write trade articles without resorting to
the jargon that so frequently typified their technical descriptions? Would
they consider this a worthy venture given their active research lives? We
hope that the articles that appear in this collection answer these questions
satisfactorily.
Prominent dialect researchers on particular American English dialects
were contacted to see if they would accept the challenge of writing up
their sophisticated research for a broad-based audience. Amazingly, prac-
tically everyone accepted, despite the fact that the presentation was a jour-
nalistic challenge. The incentive was simply the offer to tell their story in
a way that might be comprehensible to their friends, family, and non-
linguist colleagues and students. The reward was seeing their story attrac-
tively presented in a glossy magazine format with cool images and rapid
turn-around time in publication. The response has been one of the high-
lights of our publishing careers. The most eminent scholars in the field
wrote their dialect stories and, in the process, also subjected themselves to
editing decisions on behalf of the audience. Happily, the authors greatly
exceeded our expectations. A great debt of thanks goes to each of the
authors, not only for their splendid contributions in terms of content and
presentation but also for being such good sports in accommodating the
editorial process sometimes necessary to ensure readability and compara-
bility. Thanks also to Sarah Coleman and Tami Kaplan at Blackwell for
xii Preface
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encouraging us in this project, even though it was slightly different from
the usual book project. We hope that the collection will be of interest both
to the leisure reader interested in language differences and to under-
grad students in courses on the English language, American dialects, and
sociolinguistics.
For convenience, the articles are arranged in broad-based sections that
may stretch traditional notions of region. A section is also devoted to
island dialects, a favorite breeding ground for distinct language mainten-
ance and development, and another section is devoted to some promin-
ent sociocultural varieties. Admittedly, the collection does not include all
of the dialects that might have been covered, and we can image the reader
asking, “But what about the X dialect?” In most cases, this is probably a
valid concern, and we can only apologize for our sins of omission. We
fully recognize that there are many other regional and social dialects of
North America beyond those described here. To a large extent, coverage
was dictated by the availability of active researchers to write about the
dialects they were researching, with an eye toward regional and ethnic
representation. Since we follow a case study format, it is bound to exclude
many situations worthy of inclusion. Perhaps our oversights will inspire
the description of other worthy dialect cases so that we can produce a
second volume in the future.
If nothing else, we hope that readers will understand that American
dialects are alive and well – and that they remain every bit as interesting
today as they were during their presumed heyday, whenever that was
supposed to have been. In fact, our point is that dialects are not artifacts
of the past, but ongoing, contemporary social statements about people
and place. We also hope that some of the excitement that inspires dialecto-
logists and sociolinguists to devote their entire lives to the description of
a speech community will rub off on the reader. If these descriptions do
that, then we will have succeeded beyond our imagination. Dialects are
such fun – and such an essential part of who we are and what America is.
Don’t believe the myth that dialects in American society are dying!
Walt Wolfram
William C. Friday Distinguished Professor
North Carolina State University
Ben Ward, Editor

Language Magazine
Preface xiii
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1
Language Evolution or Dying
Traditions? The State of
American Dialects
Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes
Canada
Atlantic
Provinces
ENE
The North Inland

WNE
Inland North
The West North
NYC
W. Pa
Mid-Atlantic
The Midland
Inland
South
Texas South
The South Charleston
Florid
1 Dialect areas of the United States, based on telephone survey data (from Labov, Ash, and
Boberg 2005). © 2005 by William Labov, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg from Atlas of North
American English (New York/Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter).
Most people find dialects intriguing. At the same time, they have lots of
questions about them and often have strong opinions as well. Probably
the most common question we encounter about the condition of Amer-
ican dialects is, “Are American dialects dying, due to television and the
Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes 1
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mobility of the American population?” Certainly, media, transportation,
and technology have radically compressed the geography of the United
States and altered American lifestyles over the last century. So what effects
do these significant changes have on America English dialects? What about
the future of American dialects as English assumes a global role?
Basic Dialects of American English
The methodical collection of data on regional dialect variation in America

began in earnest in the 1930s when the Linguistic Atlas of the United
States and Canada was launched and dialectologists began conducting
large-scale surveys of regional dialect differences. This effort was buoyed
in the 1960s through an extensive national survey that has now led to the
publication of the first four volumes of the six-volume Dictionary of
American Regional English (Cassidy and Hall 1985, 1991, 1996, 2002),
the premier reference work on regional American English dialectology.
These surveys focused on the regional vocabulary of older lifetime
residents of rural areas and so captured a picture of dialect differences as
they existed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The result
was a number of useful dialect maps of the primary and secondary dialect
areas of the mainland US, including the one featured at the beginning of
the chapter.
To a large extent, traditional dialect divisions in the US reflect differ-
ences first established in Colonial America by people from different parts
of the British Isles. These differences were cemented in early cultural
hubs such as Richmond, Philadelphia, Boston, and Charleston and later
diffused outward as English speakers moved inland. But do these differ-
ences still hold at the beginning of the twenty-first century, after a century
of demographic shifts, economic growth, and sociocultural change? Linguist
William Labov and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania are
currently conducting an extensive telephone survey of dialect pronunci-
ations throughout the US. Though still ongoing, his survey reaffirms the
persistence of the same major dialect boundaries that were established in
earlier studies. However, Labov’s research reveals more than the mere
maintenance of fundamental dialect boundaries; it shows that in some
ways the major dialects of the US are actually becoming more different
from one another rather than more alike.
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In large Northern cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and
Buffalo, certain vowel pronunciations are changing in ways that distance
them from Southern vowels. For example, the augh sound of a word like
caught is now pronounced more like the vowel of cot. Meanwhile, a word
like lock sounds something like lack, while tack sounds a little like tech. At
the same time, Southern vowels are changing in different ways. For exam-
ple, red sounds something like raid, and fish sounds almost like feesh. So
much for the presumed homogenization of Northern and Southern speech.
Changing Trends in Dialects
The continuity and enhancement of basic dialect boundaries during a

century of demographic and social change is certainly a feature story, but
there are some sidebars that point to change in the dialects of American
English as well. Several factors have had a significant impact on the reposi-
tioning of American English dialects at the turn of the millennium. These
include changing patterns of immigration and language contact within
the US, shifting patterns of interregional movement within the US, and
expanded transportation and communication networks. To go along with
these demographic and technological developments, changes in social struc-
ture and cultural values have affected the development of dialects.
Language Contact
One factor that has always contributed to the distinctive flavor of

American English is the influence of other languages, from the earliest
Native American influences on the vocabulary of general American Eng-
lish (raccoon, moccasin, pecan, etc.), to the later influence of Scandinavian
languages on the pronunciations of the Upper Midwest, to the influence
of African languages on Ebonics. But the languages influencing American
English change as the cultural mix changes.
The languages of more recent immigrant populations from Asia and
different areas of the Hispanic world are now affecting English just as
various European languages have done throughout the history of the US.
Furthermore, new ethnic varieties of English are arising from more
recent language contact situations. For example, there are various types of
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Hispanic English in regions of the Southwest and Southeast with heavy
concentrations of Hispanics. And these dialects are spoken not only by
those who learn English as a second language but by those whose first and
primary language is English as well.
Long-established ethnic varieties also change, as patterns of contact
among ethnic groups shift. The desegregation of ethnic communities is an
ongoing process in American society that continually brings speakers of
different groups into closer contact. However, the result of contact is not
always the erosion of ethnic dialect boundaries. Ethnolinguistic distinc-
tiveness can be remarkably persistent, even in face of sustained, daily
inter-ethnic contact. Ethnic dialect varieties are a product of cultural and
individual identity as well as a matter of simple contact. One of the dialect
lessons of the twentieth century is that speakers of ethnic varieties like
Ebonics not only have maintained but have even enhanced their linguistic
distinctiveness over the past half century. In addition, Ebonics has become
a supra-regional dialect that unites African Americans across urban and
rural areas that range from Boston to Los Angeles.
Population Movement
Dialect boundaries often follow the migratory routes of the major

population movements. Historically, the significant migrations of English-
speaking people in the US have run along east–west lines. However, the
last half of the twentieth century was characterized by some different
patterns of population movement. For example, some areas of the South
have been inundated by speakers from Midland and Northern dialect areas.
At first glance, the effect of this trend seems enormous, especially in areas
such as Miami, Houston, and the Raleigh–Durham area of North Carolina,
where Southerners are overwhelmed by non-Southerners to such a degree
that it is becoming increasingly rare in these areas to locate young people
with genuine “Southern accents.” But there are also factors that work to
counter the “dialect swamping” that may result from such situations.
Many Southerners view their dialect as a strong marker of regional
identity and a source of cultural pride. Such feelings may help preserve
certain dialect features even in the face of massive linguistic pressure from
outside groups. Dialectologist Guy Bailey and his team of researchers have
found that some Southern dialect features in Oklahoma and Texas,
including the use of fixin’ to in They’re fixin’ to go the mall, have persisted
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and even spread in the face of increasing settlement by non-Southerners.
The nature of regionalized American English is certainly changing, but we
can hardly say that regional dialect forms are subsiding.
Expanding Transportation and Communication Networks
The broadening of transportation and communication networks through-

out the twentieth century now provides access to even the most remote
dialect areas. These locations were once the sites of some of America’s
most distinctive dialect traditions. A potential linguistic consequence of
this increased accessibility is dialect endangerment, in which a distinctive
variety spoken by relatively small numbers of people in a once isolated
community is overwhelmed by encroaching mainstream dialects. For ex-
ample, a number of island communities on the eastern seaboard of the US
are currently in grave danger of extinction. These communities have been
transformed from small, self-contained marine-based communities into
service-based tourist meccas in a matter of decades. The traditional dialect
features of some of these communities are receding rapidly, often within
a couple of generations. At the same time, though, some communities,
or sub-groups within a community, may maintain and even enhance
certain noticeable dialect features in order to distinguish themselves from
outsiders.
Shifting Cultural Centers
Throughout its history, the US has undergone a number of major popula-

tion shifts as its economic and social structures have changed. In the
process, its centers of cultural influence have shifted as well. In the latter
part of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first, the major stream
of population movement is no longer toward the heart of the city but into
the suburbs. As cultural centers shift, so too does the locus of linguistic
change. Important dialect changes often are now initiated in the suburbs,
not the city proper. For example, sociolinguist Penelope Eckert of Stanford
University has shown that some of the most innovative speakers in the
North are suburban teens – not people from the middle of the city. In
addition we find that dialect features may spread across geographic space
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in different ways. Whereas some dialect features may spread out from a
central area in a fairly straightforward way, like ripples in a pond, others
may “jump” from region to region. For example, the pronunciation changes
affecting some Northern cities have been shown to spread from one
major metropolitan area to another, skipping intervening areas of low
population.
Populations in particular locales may also carve out new dialects as they
develop a sense of regional identity. Many of the earliest maps of the
United States show less dialect distinctiveness as we move from east to
west, reflecting the relatively late arrival of English-speaking groups on the
West Coast as well as increased dialect mixing during westward expansion.
But this is changing. Linguists and non-linguists alike are recognizing
quite distinctive dialects on the West Coast, including California English,
whose influence has spread among young speakers throughout the US.
One of the most distinctive features of this dialect (characterized in pop
culture as “Valley Girl Talk” or “Valley Speak”) is the pronunciation of
statements with rising rather than falling intonation, so that a statement
like “We went to the movies yesterday” sounds like a question: We went to
the movies yesterday?
American Dialects in the New Millennium
Even as some traditional American dialects recede, new ones appear,

reflecting the changing dynamics of American demography and social
structure. But the present contours are deeply embedded in the historical
origins of American English, and future developments no doubt will take
their cues from the present dialect profile. Dialects mark the regional and
cultural cartography of America as much as any cultural artifact, and there
is no reason to expect that they will surrender their emblematic role in
American life in the future.
References
Bailey, G., T. Wikle, J. Tillery, and L. Sand (1993) Some patterns of linguistic
diffusion. Language Variation and Change 5: 359–90.
Carver, C. M. (1987) American Regional Dialects: A Word Geography. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
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Cassidy, F. G., and J. Hall (1985, 1991, 1996, 2002) Dictionary of American
Regional English, Vols. I–IV. Cambridge: Belknap Press at Harvard University
Press.
Labov, W., S. Ash, and C. Boberg (2000) A Phonological Atlas of North America.
The Hague: Walter de Gruyter.
Wolfram, W., and N. Schilling-Estes (2005) American English: Dialects and
Variation, 2nd edn. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
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PART I
THE SOUTH
Guy Bailey and Jan Tillery 9
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10 Sounds of the South
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2
Sounds of the South
2 A group of Confederate soldiers awaits orders during the re-enactment of a Civil War battle.
© by Dan Brandenburg.
Southern American English (SAE) is the most widely recognized regional

dialect of American English, but as most of its speakers know, widespread
recognition is a mixed blessing. SAE is also the regional dialect that is
most negatively evaluated. In a recent study of folk beliefs about American
dialects, Dennis Preston (1996) found that 90 percent of his respondents
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from Michigan and Indiana and 96 percent of those from South Carolina
recognized SAE as a distinct variety of American English. The Michigan
and Indiana respondents, however, also evaluated SAE as the most “incor-
rect” variety of American English (New York City speech was the only
serious competitor), and the South Carolina respondents were ambivalent
about its correctness as well.
The widespread recognition and negative evaluation of SAE can have
practical consequences for its users that in some cases include negative
stereotyping and linguistic discrimination, just as with African American
Vernacular English (AAVE), or Ebonics. While SAE almost never gener-
ates the extreme reactions and extensive prejudice that AAVE often does,
its users can anticipate at least polite (and often not so polite) condescen-
sion to their speech by non-Southerners. In spite of its low status outside
of the South and of standardizing forces such as interregional migration
and universal education that threaten many minority languages and dia-
lects, SAE persists.
Some Features of Southern American English
Misunderstandings about what comprises SAE are almost as widespread

as the recognition of its distinctiveness. These misunderstandings in large
part have been fueled by media portrayals in movies such as Gone with the
Wind and television shows such as The Dukes of Hazzard that presented
grossly exaggerated and inaccurate stereotypes of SAE. More recent
portrayals in television shows such as Designing Women, Evening Shade
and Grace Under Fire are more accurate, but their effect on the public
knowledge of SAE is unclear.
Traditionally, SAE differed from other varieties of American English in
some of its lexical, grammatical, and phonological features, but many of
the lexical differences, which were rooted in an agrarian economy and a
traditional society, have begun to disappear. For instance, most young
Southerners are as likely to use green beans as snap beans and are more
likely to use dragon fly than either snake doctor or mosquito hawk. Just as
these book terms have replaced the older folk terms with the advent of
universal education, a significant part of the regional vocabulary associ-
ated with farm life has become obsolete as the artifacts to which they refer
have disappeared. Few Southerners under 50 know what a singletree is (it
is the bar of wood on a wagon to which the traces are attached) or have
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heard the term dogtrot used for a type of house (usually a two-room house
with an open hall down the middle). Many of the distinctive grammatical
and phonological features of SAE persist however.
Some of the grammatical differences between SAE and other varieties
are well known. For example, most Americans immediately recognize you-
all or y’all as distinctively Southern second person pronouns, and many
would know that fixin’ to, as in I’m fixin’ to eat breakfast, is Southern as
well. The latter represents a modification of the English auxiliary system
that enables Southerners to encode an aspectual distinction grammatic-
ally that must be encoded lexically elsewhere: I’m fixin’ to eat breakfast
means that I intend to eat breakfast in the next little while.
Other grammatical features are less widely known but are no less
important. SAE also modifies the English auxiliary system by allowing for
the use of more than one modal in a verb phrase. For instance, for most
Southerners I might could leave work early today is a grammatically accept-
able sentence. It translates roughly as I might be able to leave work early,
but might could conveys a greater sense of tentativeness than might be able
does. The use of multiple modals provides Southerners with a politeness
strategy not available in other regional dialects. Although no generally
agreed-upon list of acceptable multiple modals exists, the first modal in
the sequence must be might or may, while the second is usually could, can,
would, will, should, or oughta. In addition, SAE allows at least one triple
modal option (might should oughta) and permits useta to precede a modal
as well (e.g., I useta could do that).
All three of these grammatical features remain robust in SAE, and
migrants to the South from other parts of the country often appropriate
both y’all and fixin’ to. Multiple modals, on the other hand, are typically
used only by native Southerners. Most of the phonological features of SAE
are also typically used only by natives.
The most widely recognized phonological features of SAE are the merger
of the vowels like pen and pin or ten and tin (the vowel in both words has
the sound of the second member of the pair) and the loss of the offglide of
the i diphthong in words like hide (so that it sounds like hahd). SAE is also
characterized by a series of vowel rotations that William Labov (1994) called
the “Southern Shift.” Describing the shift would require an extensive tech-
nical phonetic description of SAE vowels, but most people can hear its
most important feature simply by listening to Bill Clinton’s pronunciation
of the vowel in way or stayed. The beginning of the vowel (which is a
diphthong in SAE) will sound something like the vowel in father. Vowel
differences such as these are hard to describe in non-technical terms, but
AVC02 13 21/7/05, 10:48 AM

they are what make people immediately recognizable as speakers of SAE –
long before a might could, fixin’ to, or y’all crops up in their speech.
Change and Persistence in SAE
Much of the research on SAE has focused on its relationship to British

regional dialects – on what many linguists see as its roots. The focus is
primarily a result of the assumptions that American regional dialects are a
reflex of settlement history and that they were formed during the colonial
period. Recent research on SAE, though, suggests that both assumptions
are inadequate. A case in point is the pen/pin merger. This merger
occurred in the American South at least as early as the second quarter of
the nineteenth century (Brown 1991), but it occurred in only a relatively
small segment of the population. During the last quarter of the nineteenth
century, however, the pen/pin merger began to spread rapidly throughout
the South until by World War II virtually all Southerners had the merger.
This same 50-year period also saw the emergence and spread of the loss of
offglide in i and of the distinctive vowel pronunciation in words like way.
Moreover, during this time grammatical features such as fixin’ to and y’all
expanded rapidly.
The diffusion of these features after 1875, after the initial settlement of
the South, may seem odd, but demographic and socioeconomic develop-
ments of this era suggest why these features may have begun to spread
when they did. In The Promise of the New South (1992), Edward L. Ayers
points out that during the last quarter of the nineteenth century the emer-
gence of stores, villages, and towns and a dramatic expansion of the rail
system set in motion a process of urbanization that would ultimately re-
shape the region. In 1860 less than one in ten Southerners lived in urban
areas (communities with populations of 2500 or more), and only 21 towns
from Virginia westward through Texas had populations of 5000 or more.
By 1900 the urban population of the South had doubled, and it doubled
again by the onset of World War II. What seems to have happened lin-
guistically is that migration to towns and cities created contact among
dialects that were formerly local and insular, and as a result, features that
were relatively restricted in occurrence began either to spread out or to
disappear. The parallel process of diffusion and extinction eliminated many
local vernaculars but at the same time gave rise to the larger regional
dialect known today as SAE. Vestiges of some local vernaculars persist
AVC02 14 21/7/05, 10:48 AM

among older residents of insular communities, as the work of Wolfram
and his associates shows, but among younger Southerners they have all
but disappeared.
Demographic developments since World War II raise some interesting
questions about future prospects for SAE. The urbanization that began
before World War II expanded dramatically during and after the war, but
with some significant differences. Before World War II people in South-
ern towns and cities came from the surrounding countryside, and most
industry involved low-wage, manual-labor operations, such as cotton mills
and petroleum-processing plants. After the war, and especially after 1970,
the migration to the Southern cities was as likely to come from the North
as the South, and new industries often included such things as the corporate
headquarters of J. C. Penney and the Dell computer production facilities.
In addition, in Texas, Florida, Virginia, and large cities throughout the
South, migration from outside the United States is now occurring at an
astonishing rate.
The linguistic impact that the new arrivals from outside the South will
have is not yet clear, but some trends are already becoming apparent. In
Texas and Oklahoma, and in many metropolitan areas around the South,
some national linguistic trends such as the merger of the vowels in caught
and cot (both sound like the latter) are emerging. In several of the larger
metropolitan areas (e.g., Dallas–Fort Worth and Memphis) some traditional
Southern vowel features such as the distinctive pronunciation of the vowel
in words like way are beginning to wane. Even as these developments take
hold in metropolitan areas, however, traditional grammatical features such
as y’all and fixin’ to are spreading to non-Southerners migrating to the
region.
While the long-term consequences of the new developments are impos-
sible to predict, it is apparent that SAE is continuing to evolve – just as it
has over the last century and a half. The extent to which the results of that
evolution will yield something that is recognizably “Southern” remains to
be seen.
References
Ayers, Edward L. (1992) The Promise of the New South: Life after Reconstruction.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bailey, Guy, and Jan Tillery (1996) The persistence of Southern American English.
Journal of English Linguistics 24: 308–21.
AVC02 15 21/7/05, 10:48 AM

Brown, Vivian (1991) The merger of /i/ and /e/ before nasals in Tennessee.
American Speech 66: 303–15.
Labov, William (1994) Principles of Linguistic Change: Internal Factors. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell.
Preston, Dennis (1996) Where the worst English is spoken. In Edgar Schneider
(ed.), Focus on the USA, 297–360. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Wolfram, Walt, Kirk Hazen, and Natalie Schilling-Estes (1999) Dialect Mainten-
ance and Change in Outer Banks English. Publication of the American Dialect
Society 81. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
AVC02 16 21/7/05, 10:48 AM

3
Defining Appalachian English
Kirk Hazen and Ellen Fluharty
KirkBrandenburg.
3 A farmer hoes beans in the mountains. © by Dan Hazen and Ellen Fluharty 17
AVC03 17 21/7/05, 10:47 AM

When people speak of Appalachian English, they often treat it as if it has
mad cow disease and needs quarantining. As linguists, we are always
saddened by the negative attention the Appalachian dialect receives.
To us, all dialects are legitimate variations of English; no dialect is more
“correct” or “legitimate” than another. Appalachian English, like many
other American dialects, has existed for almost two hundred years and has
developed its own unique vocabulary and grammar.
To regard the Appalachian dialect as deficient is therefore scientifically
incorrect, and it unfairly maligns the entire social group that speaks it.1
Why do so many people feel Appalachian English is at best “quaint”
(read “useless and outdated”) and at worst stricken and deformed? Since
the earliest days of settlement in America, Appalachia has been per-
ceived as backwards and exclusively poor. Although this is by no means
true, these misperceptions continue to this day. Social judgments of the
Appalachian dialect, then, are often nothing more than cover for a very
ugly kind of prejudice. At its root, prejudice against Appalachian English
is more a social judgment of Appalachian people than of the language
they speak.2
Who Speaks Appalachian English?
According to the Appalachian Regional Commission, Appalachia stretches

from mid-state New York to the northeast corner of Mississippi, and
includes 406 counties in 13 states. It has a tremendous geographic area
(roughly 200,000 square miles), and a population of about 22 million. Of
course, not all of Appalachia’s 22 million people speak a dialect tradition-
ally regarded as Appalachian. Traditional Appalachian English has been
defined by a laundry list of features: people expect to hear bar for bear and
sodipop for soda pop; they expect to hear phrases like I was a-working when
the lats [lights] went out and I ain’t seen but one deer when we was out
huntin’. If we look for these language features among the population of
Appalachia, our best estimate is that only about 30 percent of residents
would have them. The reason for this is that Appalachia encompasses a
great number of disparate urban, suburban, and rural communities. With
such geographic diversity, there are great differences in the way Appala-
chian people speak. For example, growing up in southern West Virginia
may or may not mean that you have a Southern accent, depending on
whether you grew up in suburban Charleston or in rural Logan County.
18 Defining Appalachian English
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There are also great differences between younger and older generations
of speakers. The version of Appalachian English used by many teenagers,
while it may share many traditional features with the speech of their
grandparents, is far from identical to it. For example, a teenager who is
hyperconscious of sounding Appalachian may not use y’all for the second
person plural pronoun whereas the grandparents may have only ever used
this form. Because of this problem of defining a single Appalachian Eng-
lish, we have begun to view it not as one dialect with a particular set of
features, but as a number of dialects.
The Roots of the Dialect
One popular myth is that Elizabethan English is still spoken in the region.
The varieties of Appalachian English are diverse, but Elizabethan English,
which was spoken during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603), was
never spoken in Appalachia. In 1603, the colony of Jamestown was only
an idea, and major settlement in the region did not begin until the eight-
eenth century. Even if there had been a settlement of Elizabethan English
speakers in Appalachia, and they had remained isolated until today, their
great-great- . . . -great-grandchildren would not speak the same dialect as
their forebears, as all living languages undergo change. We suspect that
people who promote this idea within Appalachia are trying to correct
the myth that there is something wrong with Appalachian English by
promoting an alternative myth.
Appalachian English has roots that extend far into the past. The
dialect features we hear the most about demonstrate a link to Scots-Irish
heritage: The car needs washed (vs. the non-Appalachian The car needs to
be washed or The car needs washing). Although upsetting to some, the
different uses of a verb like need are perfectly normal. A verb is the boss in
a sentence and requires certain things to come after it. For example, the
verb to kiss generally requires a following noun, as in The girl kissed the
boy. The verb to need in areas outside upper West Virginia, eastern Ohio,
and western Pennsylvania requires another verb, like to be; inside this
area, the verb to need only requires an adjective like washed or painted.
This same bit of variation is found in parts of the British Isles, especially
Scotland.
Another Scottish link is found in the Appalachian pattern of adding an
-s in sentences like The dogs walks and The people goes. The Scots-Irish
Kirk Hazen and Ellen Fluharty 19
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heritage of Appalachian English is further evident in the use of a-prefixing,
as in He went a-hunting. A-prefixing is generally used to mean that the
action is going on at that moment.
One often overlooked aspect of Appalachian English heritage is
the dialects’ relationship to Southern English and African American
Vernacular English (AAVE). One of the marked speech features of
both Appalachian and Southern English speakers of either African or
European ancestry is a two-part vowel (diphthong) becoming a single
vowel in words like mine (mahn), mile (mahl), and bide (bahd).
European-American Appalachian English has been distinctive in the
past for having this feature in words such as like, light, and wipe. AAVE,
originally a Southern variety, did not have this feature before sounds
like p, t, or k. We have found that some African American Appalachians
actually have this traditional feature of Appalachian English. As with
the rest of Appalachia, there is certainly change between generations
of African American Appalachians. We do not find continuity between
the older and younger African American Appalachian speakers in terms
of the sociolinguistic features that mark their speech as African American.
But there does appear to be an Appalachian variety of AAVE, blending
traditionally European-American Appalachian features with traditional
AAVE features: for example, habitual be which marks an event as hap-
pening on a repeated or regular basis, as in the sentence Sometimes, my
ears be itching. Understanding how ethnic diversity influences language
diversity helps provide for a more complete definition of Appalachian
English.
Is There a Future for Appalachian English?
The question we are most frequently asked about Appalachian English

concerns its future: will Appalachian English become part of the homo-
geneous dialect landscape of the US? The answer is “No.” First, there is
no threat of the United States having a homogeneous dialect. Currently,
the US is experiencing grammatical and sound system alterations; these
language changes ensure a wide diversity of language patterns across the
US. Second, the Appalachian region’s culture and identity continues to
be dissimilar to that of its neighbors. As long as Appalachia remains
a culturally distinct area, the English spoken here will continue to be
different from other regional Englishes.
20 Defining Appalachian English
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Notes
1 The prejudice against Appalachian English may be even more sinister than
this would suggest. After all, the ability to acquire languages as a child is part
of our genetic code; to claim that one variety of a language is deficient is like
claiming that an entire social group has a genetic defect.
2 The stereotype of Appalachian English may certainly contribute to the notion
that it is somehow “bad” to sound Appalachian. As anyone who has seen the
spellings in a Hillbilly Dictionary knows, the public’s ideas about Appalachian
English have more to do with the speaker’s perceived illiteracy than with
sound or grammar differences. For example, spelling the word was as wuz
does not indicate a sound change since it is only “eye dialect,” but instead, it is
supposed to indicate the “speaker’s” level of intelligence and formal education.
Acknowledgment
The West Virginia Dialect Project would like to thank the National Science
Foundation (BCS-9986247) and West Virginia University for supporting our
research.
Kirk Hazen and Ellen Fluharty 21
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4
If These Hills Could Talk
(Smoky Mountains)
Christine Mallinson, Becky Childs,
Bridget Anderson, and Neal Hutcheson
4 A creek running through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. © by John von Rosenberg.
Driving the steep and winding roads along the border of western North
Carolina and eastern Tennessee, it is easy to see why the Cherokee Indians
who first settled in this mountainous region named it the “place of blue
smoke.” The trademark of these hills is the ever-present blue-gray mist that
casts a hazy glow over the dense fir and spruce pine covered landscape. The
Smoky Mountains, or the Smokies, as they are known locally, are a well-
known destination for tourists from across the United States. At the same
22 If These Hills Could Talk
AVC04 22 21/7/05, 10:47 AM

time, the lush forest, underground caves, and natural water sources provide
a veil of cover under which one could easily fade into the backdrop of the
mountains – as notorious fugitive Eric Rudolph did for nearly five years. The
terrain has played a major role in the development of mountain life and
culture, and continues to be a source of past and present local tradition.
Stereotypes abound about the people who call Appalachia their home.
The common assumption is that it is a region lacking in racial and ethnic
diversity, populated mostly by whites of European ancestry. But the Smoky
Mountains and Appalachia in general were actually settled by diverse groups
of people. Coming to the area around 1000 ad, the Cherokee Indians left
a strong legacy: Oconoluftee, Nantahala, Hiwassee, Cheoah, Junaluska,
Cataloochee, and Cullowhee are just a few of the places whose names
pay homage to the Smoky Mountains’ Cherokee settlers. Today, many
flourishing communities of Cherokee Indians and other Native Americans
still reside in the Smokies. For example, the Snowbird Cherokee in Graham
County, North Carolina, continue to preserve their distinct ethnic and
cultural identities as Native Americans and actively maintain their ances-
tral language. The tiny community of Snowbird contains nearly one-third
of the total Cherokee-speaking population in the eastern United States,
making it a significant community in the preservation and transmission of
the Cherokee language and culture.
In addition to Native American groups, European Americans of varying
ancestry – Scots-Irish, English, German, Polish, Swiss, Portuguese,
Spanish, French and more – have populated the Smoky Mountain region
since the late 1700s and early 1800s. Likewise, some African Americans
were brought to the area as slaves of these white settlers, but independent,
non-slave African American settlements have also existed in Appalachia
since these earlier times. One small community, called Texana, was
established in the Smoky Mountains as early as 1850. Located high on a
mountain about a mile from Murphy, North Carolina, Texana was named
for an African American woman named Texana McClelland, who founded
the first black settlement in the area. Today the community has about
150 residents who still live along the same mountain hillside where the
original inhabitants first settled.
As these diverse groups of white, black, and Native American founders
settled in the Smoky Mountain area, they all brought with them many
different ways of speaking. Because of the extreme ruggedness of the high
country’s terrain, the relative inaccessibility of the Smoky Mountains
allowed these different dialects to blend together in isolation over the past
several centuries and develop into a distinct regional variety of speech that
Christine Mallinson, Becky Childs, et al. 23
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is often called “mountain talk.” Typically, outsiders who visit the area
comment on the “twang” that they hear in locals’ speech. Indeed, many
Smoky Mountain English pronunciations are quite different from the
speech that travelers might hear in the North, the Midwest, or other
regions of the American South.
Pronunciation
Many of the vowels of the Smoky Mountain dialect are quite distinct from
other English varieties, even those in Southern English. While these
differences may sound strange to some people, they give mountain talk a
distinct character or, as one early dialectologist put it, “a certain pleasing,
musical quality . . . the colorful, distinctive quality of Great Smokies
speech.” One feature noticed by newcomers to the area is that Smoky
Mountain speakers often lengthen certain vowels and break them into
what sounds like two syllables. For example, the eh sound in the word
bear may sound more like bayer, and the short i sound in a world like hill
may come to sound more like heal. In another example, which tends to be
found in the speech of older mountain folk, the short a vowel can split
and turn into a diphthong, usually before f, s, sh, and th sounds, so that
pass would sound like pace and grass like grace.
Another vowel characteristic of Smoky Mountain English speakers is
their pronunciation of long i. The typical Smoky Mountain i is a broad,
unglided version of i, so that the word bright would approximate the
sound of the word brat and right would almost sound like rat. When i
is followed by r, for example, the ire sound may sound more like ar, so
that fire and tire will be pronounced as far and tar by Smoky Mountain
speakers.
The r sound is also an important feature of Smoky Mountain English.
In contrast to some Southern English varieties that drop their r’s, as in
deah for deer, Smoky Mountain English is primarily an r-pronouncing
dialect. Moreover, in certain cases, mountain speakers may sound like
they are even “adding” r’s to words where standard varieties do not use
them. For example, visitors to the Smokies may hear winder for window,
feller for fellow, and yeller for yellow. Another pronunciation trait affects
other vowels at the ends of words, so that extra and soda are pronounced
as extry and sody. In fact, it was not uncommon for us to hear older
mountain speakers refer to a soft drink or soda pop as sody water.
AVC04 24 21/7/05, 10:47 AM

Grammar
Differences in pronunciation are not the only distinguishing traits of Smoky

Mountain English. Distinct grammatical features characterize it as well.
Perhaps one of the most well-known features is the tendency for Smoky
Mountain speakers to attach the a prefix (pronounced as uh) to verbs that
end in -ing, particularly when they are telling stories or recounting events.
For example, one might hear a Smoky Mountain English speaker say One
night that dog was a-beggin’ and a-cryin’ to go out. Although this sentence
may occur in many varieties of American English, it is most common in
Appalachian and Smoky Mountain English.
Another common feature of Smoky Mountain English is the tendency
to regularize or use different verb forms in the past tense. This may take
the form of using was where standard English would prescribe were, as in
the sentence We saw a bear when we was a-huntin’ yesterday. Or, speakers
may use irregular past forms such as growed instead of grew or clumb
instead of climbed. Although many of these sentence structures may be
considered by some people to be “bad grammar” or “bad English,” these
non-standard dialect variations are no better or worse than any other
language differences. Often, in fact, these features reflect older language
patterns that were considered proper and standard at one time during the
development of English.
Many of the differences in the Smoky Mountain dialect can be attri-
buted to the linguistic legacy that was brought by the original founders
to the area. Numerous early white settlers who came to the Smokies in
the late 1700s were of Scots-Irish descent. In the language these settlers
carried over from Ireland and Scotland, adding -s to third person plural
verbs was an acceptable grammatical feature. As a result, we find many
mountain speakers using constructions such as The people that goes there –
not because they are speaking incorrect grammar, but because this form is
similar to the way of marking agreement with certain types of verbs and
plural nouns in Scots-Irish English.
Smoky Mountain English also uses special combinations of helping verbs
– can, could, may, might, must, ought to, shall, should, will, and would.
Speakers of many rural dialects may use one modal verb together with
another, usually to mark a particular speaker frame of mind. The most
frequent double modal combination is formed with might and could, as in
If it quits raining, you might could go. In this sentence, the speaker is
indicating that if conditions are right, then the action in the future may be
AVC04 25 21/7/05, 10:47 AM

able to take place. Although this use may create some confusion for those
who are not native users of this construction and who are unfamiliar with
it, these verb combinations express possibility or probability in English
in a way that is not otherwise available through a simple construction.
Double modals such as might would, would might, may could, and even
such interesting combinations as might should ought to are used to nuance
meanings in subtle ways.
The verb particle done is also used in significant ways. In the sentence
She done gone there already, the verb form done is combined with a past
verb form to emphasize the fact that an action has already been
completed. Completive done is used quite frequently in Smoky Mountain
English, but it is found in other rural varieties of American English and
in African American English as well. The form liketa also has a special
meaning in Smoky Mountain English. In the sentence It was so cold on our
camping trip last night, we liketa froze to death, the speaker uses this
construction to indicate a narrowly averted action – real or imagined; the
campers knew they weren’t literally going to freeze to death, but they were
still worried that they would. Dialects often use unique words and phrases
to represent aspects of verb tense that standard English cannot express as
succinctly.
Vocabulary
One of the most obvious ways in which the Smoky Mountain dialect
distinguishes itself is in its vocabulary. Like any dialect, Smoky Mountain
English has terms that refer to the local way of life and are woven into its
culture. Many Smoky Mountain dialect words refer to unique places in
the mountains. For example, bald means a mountaintop with no trees,
branch is an area or settlement defined by a creek, bottom is a low-lying
area or valley, and holler is a valley surrounded by mountains. Other
vocabulary items refer to inhabitants or features of the mountain
landscape. Jasper refers to an outsider, someone who is not from the
mountains. Boomer is the name of the red squirrel that is indigenous to
the Smokies. Poke salad is a salad made of wild greens that grow in the
mountains – poisonous unless boiled properly before being eaten. And a
ramp is a small wild onion with a distinctive, long-lasting smell.
Still other words are variants that may or may not have counterparts in
Standard English; for example, cut a shine for dance, tote for carry, fetch for
AVC04 26 21/7/05, 10:47 AM

go get, sigogglin for crooked or leaning, tee-totally for completely, and yander
or yonder to mean over there. Other old-fashioned words, such as dope for
soft drink or soda pop, are still used in the mountains, although elsewhere
these terms have fallen out of use. Even though some of the unique words
are carryovers from earlier history, especially Scots-Irish English, we also
see new words being invented and the meanings of old words being changed
and adapted to fit current communicative needs.
One of the most characteristic items of the Smokies is the use of you’ns
where other Southerners might use the more familiar variant, y’all, pro-
nounced more like yuns or yunz than a simple combination of you-ones.
You’ns is most typically used for plural but may be used when speaking to
one person in special circumstances. In fact, next time you visit the Smokies,
ask for directions and you’re likely to hear Where you’ns from?
Although outsiders may think that “mountain talk” is unsophisticated
or uneducated, the complex features briefly surveyed here indicate that
this dialect is anything but simple. The people of the Smoky Mountains
have created and maintained a dialect that reflects both their history and
their identity. This dialect is quite distinct both linguistically and socially.
As you will hear when you visit the area, mountain talk displays and
preserves local tradition, culture, and experience. To hear the language of
the Smoky Mountains is to hear the mountains talk.
A Short Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English

afeared afraid
airish breezy, chilly
bald treeless mountaintop
bluff cliff, usually facing a river
boomer red squirrel indigenous to the Smokies
bottom flat land along a stream or riverbed
branch area or settlement defined by a creek
britches pants
cut a shine to dance
dope soft drink, soda pop
eh law! Oh well!
fair up when rainy weather clears up
fetch to get
fritter fried patty made out of cornmeal
AVC04 27 21/7/05, 10:47 AM

haint ghost
holler valley surrounded by mountains
jasper outsider, stranger
liketa almost, nearly
mountain laurel rhododendron
painter local pronunciation of panther
pick to play a stringed bluegrass instrument, like a banjo or a guitar
plait to braid
poke bag or sack
poke salad wild greens boiled to leach out poisons; often mixed with egg
razorback wild hog
ramp small wild onion
right smart great in quality, quantity, or number
sigogglin tilted or leaning at an angle, crooked
tee-totally completely
tote to carry
(over) yander/yonder over there (in the distance)
young’un child
you’ns (pronounced “yunz”) you (plural)
References and Further Reading
Montgomery, Michael B. and Joseph S. Hall (2003) Dictionary of Smoky Mountain

English. University of Tennessee Press.
Neal Hutcheson (director) (2003) Mountain Talk. A video documentary. North
Carolina Language and Life Project, North Carolina State University.
Kephart, Horace, J. Karl Nicholas, and Harold F. Farwell (eds.) (1993) Smoky
Mountain Voices: A Lexicon of Southern Appalachian Speech Based on the Research
of Horace Kephart. University Press of Kentucky.
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5
Doing the Charleston
(South Carolina)
Maciej Baranowski
Maciej
5 Historic building in Charleston, South Carolina. © by Joshua Sowin. Baranowski 29
AVC05 29 21/7/05, 10:47 AM

Charleston has always been a little different, and Charlestonians have
for the most part cherished their distinctiveness. Being perhaps the most
Southern city of all – socially and culturally – it was of course different
from any city in the North. In fact, the Civil War began with the firing on
Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861. But Charleston
was also different within the South, dominating the region culturally and
economically for almost two centuries. Its vast influence and the inward-
ness it developed after the Civil War have sometimes led to resentment in
the rest of the region. In turn, that may have strengthened Charlestonians’
sense of cultural identity.
It is not surprising that the city’s social and cultural prominence should
be paralleled by the remarkably distinct character of its dialect. That
distinctiveness was first noted in 1888 by Sylvester Primer in an article
entitled “Charleston Provincialisms.” The features of the dialect listed by
Primer were largely confirmed by the systematic study carried out by
dialectologists in the first half of the twentieth century, summarized in
Raven McDavid’s 1955 article “The Position of the Charleston Dialect.”
The accent that emerges from this study, as well as from tape-recordings
of Charlestonians born around the beginning of the twentieth century, is
distinct not only from most other dialects of American English but also
from the rest of the South. The special position that it occupies among
the dialects of North America is not necessarily due to the uniqueness
of any single feature, as most of its traits can be found in other dialects of
English, but rather to its unique combination of features and to the sources
of these traits.
The Historical Setting
When Spanish and French explorers arrived in the South Carolina area in
the sixteenth century, they found a land inhabited by many small tribes of
Native Americans, mostly Catawbas and Cherokees. The first permanent
English community was established near present-day Charleston in 1670.
Settlers from the British Isles and other parts of Europe built plantations
throughout the coastal low country, growing profitable crops of rice and
indigo. African slaves were brought in large numbers to provide labor for
the plantations, and by 1720 they formed the majority of the population.
The port city of Charleston became an important hub of commerce and
culture – and a highly stratified society. By the time of the Revolutionary
30 Doing the Charleston
AVC05 30 21/7/05, 10:47 AM

War, South Carolina was one of the richest colonies, with a strong gov-
erning class of merchants and planters leading the fight for independence
from Great Britain. At the same time, the region had an extensive underclass
of slaves who constituted the workforce for its economic base.
Unhappy with restrictions over free trade and the call for the abolition
of slavery that led to the Civil War, South Carolina became the first South-
ern state to secede from the Union. The City was devastated during the
Civil War and its economy suffered for many years afterward. In more
recent decades, it has developed into one of America’s great tourist sites,
connected to its past while celebrating its present. The lavish, traditional
architecture of the homes inhabited by mostly upper-class whites stand
side by side with former slave quarters and city markets now celebrating
the Gullah culture of African Americans, with language differences still
reflecting the similarities and differences of its history. In this description,
the focus is on the traditional Charleston speech used by the longstanding
white population; Gullah is described in chapter 28, “Gullah Islands”.
Traditional Sounds of Charleston
One of the most striking features of the traditional Charleston accent is

the quality of the vowels in words such as day and made on the one hand,
and go and boat on the other. In most dialects of English today, these
vowels are actually pronounced as a combination of two vowel sounds
one after another, or diphthongs. In the case of words such as day and
made, the vowel begins close to the vowel of dead and ends like the one in
see. The gliding nature of these vowels is sometimes reflected in the spell-
ing, as in day or maid. Similarly, the vowel in words such as go and boat is
a combination of two vowel elements: it begins as the vowel in bought and
ends as the vowel in boot. Again, the spelling sometimes reflects the two
different sound qualities comprising this vowel, as in sow and row, where
the w represents the vowel in boo.
In the traditional Charleston accent these vowels are produced by main-
taining the quality of the first vowel element throughout the syllable (the
vowel of dead in day and that of bought in go); they are monophthongs.
Or, they are produced by what linguists call ingliding vowels. In such
vowels the second element is pronounced with the tongue in neutral,
central position, the one in which it rests when we are breathing. In the
Charleston version of these two vowels, the tongue is closer to the roof of
Maciej Baranowski 31
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the mouth, not unlike in the vowels in bee and boo. The ingliding version
of the vowel in day, for example, sounds like dee-uh, and gate sounds like
gee-yuht.
Unglided versions of the vowels of made and boat are also found in
Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Pennsylvania German area, but the ingliding
pronunciations of the vowel are not found in any other dialect of Amer-
ican English. They are, however, found in Gullah, the English-based creole
spoken on the coast and Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia which
developed as a contact language among African slaves. Gullah has also
contributed some common vocabulary to the speech of white and African
Americans in Charleston, such as cooter (turtle), pinder (peanut), yard-ax
(unskilled preacher), and hu-hu (hoot owl).
Some of the distinctiveness of the Charleston accent may stem from
the extensive contact between the two ethnic groups, which constituted
two different speech communities: Charleston’s English-speaking whites
and Gullah-speaking African Americans. It may seem paradoxical that
an upper-class white dialect like that of Charleston could be linked to
the stigmatized speech patterns of ex-slaves in the plantations of the
Sea Islands, but the latter were often employed in the households of
Charleston’s upper class, and the white children would pick up elements
of Gullah from the speech of their maids and nannies.
Another element of the traditional dialect of Charleston is the softened
sound of k and g in words such as car and garden, pronounced with a y
sound after the k or g, as kyah and gyahden. This feature was present in
some dialects of English in England at the time of the settlement of
Charleston and may have been inherited directly from them. Another
possibility is that it emerged in Charleston as a result of contact with
Gullah, where it also was present.
A prominent feature of the traditional dialect in its traditional form is
the quality of the vowels in words such as rice and like, and house and
about, that is, before voiceless consonants (produced without vibration of
the vocal folds). In Charleston, the vowel begins with the tongue in a
higher position, the same as in the initial sound of about or abroad. This
pronunciation has been stereotyped in spellings such as a boot for about,
pronounced something like uh-buh-oot. This pronunciation is found not
only in Charleston; Canada is known for this pronunciation, as well as
parts of the US such as the Tidewater region of Virginia. The initial part of
the vowel sound is also raised in the pronunciation of like, rice, and tight.
In its most extreme form, the vowel of like may sound more like lake and
rice more like race.
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Another feature of Charleston is a lack of distinction between certain
vowels before r, leading to identical pronunciation of words such as ear
and air, hear and hair, and beer and bear. Both members of their word
pairs sound like the latter member, so that ear and air are pronounced as
air. Charleston is one of the few dialects of English characterized by a
merger of these two vowels, though this is a prominent feature of New
Zealand English and can occur in extreme forms of the New York City
dialect. Yet another peculiarity of Charleston’s traditional dialect is the
use of the vowel of buck in words such as book, put, and look. To go along
with its distinctive vowels, Charleston was until recently an r-less dialect,
so that pork and born sounded like poke and bone.
A Changing Dialect
The combination of features made Charleston sound very distinctive

indeed. However, in the last few decades most of the distinctive features
have been dying out rapidly. The two most prominent features of the
traditional dialect, the unglided and ingliding vowels in day, came, go, and
boat, and the raised initial part of the vowels in rice, like, house, and about
are now largely gone. Many Charlestonians are still aware of them and list
them as the defining features of the traditional dialect, but they can only
be heard in the speech of some older members of the city’s upper class.
This is not surprising, as the upper class has always been the locus of the
most prominent features of the dialect, possibly due in part to their con-
tact with Gullah-speaking maids and servants, which has now diminished.
Charleston has witnessed great migration movements into the city in the
last few decades, both from other parts of the South and from the North.
This no doubt has contributed significantly to the disappearance of some
of its traditional features. Although the dialect is changing, one of the
features seems to be more resilient than others – the lack of distinction
between the vowels in beer and bear or fear and fair.
In addition to the disappearance of the old distinctive features, dialect
development in Charleston has followed the lead of other regions. The
vowel in words such as two, do, and boot is now also pronounced with the
tongue moving to the front of the mouth, so that two can sound like tee-
oo. This particular feature is now found in a large number of American
dialects in the South, California, and other places. Another recent feature
in Charleston – one also found in the South in general and in Philadelphia
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– is the pronunciation of words such as so, go, and bone, where the first
element of the vowel is pronounced with the tongue in central, rather
than the usual back, position, so that bone can sound like bay-own.
Some vowel distinctions are disappearing in Charleston today. Charleston
is on its way to a merger of the vowels in words such as cot and caught and
Don and dawn. The youngest speakers do not distinguish between the
vowels in these words: they hear them as the same and pronounce them
identically. The oldest speakers, however, clearly distinguish between them,
while middle-aged speakers vary: in some words the two vowels may be
identical, for example in Don and dawn, whereas in others they may make
a distinction, as in cot vs. caught. The merger of these two vowels is one of
the most vigorous sound changes occurring in North American English
today, expanding rapidly across many dialect regions, and Charleston is
participating in this change.
Another recent development in Charleston is the so-called pin/pen
merger: a lack of distinction between the vowel of pin and the vowel of
pen because of the nasal sound that follows the vowel. As a result, word
pairs like pin/pen, him/hem, and sinned/send are produced the same. This
feature is generally recognized as a Southern dialect trait.
Finally, Charleston today, as opposed to only a few decades ago, is
largely r-ful in words like pork and born, and shares this recent develop-
ment with the rest of the South.
How Southern is Charleston?
The dialect status of traditional Charleston speech is a paradox. Though it

is perhaps the most Southern city in terms of its history and culture, its
traditional sound system is not very Southern at all. It does not sound
very Southern to most ears – in fact, Charlestonians are sometimes iden-
tified as Northerners or even Californians when they travel across the US.
The sound system does not have most of the prominent characteristics of
the South. The most salient element of the Southern speech is the ungliding
of the vowel in words such as my, pie, and five, pronounced with only the
first element of the diphthong, as in mah for my or pah for pie. Such
pronunciations can sometimes be heard in Charleston now, but the level
of usage is much lower than in, for example, Columbia, South Carolina.
Charleston does not have other elements of Southern speech either, such
as the lengthening and gliding of certain vowels that are associated with
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“the Southern drawl.” For example, words such as bid or bed are
pronounced as bih-eed and beh-eed in many parts of the South, but not in
Charleston. Though Charleston speech may be slowly acquiring these
Southern features and one day may sound like the speech of the rest of the
South, for now it remains a marginal Southern dialect. It is still different
from everyone else’s, as it always has been.
Acknowledgment
Thanks to Bill Labov, Sherry Ash, Corky Feagin, Uri Horesh, Gillian Sankoff, Erik
Thomas, and Walt Wolfram for their helpful comments and suggestions for this
chapter.
McDavid, Raven I., Jr. (1955) The position of the Charleston dialect. Publications
of the American Dialect Society 23: 35–49.
O’Cain, Raymond K. (1972) A social dialect survey of Charleston, South Carolina.
Dissertation, University of Chicago.
Primer, Sylvester (1888) Charleston Provincialisms. American Journal of Philology
IX: 198–213.
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6
The Lone Star State of Speech
(Texas)
6 A traditional Texas welcome. © by Lisa Young.
Few states have as great a presence in the popular imagination as Texas. For
many Americans the mere mention of the state brings to mind oil and
cowboys, glitzy modern cities and huge isolated ranches, braggadocio and
excess. The popular image has been fueled to a large extent by the size of
the state, its portrayal in television shows such as Dallas and in movies such
as Giant and The Alamo, its larger-than-life political figures such as Lyndon
36 The Lone Star State of Speech
AVC06 36 21/7/05, 10:47 AM

Johnson, and its unique history. Unlike other states, Texas was an inde-
pendent nation before it became a state, had its own Revolutionary War and
creation story (who hasn’t heard of the Alamo?), and negotiated special
considerations when it joined the Union (the Texas flag, for instance, can
fly at the same level as the United States flag). Moreover, the pride of Texans
in their state and its culture reinforces the idea that Texas is somehow
unique. Visitors to the state are often struck by the extent to which the Texas
flag is displayed, not only at government offices, but also at private resid-
ences, on the sides of barns, at car dealerships, and on T-shirts, cups, and
other items. The Texas flag flies virtually everywhere, even in areas like the
Rio Grande Valley, where the flag of Texas often stands alongside the flag
of Mexico.
Perhaps because of the sense of the state’s uniqueness in the popular
imagination, Texas English (TXE) is often assumed to be somehow unique
too. The inauguration of George W. Bush as President, for instance, led to
a rash of stories in the popular media about the new kind of English in the
White House (Armed Forces Radio ran an interview with us on the new
President’s English once an hour for 24 hours). The irony of the media
frenzy, of course, is that the man George Bush was replacing in the White
House spoke a variety of English that was quite similar to Bush’s in many
ways and perhaps even more marked by regional features. Actually, the
uniqueness of TXE is probably more an artifact of the presence of Texas in
the popular imagination than a reflection of linguistic circumstances. Only
a few features of Texas speech do not occur somewhere else. Nevertheless,
in its mix of elements both from various dialects of English and from
other languages, TXE is in fact somewhat different from other closely
related varieties.
A Short Linguistic History of Texas
Any linguistic overview of Texas must begin with the realization that English
is, historically, the second language of the state. Even setting aside the lan-
guages of Native Americans in the area, Spanish was spoken in Texas for
nearly a century before English was. With the opening up of Texas to Anglo
settlement in the 1820s, however, English quickly became as widely used
as Spanish, although bilingualism was not uncommon in early Texas. While
the outcome of the Texas Revolution meant that Anglos would outnumber
Hispanics for many years to come and that English would be the dominant
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language in the new nation and state, the early Hispanic settlement of the
state insured that much of that culture (the ranching system, for example)
and many Spanish words (e.g., mesa, remuda, and pilón) would blend with
the culture and language that Anglos brought from the east to form a
unique Texas mix. The continuing influx of settlers from 1840 to the
beginning of the twentieth century enhanced and transformed the mix.
Anglos from both the Lower South (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama,
Georgia, and South Carolina) and the Upper South (Tennessee, Kentucky,
and North Carolina) moved rapidly into the new state after 1840,
frequently bringing their slaves with them. Lower Southerners generally
dominated in east and southeast Texas and Upper Southerners in the
north and central parts of the state, though there was considerable dialect
mixing. This complex dialect situation was further complicated, especially
in southeast and south central Texas, by significant direct migration from
Europe. Large numbers of Germans, Austrians, Czechs, Italians, and Poles
(the first permanent Polish settlement in the US was at Panna Maria in
1854) came to Texas during the nineteenth century. In some cases their
descendants preserved their languages well into the twentieth century, and
they influenced English in certain parts of Texas even as they gradually
gave up their native tongues.
Although the border between Texas and Mexico has always been a per-
meable one, migration from Mexico accelerated rapidly after the Mexican
Revolution of 1910–20, slowed somewhat during the mid-twentieth
century, and since 1990 has been massive. As late as 1990, only 20 percent
of the 4 million Mexican Americans in Texas were born in Mexico.
After 1990, however, the number of immigrants grew rapidly. During the
two-year span between 2000 and 2002, for instance, foreign migration
into Texas, most of it from Mexico, totaled more than 360,000. The new
immigration is steadily changing the demographic profile of the state and
insures that Spanish will remain a vital language in Texas for some time to
come. In fact, it has led to a resurgence of Spanish in some areas. The
linguistic consequences of the new migration will be worth following.
Some Characteristics of Texas English
As the settlement history suggests, TXE is a form of Southern American

English and thus includes many of the lexical, grammatical, and phono-
logical features of Southern American English. As a result of the complex
AVC06 38 21/7/05, 10:47 AM

settlement pattern, however, the South Midland/Southern dialect division
that divided areas to the east was blurred in Texas. Throughout the his-
tory of the state, South Midland lexical items (e.g., green bean and chigger)
and phonological features (e.g., constricted postvocalic r in words like
forty and intrusive r in words like warsh) have coexisted and competed
with Southern words (e.g., snap bean and redbug) and pronunciations
(“r-lessness” in words like forty and four), although Southern features
were and still are strongest in east Texas. In south, south central, and west
Texas, a substantial number of Spanish words gained general currency.
Lexical items like frijoles, olla, arroyo, and remuda reflect not only the
relatively large number of Hispanics in the areas, but also the importance
of Mexican American culture in the development of a distinct Texas cul-
ture. These areas of the state are different linguistically in one other way.
Many features of Southern American English never became as widespread
there so that hallmarks of Southern English like the quasi-modal fixin’ to
(as in I can’t talk to you now; I’m fixin’ to leave), multiple modals like
might could (as in I can’t go today, but I might could go tomorrow), and
traditional pronunciations like the upgliding diphthong in dog (often
rendered in dialect literature as dawg) have always been restricted in
their occurrence in south and south central Texas, although they occurred
extensively elsewhere.
Other trademarks of Southern English also occur extensively through-
out most of the state, with south and south central Texas sometimes being
exceptions. These include both stereotypical phonological features such as
the pen/pin merger (both words sound like the latter) and the loss of the
offglide of i in words like ride and right (so that they sound like rahd and
raht), and also grammatical features like y’all, fixin to, and perfective done
(as in I’ve done finished that). In addition, a number of lexical items seem
to have originated or have their greatest currency in Texas (e.g., tank
‘stock pond’, maverick ‘stray or unbranded calf’, doggie ‘calf’, and roughneck
‘oil field worker’), while at least one traditional pronunciation, the use of
ar in words like horse and for (this makes lord sound like lard), occurs
only in Texas, Utah and a few other places.
Change and Persistence in Texas Speech
Few states have been transformed as radically as Texas during the last
thirty years. Rapid metropolitanization, the increasing dominance of high
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tech-industries in the state’s economy, and massive migration have
reshaped the demography of the state. Roughly a third of the population
now lives in the Dallas–Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio metro-
politan areas, and non-native Texans make up an increasingly large share
of that population. Between 1950 and 1970, 85% of the population growth
in Texas came from natural increase. With people moving rapidly into the
state from other areas during the 1970s, migration accounted for 60%
of the population growth. While migration slowed during the 1980s,
accounting for only 35% of the growth, during the 1990s it accelerated
again and accounted for more than half. Much of the migration into
Texas before 1990 was from other states, but since 1990 it has been
from other countries. Texas, then, has become a metropolitan, diverse,
high-tech state – with significant linguistic consequences.
Perhaps the most obvious consequence is an emerging rural–urban
linguistic split. Although most Southern features remain strong in rural
areas and small cities, in large metropolises many stereotypical features
are disappearing. The pen/pin merger, the loss of the offglide in i, and
upgliding diphthongs in words like dog are now recessive in metropolitan
areas, although the first two in particular persist elsewhere. The rural–
urban split is so far largely a phonological one, though. Both y’all and
fixin’ to are expanding to non-natives in metropolises (and to the His-
panic population too). Those grammatical features that are disappearing
in metropolises (e.g., perfective done in They done left) seem to be dis-
appearing elsewhere as well.
Even as some traditional pronunciation features are disappearing, some
interesting new developments are taking place. Especially in urban areas,
but also in rural west Texas, the vowels in words like caught and cot
are becoming merged (both sound like cot), as are tense/lax vowel pairs
before l: pool and pull are now homophones or near homophones through-
out much of the state, and feel/fill and sale/sell are increasingly becoming
so. The caught/cot merger is particularly interesting in Texas since it should
signal the movement of the phonological system away from the “Southern
Shift” pattern. In the Texas Panhandle, though, things are not quite so
simple. Even as the caught/cot merger has become the norm among those
born after World War II, the loss of the offglide in right and ride and
Southern Shift features remain quite strong. What seems to be emerging
on the west Texas plains, then, is a dialect that combines features of
Southern speech and another major dialect. The development of such a
mixed pattern is not what a linguist might expect, but this is Texas, and
things are just different here.
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Further Reading
Atwood, E. Bagby (1962) The Regional Vocabulary of Texas. Austin: University of

Texas Press.
Bailey, Guy, Tom Wikle, Jan Tillery, and Lori Sand (1996) The linguistic con-
sequences of catastrophic events: An example from the southwest. In Jennifer
Arnold et al. (eds.), Sociolinguistic Variation: Data, Theory, and Analysis, Stanford,
CA: CSLI Publications, 435–51.
Labov, William (1994) Principles of Linguistic Change: Internal Factors. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell.
Thomas, Erik R. (2001) An Acoustic Analysis of Vowel Variation in New World
English. Publication of the American Dialect Society 85. Durham, NC: Duke
University Press.
Tillery, Jan, Guy Bailey, and Tom Wikle (2004) Demographic Change and Ameri-
can Dialectology in the 21st Century. American Speech 79: 227–49.
AVC06 41 21/7/05, 10:47 AM

7
Speaking the Big Easy
(New Orleans, LA)
Connie Eble
742Bourbon
Speaking theOrleans
Street, New Big Easy
during Mardi Gras. © by EauClaire Media.
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A new Roman Catholic bishop was recently installed in New Orleans. The
ceremony culminated in a recessional from the cathedral with the bishop
clad in all the finery of his office and accompanied by richly vested
altar servers and clergy as well as governmental and civic leaders. A local
resident thought that the event would be a memorable occasion for his
two-year-old daughter and took her to Jackson Square. As the procession
made its way through the onlookers, he lifted her onto his shoulders
so that she could see. When the bishop came into view, she knew just
what to do. She started waving energetically and called out, “Throw me
something, mistah.” Because of Mardi Gras, the child had already learned
the proper linguistic response at a parade – to call out to the people in
costume asking to be thrown beads or other trinkets. Knowing local lore
and practicing local customs and language – whether from the cradle or as
a convert – are essential for an authentic New Orleanian.
New Orleans has always considered itself sui generis. Its very survival
on a strip of alluvial land below sea-level between a shallow lake and
the mighty Mississippi River is a source of pride. Founded in 1718 about
100 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River to anchor the French
colony of Louisiana, the port stood sentinel between the Gulf of Mexico
to the south and almost half a continent to the north. Although its
location made the city prone to diseases like yellow fever, to springtime
flooding from the rising river, and to tropical storms, it also made the port
strategically important to European colonial powers and later to the
United States of America, which, in order to acquire the port of New
Orleans, purchased the vast Louisiana territory from Napoleon.
Even though Louisiana was officially a colony of Spain for over thirty
years (1769–1803), and even though slaves from Africa and immigrants
from German-speaking Europe and from British America made up a sizable
portion of the population, New Orleans was mainly French-speaking
at the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Americanization and the
English language soon permeated, creating a social division that remained
important up to the twentieth century. After the Louisiana Purchase,
the term creole was used to mean “native,” distinguishing locals whose
families had lived in colonial Louisiana from those whose families arrived
after the port became a part of the US. Most of the people to whom
the term applied were speakers of French or Spanish, and many were of
African or mixed African and European ancestry, including many free
people of color. Currently, Creole is the term that many descendants of
mixed African and French or Spanish ancestry prefer for themselves. As a
linguistic term, a creole is a type of language that developed from a pidgin,
Connie Eble 43
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and a tiny number of African Americans in Louisiana still speak a creole
of French. Another type of French still in limited use in Louisiana is a
development of the dialect spoken by the Acadians, or Cajuns, who came
to Louisiana from formerly French Canada in the 1760s. For the most
part, the Acadians did not remain in the port city of New Orleans but
spread into the swamps and plains of southern Louisiana and remained
largely a rural people.
In the course of the nineteenth century, New Orleans absorbed in great
numbers the same groups that helped build the urban centers of the North
– the Germans, Irish, and Italians. In the four decades before the Civil
War, New Orleans ranked second after New York as a port of entry for
immigrants. By 1900 New Orleans was an English-speaking city, though
many people used another language at home. Without adopting the French
language, many of the immigrant groups adopted customs and cultural
perspectives that had been established when the city was French, e.g.,
cleaning and whitewashing graves on All Saints’ Day; baking king cakes in
observance of Twelfth Night; setting aside a period of revelry between
January 6 and Mardi Gras and a period of sobriety and somberness
between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday; educating females and people
of color separately, if at all; developing a fine cuisine using the abundant
game, seafood, and vegetables of southern Louisiana. The groups in turn
contributed to the unique cultural amalgam that is today greater New
Orleans and that sustains varieties of the English language that sound
different from those of northern Louisiana and from Cajun English.
Next to nothing based on scholarly research has been published on the
speech of New Orleans. Two brief encyclopedia entries by Mackie Blanton
(1989) and by Richard W. Bailey (1992) summarize the well-known
characteristics of New Orleans speech and the complex cultural heritage
and intricate social stratification that still influence it.
To be sure, New Orleans shares many linguistic features with its
neighbors in other parts of southern Louisiana, particularly vocabulary.
Most New Orleanians would recognize, if not use, many words claimed to
be Cajun English, such as boudin ‘sausage of pork, rice, and seasoning’, cush-
cush ‘browned cornmeal eaten as a cereal’, and make do do ‘go to sleep’.
Other words like armoire ‘large upright wardrobe for clothing’, lagniappe
‘something extra’, lost bread ‘French toast’, and mirliton ‘vegetable pear’
are used throughout southern Louisiana, both in Cajun country and around
New Orleans. But even though both developed against the backdrop of
French and have many French-derived vocabulary items in common, New
Orleans and Cajun dialects of English sound quite different.
44 Speaking the Big Easy
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A New Orleans Glossary
alligator pear avocado

batture land between the levee and river
bobo minor sore, cut, or lump on the skin
brake tag automobile safety inspection sticker
cayoodle a dog of low pedigree
chickory root that is ground and roasted and added to coffee
cook down the seasoning slowly sauté small pieces of onions, celery, and bell
peppers together as a step in the preparation of many dishes
crab boll/crayfish boll social gathering, usually out of doors, at which crabs or
crayfish are boiled and eaten: the spices used to flavor boiling shellfish
deadmen’s fingers inedible lungs of crabs
den warehouse where Mardi Gras floats are decorated and stored
devil beating his wife raining while the sun is shining
doodlebug little bug with lots of legs that rolls into a ball
dressed served with lettuce, tomatoes, and mayonnaise
flying horses carousel, merry-go-round
go-cup paper or plastic cup for drinking alcoholic beverages on the street
gris gris magic formula to bring bad luck, e.g., put the gris gris on someone
hickey knot or bump on the head or forehead
homestead financial institution that deals in home mortgages
locker closet
lost bread french toast, translation of pain perdu
muffaletta large Italian sandwich of ham, Genoa salami, Provolone, and olive salad
on a round, seeded bun
nectar pink, almond-flavored syrup in a soda or on a snowball
pané meat breaded and fried veal or beef
pass by visit briefly, e.g., “I’ll pass by your house after work.”
second line mass of people who follow behind a funeral procession dancing in the
streets. Now applied to a particular dance and music which has become a favorite
part of wedding receptions as the bride and groom lead the assembled guests in a
snake-like procession throughout the hall
stand in a wedding serve as a bridesmaid, groomsman, or usher in a wedding
shoe sole flat, glazed pastry shaped roughly like the sole of a shoe
Zatarain’s popular brand of New Orleans foods, sometimes used generically for creole
mustard or for the spices used to boil crabs and crawfish
Connie Eble 45
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The best record of the dialects of New Orleans is the 29-minute docu-
mentary film Yeah You Rite! (Alvarez and Kolker 1984). The voices of the
film ring true to natives of the city, who love to analyze and explain the
uniqueness of their city and often complain that the movies never get
the New Orleans accent right. The natives interviewed in the film are
quick to give their opinions about linguistic distinctions based on class,
color, and neighborhood, voicing the popular perception that New Orleans
has three dialects: uptown white, downtown white (also known as Yat),
and black. In fact, language variation is much more complex than that
three-part division implies, linked in part to a middle-class population that
traverses neighborhood boundaries to attend old, established, parochial
high schools. The linguistic situation among African Americans in New
Orleans is particularly complex. Although many speak a variety of
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) similar to that of urban
areas throughout the United States, members of the longstanding middle-
class community often speak a kind of English indistinguishable from
that of middle-class whites. Regardless of pronunciation and grammatical
differences, all varieties of New Orleans English include a common core of
local vocabulary (see p. 45).
Local identity is a performance art in New Orleans, and people work at
it. An email circulating among displaced New Orleanians lists hundreds of
ways that “You know you’re from New Orleans.” Many are linguistic:
People say you sound like you’re from Brooklyn. You know it’s ask, but
you purposely say ax. You call tomato sauce red gravy. You wrench your
hands in the zink with an onion to get the crawfish smell off. You can’t
stand people who say the Mardi Gras or the Jazzfeast. You write eaux for
the sound o, as in Geaux Zephyrs or Alfredeaux sauce. New Orleanians are
also sentimental about street names (Chase 1949). Part of local identity is
knowing that, for example, Milan Street is pronounced MY-lan, Burgundy
is bur-GUN-dee, and Calliope is KAL-ee-ope.
Over the past twenty years, a name has taken hold for the distinctive
lower- and middle-class vernacular of whites in New Orleans. It is called
Yat, and for the first time merits an entry in the American Heritage
Dictionary (2000). Popular lore has it that Yat is a shortening of the
familiar New Orleans greeting “Where you at?” It is of fairly recent usage,
possibly originating as part of Ninth Ward public high school slang in the
1950s as the name of one subgroup of the student body. By the early
1980s Yat clearly referred to a local way of speaking and is now firmly
entrenched as the name of a dialect. It has the derived adjective yatty, as in
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You surely sound yatty on your answer machine. Yat can also designate
a person who speaks that way or, more generally, a native of New Orleans.
At Christmas season in 2000 and 2001, one of the most frequently heard
holiday songs was “The 12 Yats of Christmas”: “On the foist day a Chrismas
my Mawmaw gave ta me a crawfish dey caught in Arabi.” A light-hearted
website for locals is maintained by the Southern Yat Hysterical Society,
the name an allusion to the city’s traditional Southern Yacht Club.
Most websites dedicated to the cultivation of a New Orleans identity are
allied to tourism and seek to present New Orleans as unique, carnal, and
exotic – a place in the United States that even has a high-caloric way of
talking the English language. A website devoted to Mardi Gras (Mardi-
speak 2000: www.mardigrasunmasked.com/mardigras/mardispeak.htm),
for example, has a section explaining king cake ‘wreath-shaped coffee
cake eaten during the Mardi Gras season’, krewe ‘members of a carnival
organization’, Mardi Gras ‘Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, season from
Twelfth Night through Fat Tuesday’, and many other words pertaining to
the season.
The most accessible description of the language of New Orleans is part
of “The Gumbo Pages,” maintained by Chuck Taggert, a New Orleans
native who now lives in California. From Taggert’s (2000) Yat-speak:
A Lexicon of New Orleans Terminology and Speech, much can be extracted
about New Orleans pronunciation and vocabulary.
The dialects of New Orleans often lack r after vowels. For example,
charmer is pronounced CHAW-muh. Thus, for many New Orleanians,
water, quarter, and oughtta rhyme, and autistic and artistic are homo-
phones. The vowel sound ah merges with the sound aw (as in awful) so
that John and lawn rhyme. The th spelling is pronounced d, as shown
by da QUAW-tah for the Quarter. The most parodied and stigmatized
pronunciation is er for vowels spelled oi and oy in words like boil, oil,
oysters, and toilet, which are pronounced as if spelled berl, earl, ersters, and
turlet. New Orleanians also place the word stress on the first syllable in
adult, cement, insurance, and umbrella. Other local pronunciations are
mayonnaise as MY-nez, mirliton as MEL-luh-tawn, pecan as puh-KAWN,
and praline as PRAW-leen, and the infamous ask as ax. There are at least
four major standard local pronunciations of New Orleans – with either
three or four syllables, and either r-full or r-less.
Indeed, language variety is deliberate and thriving and perhaps even
economically necessary in New Orleans now that tourism has become the
leading industry.
Connie Eble 47
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References
Alvarez, Louis, and Andrew Kolker (1984) Yeah You Rite! Film. Narrated by Billy
Dell. New York: Center for New American Media.
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edn. (2000). Ed.
Joseph P. Pickett. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Bailey, Richard W. (1992) New Orleans. In Tom McArthur (ed.), The Oxford
Companion to the English Language, 690. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Blanton, Mackie (1989) New Orleans English. In Charles Reagan Wilson and
William Ferris, (eds.), Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, 780–1. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press.
Chase, John (1949) Frenchmen, Desire, Good Children, and Other Streets of New
Orleans. New Orleans: Robert L. Crager.
New Orleans Web (2001) Say what?!: The Language of New Orleans.
www.experienceneworleans.com/glossary.html.
Southern Yat Hysterical Society (1998, 2000) www.southernyatclub.com.
Taggert, Chuck (2000) Yat-speak: A Lexicon of New Orleans Terminology and Speech.
www.gumbopages.com/yatspeak.html.
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8
Sounds of Ole Man River
(Memphis, TN)
Valerie Fridland
Valerie
8 Paddle steamer docked on the Mississippi river. © by Dan Brandenburg. Fridland 49
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When people from outside the South learn I grew up in Memphis,
Tennessee, I inevitably get the comment, “You don’t sound like you’re
from Memphis – what happened to your accent?” As I consider myself
a true native, my response is always to ask for a description of what a
Memphian sounds like. “You know, you don’t have that . . . that twang” is
what usually emerges as people realize they don’t really know what a
Memphian, or a Southerner for that matter, specifically talks like, except
that they know one when they hear one. Non-Southerners, in fact, are
generally not very good at separating out the different dialects spoken
within the South, viewing us as one mass lump on the American dialect
landscape. While Southern dialects share much linguistically and histor-
ically, intra-regional varieties are also quite salient, differing along ethnic,
social and geographic lines.
Memphis is geographically poised at the border of west Tennessee,
Mississippi and Arkansas, overlooking the banks of the Mississippi River.
Its name, taken from another river city, the Egyptian city of Memphis on
the Nile (whose residents were also “Memphians”), reflected its location
on the majestic Mississippi, an early sign that Memphis was destined to
become an important trading center in the region. The city was settled in
the early 1800s, by, among others, the future US President Andrew Jackson,
and owes much of its linguistic history to the spread of the earlier settle-
ment from eastern Tennessee. The city continued to grow rapidly with
settlers from the Southern Coastal regions in Virginia and North Carolina
who migrated first into eastern Tennessee. Originally of English and
Scots-Irish descent, these settlers joined others from eastern and middle
Tennessee as they moved farther west. As travel became easier through
new developments such as steamboats, these early immigrants were soon
joined by settlers from other Southern states such as Kentucky, Alabama,
Mississippi and Georgia. The combination of intra-Southern migration, a
large African American community, and the city’s role as a major river
port and center for national goods distribution led to the formation of a
recognizable local variety of speech, one that is distinctly urban in light of
the contemporary trend of rural in-migration to urban areas of the South.
In fact, Memphis’ position as headquarters for several major companies
like Federal Express and the Coca-Cola Bottling Company has contri-
buted to local speech, with terms such as to FedEx used synonymously with
“to ship overnight” and coke used for any carbonated drink. And, when
a Memphian goes shopping, we are more than likely heading to Piggly
Wiggly, affectionately known locally as simply “The Pig,” a locally founded
grocery chain that originated the supermarket concept.
50 Sounds of Ole Man River
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Within a region so often negatively defined by its speech, there is an
inherent pride in our speech and distinctions are made among intra-
regional dialects. For those of us raised in Memphis, worse than the stigma
of speaking with a Southern accent was the stigma of being perceived as
speaking with a rural Mississippi or Arkansas accent. Native Memphians
can easily tell where non-natives from other parts of the South are from,
especially those that we have high degrees of contact with. Ask a Memphian
what they sound like compared to other Southerners and they will prob-
ably use these groups as references for what they do not sound like. The
rural dialects, those associated with the areas of Arkansas and Mississippi
near Memphis, tend to be described as more “country” sounding and
have more intense use of marked features like the pronunciation of the
long i of bye and time without the glide, as in baa for bye, tar for tire, or ah
for I), flapping (idn’t, wadn’t for isn’t, wasn’t), multiple negation (I don’t
see nothing), and vocabulary items like ain’t. Eastern Tennessee, separated
from Memphis by mountainous geography and the mid-state terminus
of the early railroad system, is associated with Appalachian dialects and
features such as intrusive r as in warsh your clothes, voiceless w sounds as
in hwich for which and a-prefixing as in I was a-hunting. In addition, the
Scarlett O’Hara breathy-voiced Southerner who drops r’s as in Well, ah
nevah for Well, I never would be quickly tagged as a resident of the Deep
South by most mid-Southern Memphians whose r’s remain steadfastly
intact. However, while Memphians can recognize the natives from
the non-natives, it is usually also a “I know it when I hear it” kind of
differentiation rather than any clear-cut criteria they can list.
Part of the difficulty in discerning the differences between Southern
dialects is that it is generally a matter of degree rather than kind that
separates one from another. While some features like intrusive r and
a-prefixing are clearly present only in certain areas of the South and not in
others, most Southern features are at least marginally present in all local
dialects, with the differences between local varieties hinging on the extent
to which people in different areas use them in their speech. Memphians
may say y’all and fixin’ to as much as the next Southerner, but they don’t
tend to use ain’t and lose l sounds as in caw me for call me or hep for help
as often as their more rural neighbors. When a native Memphian hears
another Southerner speak, it is not simply one trigger word or form that
cues the Memphian into that speaker’s background, but a composite of
a number of different dialect features used at a different frequency than
a Memphian would use them in similar conversation. Since very few of
the distinctive language forms are by themselves diagnostic but instead are
Valerie Fridland 51
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shared by these dialects, people are not readily able to articulate what it is
per se that makes them know where another speaker is from. It is no
wonder that non-Southerners who are much less exposed to the variations
that occur in the South find it hard to hear differences among Southern
dialects.
In addition, the enduring myth that Southern American English is a
substandard variety of Standard English tends to lead to the grouping of
these dialects under the same rubric of improper speech, without much
investigation into the historical patterns that laid the foundations for the
dialects now spoken throughout the South and the distinctions that are
maintained. All of the dialect features noted above are as linguistically
principled and patterned as any of the characteristic features of Northern
or Western speech and many, such as r-lessness and vocalic mergers, are
widely evidenced in other “prestige” dialects (e.g., the r-less speech of the
highly regarded Received Pronunciation in Britain or the Western cot/
caught vowel merger), yet Southern dialects remain socially disfavored.
As linguist Dennis Preston showed with his research into folk linguistic
beliefs about the dialects spoken within the United States and as most
caricatures about the South reveal, most Americans, including Southerners
themselves, have negative evaluations of the varieties of English spoken
in the Southern US. In general, people have only a vague idea of the types
of features that make Southern dialects distinct. Instead, only a small
subset of features are widely recognized, those that are highly stereotypical
such as double modals (I might could do that) or the Southern drawl (itself
a vague cover term for a variety of distinctions in the way vowel sounds
are produced) and, of course, the ubiquitous y’all. Since most dialects
within the South share these highly salient features, outsiders are unlikely
to notice the differences that set the dialects apart. The fact that most
media renditions of Southern accents are spoken by actors adopting what
they believe replicates a generic “Southern twang” does little to help clarify
the image of a united Southern tongue.
What makes the picture of intra-regional variation even more confus-
ing is that within each area of the South, social factors such as ethnicity,
age and gender also mitigate the use of different features. For example, all
Southern English speakers use tahm for time and baa for bye to some
degree, but white speakers from the Deep South tend to use it more
extensively than, say, a white speaker in Memphis and, in general, white
Southern speakers use it more extensively than black Southern speakers.
Curiously, this situation is reversed in Memphis, as black Memphians show
a greater frequency of use of this feature than white Memphians, showing
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that generalizations about the South as a whole abstract away from
intra-regional variations. Similarly, while the pronunciation of the vowels
in pin and pen as the same (called a “vowel merger”) is still widespread,
there is evidence from recent research that speakers under 25 years of age
in Memphis are less likely to merge these two sounds than their older
counterparts. On the other hand, the low back vowel merger which makes
indistinct the difference in pronunciation of words like cot and caught or
Don and dawn is more common among young white Memphians than
among their older counterparts, but is not generally considered a feature
of other Southern American dialects. Black Memphians, like older whites,
maintain the traditional vowel distinction in words using these two
vowels. In contrast, r-dropping, a feature that characterizes older speakers
in the Deep South, is found among African American, but not European
American, speakers in Memphis. While often local black and white speech
may differ in terms of what speech features are used, the large African
American population in Memphis also contributes much to the local flavor
of speech in Memphis, with terms which originated in African American
speech having spread out to many in the younger European American
community, contributing terms such as Dog! (pronounced dawg), as in
Dog! I’m hungry to the local variety.
Within the South, in places such as Memphis, locals tend to have very
strong feelings about the variety of their speech community and its role in
identifying them as an authentic member of that community, even if it is
not so easy from the outside to tell different Southerners apart. When a
Memphian talks about getting some ’cue and going to visit the King, you
can bet we are talking about a big plate of pulled pork barbecue and a visit
to Graceland, not a trip to a pool hall or a European monarchy. In fact,
mentioning to a local that you have ever eaten beef barbecue, much less
enjoyed it, may be considered fightin’ words. Speech is as much about our
culture as are our hospitality, our music and our barbecue. And, as any
Memphian will tell you, don’t be messing with our Barbecue! The same
goes for our speech.
Valerie Fridland 53
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PART II
THE NORTH
Julie Roberts, Naomi Nagy, and Charles Boberg 55
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56 Yakking with the Yankees
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9
Yakking with the Yankees
(New England)
Julie Roberts, Naomi Nagy, and
Charles Boberg
9 A row of houses on Martha’s Vineyard. © by David Owens.
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Introduction
Two major New England shibboleths are the “dropping” of postvocalic r

(as in cah for car and bahn for barn and the low central vowel in words
like aunt and glass (Carver 1987). Neither pattern is found across all of
New England, nor are they all there is to the well-known dialect, faithfully
reproduced in the movie Good Will Hunting. We present a brief description
of the settlement of the region and give examples of current vocabulary
and pronunciation patterns to illustrate both how New England differs
from the rest of the country and what region-internal differences exist.
Settlement of New England
The Massachusetts Bay coastal area, one of the country’s original cultural
hearths (Carver 1987), was settled by English immigrants in the early
1600s. In search of better farm land, some original settlers moved west
from the coast and settled the Lower Connecticut River Valley in central
Connecticut. They were joined soon after by new immigrants from
eastern and southern England, and later from Italy, Scotland, Ireland,
and elsewhere. Settlement spread, generally along river valleys, into New
Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and Rhode Island. New England is now
comprised of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Con-
necticut, and Rhode Island. Boston is still known as the hub, referring
to its position as the center from which settlements radiated in New
England.
The Handbook of the Linguistic Geography of New England (Kurath 1939–
43) divides the area into eastern and western New England (divided by the
Green Mountains of Vermont in the north, the Berkshires in the middle,
and the Connecticut River farther south), with seven sub-regions dictated
by settlement patterns (Carver 1987). However, today there is little in the
way of linguistic markers of these regions, aside from some distinctive
characteristics of eastern New England. A Word Geography of the Eastern
United States (Kurath 1949) divides New England into only three regions
(Northeastern, Southeastern, and Southwestern), better representing
linguistic differences.
Ethnic groups have had differing influences across the region. These
include Native American groups, such as the Abenaki in Northern
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Vermont and the Mahican in southwestern Vermont, both of whom spoke
languages in the Algonquian language family. Native American languages
have died out in Vermont, but the Abenaki descendants remain, particu-
larly in northwestern Vermont, and have begun a process of revival
of customs and language. Also present in New England are Franco-
Americans who moved south from French-speaking parts of Canada, and
large Irish and Italian groups. Upper Maine (north of Penobscot Bay) is
quite distinct from the rest of the region, due to ties with New Brunswick,
Canada.
Vocabulary
New England has always been nautically oriented, so ship building, fishing,
and seafood vocabulary are traditionally associated with the region. For
example, nor’easters are a type of storm typical of the region. Similarly,
there is a lot of farming vocabulary particular to the region, including
carting or teaming a load ‘hauling a load’ and open and shut day ‘a day
with variable weather’. Some gastronomic terms particular to the region
are Boston brown bread, a dessert, grinder ‘long deli sandwich’, hamburg
‘ground beef’, tonic ‘carbonated drink’, dropped egg ‘poached egg’, as well
as food introduced by Native Americans such as hasty pudding and quahog
(Rhode Island) or cohog (Boston) for a type of edible clam. A porch may
be a piazza, a hair bun is a pug, a traffic circle is a rotary (Carver 1987:28–
36). Two common ways of agreeing with someone are to say a-yuh or so
don’t I (meaning ‘so do I’).
According to a survey completed by a small group of University of
New Hampshire students, words still widely used and recognized by
residents of New Hampshire today include grinder, hamburg, rotary,
and notch ‘mountain pass’. On the other hand, belly-bunt ‘ride a sled
face-down’, pung ‘sleigh for hauling wood’, and pug ‘hair bun’ are
recognized by few people. Words which were not included in the
older dialectological research but which are heard today include bubbler
‘drinking fountain’, bulkie ‘round sandwich roll’, and spa ‘convenience
store’ in Boston; directional ‘turn signal’ and frappe ‘milk shake’ in eastern
Massachusetts and New Hampshire; dooryard ‘where you park your car’
and numb as a hake ‘not very bright’ in downeast Maine; and soggie ‘greasy
hotdog’, cabinet ‘milkshake’, take a heart ‘have a heart attack’ in Rhode
Island.
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Pronunciation
A feature of eastern New England, also exhibited by speakers in the

Virginia and North Carolina hearth areas, is the vocalization (locally
referred to as “dropping”) of r in post-vocalic position. People talk
about “New Hampsha” and “Woosta” instead of New Hampshire and
Worcester. The distinction between word-initial wh and w sounds, as
in which/witch, is retained to some extent in parts of New Hampshire,
Vermont, and Massachusetts. Eastern New Englanders also traditionally
make a distinction between pairs such as for and four, or horse and hoarse,
which is not heard in most of the rest of the US. As a result of this
distinction, combined with r-dropping, a Boston pronunciation of short
sounds the same as shot; north rhymes with moth. This distinction may be
disappearing among young people.
Words such as cot and caught, stock and stalk sound the same in most
of eastern New England, both having a more or less rounded vowel
pronounced in the low-back corner of the mouth. (An exception to
this pattern is Providence, Rhode Island, where the two vowels are
distinct.) Many speakers in eastern Massachusetts and northern New
Hampshire have three distinct vowels in the words Mary (the vowel
of ban), merry (the vowel of bet), and marry (the vowel of bat),
while those in Vermont and southern New Hampshire pronounce
the three words alike (Nagy 2001). Bostonians and northern New
Hampshirites generally maintain a distinction between the vowels in
the first syllables of bother and father (the a of father is produced further
back in the mouth), while many residents of Vermont and southern
New Hampshire, especially younger people, have merged those vowels
(Nagy 2001).
In western New England, quite a different phonological system holds
sway. As in New York City and upstate New York, speakers in Hartford
and Springfield retain the distinction between cot and caught, stock and
stalk. But western New England is less uniform in its speech than eastern
New England. People in Vermont are likely to make no difference
between cot and caught, like speakers east of them, while people in western
Massachusetts are likely to disagree on this point: older people retain
the difference while younger people have lost it. As for the eastern
New England shibboleths mentioned above, r is regularly pronounced
throughout western New England, and the broad a is much less common
– laugh and dance have the same vowel as lap and Dan.
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In Vermont, articles have been appearing regularly in the local press
questioning and worrying about the possibility that the Vermont dialect
may be dying. This is thought to be caused by the modern influx of people
from elsewhere in the US, known as flatlanders, either temporarily, for
skiing (such people are sometimes called coneheads in Vermont) or for
leaf-peeping (admiring the fall foliage), or as permanent settlers seeking a
more rural way of life. Early evidence shows that the dialect may, in fact,
be changing toward a more standard-sounding one. Two of the most
talked-about Vermont vowels are ou, as in cow, which is pronounced
kyou, and long i as in kite, which is pronounced more like koit. Women
and younger speakers are pronouncing these vowels more like they are
said elsewhere in the country whereas older rural men tend to retain the
more traditional Vermont pronunciations. However, not all of the news is
bad for those bemoaning the fate of the heritage of Vermont, including its
dialect. Another prominent feature is known locally as “t-dropping” or,
more technically, as glottal stop (ʔ) replacement of t. This feature has
been widely studied in Great Britain, where it is found in many dialects
including the Cockney dialect demonstrated most famously by Eliza
Doolittle (or Dooliʔl). Even children, including those relatively new to
Vermont, are learning and using glottal stop. This is a feature of Vermont
speech that doesn’t appear to be going away!
Summary
Like many older parts of the US, New England, and eastern New England
in particular, is characterized by a distinct local dialect that is gradually
receding due to the influence of “general American” speech used in the
mass media and by newcomers to the region. Much of the distinct New
England vocabulary was connected with traditional occupations that are
less important in today’s economy. As people move from all over the
country to take advantage of higher education and high-tech jobs in
the Boston area, young New Englanders sound increasingly like young
people in other parts of the country. However, some local features remain,
especially in rural areas and in city neighborhoods with large proportions
of local people. Many people in these areas still drop their r’s, though no
longer as consistently or in as many words as they used to. As for the lack
of a distinction between the vowels in cot and caught, it is actually the rest
of the country that is becoming more like eastern New England.
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How to Talk Like a New Englander: A Brief Dictionary
belly-bunt ride a sled face-down You’d be crazy to belly-bunt on a pung. (NH)
bubbler drinking fountain I’m thirsty. Where’s a bubbler? (MA/NH)
creemee soft ice cream The creemee machine is broken. (VT)
dooryard where you park your car Park in the dooryard. (ME)
flatlander outsider He’s a flatlander from New Jersey. (VT)
frappe milkshake I want a chocolate frappe. (Boston, NH)
leaf peepers autumn tourists You can’t go out. The roads are full of leaf
peepers. (VT)
nor’easter storm typical of the There’s a nor’easter coming. (all)
region
pung sled for hauling wood We teamed a load of wood on the pung. (NH)
quahog type of edible clam Let’s go out for quahogs. (RI)
sliding sledding Grab your sled, and let’s go sliding. (VT)
tonic carbonated drink Cola is my favorite kind of tonic. (MA)
woodchuck/ Vermonter, local The chucks and flatlanders mix most at
chuck town meeting. (VT)
Sources: Carver 1987 and students from the Univercity of New Hampshire and the
University of Vermont.
References
Carver, Craig M. (1987) American Regional Dialects: A Word Geography. Ann

Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Kurath, Hans (1939) Handbook of the Linguistic Geography of New England.
Providence: Brown University.
Kurath, Hans (1949) Word Geography of the Eastern United States. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Nagy, Naomi (2001) Live free or die as a linguistic principle. American Speech 76:
30–41.
Telsur Website 2000: www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas.
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10
Beantown Babble (Boston, MA)
Jim Fitzpatrick
10 Boston street scene. © by Andrei Tchernov. Jim Fitzpatrick 63
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Ever’body says words different . . . Arkansas folks says ’em different, and Oklahomy
folks says ’em different. And we seen a lady from Massachusetts, an’ she said
’em differentest of all. Couldn’ hardly make out what she was sayin’.
John Steinbeck’s appraisal of Massachusetts speech in The Grapes of Wrath

is one of the most often cited quotes in dialectology. It addresses the
reality of differences in American English. From the North End to South
Station, from West Roxbury to East Milton Square, the Boston dialect is
one of the most widely recognized throughout the United States. While
the city itself has changed significantly since the arrival of Europeans in
the Hub in the early seventeenth century, the Boston dialect has remained
a hallmark of the area, with its dropped r’s (Pahk the cah), lowered and
broadened vowels (I’m going to the bahthroom), and distinctive vocabulary
(That’s wicked pissa!, i.e., very good). Visitors to the city can hardly escape
its distinctive character, and lifetime residents have come to acknowledge
it as part of what makes Boston unique. So grab a tonic, come on into the
pahlar, and pull up a chay-ah. Next stop, Pahk Street!
Boston, Past and Present
The dialect history of Boston begins with a rock – more specifically,

Plymouth Rock, the landing site of the ship Mayflower, which came ashore
in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. The 102 English Separatists who
arrived on the ship helped establish the Massachusetts Bay Colony under
Governor John Winthrop in the early 1630s. The first group of settlers in
Boston proper were about 150 English Puritans who had fled from their
native Lincolnshire to escape religious persecution. Boston quickly estab-
lished itself as one of the major cultural, educational, and commercial
centers of the original thirteen colonies; its fine harbor allowed for the
development of shipping and maritime industry, and also set the stage for
such historical events as the Boston Tea Party. Additionally, the Hub was
home to such integral patriotic figures as Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere,
and John Hancock. The founding of Harvard College in 1636, sixteen
years after the original landing of the Mayflower at Plymouth, established
a rich educational tradition that is to this day one of the landmarks of the
Boston area. With over 70 colleges and universities in the vicinity, it is the
most densely populated region of higher learning in the United States,
64 Beantown Babble
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attracting many residents from other regions. But few mistake the voice of
a native Beantowner.
While the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s original population was almost
exclusively Puritan, this did not last. By the second half of the nineteenth
century, Boston was in the midst of an immigration explosion. Many of
the Irish immigrants uprooted by the potato famine landed in Boston,
and by 1920 the Irish were joined by large groups from Italy, Russia, and
Poland, as well as several thousand Lithuanians, Greeks, Armenians,
and Syrians. In total, foreign-born immigrants constituted one-third of
Boston’s population in 1920. Within a generation, immigrants and their
children made up three-quarters of the city’s population. Restrictions on
immigration policy after World War I caused the immigrant population
of Boston to remain somewhat static over the next half-century or so, and
by 1970 only one out of eight Bostonians was a foreign-born immigrant.
Contemporary Boston is an ethnically diverse city, from its Chinatown
area to the distinctly Italian North End. Boston’s ethnic history gives
the city its working-class flavor, but also sustains the divide between the
immigrant-descended working class and the descendants of the original
Puritan settlers, a divide that is manifested linguistically even in the present
day. There is also dialect variation among different ethnic groups, so that,
strictly speaking, there is not a single “Boston accent.” While some dialect
traits are shared by many Bostonians, there are other features that occur
more frequently in different parts of the city or among different ethnic
groups. The perceptive listener can, in fact, learn a lot about a speaker of
Boston English by paying attention to some of the finer details of speech.
In one study of subdialectal variations in Boston, Laferriere (1979) draws
some interesting conclusions about the connections between ethnicity and
linguistic behavior. The segment -or- in the word short, for example, may
be produced a variety of ways. Some speakers pronounce the r fully though
many do not; speakers may also glide the vowel to pronounce it closer to
the o found in boat, resulting in something like show-uh. Still others pro-
nounce the vowel lower and unglided so it sounds like shot. Furthermore,
there are differences based on ethnic group membership. Jewish groups
tend to shy away from complete r-dropping, identifying it as socially
stigmatized. Italians, however, predominantly drop the r, while the Irish
fall somewhere along the middle of the continuum, dropping more r’s
than the Jewish groups but fewer than the Italians. The fact that groups
who retain their r’s still identify r-dropping as a feature of Boston Irish
speech shows how speakers are inclined to attribute marked linguistic
features to the dominant sociopolitical group of the area. This feature is
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also associated with the accent of East Boston, which is an area dominated
by Italians, showing a strong connection between ethnicity and regional
location in the city.
Boston continues to be a popular destination for transplants from around
the country and around the world. Year after year, students flock to
the Hub to attend the many colleges and universities in and around the
city, and this phenomenon has given rise to a new group of young and
middle-aged professionals who have settled in Boston but maintained
their own linguistic backgrounds. From 1998 to 1999, over 75,000 people
converted to Massachusetts driver’s licenses from out of state, almost double
that of a few years earlier. Because of these new arrivals, some observers
have speculated that the Boston dialect is dwindling in scope and inten-
sity; however, a walk down the streets of Southie (South Boston) will
reveal that this is hardly the case – the Boston accent is alive and well.
Major Features of the Dialect
The icon of the Boston accent is its r-dropping after a vowel sound,
so that Spider Man’s alter ego is “Petah Pahkah.” However, some of
these r’s are not lost forever; they reappear across word boundaries
when the following word begins with a vowel. The stereotypical Bostonian
phrase, “Pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd,” is thus not quite right; though
the r would be dropped if cah were said in isolation, when following
a vowel it is inserted. In fact, it is sometimes inserted where it wouldn’t
occur in other dialects, so that, “I know, the idear of it!” is an appropriate
response to “The Red Sox ah lookin’ good, they’ah goin’ all the way
this yeah!”
In addition to r-lessness, another particularly salient feature of the
Boston dialect is the vowel shift that occurs in the speech of the Brahmins,
a slowly disappearing group of upper-class Bostonians, and even among
some non-Brahmins. The broad a sound, as in can’t and bath, is produced
somewhat lower and further back in this dialect than in Standard American
English, so that they approach the a sound in father.
The Boston dialect also follows some of the features associated with
eastern New England speech on a broader scale, including the merger
of the vowels in words like cot and caught. Throughout eastern New Eng-
land, these words are pronounced identically, and some New Englanders
even have trouble fathoming how these vowels could ever be pronounced
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differently. In this respect, Bostonians align with the majority of Western
dialects in the United States that merge these vowel sounds, but for the
Eastern coast, this feature is quite distinct.
Vocabulary
Perhaps the best resource currently available on the Boston lexicon is

Adam Gaffin’s Wicked Good Guide to Boston English, available online at
www.boston-online.com. Boston mainstays include frappe ‘milkshake’,
spuckie ‘submarine sandwich’, tonic ‘pop’ or ‘soda’, and bubbler ‘water
fountain’. A day in the life of a Bostonian might center around a shopping
trip to the Bahgie, or the Bargain Center in Quincy, which is now sadly
defunct; in the past, an insult commonly hurled among Boston children
was “Ya motha shops at the Bahgie!” On the way there, a driver in Boston
might remark that the traffic is wicked (a general intensifier, stronger than
very) by The Common (the green in the center of town), backed up near
the rotary (a traffic circle), and that he should have taken the parkway
(a divided highway). After a hard day of shopping, it would be time to go
home for suppa (the third meal of the day), which, in most large Irish
Catholic Boston families, would involve some kind of p’daydas (a staple of
the Irish diet, served mashed or baked). Or, it might be American chop
suey, a dish consisting of macaroni, hamburg (ground beef ), tomato,
onion, and green peppers. Other distinct Boston word uses include the
“negative positive” So don’t I, which is used by Bostonians in place of So
do I. The Boston lexicon is, of course, also constantly evolving; words such
as nizza (roughly “great”), which was a favorite of my mother’s in West
Roxbury in the 1970s, have faded somewhat from view but still pop up
occasionally, while new terms are being coined and adapted for different
uses all the time.
Some lexical items in Boston are crucial for getting around in the city.
Visitors are often confused by the Big Dig (a notoriously slow construc-
tion project meant to improve traffic and beautify the city), and it’s
impossible to find Dot (Dorchester) or Rozzie (Roslindale) on a map;
sometimes it is better to avoid negotiating the Big Dig traffic and just take
the T (Boston’s subway train) – remembah, inbound trains head towahd
the city cenna, outbounds head away from it, wheah you’ll find moah
people who pronounce theiah ah’s. Some days, you may get to ride on a
bluebird, an old style Red Line train.
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Boston-to-English Phrasebook
The Bs The local NHL team. Also known as Da Broons.

Brahmin A member of the WASP overclass that once ruled the state. Typically found
on Beacon Hill. Cleveland Amory’s The Proper Bostonians remains the definitive study
of this group.
The Cape Massachusetts has two capes – Ann and Cod – but only the latter is The
Cape.
Curse of the Bambino A Red Sox fan’s nightmare. During the eight years Babe Ruth
played for the Red Sox, the team won four World Series. The last of these wins came in
1918, when the then owner Henry Frazee sold the Sultan of Swat to the New York
Yankees to finance a production of No No Nanette. Until their luck changed in 2004,
the Red Sox had not won a Series since that time, and many fans blamed this sale for
the long drought. The phrase regained the national spotlight during the team’s 2003
playoff run, which culminated in the Red Sox blowing a 5–2 lead against the hated
Yankees when a win would have sent them back to the Series.
Dunkie’s Dunkin’ Donuts, so prevalent in Massachusetts that the author of this art-
icle grew up in a town with more Dunkin’ Donuts stores than traffic lights.
Frappe A milkshake or malted elsewhere, it’s basically ice cream, milk and chocolate
syrup blended together. The “e” is silent. Despite the chocolate syrup, it actually
comes in many flavors.
Green Monster This monster would never fit under the bed or in the closet. Standing
310 feet down the left-field line at Fenway Park, it towers 37 feet above the ground,
and is a favorite target for hitters. The 2004 baseball season marked the first year of
the Monster Seats, the hottest buy in Boston sports tickets, with their bird’s-eye view
from on top of the wall.
Hoodsie A small cup of ice cream, the kind that comes with a flat wooden spoon
(from H. P. Hood, the dairy that sells them). On finishing them you’d suck and then
fold the wooden spoon, risking splinnahs from the folded wood.
Jimmies Those little chocolate thingees you ask the guy at the ice-cream store to put
on top of your cone.
Na-ah No way!
No SUH! (“No sir!”) “Really?!?” or “What did you say?!?” Often answered with “Ya
huh!”
Packie Wheah you buy beah.
The Pike The Massachusetts Turnpike. Also, the world’s longest parking lot, at least
out by Sturbridge on the day before Thanksgiving.
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Pissa Cool. Often paired with wicked. “Jimmy’s got a pissa new cah, an ’83 Monee
Cahlo with a 350, headiz, anna new leathinteriah.”
Rawrout Meteorological condition characterized by low temperatures and a biting
wind: “Boy, it’s wicked rawrout theah!”
U-ey A U-turn – the Official Turn of Boston drivers. The proper expression for “make a
U-turn” is “bang a u-ey.”
Wicked A general intensifier: “He’s wicked nuts!”
For the citizens of Boston, their language is a marker – a symbol of

solidarity recognized throughout the country. Popular Boston disc jockey
Eddie Andelman says of the dialect, “It signifies where you’re from.
It means you’re an individualist, you’re street smart, you save money, you
read literature, and you’re a passionate sports fan” (quoted in Bombardieri
1999). And while not all Bostonians are well versed in Shakespeare or live
and die over the Red Sox, Andelman’s statement captures the cultural
essence of the Boston dialect. Many Bostonians are proud of the way they
speak, and this linguistic pride has allowed the Boston dialect to remain
strong despite the challenge of a changing city. The Boston dialect remains
a badge of “honah” for many who speak it.
Further reading
Amory, Cleveland (1947) The Proper Bostonians. New York: E. P. Dutton.

Bombardieri, Marcella (1999) It’s still a mahk of distinction: The accent sets
Bostonians apart. Boston Globe, 23 September: B1.
Gaffin, Adam. The Wicked Good Guide to Boston English. www.boston-online.com/
glossary.html.
International Institute of Boston. Immigration to Boston: A Short History.
www.iiboston.org/immigrant_history.htm.
Laferriere, Martha (1979) Ethnicity in phonological variation and change.
Language 55: 603–17.
Metcalf, Allan (2000) How We Talk: American Regional English Today. New York:
Houghton Mifflin.
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11
Mainely English
Jane S. Smith
11 The joys of eating Maine lobster. © by Angela Sorrentino.
Mainely Audio, Maineland Motel, Project Mainestay, Meals for ME (postal

abbreviation for Maine). . . . The creative incorporation of the state moniker
into business trade names is just one of the ways in which Maine differs
from other states. No other state’s name is so readily available for word
play. At the same time, these naming practices reflect the pride that Mainers,
who sometimes call themselves Maine-iacs, feel about their home state.
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And while all other mainland states share a border with at least two
other states, Maine juts up into Canada, with French-speaking Quebec to
the north and west, bilingual (English-French) New Brunswick to the
east, and the Atlantic Ocean forming an extensive diagonal northeast–
southwest coastline. To the west lies Maine’s single neighboring state,
New Hampshire. This unique geographical position, together with its
earlier and recent history, played an important role in the development
of English in Maine.
A Brief History
English colonists began to establish settlements along the coast of New

England during the early seventeenth century, beginning in the 1620s,
and, until Maine achieved statehood in 1820, it was part of Massachusetts.
Given their common history and geographical proximity, many English
speakers in Maine share some of the dialectal features found in Boston
and the rest of New England. Its northern boundary was undetermined
until the only bloodless war in American history, the Aroostook War, was
settled by the Webster–Ashburton Treaty between the United States and
the United Kingdom in 1842.
Before the arrival of the English colonists, however, the French were
exploring the coast of present-day Maine and an area known as Acadie, or
Acadia, currently New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in Canada. In 1604,
the first French settlement was established on St. Croix Island (now on the
border between Maine and New Brunswick), but in 1605 it was moved to
present-day Nova Scotia following the extremely harsh winter and loss of
life that first year. Acadia passed from French control to British and back
again several times over the next century until the territory was finally
ceded to the British in 1713. In 1755, the French Acadians were exiled by
the British, some being shipped off to other American colonies, others
to England, and some of them eventually made their way to Louisiana.
However, a small group of Acadians managed to escape deportation, even-
tually settling in the upper St. John River Valley, the disputed territory
that was later divided between the United States (Maine) and the United
Kingdom (New Brunswick, Canada) in 1842. That area of Maine has been
and continues to be largely French-speaking, though the shift to English
began when the use of French as a language of instruction in public schools
was outlawed in the 1920s. The law was repealed decades later.
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In addition to the Acadians, a large number of French speakers
immigrated to Maine during the period from 1840 to 1930, when
hundreds of thousands of French Canadians from Quebec Province came
to the northeastern US in search of work in the factories or mills. Thanks
in large part to the establishment of bilingual parochial schools, French
continues to be spoken by a number of people in central, southern, and
western Maine, as well as in the St. John Valley in the north.
Although both of these groups of Francos, short for “Franco-
Americans,” continue to speak French, those whose families immigrated
from Quebec tended to settle in areas already populated by English
speakers, and in the shift to English they have adopted the language as it
is spoken within their local communities. In the case of the Francos in
northern Maine, however, their geographic isolation from the rest of
New England and their proximity to French-speaking New Brunswick
and Quebec led to the creation of a regional English accent that is still
influenced by French.
The Classic Maine Accent
Having moved to Maine “from away,” I was always the person identified
as “the one who has the accent,” so I had to listen carefully for the dialect
differences that set me apart. I’ve been told that I sound like I’m from the
West, and from a Maine perspective, it’s not that far off the mark. I do,
after all, come from western New York. In the process of acclimating to
the physical conditions and social environment of Maine, I have been
exposed to a fascinating – and often complex – range of English and
French.
As in Boston, New York City, and parts of the South, many Mainers
do not pronounce an r that occurs following a vowel. Words like fork and
fear need not have an r but the vowel itself seems to be slightly lengthened
as a result, and words such as lobster and door end in a vowel. Instead
of simply dropping out, the r is replaced by a vowel sound and words
like door, more, somewhere and frontier seem to get an extra syllable.
This pronunciation is sometimes spelled as ah in advertisements featuring
local foods and products, as in lobstah and bumpah stickahs. Some
one-syllable words ending in l, for example real and hole, also may be
pronounced with an extra syllable, so that real becomes re-ahl and deal
becomes de-ahl.
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Like lots of other vernacular dialects in English, this dialect may also
“drop” the g from verb forms and nouns that end in -ing, like hunting and
logging. Instead of the sound of ng that results when the back of the
tongue makes contact with the back of the mouth, contact between the tip
of the tongue and the front of the mouth produces an n. Mainers often say
that they were out lobsterin’ or fishin’, and that something is gettin’ wore
out if it’s nearly at the end of its usefulness. If they live in Brewer and are
going just across the river to Bangor (pronounced bang-gore), they’ll say
that they’re goin’ over town.
In addition, many Mainers, and especially those living along the coast
or on one of the many islands, pronounce the broad a of bath, plant, pass,
aunt, half and scallops with the vowel closer to the one used in father.
When I’m buying halibut at the fish market, I remind myself to ask for
hall-ibut, not hail-ibut, so as not to sound too much like an outsider. After
all, locals tend to get the freshest fish.
Also noticeable is the fact that an unstressed syllable in the middle of
a polysyllabic word tends to be dropped, so probably becomes prob’ly,
Saturday becomes Sad’dy, visitin’ becomes vis’tin’ and lobsterin’ becomes
lobst’rin’.
Almost all Mainers use the same vowel in cot and caught, producing a
vowel that is a little further back in the mouth than the vowel of father.
More than once I have had to ask whether it was Dawn or Don we were
talking about.
While all of these pronunciations can be heard from Brunswick, just
north of Portland, to Millinocket. A couple of hundred miles to the north,
and eastward to New Brunswick, they are more prevalent in the towns
and on the islands of Mid Coast and Downeast. The name Downeast may
come from maritime vocabulary. Winds blowing from the northwest took
ships sailing from Boston and New York “down” and east, and hence,
along the coast of present-day Maine. The Mid Coast stretches from about
Brunswick to Mt. Desert (pronounced with the stress on the second
syllable, like dessert) Island, where Downeast begins at about Bar Harbor
and runs eastward all the way to New Brunswick. I say “about” because
the exact beginning and ending points for these areas vary depending on
who you ask.
In any case, Mainers recognize a dialect division at about Brunswick; to
the south these pronunciations are generally not found. In fact, a retired
professor and native of the Mid Coast island of Vinalhaven explained that
when he first began teaching in the south of Maine, his students had
difficulty understanding him and he had to learn to pronounce an r where
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none existed for him. He didn’t care for it, and listening to him today you
can tell that he stopped doing it once he moved back.
The keen listener will notice that Mainers say a dight to mean “a little
bit,” or a junk of wood instead of a “piece” or “chunk.” An apartment is a
rent and a house has blinds instead of “shutters.” If you go visitin’, you will
be invited to set down and make yourself to home. The use of to for at is a
characteristic of some coastal communities that extend well down to the
southeastern seaboard of the United States, as well as some rural regions
elsewhere. Anything cute, babies included, is cunnin’, and a misbehaving
child will be told, “Stop your foolishness.” In fact, anything annoying or
stupid is foolishness and can make you some disgusted. If you’re invited to
a lobstah feed and your meal is especially tasty, it’s wicked good.
On Vinalhaven, you might hear someone say I would be lief (pronounced
leaf ) to do something, which means that they would prefer to, or would just
as soon, do it. Downeast, instead of calling someone stupid, they’ll say, He’s
a plaster. I’m told that on the islands it can be difficult for an outsider to
understand when the locals are speaking with each other, and on the docks
one can hear especially “colorful” speech. Some Downeasterners, however,
have very creative expressions to express their exasperation – Gludden on
it! and Jee-ru-s(a)lem! – or amazement – By Thunder!
English in the St. John Valley
A stretch of some 50 miles of the St. John River in northernmost Maine

forms part of the border with New Brunswick. A variety of Acadian French
is spoken on both sides of the river but on the US side it is being replaced
gradually by English. French-speaking Francos from this area switch back
and forth easily between French and English, sometimes within the same
sentence, and French has given their English some distinctive features,
both in pronunciation and sentence structure.
Franco pronunciation is different in that certain vowels in French are
more “closed” than their English counterparts. The vowels in day or date
and boat or vote are just a couple of those affected. Instead of being
pronounced as a two-vowel sequence, or diphthong, as in da-ee for day or
bo-oot for boat, they are pronounced as a single vowel without the glide –
as in French. The influence of French can be heard when words are
pronounced with a “pure” vowel, for example day, devastate, and the
name of the town, Caribou (pronounced -boo, not -bow).
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When it comes to consonants, one difference is the pronunciation of p,
t, and k at the beginning of a word or syllable. They tend to be less
aspirated, which means that there is no puff of air immediately after the
sound. Most English dialects fully aspirate them, but Francos do not,
again from French influence. Occasionally, the cluster of consonants that
occurs with the contraction of not at the end of a word is reduced to a
single consonant, as for example, in the word didn’t, which is sometimes
pronounced din.
When listening to Francos, you sometimes hear a different rhythm that
stems from the occasional transference of the stress pattern of French.
As a result, stress is sometimes indicated by a slight change in pitch
rather than with extra force and length, and it might occur at place
where it wouldn’t occur in English. In the following example, the words
receiving a French-type stress appear in bold type: 24 hours a day, seven
days a week.
The transference of French structures can occur in the use of pre-
positions, as in I don’t have an opinion on that, as well as in sentence
constructions. You might notice a pronoun such as me, him or us occur-
ring at the beginning or end of a complete sentence, as in Our generation
is weird, us. This type of structure is common in spoken French.
When it comes to vocabulary and expressions, many of them also come
from French. For example, people talk about ployes (rhyming with toy),
a sort of buckwheat pancake that is eaten not for breakfast but in place
of bread with dinner or supper. When you have a strand of hair that’s
sticking up out of place, it’s called a couette. A colloquial expression to
show disbelief, comparable to Gimme a break! or Get out! is Voyons voir!
And if an adult says to a child, “Voyons voir!” that child had better “stop
the foolishness.” Both surprise and anger are quite likely to be expressed
by interjections like Mon doux Jésus! ‘my sweet Jesus!’ or the somewhat
stronger though still not too offensive Tabarnak! ‘holy (cow)!’.
The Future of Maine English
Like many rural dialects, those heard in Maine (both English and French)
are slowly disappearing due to increased contact with outsiders and vari-
ous other social changes. At the same time, Maine is a sparsely populated,
rural state with relatively small cities, and the climate tends to deter
many outsiders from spending more than just the summer months there.
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Fortunately, the weather is on the side of dialect preservation. Though
dialectologists scoff at the notion that weather has any direct influence on
language, it may indirectly aid maintenance by insulating Mainers from
outsiders for long periods of the year. Like Maine itself, it may be an
exception – and truly exceptional.
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12
Steel Town Speak
(Pittsburgh, PA)
Barbara Johnstone and Scott Kiesling
12 Downtown Pittsburgh from the West End overlook. © by Todd Smith.
Many people in Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania are convinced that

a distinctive dialect of English is spoken in the area, which they call
“Pittsburghese.”
When people talk about Pittsburghese, they often mention words like
yinz ‘you’ plural, slippy ‘slippery’, and nebby ‘nosy’, sounds like the vowels
in Stillers (Steelers) or dahntahn (downtown), and expressions like n’at
(and that, used to mean something like et cetera). People in Pittsburgh
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enjoy talking about Pittsburghese, and they make commercial use of
examples of it on T-shirts, postcards, souvenir shot-glasses, and other
such items, as well as on the Internet.
But many of the linguistic features considered unique to the Pittsburgh
area are found elsewhere in the region. Words like yinz are used in other
parts of the Appalachian Mountains. Other features are found to the west
of Pittsburgh, in the central and south-central parts of the Midwest. Some
pronunciations identified with Pittsburghese, such as still (steel) are heard
throughout the US. Even the features of Pittsburghese that are the most
local can be heard in a fairly large area of central and southwestern
Pennsylvania.
Although it is not confined to Pittsburgh, many Pittsburghers employ a
dialect variety that is known as “North Midland” or “Lower Northern”
English.
The earliest English-speaking immigrants to North America brought
their native English dialects with them. The people who settled in New
England and in the South came mainly from southern England, and
they brought elements of southern English dialects. (For example, New
Englanders and Southerners alike may drop the r sounds in some words.)
The Midland dialect area starts in a narrow band in the Mid-Atlantic
states (southern New Jersey, southeastern Pennsylvania, and northern
Delaware and Maryland) and spreads westward into the Midwest and south-
ward along the Appalachian Mountains. Its boundaries trace the migrations
of English-speaking people who came to America by way of Philadelphia
and other ports on the Delaware River. These people originated in northern
England and Scotland, and they brought some characteristic pronunci-
ations, words, and grammatical structures with them.
The people from northern England, some of whom were Quakers,
came to the eastern part of Pennsylvania and moved west into central
Pennsylvania. The largest group of early English-speaking immigrants to
southwestern Pennsylvania were from Ulster (northern Ireland). These
people were largely “Scots-Irish” (also called “Scotch-Irish”), the descend-
ants of Scots who had settled in Ulster at the beginning of the seventeenth
century. They spoke a Scottish variety of English (influenced by the Scots
Gaelic language) which was then influenced by Irish English and probably
also by Irish Gaelic. Many of these Scots-Irish, along with other people
from Ulster of native Irish and northern English ancestry, emigrated from
northern Ireland to North America at the end of the seventeenth century
and during the eighteenth century. Scots-Irish immigrants also settled
west and south of Pennsylvania, moving along the Ohio River and the
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Appalachian Mountains. Thus many features that can be traced to their
way of speaking are found in Midwestern and Appalachian speech as well
as in western Pennsylvania. Some of these words and structures are also
still in use in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Among the many words used in southwestern Pennsylvania that
are probably Scots-Irish are redd up ‘clean up, tidy’, nebby, slippy, and
diamond for a town square. So is the word jag in the sense of ‘poke’ or
‘stab’, from which come jagger ‘thorn, burr’, jaggerbush ‘thorny bush’,
jag somebody off ‘irritate’, jag around ‘fool around, goof off’, and jagoff
‘a derogatory term for someone stupid or inept’. Yinz, which is found
throughout the Appalachians in various forms (such as you’uns), is
most likely Scots-Irish as well. So is the grammatical peculiarity found in
expressions like The car needs washed or These customers want seated, where
other dialects would have an infinitive (needs to be washed) or a present
participle (needs washing). This is also found in Appalachian English and
in the central Midwest.
While it is possible to trace the history of words and structures through
written sources, it is much more difficult to tell where regional pronunci-
ations come from. For one thing, our standardized spelling system does not
capture the differences between various ways of pronouncing a word
(coffee is spelled “coffee” no matter whether it’s pronounced cawffee, cahffee,
cwaffee, or some other way). For another thing, large-scale changes in
pronunciation are surprisingly common and quick. (Think, for example,
of the large differences that now exist between British and North Amer-
ican accents, all of which developed over just a few generations.) But some
features of the accent of southwestern Pennsylvania are geographically
distributed in the same way – in the Pittsburgh area and to the west
and the south – as are words and grammatical structures we know are
Scots-Irish in origin. This suggests that these may be older features that
spread with the early settlers. One of these is the use of an r sound in
the word wash, so that it sounds something like warsh. Another is the
tendency to pronounce the long i sound in words like fire or tile as
something more like ah (fahr or tahl).
Other pronunciations which people think of as local are shared with
other geographic areas. Many people throughout North America use the
same vowel sound in not and naught, cot and caught, body and bawdy. But
unlike many Americans further west (and like many Canadians and some
Americans further east), the sound many Pittsburghers use is the augh
variant, rather than ah. Also shared with people elsewhere are the use of
the same vowel sound in steel and still or meal and mill and the same
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vowel sound in pull and pool or full and fool. These “mergers,” or the
collapse of two sounds, in some situations, into one, are becoming more
common throughout the US. So is the pronunciation of l with a w or o
sound in some words, like skoo for school or dowar for dollar. There is one
pronunciation, however, that seems to be much more restricted geographic-
ally. This is the Pittsburghese pronunciation of down as dahn or house as
hahs. Western Pennsylvanians born before 1900 do not seem to have used
this sound, but by the middle of the twentieth century it was quite com-
mon. Dialectologists do not yet know how this pronunciation originated.
It is often thought that people in different Pittsburgh neighborhoods
and Pittsburgh-area towns have different accents. But if Pittsburgh is like
other cities that linguists have studied, this is probably not true. What
probably is true is that the same sounds and words are used more in some
areas and less in others, depending on things like whether the neighborhood
is mainly working-class and whether people stay in the neighborhood to
work or commute to work. This is because children learn their accent
primarily from their peers, not their parents, and each new group of
immigrants to the area learned English from people who were already
speaking English. Dialects spread when people pick up features of
the speech of people they are like, talk to a lot, or identify with, and the
children of immigrants were far more likely to want to emulate the speech
of the local people who already spoke English than to emulate their
parents’ accented speech. Largely because they have always been segregated
from other groups in work, education, and housing, the casual speech of
African Americans in Pittsburgh, as in other northern cities, continues to
preserve more of the southern-sounding features African Americans
brought with them, although North Midland features can also be heard in
many Pittsburgh African Americans’ speech.
Different ethnic groups have introduced new words into the local
vocabulary: Germans made up a large part of the earliest European popu-
lation of western Pennsylvania and words like gesundheit and sauerkraut
are among a number of German terms that are widely used in the US.
Other words that are sometimes associated with “Pittsburghese” have
commercial sources. Jumbo lunchmeat, Klondike ice-cream bars, and chipped
ham all originated as names for things produced or sold by local com-
panies. The spelling of the Pittsburgh neighborhood name East Liberty
as “S’liberty” (which is the way it often sounds when people are talking
quickly) was invented in the context of a campaign to promote the
neighborhood. Gumband, the local term for ‘rubber band’, may also have
been what the first people who sold them in Pittsburgh called them.
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Is Pittsburghese going to die out, or is it likely to persist? Some people
think that the mass media, together with the fact that we are more mobile
than we once were, are making the US increasingly homogeneous. People
who think this are likely to suspect that eventually we will all talk the same
way. Among the reasons to think that local-sounding speech features may
disappear are the facts that many people move around the US more than
they once did, and it is easier than it once was for some people to move in
different social classes and social circles than the ones they were born into.
Furthermore, the media expose us all to the same ways of talking, and new
kinds of employment, such as jobs in service industries, often require
people to speak in a standardized way.
On the other hand, there are some good reasons to think that local-
sounding speech features may persist. People often resist being homo-
genized, and they may express their resistance by speaking in distinctive
ways. Especially when outsiders start to move in, people may need ways
to express local pride. When they feel that their local dialect is in danger
of dying out, people may want to exaggerate certain features of it to keep
it alive. Local ways of talking in Pittsburgh and in many other places are
associated in people’s minds with the working class. So showing working-
class pride may also be a reason for people to use local-sounding language.
In addition, words like yinz, dahntahn, and Stillers have become symbols
of locale in Pittsburgh. As a result, they can be useful to people who are
trying to “sell” the city to tourists or businesses from outside. Linguists
still have a lot to learn about the dialects of southwestern Pennsylvania.
Like other aspects of local heritage, Pittsburghese is worth understanding
and preserving.
Acknowledgment
The authors are grateful for editorial and substantive help with this chapter to
Martha Cheng, Peter Gilmore, and Michael Montgomery.
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13
New York Tawk
(New York City, NY)
Michael Newman
13 New York contemplating the Hudson River. © by Emilio Chan.
Back in the early 1970s, all the students in my Manhattan high school
were given speech diagnostic exams. I passed, but the boy next to me was
told he needed speech class. I was surprised and asked him why, since he
sounded perfectly normal to me. “My New York accent,” he explained
unhappily. Actually, this reason made me less thrilled with my exemption,
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as if my Detroit-born parents had deprived me of being a complete New
Yorker.
As my classmate’s predicament shows, my longing for New Yawk sounds
was a distinctly minority taste. My school was hardly alone; there was a
time when many New York colleges, including my present employer,
Queens College, had required voice and diction courses, and their cur-
riculum targeted certain local dialect peculiarities. Furthermore, a person
with too many of these features was not allowed to teach in the New York
City public schools.
Although these efforts were abandoned decades ago, many New Yorkers
still talk of their speech as a problem to be overcome. When I was
researching this article, a number of my former schoolmates claimed that
their accents weren’t “that bad” or boasted that they had overcome “the
worst features.” As a New York accent fan, I would be more depressed by
these claims if they were not actually based almost entirely on denial. Take
the case of the r, which New York dialect speakers tend to leave out
whenever it comes after a vowel sound. Many New Yorkers believe that
dropping r’s is a serious flaw, but they usually imagine that it is someone
else’s. An employment agency owner once proclaimed to me that anyone
who did not pronounce their r’s could not possibly qualify for a professional
job – all the while calling them ahs.
Perhaps because this man was middle-class, he believed he had to be
pronouncing his r’s. In fact, he was not altogether wrong; he sometimes
put an r in where none belonged, a feature called intrusive r. It may seem
bizarre to pronounce r’s that aren’t there while skipping over those that
are, but in fact, intrusive and missing r’s are two sides of the same coin.
For r-droppers words like law and lore and soar and saw are homophones.
However, they do not usually drop r’s all the time. They sometimes
maintain them, particularly when a final r sound comes right before
another word that begins with a vowel sound. Just as the r is sometimes
pronounced in lore and legend, so it can appear in law-r-and order. When
they are speaking carefully New Yorkers even occasionally maintain r’s
when there is no following vowel. You get the idear?
If a little reflection reveals a hidden logic to intrusive r’s, a little more
shows how baseless New Yorkers’ obsession with the whole issue really
is. After all, if r’s were there to be pronounced, why in England is it
considered far better to leave them off? An r-pronouncing English person
is at best considered rustic and quaint, if not coarse and uneducated. And
r-less pronunciations have not always been stigmatized in the US. President
Franklin Roosevelt was famous for saying that Americans “have nothing
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to fear [pronounced fee-uh] but fear itself.” Even today, r-lessness can still
maintain a tacit prestige in the right context. In the 1980s, former New
Jersey Governor Thomas Kean was known for saying, “New Juhsey and
you. Puhfect togetheh,” and his pronunciation was considered aristocratic.
It is only when r-lessness combines with other, less obvious New York
characteristics that it acquires negative connotations. The r really just serves
as a symbol for the whole system – a kind of phonological scapegoat.
My colleague Chuck Cairns developed a diagnostic list of 12 features
including many of these less obvious characteristics. A particularly import-
ant one involves the vowel sound sometimes written as aw, as in all,
coffee, caught, talked, or saw and the New York r-less shore. In New York
dialect, this vowel becomes closer to the vowel u in pull or put followed
by a slight uh. Strong New York dialect speakers say u-uhl, for all and
cu-uhfee, for coffee, and they don’t distinguish between shore and sure. A
similar process applies to the short a in cab, pass, and avenue. In this case,
the vowel can comes to sound like an i or even ee, again followed by uh.
Many New Yorkers try to catch ki-uhbs that pi-uhss by on Fifth i-uhvenue,
although not all of us are so extreme.
In our pronunciation of these vowels, we New Yorkers are not unique;
related pronunciations can be found from Baltimore to Milwaukee.
However, none reproduce exactly the same pattern. Specifically, in New
York all the aws are affected, but many short a words are not – a differen-
tiation called the short a split. So in New York, pass, cab, and avenue have
different vowels from pat, cap, and average. In most cities between Syracuse
and Milwaukee, by contrast, aw is nothing like it is in New York, while all
the short a’s are pronounced like i-uh. They not only say pi-uhss for pass
– as in New York – but also pi-uht for pat, which no New Yorker
would ever do. Detective Andy Sipowicz on NYPD Blue may seem like the
archetypical New York City cop, but his aw’s and short a’s are obvious
clues that Dennis Franz, the actor who plays him, is really from Chicago.
To be fair, it might be hard for Franz to sound like an authentic New
Yorker. While there are rules that determine which short a words are
shifted and which are not in New York, they are quite complicated. For
instance, can is key-uhn in can of soup but not in yes, I can. The system
is so complex that most unfortunate New Yorkers whose parents speak
another variety of English never really learn them. We are condemned to
not be full New York dialect speakers.
Although these vowel changes are an inherent part of the mix that
receives condemnation, New Yorkers seem less concerned about them
than they are about r’s. Only the most extreme pronunciations receive
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condemnation. In fact, there is an aspect of their speech that many New
Yorkers appear to be actually proud of – the distinctive vocabulary. There
are childhood games like Ring-a-levio, a kind of street hide-and-seek,
stickball, baseball played with a broomstick, and salugi, the snatching of a
kid’s bag or hat, which is then thrown from friend to friend, just out of
the victim’s reach. More widely known are the Yiddishisms, such as schlep
– to travel or carry something an annoying distance – to pick one out of
many. Such terms are used by Jews of Eastern European origin the world
over, but in New York they have extended to other communities. A teenage
Nuyorican (New Yorker of Puerto Rican heritage) rap artist I know rhymed,
“I’m gonna spin you like a dradel,” a reference to a top used in Chanukah
celebrations. His schoolmate, also Latino, often says, “What the schmuck!”
as an expression of surprise, misusing, or perhaps just appropriating, the
vulgar Yiddish term for penis. Some of these terms may be in decline – I
don’t hear many young Latinos using schlep – but there are recent replace-
ments from other immigrant languages. Besides Nuyorican itself, there
is the offensive guido, an ignorant Italian American tough guy. More posi-
tively, we have papichulo, a suave, well-dressed Latino ladies’ man.
The appeal of these words lies in their evocation of immigrant roots,
and New York dialect, like the city itself, serves as a kind of counterpoint
to mainstream Anglo America. The dialect is often called Brooklynese,
more because of Brooklyn’s status as an icon of urban ethnic life than any
real linguistic priority of that borough over other parts of the metro-
politan area. The key to understanding the disparagement of New York
pronunciations is similarly that they symbolize lack of integration into the
American mainstream, and so being stuck in the working class.
Despite the association with immigrant ethnicity, both r-lessness and
short a splits actually originated in England, although they have evolved
differently there; in southern England, for instance, pass is pronounced
with an ah, while pat is similar to most of the US. Still, immigrant
languages have had some influence. They probably led to the New York
pronunciation of d and t with the tongue touching the teeth rather than
the alveolar ridge as in most American English, but hardly anyone notices
the difference. They may also be behind the famous use of these dental d’s
and t’s in place of th, as in toity-toid and toid, for 33rd and 3rd, but you
would be hard pressed to hear that anymore among European Americans
in New York.
Perhaps this decline, along with others like the notorious r for oy in
words like oil and point – leaving earl and pernt, have led some to con-
clude that New York dialect itself is itself disappearing. Yet a trip to the
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European American neighborhoods or suburbs – at least outside of the
areas of Manhattan dominated by out-of-towners – will dispel any such
concerns. The children of New York dialect speakers continue the lin-
guistic tradition, although, like speakers of all varieties, not exactly as
their parents did.
Those, like my high school speech teacher, who wished to cure us of
such features as intrusive r’s did so because they thought it would be a
social and professional handicap. They were mistaken. Many middle- and
upper-middle-class New Yorkers of all ethnicities use the dialect, to say
nothing of billionaires like Donald Trump. One dialect speaker, former
Governor Mario Cuomo, even became nationally famous for his eloquence.
Instead, as New York dialect speakers have moved up socially, their speech
has lost much of its outsider status. Older speakers may think they speak
badly, but they do so almost out of inertia. In fact, many professional
Latinos, Asian Americans, Caribbean Americans, and African Americans
have adopted their distinctive dialect features, in whole or in good part.
In assuming what has become a common New York middle-class
dialect, these speakers either leave behind or alternate with the speech
commonly associated with their ethnic communities. Today, this working-
class minority speech has taken on the outsider status the classic
Brooklynese has left behind. Among young New Yorkers, r-lessness is
replaced by aks for ask and toof for tooth as examples of how one shouldn’t
speak. Some expressions, such as using mines instead of mine, in the
sentence That’s mines, occupy a kind of middle ground for these minorities
(actually together the majority of the city) of marking roots while still
being understood as “incorrect.” Again, minority youths often seem proud
of their special vocabulary, which expresses their roots in urban life. The
speech of minorities is less unified than that of the previous generations
of children of European immigrants. But, despite the variation, there is a
tendency for some characteristics to be shared widely. Also these forms
often extend to other immigrants, particularly Middle Easterners, and even
to many European Americans and Asian Americans who associate with
rap and hip-hop culture generally.
A good indicator of the linguistic divide can be seen in the way you is
pluralized. Among most European Americans, like among most other
northerners, it is possible to use you guys or occasionally youse to refer to
more than one person. Among New York minorities, by contrast, some
form of you all is usually used. This can be y’all, common among African
Americans and Nuyoricans, or something that sounds like you-ah or
even you-eh that I have heard among other Latinos. Another interesting
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characteristic is the use of yo. This has long been used for calling someone
as in “Yo, Reggie!” More recently it developed a tendency to go at the
end of a sentence as an emphasis marker: “Dat’s da bomb, yo!” (That’s
really great!).
Because New York is a center for the production of rap and other forms
of popular culture, some of these characteristics, particularly terms, like
da bomb, have spread throughout the country, just as young New Yorkers
have adopted forms originating in that other major center, California.
However, in the end, few New Yorkers, no matter what their race or
ethnicity, would really like to be mistaken as coming from anywhere else,
and they are constantly developing new words and letting their pronun-
ciations evolve to indicate their origins. Da bomb is heard a lot less often
than it used to be. So while we may think we speak badly, perhaps in our
hearts we don’t want to speak the way we think we should. A former
Nuyorican student of mine remarked after he got out of the Army,
“No matter where I went, people could tell I was from the city.” He was
obviously pleased by that fact, just as I am when out-of-towners identify
me as having a New York accent despite my over-abundant r’s and lack of
a proper short a split. The ultimate resilience and uniqueness of New York
dialects lies in our intense local pride, and this is as true for the minority
versions as it is for the so-called Brooklynese.
Further Reading
William Labov’s mammoth study, The Social Stratification of English in New York
City (Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1966), is still con-
sidered to be the authoritative work on English in New York City.
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14
Expressions of Brotherly Love
(Philadelphia, PA)
Claudio Salvucci
14 Professionals in Philadelphia. © by Nancy Louie.
One day my linguistics professor singled me out for a question. “What,” she
asked, “does a Philadelphia accent sound like? How would you describe it?”
I was stumped.
My entire life had been spent in the city and its immediate suburbs.
You’d think that describing the way my neighbors spoke would be no
different from describing where someone could get a good cheese steak.
Who else is supposed to know but the locals?
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But this time the local really had no idea. I didn’t know how I spoke;
I just did. As I would later learn, the Philadelphia dialect is unique in the
English-speaking world. Not only does it have a linguistic pattern that is
not duplicated in any other major city, but also that pattern had been
studied and documented by scholars for over a century.
History of Research
There were incidental accounts of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania speech

in the 1800s, but the first true scientific study dates to 1890, with the first
transcription of a Philadelphian’s speech into the International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA).
During the next century research on the dialect increased dramatically,
mostly under larger surveys such as the Linguistic Atlas surveys in 1939;
the Dictionary of American Regional English surveys in the 1960s, and the
Phonological Atlas surveys of the 1990s.
Studies specifically devoted to Philadelphia were also published.
R. Whitney Tucker contributed two general articles to American Speech on
the dialect. By far the most extensive research on local vocabulary is Dennis
Lebofsky’s invaluable doctoral thesis “The Lexicon of the Philadelphia
Metropolitan Area” (1970), and William Labov has been in the vanguard
of research on Philadelphia pronunciation since the 1970s.
In recent years there have also been numerous books and articles from
the mainstream press. Examining all of this data, we can arrive at a good
picture of how English is spoken in Philadelphia (or, as we say it,
Fulladulfya).
Geography
Philadelphia is the focal point of the Delaware Valley dialect area, which
encompasses the Pennsylvania counties of Bucks, Montgomery, Philadel-
phia, Delaware and Chester, the New Jersey counties of Mercer, southern
Ocean, Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, Atlantic, Salem, Cumberland and
Cape May, and New Castle County. There are some slight differences
even within this generally homogeneous area, such as Norristown zep
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‘submarine sandwich’, Trenton Tick Tack Night ‘Mischief Night’, and Jersey
shore shubie ‘summer tourist’.
The Delaware Valley was historically the “hearth” or focal area for all
the dialects of the Midland. As settlers moved westward during the 1800s
they brought their speech through Pennsylvania and the Lower Midwest.
Philadelphia’s position along the Eastern seaboard has also greatly
influenced its linguistic development. Northern and Southern features have
always competed in the city, given its close proximity to both New York
City and the Mason–Dixon line.
Pronunciation
At first hearing, Philadelphian sounds quite similar to the New York

dialect; I have even been told (by a Long Islander no less!) that I “talk like
a New Yorker.”
As in most East Coast urban areas, voiced th loses it friction, so that it
is pronounced like the stop d in dog; there is a loss of initial h- in yuge
(huge) and yumid (humid), and a glottal stop for medial t in sum’n (some-
thing), nut’n (nothing). Short a exists in two forms, the standard “lax” a,
and the tense nasal vowel of yeah: maen (man), baed (bad). New York and
Philly both have a contras between the vowels of cot and caught, with the
aw distinctively raised: cawfee (coffee), dawg (dog); both have a typically
southern ow: caow (cow), aout (out), al (owl), though Philadelphia’s is
more advanced.
But unlike New York, Philadelphia shares with Baltimore and Pittsburgh
a couple of important features: first a very exaggerated fronting of long o
in words like home and boat, which sounds something like eh-oo; second,
retention of all final and pre-consonantal r’s (e.g., in car, start) which
are dropped almost everywhere else on the East Coast. An interesting
similarity with Canada is the long i before unvoiced consonants (p, t, k, f,
s) which is backed to uy, pronounced uh-ee: ruyt (right), luyf (life).
More typically local changes also occur. Short e is backed to short u
or schwa before both r and l: vurry (very), tull (tell). Short i in medial
positions is often lengthened: attytude (attitude), beautyful (beautiful). Long
a and e are both backed before hard g: vegg (vague), beggle (bagel), lig
(league), iggle (eagle). Initial s in str clusters becomes sh: shtring (string).
The Philadelphia l is often “vocalized”; that is, the tongue does not
make contact with the roof of the mouth, and the back of the tongue is
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raised instead of the tip. This also tends to weaken the l sound so that it
almost seems as if the sound is being dropped altogether. Thus the words
pal and pow sound almost the same, as do balance and bounce.
The ar sound is in all cases backed to aur: caur (car), staur (star). Some
may hear these as core and store – but there is no merger of ar and or in
Philadelphia because or raises and merges with oor. So poor and pore, tore
and tour are all pronounced with the long u vowel of tube. You can get a
good overall feel for how this all sounds by listening to television political
commentator Chris Matthews, host of CNBC’s Hardball.
Grammar
Grammatically, Philadelphian does not differ very much from other forms
of colloquial American English; but a few regional characteristics can be
noted.
Common to many of the cities in the Northeast is the second person
plural pronoun youse, or an unstressed variant yuz, used like the Southern
y’all: Aur youse goin’? (Are you going?).
The positive use of anymore to mean “currently” is a Philadelphia usage
that has since spread: Things are so expensive anymore. Other construc-
tions include: quarter of instead of “quarter till” or “quarter to” in telling
time: quooder of five (quarter till five); omitting the infinitive in want off
(want to get off) and want in (want to get in); and omitting the object of
the preposition with: Here, take it with.
Vocabulary
Local words characteristic of Philadelphia include baby coach ‘baby

carriage’, bag school ‘skip school’, pavement ‘sidewalk’, and square ‘city
block’. A few words with Philadelphia origins have since gone on to more
widespread usage: hoagie ‘submarine sandwich’, yo ‘hey, hello’), and
hot cakes ‘pancakes’, and others have become obsolete, such as coal oil
‘kerosene’.
Ultimately, linguistic research in Philadelphia has had a far wider
application than just describing the speech of that city. It has been instru-
mental in disproving the commonly held notion that within 50 years we
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will all be speaking a homogenized American English straight out of the
evening newscast. In fact, American dialects are now more different from
each other than they have ever been, and despite any influence from the
national media, in places like Philadelphia they are continuing to evolve
along their own lines.
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15
Maple Leaf Rap (Canada)
J. K. Chambers
15.1 Urban life on Toronto’s Yonge Street. © by Donald Gruener.
Canada is a nation of immigrants – a fact obvious to anyone visiting

Canada’s largest cities. In Toronto, almost one in three people (32%)
speak a native language other than English or French, Canada’s official
languages. Immigrant language speakers are also found in Vancouver
(27%), Winnipeg (21%), and Montreal (17%).
In New World countries, almost everyone is part of an immigrant group.
In Canada, we have groups known as First Nations, the Inuit and the
Indians, who have the best claim for being non-immigrants, not because
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they were always here but because their immigration took place pre-
historically. In terms of numbers, there are 207,280 First Nations people
(using mother tongue figures), which amounts to about one in every
145,000 Canadians. The other 30 million people are immigrants and the
descendants of immigrants.
The language mix in Canada is the result of two distinct immigration
waves in the twentieth century that peaked around 1910 and 1960. These
waves brought with them thousands of people speaking languages
including Chinese, Italian, German, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, Punjabi,
Ukrainian, Arabic, Dutch, Tagalog and Greek – the top 12 immigrant
groups in the 2001 census.
Until the twentieth century, Canada’s population was formed mostly
from two earlier immigration waves. The first began in 1776 and reached
its peak in 1793. These immigrants came from the Thirteen Colonies –
forerunner of the USA – and are known in Canadian history as Loyalists
because they chose to keep their allegiance to England after the American
Revolution.
The British government of Canada feared that the colonists might harbor
pro-Republican sentiments, because, as Loyalists, they had American
ancestry. These fears increased with the American invasion of Canada in
the War of 1812 so British and Irish immigrants were encouraged
to emigrate to Canada – even though the Canadians showed no sign of
defecting to the American side and had defended their borders vigorously.
This second wave began around 1815 and reached its peak in 1850, bring-
ing thousands of immigrants from England, Scotland and Ireland.
Both sets of immigrants came principally from English-speaking
countries but subsequent immigrants came mainly from central Europe
at first and Asia later. These people brought with them more diverse
cultural, ethnic, and racial backgrounds. With their arrival, Canada’s
original Anglo-Celtic hegemony became only one of numerous tiles in a
colorful mosaic. The new immigrants spoke their own languages at home
and in their communities, but they learned English (or French in Quebec)
in order to get along in the workplace, go to school, or read the daily
newspaper.
In terms of language, there are the two types of immigrants. Newcomers
who arrive speaking languages already intelligible to the home population
are “dialect/accent” (DA) immigrants, and those speaking languages
unintelligible to the natives are “second-language” (SL) immigrants.
Normally, immigration waves bring the two together, but in Canada they
arrived in succession, one after the other.
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Just as skin color separates people into “visible minorities,” SL immi-
grants are “audible minorities.” I can remember, as a youngster, hearing
older people in my hometown grumble when they overheard a foreign
language on the street. “This is Canada,” one old man said. “Why can’t
they talk like everyone else?” Some people believed that people with for-
eign accents could not be employed as salespeople, teachers, bank tellers,
or the like, simply because they had an accent. Attitudes like these, we
now know, were just reflex reactions to what was a fairly sudden social
change. People were not used to hearing foreign languages on their streets
and reacted to them out of ignorance or fear.
I discovered that these attitudes also affected the DA immigrants
arriving in the 1800s. Even though their language was intelligible to the
locals, they sounded different – sometimes very different – and those
differences in accent and dialect were also portents of social changes. One
woman from England wrote a book about her immigrant experience in
1851, and in it, she described the Canadian recruiting officer as speaking
with “a drawling vulgar voice.” “He spoke with such a twang,” she said,
“that I could not bear to look at him or listen to him.” Predictably, she
had a miserable time of it in her adopted country. In this same period,
many advertisements for jobs carried the standard line “No Englishman
need apply.”
One difference between the DA immigrants and the SL immigrants
is the literacy gap. Usually, native speakers and DA immigrants have
developed their literacy skills from an early age whereas SL immigrants
typically arrive in their new country unable to read and write in their
home language, or with very limited fluency in it. The extent of this
disadvantage for SL immigrants is illustrated by comparative data from
the International Adult Literacy Survey, a standardized test applied in
22 nations to determine proficiency rates. The survey is complex and
multifaceted, but what is most important here is that it tests both
native-born and second-language foreign-born citizens in each country.
The discrepancy between the proficiency scores for these two groups
constitutes the Literacy Gap.
Figure 15.2 illustrates the Literacy Gap in five English-speaking
countries: United Kingdom, United States, New Zealand, Canada and
Australia. The percentages are for the median proficiency level (level 3,
where 5 is the highest), roughly appropriate for senior high-school stu-
dents. I selected these five countries because they are all English-language
dominant and happen to fall into the middle group among the nations
surveyed. The bars indicate the proportion of citizens who attain this
J. K. Chambers 95
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50
45
native-born
40
35
Literacy Proficiency
30
25
20
15
10
second-language foreign-born
5
0
UK USA NZ Can Aus
15.2 The literacy gap.
median level of proficiency in the test, and the length of the bar shows
the discrepancy between the native-born and the SL immigrants at that
level. In Canada, for instance, 39% of native-born people attained this
proficiency level but only 14% of SL immigrants achieved it. The figure
clearly shows that the Gap exists in every country, and that it is never less
than 15%.
SL immigrants clearly find themselves at a disadvantage in terms
of literacy compared to both DA immigrants and long-term citizens. As
literacy is a vital economic and social tool, minimizing the Literacy Gap
should be regarded as a social obligation of governments and educators.
In Canada, this obligation is discharged by providing free ESL classes
in immigrant communities. But, despite these efforts, the Literacy Gap
remains wide – we must continually strive to find new and improved ways
to make these classes attractive and to make lessons effective. Of course,
the Literacy Gap can never be wiped out entirely because adult learners
are not capable of gaining second-language proficiency that matches their
first-language competence.
For both DA immigrants and SL immigrants, the English dialect and
accent they hear their children speaking is markedly Canadian in many
96 Maple Leaf Rap
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ways. Their children will refer to sneakers as running shoes, to obsequious
classmates as browners, and to colored pencils as pencil crayons. When
they say that the sun shone, they will rhyme shone with gone (not with
bone). They will have the same vowel in both Don and Dawn, so it is
impossible to tell by their pronunciation whether they are talking about a
boy or a girl; and they will have the same vowel in pairs like cot and
caught, knotty and naughty, stock and stalk, and all similar words.
They will have a long low diphthong in houses, but a short, high one in
house, the phenomenon known as Canadian Raising, and when they say
about the house, some Americans will think they have said aboot the hoose.
In other respects, their Canadian accents will share traits with their near-
est neighbors, Americans from the inland north and the Upper Midwest.
All of them, for instance, refer to shops as stores, say they are sick not only
when they are nauseous but also when they have the measles, and call the
front and back end of cars the hood and the trunk (not the bonnet and the
boot). They all rhyme can’t with ant (not with want) and pronounce r
wherever it is written, as in car and card.
These similarities with American accents mark Canadian English as one
of the branches of North American English. Like most of the accents in
the United States, Canadian English descends ultimately from eighteenth-
century varieties spoken in England at the time of the early settlers on this
continent. The Canadian peculiarities, like Canadian Raising, show that it
has been independent long enough to develop some traits of its own, just
as varieties in New England, New York City, Texas, and other regions
have developed traits of their own.
It should be a source of wonder that the origins of Canadian English
remain audible today. After all, its entire history consists of layer after
layer of other accents and dialects being imported into its territory and
coexisting with it for a while. And here is the final similarity between DA
immigrants and SL immigrants. For both of them, when their children go
out to play with local kids and go to school with them, the children return
home sounding like their playmates and classmates. The Chinese children
in 1999 came home sounding like the third-generation Italo-Canadians in
their class, whose grandparents in 1949, when they were children, had
come home sounding like the third-generation Scottish-Canadians, whose
own grandparents had come home sounding like the third-generation
Anglo-Canadians, and so on, back to the children of the Loyalists. The
linguistic character of the dialect gets established early, starting with the
speech of the offspring of the founders, the first native generation. Once
it is established, successive generations can exert only mild, and minor,
J. K. Chambers 97
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influences. Basically, the next generation always sounds much like the one
immediately before it.
The net result is a common linguistic identity linking each generation
with the next. And the social purpose of that linguistic identity seems to
be to engender the sense of communal belonging in a deep subconscious
way.
That sense of belonging apparently hardens in some people into a
proprietary feeling, and that sometimes leads them to wonder aloud why
the new immigrants can’t just talk like the rest of us.
Further Reading
Chambers, J. K. (1993) “Lawless and vulgar innovations”: Victorian views on

Canadian English. In Sandra Clarke (ed.), Focus on Canada. Amsterdam/
Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1–26.
Chambers, J. K. (1998) English: Canadian varieties. In John Edwards (ed.),
Language in Canada. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 252–72.
Chambers, J. K. (2005) “Canadian Dainty”: The rise and decline of Briticisms in
mainland Canadian English. In Raymond Hickey (ed.), Legacies of Colonial
English: Studies in Transported Dialects. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press.
Tuijnam, Albert (2001) Benchmarking Adult Literacy in North America. Ottawa:
Statistics Canada [Catalogue no. 89–572].
98 Maple Leaf Rap
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PART III
THE MIDWEST
Timothy C. Frazer 99
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100 An Introduction to Midwest English
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16
An Introduction to Midwest
English
Timothy C. Frazer
16 Hiding in a wheatfield. © by Viktor Pryymachuk.
One of the grossest misconceptions about the Midwestern United States is

that it is home to “General American,” a bland, deregionalized variety
of English spoken by everyone in the region. Like many generalizations,
this is not true.
I live in Macomb, Illinois, located about 200 miles southwest of
Chicago and about 150 miles north of St. Louis. My adopted hometown
boasts a state university but is otherwise dependent on a rural economy
and a rural culture. Recently a colleague of mine originally from Cuba
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said, “I have lived in this country for more than thirty years and I have
been speaking English almost as long, but I can’t understand anything
they say at the farmers’ market.” Not long ago, some of my Chinese students
observed that they could not understand the vernacular used by African
American students on campus. They might also have had trouble with
another colleague of mine from Minnesota, who pronounces the contrac-
tion didn’t as dint. These Americans the international community could
not understand were natives of the Midwest and had lived here most of
their lives. So much for the mythical homogeneity of Midwestern English!
So what are the types of Midwest English, and how did they evolve?
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is a Southern dialect with
some relationship to creoles spoken in West Africa and the Caribbean: it
is spoken in every major city around the Great Lakes as well as in Cincinnati,
Columbus, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha, Minneapolis, and
Madison. AAVE came to the Midwest as a result of the “Great Migration”
of black people from the South to the (relatively) better economic oppor-
tunities in the region. AAVE itself is by no means uniform: an African
American student from East St. Louis, Illinois, told me her friends from
Chicago made fun of her “Southern accent.”
The English of white Midwesterners, however, is even more varied than
AAVE, and the reason for this is again migration. After the Revolutionary
War, settlers from Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Tennessee
poured into the southern parts of Illinois and Indiana, and to a lesser
extent Ohio; in Illinois they moved up the river valleys as far as the sites of
Peoria and Burlington, Iowa. More than 200 years later, people living near
Macomb tell me that their friends from Minneapolis remark on their
“Southern accents.” Because these settlement patterns continued into the
West, Midwesterners from southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and from
southern Iowa, from Missouri and parts of Kansas, will sometimes
pronounce pin and pen with the same vowel, and will also sometimes
merge, for example, feel and fill as well as pool and pull and tire and tar.
Town will get a fronted vowel so that it sounds like tay-oon, while the
“long i” diphthong occasionally will flatten to where i is heard as ah. River
communities along the Mississippi and Illinois rivers are older and therefore
often more Southern, so that I have heard rural whites using perfective
done (already) as far north as Peoria or Burlington: “Where’s my hat?”
“I done told you, it’s over there!”
Probably a majority of these upland Southern settlers were of
Scots-Irish stock. Since later migrants from Pennsylvania and, in later
generations, Ohio, were also often of Scots-Irish ancestry, a number of
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grammatical differences persist which appear to come from Ulster or from
Scotland itself. Most prominent are several apparently elliptical verbal
constructions in which verbs of desire like needs, wants, or likes are
followed by a past participle, hence The baby wants fed or The car needs
washed. To speakers of Inland Northern or Plantation Southern or British
standard English, it sounds as if to be needs inserting after the verb.
A similar construction uses a preposition as a complement, as in I want off
or The cat wants out.
All of the linguistic features mentioned so far can be identified as either
“Midland” or “South Midland.” The Midland dialect in the Middle West
appears to be due largely to Scots-Irish influence; originally, it included
Gaelic words like clabber ‘sour milk’ and donsie ‘sickly’. Some Midland
speakers exhibit a very strong postvocalic r and l with more velarization,
than is used in other dialects of English, and sometimes with the tongue
tip raised. Older Midland speakers have an intrusive r in wash (hence,
warsh) while others might pronounce fish as feesh. The low back vowel
merger, which makes homophones out of Don/Dawn and cot/caught, is most
noticeable in eastern Ohio (close to its origins in western Pennsylvania).
The Midland parts of the Midwest include southern Ohio, most of
Indiana, southern Illinois and Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and
the western parts of the Dakotas, with some features creeping east
into northern Minnesota. Most of the Midland area seems to have as a
common part of its settlement history a Scots-Irish predominance.
Another Midwestern dialect, Northern, plays a role in the myth of
“General American.” Northern became the model for American English
dictionaries. Inland Northern is spoken by WASP elites in upstate New
York, western New England, and in the urban areas around the southern
Great Lakes. The original Northern settlers, the spiritual and intellectual
heirs of the New England Puritans, were ambitious, self-righteous people
who set out to evangelize the unsettled West during the early nineteenth
century. As they came to the Great Lakes states of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana,
Wisconsin, and Michigan, they built cities, founded colleges, and established
public schools. Believing that salvation lay in the ability to read the Bible,
they promoted literacy. By World War II, their dialect had become estab-
lished in the growing industrial cities that bordered the lower Great Lakes.
An Inland Northern-speaking academic, John S. Kenyon (from Hiram
College in Northern Ohio) had become the pronunciation authority for
Webster’s Second International Dictionary.
So the Northern dialect became established throughout the Great
Lakes cities and adjoining areas, and in colleges, universities, schools, and
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dictionaries as well. However, the Northern dialect area itself is not
monolithic. The Inland Northern dialect, located in the Great Lakes cities,
has been for more than half a century the model for dictionaries and
pronunciation manuals: this is the variety that is often taught in ESL
classes in the United States. But it is in the process of change, so that it is
beginning to sound less like examples given in the books. The main shift is
in its vowel system. Low central vowels are moving forward, so that to a
conservative speaker like myself, a Chicagoan’s pronunciation of sock or
lock might sound like sack or lack.
The rest of the North includes northern Wisconsin, Minnesota,
northern Iowa, and most of the Dakotas. Some linguists call this the “North
Central” area; others know it as the “Upper Midwest.” The southern part
of this area is conservative, its pronunciation still close to the dictionary
model that originated in the Great Lakes. Farther north and west,
especially in western Wisconsin and Minnesota, we find in words like
lutefisk (fish preserved in brine), evidences of fairly recent settlement by
Scandinavians. Farther north, diphthongs in words like light and house
will undergo “Canadian Raising,” so that a conservative Northern speaker
like myself might hear loyt or hoose. Here, too, especially around Duluth
and Ashland, Wisconsin, we find more evidence of influence by immigrant
languages, especially Finnish, German, Swedish and Norwegian. In
phonology, th consonants become stops, hence them three sounds like
dem tree (this also happens in Chicago). Syntactically, we encounter I’m
going Detroit. You want to go with?
The Midwest is experiencing an increase in the Spanish-speaking
population. The effect a growing influence of Spanish grammar and
pronunciation will have on Midwest English is hard to predict. Mean-
while, the large numbers of Spanish-speaking students in ESL classes
in the Midwest will continue to be surprised by ways in which the varieties
of Midwest English they encounter do not always match those in the
classroom.
Further Reading
Cassidy, Frederic G., and Joan Hall (eds.) (1985–) Dictionary of American Regional
English. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. (The best
authority on dialect words in the USA. Four volumes, A–Sk, are in print.)
Carver, Craig M. (1987) American Regional Dialects. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press. (A very readable survey of all the dialect areas in the United
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States, based on vocabulary found in Cassidy and Hall (eds.), with a fine discus-
sion of settlement history.)
Frazer, Timothy C. (ed.) (1993) “Heartland” English. Tuscaloosa: University of
Alabama Press. (A collection of papers on the region, including an overview
more detailed than the one given here, plus articles on Chicago (3), Missouri
German, Oklahoma, AAVE in Iowa, rural adolescent dialect, Wisconsin (2),
St. Louis, and others.)
Frazer, Timothy C. (1996) The dialects of the Middle West. In Edgar W. Scheider
(ed.), Focus on the USA (Varieties of English around the World). Amsterdam/
Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 81–102.
Labov, William, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg (1996) Phonological Atlas
of North America. www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/National Map/National
Map.html. (Emphasizes differences in pronunciation, especially those which
might confuse a machine scanner.)
Murray, Thomas E. (ed.) (1990) The Language and Dialect of the Plains. Special
edition of Kansas Quarterly, 22(4). (Papers on “Ozarkian English,” and on
Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois. Back issues are available
from the journal at Denison Hall, Kansas State University.)
Murray, Thomas E. (1993) Positive anymore in the Midwest. In Frazer (ed.)
(1993).
Murray, Thomas E., Timothy Frazer, and Beth M. Simon (1996) Needs + past
participle in American English. American Speech 71: 255–71.
Murray, Thomas E., and Beth Simon (1999) Want + past participle in American
English. American Speech 74: 140–64.
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17
Straight Talking from
the Heartland (Midwest)
Matthew J. Gordon
17.1 A typical barn in the cornbelt. © by L. R. Kyllo.
Regional stereotypes abound in the US. Most Americans can readily

imitate Southerners (y’all), New Yorkers (fuhgeddaboudit), and Californians
(yo dude) although these caricatures are usually as inaccurate as they are
unflattering.
106 Straight Talking from the Heartland
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But if you ask someone to imitate the speech of Midwesterners, you will
probably be greeted with silence – even Midwesterners think they speak
without an accent.
As a native of eastern Nebraska, I grew up believing that the way I
spoke was the norm, not just in my region but for the entire country.
Where I lived, teachers did not correct students’ everyday pronunciation,
and speech therapists did not offer accent-reduction lessons. We may
have wrestled at times with a cultural inferiority complex, viewing New
Yorkers as more sophisticated or exciting, but we did not covet their
accents.
The cot/caught Merger
My linguistic illusions were shattered in college. In an introductory phon-

etics class I discovered that certain words that I had always pronounced
the same way were supposed to be distinct. The words included pairs such
as cot and caught and Don and dawn. The vowel sound in the first member
of these pairs was said to be produced with the tongue low and back in
the mouth and with the lips spread open, while the vowel of the second
member of each pair was said to involve a slightly higher tongue position
and a rounding of the lips. For me, all these words had the same vowel,
a sound close to that of the former description (i.e., low, back and
unrounded). Imagine my Midwestern embarrassment on learning that
I was “missing” a vowel!
My vowel system illustrates a phenomenon known as the “low back
vowel merger” or simply as the “cot/caught merger.” A merger is a sound
change that involves a loss of phonological contrast as two formerly
distinct sounds are merged into a single sound. Mergers have been a fairly
common occurrence throughout the history of English, as in other
languages. For example, words like meet and meat used to be pronounced
with distinct vowels (meet sounded like mate and meat something like
met) though today these items have the same sound in most dialects
of English. The cot/caught merger is a fairly recent development in the
Midwest. Dialectologists have for some time known it as a feature of
western Pennsylvania (especially Pittsburgh) and of eastern New England,
though it has a slightly different form there. It is very widespread across
Canada and is also heard throughout the western US. The latter seems to
be the source of its introduction into the Midwest as it appears to be
Matthew J. Gordon 107
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spreading eastward. A recent survey directed by William Labov of the
University of Pennsylvania has shown that the merger can be found today
among younger generations (roughly, people under 40) in Kansas,
Nebraska, and the Dakotas. It is also heard across much of Minnesota,
Iowa, and Missouri. Similarly, the merger affects central portions of
Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, though its appearance in these areas may
represent a westward expansion of the change from Pennsylvania.
Many language changes attract negative attention, particularly when
they are associated with young people. It is not uncommon, for example,
to hear criticisms of the use of like as a discourse marker, a feature common
among younger speakers (e.g., He like just came out of like the store). The
cot/caught merger, however, seems not to attract any such stigmatization.
In fact, people are largely unaware of it. Nevertheless, it does occasionally
lead to misunderstandings. One time, I confused a native of Michigan,
where the merger does not occur, by directing him to the “copy room”
which he heard as “coffee room.” A fellow Nebraskan reports a similar
experience in which she was speaking to her grandmother about a friend
named Dawn. Apparently interpreting “Dawn” as “Don,” the grandmother
wanted to know why Dawn’s parents had given her a boy’s name.
The Northern Cities Shift
In other parts of the “accentless” Midwest another distinctive pronunci-

ation pattern can be heard. This pattern also affects vowel sounds, but
unlike the cot/caught merger, it does not involve the loss of any distinctions.
Instead the affected vowels come to be pronounced with the tongue
positioned in a slightly different place in the mouth. As a result, the vowels
appear to be shifting around in articulatory space. Since this pattern occurs
principally in the large urban centers of the traditional Northern dialect
region, it is known as the “Northern Cities Shift” (NCS).
The NCS involves changes to the six vowels illustrated by the words
caught, cot, cat, bit, bet, and but. For people affected by the NCS, the vowel
in caught comes to be articulated with a more fronted tongue position and
with the lips spread. In this way, caught takes on a vowel similar to that of
cot as spoken in other parts of the country. However, these two vowels do
not merge into one, as they do with the cot/caught merger. The distinction
is preserved because the vowel of cot also shifts, coming forward in the
mouth toward the area in which other speakers pronounce the vowel of
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cat. The cat vowel, in turn, is shifted upward from its traditional position
in the low, front area of the mouth by raising the tongue. It comes to have
a position more like that of bet or even bit. Often it takes on a diphthongal
quality, one that combines two vowel sounds and resembles the second
syllable of the word idea. For NCS speakers, the vowel of bit shifts away
from its high, front position toward the center of the mouth, taking on a
quality much like that of the second syllable of roses. A similar tendency is
heard with the vowel of bet which can sound more like but. The bet vowel
also sometimes reveals a slightly different tendency toward lowering so
that bet comes to sound more like bat. Finally, there is the vowel of but
which is traditionally produced with a central tongue position. In the NCS
this vowel is shifted backward and may acquire some lip-rounding,
making but sound like bought. The Northern Cities Shift is heard across a
broad swath of the Northern US from upstate New York throughout the
Great Lakes region and westward into at least Minnesota. As its name
suggests, it is most strongly rooted in large cities including Buffalo,
Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago, but it is spreading beyond the urban
centers into more rural areas.
For linguists, the NCS represents a significant development. Part of its
significance stems from the sounds that are affected. Throughout the his-
tory of English, the class of short vowels including those of bit, bet, and bat
has remained relatively stable sounding much as they did over a millen-
nium ago. The NCS appears to challenge this longstanding stability. Even
more intriguing is the pattern created by the changing vowels. As the
earlier description suggested, the NCS consists of a series of changes by
which one vowel shifts into the space of a neighboring vowel. The contrast
between the vowels is maintained, however, because that neighboring vowel
also shifts. For example, caught shifts toward cot, but cot shifts toward cat,
and cat shifts toward kit or keeyat. In this way, the various components of
the NCS appear to be coordinated rather than accidental. Such coordin-
ated patterns of sound change are known as “chain shifts” because the
individual elements appear to be linked together. While not as common
The Northern Cities Shift

bit
bet cut caught
bat cot
17.2 The pattern of vowel changes known as the Northern Cities Shift.
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an occurrence as merger, chain shifts have been documented in a number
of languages. In the history of English the changes that occurred between
roughly the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries (known as the Great Vowel
Shift) are often cited as an example of chain shifting. This historical change
rearranged the system of long vowels causing, for example, low vowels to
raise to mid positions and mid vowels to raise to high positions.
While people who have NCS in their own speech are generally unaware
of it, the shifted pronunciations are noticeable to people from other
parts of the country, and occasionally misunderstandings arise as a result
of these shifts. For example, John Lawler of the University of Michigan
reports that he is sometimes asked why his son, Ian, has a girl’s name.
Apparently, Michiganders hear the name as “Ann” which, following the
NCS, they pronounce as eeyan.
The fact that the NCS is well established in Michigan is particularly
interesting in light of the dominant beliefs about local speech. As research
by Dennis Preston has shown, Michiganders are “blessed” with a high
degree of linguistic security; when surveyed, they rate their own speech as
more correct and more pleasant than that of even their fellow Mid-
westerners. By contrast Indianans tend to rate the speech of their state on
par with that Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan. Indeed, it is not uncommon to
find Michiganders who will claim that the speech of national broadcasters
is modeled on their dialect. Even a cursory comparison of the speech of
the network news anchors with that of the local news anchors in Detroit
will reveal the fallacy of such claims.
Nevertheless, the Michiganders’ faith that they speak an accentless
variety is just an extreme version of the general stereotype of Midwestern
English. The examples of the cot/caught merger and the Northern
Cities Shift serve to contradict the perception that Midwestern speech
lacks any distinguishing characteristics. However, both of these develop-
ments have been in operation for several decades at least. Why haven’t
they entered into popular perceptions about Midwestern speech? Perhaps
they will come to be recognized as features of the dialect in the same
way that dropping of r serves to mark Boston speech or ungliding of long
i (hahd for hide) marks Southern speech. But, considering the general
stereotypes of the Midwest, it seems more likely that they might never
be recognized. One thing about linguistic stereotypes is certain: they have
less to do with the actual speech of a region than with popular perceptions
of the region’s people. As long as Midwesterners are viewed as average,
boring or otherwise nondescript, their speech will be seen through the
same prism.
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Resources
Information about the cot/caught merger, the Northern Cities Shift, and other active
sound changes in American English is available from the website of the TELSUR
project (www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/home.html). The project is directed
by William Labov and presents the results of a telephone survey of speech patterns
across North America. Labov treats these features as well as historical changes
such as the Great Vowel Shift in his Principles of Linguistic Change (1994, Malden,
MA and Cambridge, UK: Blackwell). For a study of the Northern Cities Shift in
rural Michigan, see Matthew J. Gordon, Small-Town Values and Big-City Vowels
(2001, Durham, NC: Duke University Press). Dennis Preston’s research on popular
attitudes toward American dialects is reported in his contribution to Language
Myths (Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill (eds.), 1998, London: Penguin).
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18
Words of the Windy City
(Chicago, IL)
Richard Cameron
112Work Words
18 of the Windy
on a construction project inCity
the Chicago River North area. © by Matthew Dula.
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You would think that the city described by Carl Sandburg as the “Hog
Butcher for the World” and “the Nation’s Freight Handler” would have
had many books written about its language. Unfortunately, the Chicago
dialect has been neglected by linguists who have preferred to focus on
New York City and Boston, although the Midwestern dialect is probably a
better indicator of the current state of language in the urban North than
its more famous East Coast counterparts.
Early Days
Native Americans – joined later by Europeans – used the portage between

Lake Michigan and the Illinois and Mississippi River system for tem-
porary, seasonal settlements. Chicago’s first known settlers, the Illiniwek,
called the place Chigagou or Chicagoua, which means something like
“wild garlic place.” Apart from the Illiniwek, history books recognize
Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable as Chicago’s first year-round settler.
Du Sable was Haitian, primarily of African descent, so he spoke Haitian
Creole and French as his first languages. French would have been most
useful for fur trading at the time, but Du Sable could have used English
to speak with the occasional British military visitor. He may also have
spoken some Potawatomi, the Native American language of his wife and
her family.
There is a lesson to be learned from Du Sable and his wife. English in
Chicago has always been spoken by two groups: native speakers of English
and non-native speakers of varying abilities in a variety of accents.
Currently, Chicago English is spoken natively in two broad dialects:
Upper Midwest American English and African American English. Hispanic
or Latino English is also on the rise, but it has not been studied in Chicago
as extensively as it has been in Los Angeles (see chapter 36, “Talking
with mi Gente”). Varieties of Chicago English are also used by native
speakers of Mandarin, Cantonese and Hokkien varieties of Chinese, Polish,
Spanish, Urdu, Russian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Hindi, Arabic, Italian,
Ilocano, Tagalog, Thai, Greek, Korean, Serbo-Croatian, Yiddish, Gujarati,
Vietnamese, and Japanese, among others. In fact, a report from the
Illinois State Board of Education identifies 107 different languages
currently spoken in the Chicago Metropolitan Area. If you add two or
three major dialects of English, then Chicago Englishes consist of at least
110 accents used on a daily basis.
Richard Cameron 113
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One of the earliest of the few publications about Chicago English,
“A Sketch of the Linguistic Conditions of Chicago” (1903) by Carl Darling
Buck, begins with this pronounced statement: “The linguistic conditions
in some of our largest American cities are unique in the history of the
world – an unparalleled Babel of foreign tongues.” Though Buck’s study
gives a detailed census report on the “foreign tongues” in Chicago at the
beginning of the twentieth century, it says nothing about English except to
claim that it had hardly been affected by other languages. At that time,
German was the most dominant language in the city, spoken by nearly
500,000 people; next came Polish, still a widely spoken and robust
language in Chicago. Then came Swedish, Bohemian, Norwegian and
Yiddish, Dutch, Italian, Danish, French, Gaelic, Serbo-Croatian, Slovakian,
and Lithuanian – all of which were spoken by 10,000 people or more
at home and in the community. Many of these languages – German
and Swedish, for example – have all but vanished in Chicago. Today, the
second language of the city is Spanish, spoken in various forms by just
over one-quarter of the population.
In 1965, the dialectologist Lee Pederson noted that the consonant sounds
of metropolitan Chicago were similar to those found in other American
English dialects. Of course, people say things like da Bears, or runnin’
instead of running, or even tree instead of three as in Hey Mack, gimme tree
sandwiches. But people in other US cities do this too, especially when
they need three sandwiches and the guy at the counter is called Mack
(pronounced more like Meck than Mack, by the way).
But, in comparison to the consonants, the vowel sounds of Chicago
English seemed wild and innovative – at least in the 1960s. Pederson
found that Chicagoans of various backgrounds had no fewer than
seven different ways of pronouncing the vowel sound in words like bag.
Some pronounced bag somewhat like beg – but not exactly – more like
biaeg. Likewise, the vowel in a word like touch had about nine different
pronunciations. Pederson recorded the range of pronunciations for
Chicago English vowels, but he had trouble finding any consistency and
concluded that there was “no clear pattern.”
Shifty Chicago Vowels
The vowels are messy but there is a pattern. I first heard it when I thought
that a friend was talking about a woman by the name of Jan when in fact
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the woman was a man by the name of John. A woman told me she went to
“Cully High School” on the South Side of Chicago. When I asked her
to spell it, she wrote “Kelly High School.”
Like other northern cities such as Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo,
Upper Midwest American English in Chicago is experiencing a shift in the
pronunciation of five or six vowels. Vowels are pronounced by moving
the tongue toward certain target areas within the mouth. For the vowel of
a word like Jen, the target is in the front middle part of the mouth. For the
vowel of a word like Jan, the target is also in the front of the mouth but
lower than the target for Jen. For the vowel of a word like John it is in the
lower middle part of the mouth. The shift involves the vowels in words
like Jan beginning to sound like Jen because the target area for Jan has
shifted up in the front of the mouth. Remember my confusion of Cully for
Kelly? That’s because the vowel of Jen, like the first vowel of Kelly, is also
shifting, but it moves backwards in the mouth where it sounds like the
first vowel in gully. That’s why I heard Cully for Kelly. In turn, for
the vowel in John, speakers shift the target area frontward in the mouth
toward the spot for Jan. Other vowels are also involved in this shift,
such as coffee sounding more like cahffee and tuck sounding more like talk
(see chapter 17, “Straight Talking from the Heartland”).
A curious thing about vowel shifts is their pattern of dispersion through-
out the region. They spread from the major center of population to
neighboring areas by jumping first to towns of intermediate size and then
to smaller ones in a pattern that cultural geographers call hierarchical
diffusion. Given that Chicago is the biggest city in the Northern cities
region, we can deduce that this vowel change began in Chicago.
So how do people use these vowels to position themselves socially when
they speak English in Chicago? Though there hasn’t been a lot of research,
one study (Herndobler 1994) looked at a working-class community on
the far South Side that included three generations of speakers and two
levels of social classes. For Chicagoans, there is a clear cultural divide
between South Siders and North Siders. The North Siders generally root for
the Cubs and, according to some South Siders, try to sound uppity. The
South Siders often follow the White Sox and, according to some North
Siders, are real “deese and dem kind of people.” Not surprisingly, the
study showed that the men had higher frequencies of dat for that and tree
for three than did the women. Also, people who were lower-middle-class
more frequently said dat and tree than did people who were middle-class.
The vowels showed something different. The vowel of Jan – the newer
pronunciation that is closer to the vowel of Jen – was produced more
Richard Cameron 115
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frequently by the women than by the men. And, the newer pronunciation
was also produced more frequently by the middle-class than by the lower-
middle-class speakers. This is the reverse of what happened for the
consonant sounds. It seems that if a speech sound is changing, women
will lead the way and that class differences are significant as well.
Things got even more interesting with the vowel of John. In the two
oldest generations, men produced the newer pronunciation more than
women. In the youngest generation, women and men were about equal.
In the lower middle class, among the oldest speakers, men produced more
of the new pronunciation than women. But in the middle class among the
oldest speakers, this pattern was reversed. Women produced more of the
new pronunciation than men.
So what’s the deal? For a period of time, the little vowel in such words
as John had two kinds of social meanings. For the elderly lower middle
class, it was associated with independent tough men who worked with
their hands outside the home in local factories – a vowel used by a man’s
man. For the elderly middle class, women who also worked outside of the
home used the vowel as a sign of independence, education, and competence
so it was a self-respecting, forward-looking woman’s vowel.
Vocabulary
When I moved to Chicago, three words really confused me – gangway,

prairie, and parkway. A gangway is a walkway between two buildings.
A prairie is an empty city lot that may have some stray dogs, but no prairie
dogs or coyotes. And a parkway, which for me is a highway busy with cars
heading into a city, is the grassy strip that separates the sidewalk in front
of a house from the street. A snorkel or snorkel truck is “a large fire truck
with master-stream nozzle, boom and bucket.” I’ve noticed red hots
(an older term for hotdogs), Italian beef (because of the Italian spices),
subs and hot subs (not hoagies and grinders), pop more than soda, and
more recently, the Jíbaro sandwich (pronounced HE-bah-row, with steak
and fried plantains instead of bread) invented in the Puerto Rican
neighborhoods. To get around you use the Loop (downtown), the El or
the L (the elevated train that loops the downtown), and when the El
crosses over a street, call it a viaduct but when one road crosses over
another road, call this an overpass. Chicagoans say things like I was by my
Mother’s house last night with by instead of at. Likewise, when you ask for
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tree sandwiches from Mack, he might ask, “Do you wanna take ’em with?”
instead of with you.
What do we know about Chicago Englishes? First, lots of people of
many different backgrounds speak them both as their first language and as
a learned second language. They do so with many degrees of proficiency
and a wide variety of accents. Second, among the first-language speakers
born in Chicago, there are at least two major dialects of Chicago English.
For some speakers, certain vowels have special meanings. For all speakers,
the vocabulary has a few unique features. And if you live here for a while,
you begin to take the sentences with, even when you’re by your mother’s
house watching the White Sacks on TV because she has air conditioning in
August.
Farr, Marcia (ed.) (2004) Ethnolinguistic Chicago. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Herndobler, Robin (1993) Sound change and gender in a working class community.
In Timothy Frazer (ed.), “Heartland” English: Variation and Transition in the
American Midwest. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 137–56.
Miller, Michael (1986) Discovering Chicago’s dialects: A Field Museum experiment
in adult education. Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, September: 5–11.
Pederson, Lee (1965) The Pronunciation of English in Metropolitan Chicago.
Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press for the American Dialect Society.
Pederson, Lee (1971) Chicago words: The regional vocabulary. American Speech
46: 163–92.
Richard Cameron 117
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19
Different Ways of Talking in
the Buckeye State (Ohio)
Beverly Olson Flanigan
118 Dusk
19.1 Different WaysOhio.
falls in Dayton, of ©Talking in the
by Stan Rohrer. Buckeye State
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When international students come to Ohio University in the town of
Athens they are often amazed and puzzled by the speech of the local
citizens – but then, so are many Americans. Here, they meet people who
tell them their car needs fixed, or that the feesh are bitin’ real good, or that
the store has a spayshul on aigs. Overseas students are surprised when
the local speech doesn’t match the books and tapes they’ve studied as
“American English” since Ohio seems like the heartland of America to
them. And northern and central Ohioans, not to mention out-of-state
students, also wonder how it is that this part of the state sounds so different
from Cleveland, Columbus, and even Cincinnati.
Southern Ohioans are less puzzled when they travel north in the state,
since they recognize “mainstream” pronunciation and grammar from the
media and other sources. But even central Ohioans laugh at the “nasal”
speech of Clevelanders and the mountain “twang” of the eastern hills.
In fact, Ohio, like ancient Gaul, can be divided into three parts –
dialectally, that is; and those three areas reflect quite accurately three, or
perhaps four, major dialect divisions running all through the Eastern United
States. Ohio has always been interesting to scholars of language variation
because it is a kind of microcosm of dialect differences that can be traced
back to the earliest periods of settlement of this country. Although change
is always occurring to some degree, especially in the pronunciation of
vowels, the three areas remain distinct and recognizable.
Dialect research in the US began in the 1930s with the intention of
producing a Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada. Regions
were sampled according to age and educational levels of selected inform-
ants, who were interviewed by fieldworkers to elicit regional lexical items,
grammatical structures, and pronunciations. Maps were drawn with
isoglosses between major lexical, grammatical, and phonological divisions.
Three major areas were distinguished: Northern, Midland, and Southern;
the west was, and still is, under study. As the map shows, Ohio, according
to this traditional cut, lies in both the Northern and the Midland regions,
with a further division into North Midland and South Midland. But there
is also considerable overlap with so-called Appalachian speech in the
eastern third of the state – 29 of the 88 counties lie in the Appalachian
Plateau. On the Ohio River, which forms the southern border of the state,
is a mix of South Midland and Southern speech, with Southern ungliding
of vowels (Ah lahk you just fahn) and shifting of Northern vowels ( feesh,
poosh, and spayshul ) intruding slowly but surely across the river.
Migration routes from the East and Southeast first brought these
distinctive forms into the old Northwest Territory – later to become the
Beverly Olson Flanigan 119
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EASTERN
NEW ENGLAND
NORTHERN
NEW YORK
CITY
NORTH MIDLAND
EASTERN
VIRGINIA
SOUTH MIDLAND
EASTERN
WESTERN
CENTRAL SOUTHERN
SOUTHERN
SOUTHERN
19.2 Traditional dialect boundaries based on the Linguistic Atlas of the United States
(Shuy 1967, p. 47).
states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. New England

and New York State were the source of settlers in the northern part of
Ohio; central Ohio was settled from Pennsylvania and Maryland; and
southern Ohio had two sources of migration, one from the Northeast and
Pennsylvania via the Ohio River and the National Road (now US 40/70),
and the other from Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky through the
Cumberland Gap and northward on Daniel Boone’s Wilderness Road.
Northerners brought with them the transplanted speech forms of south-
ern England, while the midlanders from Pennsylvania were of northern
English and Scots-Irish stock. As early as 1878, an anonymous observer
commented on the Scots-Irish origins of the English of western Pennsyl-
vania, the Cumberland Valley, and the Alleghenies, noting the use of phrases
like I want out, to wait on (someone), to take sick, and quarter till in telling
time. Northern equivalents are I want to go out, wait for someone, get sick,
and quarter of or to. Furthermore, the low vowel in want and on would be
farther back and more rounded in western Pennsylvania and southern
Ohio, as in wahnt and ahn. An intrusive r was noted early in this area, as
in warsh and Warshington – still noticeable but less common are intrusive
t in oncet, twicet and intrusive l as in drawling for drawing. This last is
particularly interesting, since the so-called “dark l” in words like falling
and call is disappearing, so that call sounds more like the crow’s caw. A
voiced consonant in greasy, pronounced greazy, is common here too, as it
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is in much of the South. Even the name of the state is pronounced differ-
ently in this region: Ohio sounds like ahiya, just as Cincinnati is locally
called Cincinnata. Southern Ohio shares with the South the pronunciation
of roof and creek with tensed vowels, as in Rufus and creak, while northern
Ohio has ruhff and crick. Central Ohio uses both pronunciations, with the
tensed forms winning out not because of migration origins but because
they are becoming the preferred or “prestigious” forms throughout the
country.
Central Ohio, the area surrounding Columbus and extending westward
to Dayton and Springfield, is often thought of as “bland,” speaking a
general “Midwestern” or “heartland” English. But it too has distinctive
characteristics noticed by outsiders if not by its own residents. Most note-
worthy, especially to foreign students accustomed to “book English,” is
the merger of vowels in words like cot and caught, or Don and dawn, or
hock and hawk, in Central Ohio and, indeed, much of the country to the
west. The rounded back vowel is essentially lost, so that caught, dawn,
and hawk sound the same as cot, Don, and hock – with comprehension
problems inevitably resulting. Another homophone set becoming more
common in this area is that of fill and feel, both sounding like fill, sale and
sell merging to sell, and pull and pool (and even pole), all moving to pull.
Note that this shift occurs only before l and is the opposite of the vowel
change occurring in southern Ohio, where the tensed vowels of feesh,
poosh, and spayshul tend to dominate, though the central Ohio pattern is
moving southward. A final vowel change in eastern and central Ohio, and
much of southern Ohio as well, is the fronting of o and u, so that boat
sounds like ba-oat and boot sounds like ba-oot.
Northern Ohio keeps the vowels of cot and caught distinct, and it
also lacks the other vowel changes heard in central and southern Ohio.
However, and especially in the large urban centers of Cleveland and
Toledo, it exhibits the “nasal” sound so often mocked by other Ohioans.
Linguists call this the Northern Cities Shift, a pattern of vowel changes
observed from eastern New York State to Wisconsin. The hallmark of this
shift is vowel raising, with words like bad and cat pronounced more like
bed and ket, or even with an inglide to sound like be-yed and ke-yet. This
shift leads to other shifts around the vowel space of the mouth, so that
flesh sounds like flush, but like bought, and locks like lacks.
But pronunciation isn’t the whole story of dialect variation in Ohio.
Lexical forms like redd up ‘to clean, make ready’, blinds for ‘window shades
on rollers’, sack instead of Northern bag, bucket instead of pail, and plural
you’uns, common in the Pittsburgh area and much of Appalachia, also
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came into southern Ohio and remain, though less consistently, today.
Another second person plural form, you all, is increasingly heard, though
not in its contracted form y’all as it is found in a large region of the South.
None of these variants is used outside southern Ohio, but other forms,
like northern pop for soda, bag, and you guys are now as common in the
Ohio Valley as they are throughout the US. But two kinship terms, mamaw
and papaw (for grandma and grandpa) are not heard in Ohio outside of
the southern and southeastern Appalachian areas.
Grammar, too, is variable in the state, though social mobility and edu-
cation are leveling this variation to some degree. We noted sick at the
stomach but He’s not to home, and He works down to the mill or over to
[place name] and the use of participles for past tense (He done it, I seen
him are still common in the South Midland and in southern Ohio). More
sporadic are hit for it, used to didn’t, perfective done in He done finished his
work, omission of subject relative pronouns in He’s the man did the work,
personal dative after get in I got me a new car, and singular nouns of
measure as in ten mile and five pound. A progressive verb construction
common in Appalachia is still used occasionally in southern and south-
eastern Ohio, mainly by older rural people; it prefixes a- to the verb as in
They went a-hunting, The house was a-haunted. The “need/want/like + past
participle” construction is very common, however: My car needs fixed; The
cat wants fed; the dog likes petted. This verb form is spreading all across
Ohio, with the exception of the northernmost fringe, as is the so-called
“positive anymore” construction. Thus, It seems like it rains all the time
anymore contrasts with Northern It never seems to dry out anymore, where
a negative is added.
Ohio has also been influenced by languages other than English, most
notably German. Cincinnati had bilingual schooling in English and Ger-
man for many years and even has a neighborhood called Over-the-Rhine.
A dialectal remnant is the use of “Please?” from German “Bitte?” used to
ask someone to repeat a phrase not clearly heard. The misnamed Pennsyl-
vania Dutch (really German, from dialectal Deitsch=Deutsch) are also in
Ohio; in fact, there are more “Deitsch” in Ohio than in any other state,
including Pennsylvania. They speak a dialect of German in their homes,
churches, and social circles. They are far outnumbered today, however, by
Spanish speakers; about 90,000 Hispanic/Latino Americans live in Ohio,
and several Spanish dialects are used. Newer immigrants are bringing
in Arabic, Somali, and the languages of Southeast Asia. Other heritage
languages still used, include Polish, Yiddish, Hungarian, and Greek. With the
exception of the rural-based Deitsch, most of these groups are concentrated
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in the large urban centers, but their English has rapidly taken on various
regional characteristics: the Northern Cities vowel shift in Cleveland and
Toledo, the cot/caught merger in Columbus, and South Midland with a
touch of Kentucky in Cincinnati.
Ohio’s license plate used to display the motto “Ohio: The Heart of
It All.” If the Midwest may be said to be “America’s Heartland,” perhaps
Ohio can be called “the heart of the Heartland.” In its mix of immigrant
languages and English dialects, it is indeed a microcosm of the history of
the country – and that isn’t likely to change any time soon.
Resources
For more information on the “heartland” of which Ohio is a part, see chapter 17,
“Straight Talking from the Heartland.” On the adjoining Pittsburgh–Western
Pennsylvania dialect, see chapter 12, “Steel Town Speak.” The map of American
dialect regions is taken from Roger W. Shuy, Discovering American Dialects
(Champaign, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1967). For more recent
mapping of pronunciation differences in the United States, see William Labov,
Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg, Atlas of North American English (Berlin: Mouton
de Gruyter, 2000; preview available at www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/). A very
good introduction to American dialects for ESL learners can be found in Varieties
of English, by Susan M. Gass and Natalie Lefkowitz (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1995).
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20
Spirited Speech (St. Louis, MO)
Thomas E. Murray
20 St. Louis skyline and Gateway Arch. © by Corbis.
Like most dialects in the United States, the one used in St. Louis is dis-
tinctive because of a particular combination of features it contains. The
combination of features St. Louisans use is especially complex. Linguists
have variously characterized it as Northern, Southern, South Midland, or
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North Midland/South Midland in its orientation. Such a range of classi-
fications can be confusing, but all the major dialect areas of the central
United States have contributed significantly to every aspect of the city’s
language – its pronunciation, grammar, and lexicon.
For example, St. Louisans typically pronounce an r in wash and Wash-
ington (warsh, Warshington), and routinely use the short e vowel of wet in
Mary, marry, and merry; both of these traits are characteristics that have
historically been linked to the North Midland and South Midland regions.
Yet they favor the use of an s rather than a z in grease and greasy (Inland
North/North Midland), and say which without an initial h, as in witch
(South/South Midland/North Midland).
In terms of grammar, St. Louisans favor dove (Inland North) as the past
tense of dive, prefer want off and wait on as in John wants off the bus
and Mary’s waiting on her husband (North Midland/South Midland).
Lexically, St. Louisans tend to eat string beans and corn on the cob (Inland
North/North Midland), dispose of pits from their cherries (Inland North)
and seeds from their peaches (South/South Midland/North Midland),
carry groceries in bags (Inland North) and water in buckets (South/South
Midland).
Large-scale surveys of the language used in St. Louis have identified the
city as primarily an Inland North/North Midland speech island that exists
in a sea of sharply contrasting Southern and especially South Midland
forms. Though speakers living just outside the greater metropolitan
area, in rural Missouri and Illinois, tend to sound more Southern/South
Midland, those living in the city and its various suburbs usually sound
more Inland Northern/North Midland. So, why should the dialect used in
St. Louis have such regionally diverse roots? And why should St. Louisans
favor the Inland Northern and North Midland dialects?
The answer to the first question is relatively straightforward. The speech
system used in the Gateway City is largely the product of the various
dialects that settlers have brought to the area. Between 1804, when the
transfer of the northern section of the Louisiana Purchase occurred there,
and about 1850, most of these people came from states in the South and
South Midlands, especially Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, the Carolinas,
and Maryland. Between the end of the Civil War and about 1900,
however, they tended to have their roots in the Inland North and North
Midlands, primarily Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.
In 1900, a heavy infusion of (mostly African American) settlers came
to the city from Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia as part of the great
southern exodus following Reconstruction.
Thomas E. Murray 125
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The vast majority of the people who moved to the area represented
third-, fourth-, and higher-generation New World families, most of whom
had already abandoned their ancestral languages in favor of English.
Of course, thousands of first- and second-generation immigrants also
came to St. Louis, beginning with the French, who founded the commun-
ity in 1764 and named it for their former king, Saint Louis IX, to honor
Louis XV. Then came the Spanish, who dominated the area until France
sold the Louisiana Purchase, including all of present-day Missouri, to the
Americans. The nineteenth century brought the Italians, Czechs, Poles,
Scots-Irish, and Pennsylvania Dutch Germans.
It was generally true that immigrants who traveled to the New World
before the American Revolution clung to their Old World identities and
lifestyles. Only about 1820 did the European newcomers become so swept
up in New World nationalism that they willingly abandoned their ethnic
identities. For these immigrants, assimilation into the language and other
cultural traditions of their new country occurred very quickly, usually
within the first or second generation.
Predictably, the two kinds of immigrants who found their way to
St. Louis had little linguistic impact: those who were already settled in
the country’s melting pot simply brought the American dialects of their
former regions, and those who retained their ethnic identities tended to
segregate themselves.
Thus, the Czechs took up residence in the southern part of the city, the
Italians congregated in the southwest, and the Irish, Poles, and Germans
lived in various sections of the north. The African Americans in St. Louis
have always tended to congregate in the inner city, though since about
1980 they have come to dominate the northern part of the greater
metropolitan area as well.
The answer to the second question – why St. Louisans should favor the
Inland Northern and North Midland dialects – rests on one of the most
basic truisms of linguistics. People most respect those dialects that are
used by the groups of speakers they most respect. The dialect has, in short,
become the basis of what most Americans consider to be “standard
English.”
But the complete answer to the question has been reinforced greatly by
St. Louisans’ strong psychosocial aversion to sounding like a “hoosier”
when they speak. Hoosier, with the meaning ‘hick, hillbilly’, is common
throughout much of the South and South Midlands; in St. Louis the term
is especially pejorative. And “hoosier language,” to a St. Louisan, is
anything reminiscent of the specific blend of dialect features, especially
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pronunciations, found in the Ozark Highlands of southern Missouri,
southeastern Kansas, and northwestern Arkansas, where South Midland
and Southern speech forms prevail. They have also adopted those dialects
merely to avoid the stigma of sounding too rustic or uneducated.
When I completed a large-scale survey of the language of St. Louis in
the early 1980s, I found that the city’s speakers preferred Inland Northern
and North Midland speech forms. But another basic truism of linguistics
is that living languages change over time to meet the needs of their users.
Early in the twenty-first century I replicated the study to determine how
the Gateway City dialect had shifted over the previous generation. I wanted
to know whether it had become significantly more or less like the Inland
North/North Midland standard.
What I found was that certain usages had actually shifted away from
that standard (see the box on the ar pronunciation of fork and other
words). The language of St. Louis has become much more Inland
Northern and North Midland and less Southern and South Midland in its
orientation. For pronunciation, the increase was some 32%; for grammar,
33%; and for the lexicon, 19%. Inland North/North Midland features are
being used by more St. Louisans now (and South/South Midland features
are being used by fewer St. Louisans) than a generation ago.
St. Louis Sundae

One unique feature of the language used in the Gateway City is the pronunciation of
sundae. Elsewhere in the country, the word rhymes with Sunday, with the final vowel
sometimes reduced to a long e (thus sundee). In St. Louis, however, the final vowel is
often articulated as uh, yielding sunduh. This pronunciation is much more frequent
among older speakers, and in fact is now heard only rarely among the younger generations
(though as recently as 20 years ago, sunduh was the standard among young and old
alike), suggesting that it will probably be obsolete by the middle of the twenty-first
century.
What accounts for sunduh? No one knows for sure, though it may be linked to the
nearly nationwide ban that occurred in the latter part of the nineteenth century against
the sale of soda water, lemonade, pastries, ice cream, and the like on Sundays. (Such
items were considered frivolous luxuries, and their sale deemed inappropriate for the
Christian sabbath.) Some vendors, unwilling to forfeit the revenue gained from their
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Sunday ice cream sales, began topping the ice cream with fruit, marketing the new
creation as healthy and nutritious, and – voila! – the ice cream sundae was born.
(Why the new treat was called sundae is also unclear; the word, dating to 1897,
probably derives from Sunday and may reflect the irony of the vendors who originated
the sundae: What better name for an ice-cream-based dessert sold on Sunday?)
Gateway City folklore relates, however, that many St. Louisans did not accept the
sundae as a legitimate exception to the ban, and continued to object to the selling
of sundaes on Sundays. Particularly inexcusable, they noted, was that sundae,
rhyming with Sunday, appeared to ridicule the sanctity of the Christian holy day. Enter
the early-twentieth-century soda jerks from a particular South St. Louis drugstore, who
invented the pronunciation sunduh to quell the objections, and the rest, as they say,
is history. Sunduh spread quickly throughout St. Louis, and began to fade from
widespread usage only when its uniqueness finally came to be stigmatized by younger
speakers.
Of Forks and Farks: The ar Stigma

One feature that occurs in the speech of many St. Louisans is the ar pronunciation in
words containing an -or- spelling. Lord, for example, is pronounced lard, and or, born,
former, forty, for, sordid, short, and fork are pronounced ar (or are), barn, farmer, farty,
far, sardid, shart, and fark (the same tendency accounts for mourning/morning and
hoarse/horse being pronounced with non-rhyming vowels, morning and horse having
the ar). This pattern is not unique to the Gateway City – it also occurs in central Texas
and throughout the Northern and North Midland regions – but many St. Louisans’
changing perception of it in recent years is really quite remarkable. As late as the
mid-1980s, speakers native to the area routinely pronounced -or- as ar completely
unselfconsciously, with little thought as to any negative social consequences. By the
early 1990s, however, the pronunciation had begun to be stigmatized, and was widely
stereotyped (at least in St. Louis, by the white middle class) as indicative of working-
class status. Columnists for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch soon began writing columns
in which they wondered about the origins of the “aberrant” pronunciation, and local
radio personalities began doing jokes that featured “highway farty-four” and “Farest
Park” pronunciations. By the mid-1990s, ar was fast receding in popularity, especially
among younger, more status-conscious speakers, and today it is widely considered a
slip of the tongue when it occurs in words containing -or-.
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Resources
Reliable non-technical descriptions of the language of St. Louis do not exist, but
see Thomas E. Murray’s essay on the subject in Timothy C. Frazer (ed.), “Heart-
land” English (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993, chapter 8). Chapter
20 in William Labov, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg, Atlas of North American
English (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2005) also contains a thorough account of
the city’s pronunciation system. For more on the sociocultural and historical
development of the Inland Northern dialect as “standard English,” see the essays
by Thomas S. Donahue and Timothy C. Frazer in Frazer’s book cited above
(chapters 3 and 4, respectively). And additional information on the dramatic shift
of the language of St. Louis over the past 20 years toward the Inland Northern/
North Midland standard can be found in Thomas E. Murray’s article, “Language
variation and change in the urban midwest: The case of St. Louis,” in Language
Variation and Change 14.3 (2002), 347–61.
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21
Saying Ya to the Yoopers
(Michigan’s Upper Peninsula)
Beth Simon
21 Ice fishing is a popular pastime among the “Yoopers” of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
© by Ronda Oliver.
In Wisconsin, it begins north of Rhinelander. In Michigan, somewhere

after Ludington. Bumper stickers appear urging people to “Say Ya to
the UP,” tourist gear emblazoned with “Uf Da”, and Finglish epigrams
decorating restaurant placemats. These linguistic signs indicate that one is
leaving the land of trolls (south of the Mackinaw Bridge) and entering
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (or UP).
130 Saying Ya to the Yoopers
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Upper Peninsula speech, especially that of the western UP, is an
excellent example of a “focused” dialect – perceived as a distinct entity by
its speakers and by those who come into contact with it. The English
spoken on the western side of Michigan’s UP, and especially on the
Keweenaw Peninsula, is a dialect replete with evidence of multifaceted
social interactions, economic change, and cultural complexity.
The Development of the Peninsula
The Keweenaw Peninsula is an isolated, copper-rich area, which was lightly

populated by Menominee-nation Ojibwa when French missionaries
and French Canadian trappers first arrived there in 1621. In 1840,
while surveying for the state, Douglas Houghton reported to the Michigan
legislature that veins of almost pure copper ran under the entire peninsula.
Between 1846, when the first commercial mine opened, and 1968 when
the last productive mine closed, over 10.5 billion tons of copper were
brought to the surface. The population of “Copper Country” (as it is still
called today) rose from approximately 25,000 in 1880 to over 90,000 in
1910 when more than two-thirds of residents were born either outside
the US or to foreign-born or non-citizen parents. The English spoken
on the Keweenaw was English English, Cornish English, Irish English,
and the English of the Scottish Lowlands. “It was English,” said one
descendant of Cornish immigrants, “but not the King’s English. Not the
Queen’s English.”
Cornish miners were especially sought after because of their experience
of innovative mining methods in England’s southwest peninsula. After the
Civil War, mine-owners recruited workers from Europe, because, as the
General Manager of the Keweenaw’s largest mining conglomerate wrote,
they preferred men who had “just arrived in this country . . . We would
rather make American citizens of these people in our own way than have
anyone else do it.” Copper Country residents understood the cultural
complexities of the UP. “My father used to say, forty nationalities, a church
for every one and every church full . . . In school there were Polish,
Italian, Irish, Finnish, English, Cornish,” recalls a Keweenaw native.
The end of profitable mining on the Keweenaw coincided with the
opening of mines in the American West and Southwest, the availability
of hourly wage jobs in the northern cities, and the Great Depression. By
1930, the local population was less than 60,000. Of those who remained,
Beth Simon 131
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most were Finns, who continued to use Finnish (usually alongside English)
at home and in social organizations. Other residents were native English
speakers and other immigrant groups who no longer maintained their
first language. Because they were able to maintain their ancestral language,
the speech of people of Finnish background has had the strongest
influence on the English dialect of the western UP.
Dialect Features of Yoopers
Of all UP identified pronunciations, the one most remarked, imitated

and parodied is occurrence of the stop d and sometimes t where most
American English speakers expect or produce the fricatives spelled th.
First-generation Finnish immigrants would have substituted t, and later d,
in words such as these, them and the. Certainly d for th is common in the
ethnic-identified urban dialects of American English found from Milwaukee
to the east coast. Nonetheless it is this sound that is often perceived as
definitive of UP speech (see box). A related phonetic feature also from
Finnish is t for the final th in with, producing wit.
Michigan Technological University Professor Victoria Bergvall, originally
from eastern Montana, notes that outsiders identify UP vowels as
“Canadian,” especially the o vowel, which, on the UP, is produced with
the lips tightly rounded. This, Bergvall points out, is also heard in
local Ojibwa speech and elsewhere across the north. Also noticeable is the
Da Yooper Creation Story

In da beginning dere was nuttin, see.
Den on da first day God created da UP, eh?
On da second day He created da partridge, da deer, da bear, da fish, an da ducks
ya know.
On da third day He said, “Let dere be YOOPERS to roam da UP.”
On da fourth day He created da udder world down below and on da fifth day He said,
“Let dere be TROLLS to live in da world down below.”
On da sixth day He created DA BRIDGE so da TROLLS would have a way to get to
Heaven, see.
God saw it was good and on da seventh day He went huntin!!
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centralization of the diphthongs i (pie, I) and ou (house, about), with the
tongue starting the sound in the mid center of the mouth, and lack of
offglide on diphthongs, also typical of Scandinavian settlement in Minne-
sota, Wisconsin and northern Iowa. UP speakers often mention that they
say in’ for ing in participial forms (Youse guys goin’?), and while this usage
is common across regions, social groups and style levels, some UP speakers
have a heightened awareness of what they regard as an informality.
There are grammatical items typical of UP speech – or that speakers
believe to be. One is the construction The car needs washing (need + present
participle) which is, in fact, part of the American North dialect, contrasting
with The car needs washed (need + past participle) used in the American
Midland dialect. But UP residents claim it as specifically “Yooper,” so
much so, that the logo for an Upper Peninsula parts catalog combines
the visual image of a woodsy-looking handyman with the question
“Something need fixing?” Finnish influence is seen in noun phrase
constructions, where two situations in the Finnish have affected the
UP grammar: the loss of positional indicators on Finnish nouns (which
functioned like prepositions in English) and the lack of definite articles.
The result is that UP speakers will say Let’s go camp where others have
Let’s go to the camp. The in-joke title of the song “Guess Who’s Coming
to Sauna” (by UP reggae band Conga Se Menee) assumes community
recognition while cleverly commenting on the sudden arrival of outsiders
in the hallmark recreational activity of white Finnish America.
A plural second person pronoun form, yous(e) is commonly used by
many speakers, but perhaps the most characteristic grammatical feature of
the UP speech is the tag hey, as in You’re coming to dinner, hey, added to
the end of a statement to indicate or invite agreement or understanding.
This is comparable to the sentence-ending Canadian eh.
The UP’s multiethnic legacy is most noticeable in the vocabulary, where
words for objects, actions, locations and psychological states are drawn
from a number of languages. Finnish foods best known in the community
are mostly bakery such as the sweet bread nisu or the custard pancake,
pannukakku. People eat bakery, an item of baked goods, in the German
settlement areas of Milwaukee and Cleveland, but UP speakers claim it as
theirs. The pasty, a meat-and-root-vegetable-filled pastry, was introduced
by Cornish mining families although Finns may claim it as their own.
Mention must be made of the Finnish word sauna which is pronounced
with three vowels, sa-u-na, amongst older speakers of Finnish background,
a diphthong and a vowel, sou-na, for a generation influenced by speakers
of Finnish background, and two vowels, sa-na, for the rest of us.
Beth Simon 133
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Da Yooper Glossary
This parody of the most salient (often Finnish-based) features of UP speech and
culture can be found at www.ring.com/yooper/glossary.htm.
Choppers A deer skin mitten with a wool mitten insert. What Yoopers wear to keep
their hands warm.
Chuke What the Trolls call a stocking cap. A knitted hat usually with a tassel and
usually hand-knit by your grandmother.
Da Yoopers Not only means the inhabitants of Michigan’s UP, but also the name of
one of the most popular bands in da UP.
Eh A word that ends practically every sentence in the UP (example: “Say ya to da UP,
Eh!”).
Eino Half of famous Finnish duo Toivo and Eino. Many, many Yooper jokes feature
Toivo and Eino!
Finglish The official language of Da UP. Examples: Dese, Dem Dose, and De Udders
(and De Udders ain’t on De Cow!).
Flatlander A person from the lower peninsula (see also Loper and Troll).
Going Shop-ko (or Co-op) Yooper phrase meaning “Going to the store.”
Holyowha Yooper expletive meaning, roughly “Holy ———!”
Loper Native of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan (see also Troll and Flatlander).
Pasty Finnish (or Cornish, depending on who you want to believe!) meat pie made
with onions, beef, and potatoes.
Quill Pig The native UP porcupine.
Sisu The quality possessed by Yoopers which enables them to endure and even enjoy
Yooperland winters.
Snow Cow Moose (or mother-in-law).
Suomi Kutsu The longest running Finnish-American television show in America. Hosted
by Carl Pellonpaa, it airs on WLUC-TV 6, on Sunday mornings. Suomi Kutsu is Finnish
for “Finland Calling.”
Swampers Rubber boots worn by Yoopers in the spring during the muddy season. (Not
a winter boot.)
Terrorist People from Detroit or Ohio who visit the UP every November.
Troll Refers to a native of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan (see also Loper and
Flatlander).
Tweener Someone who is constantly running between home and da camp!
Wha! An exclamation used only by Yoopers. Used in place of “WOW!”
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Contemporary UP speech includes sounds, grammatical constructions
and vocabulary reflecting a complex history of interaction with the
original Ojibwa inhabitants, European immigration, and increasingly,
the intrusion of the outside into the formerly insulated area. Members
of the Ojibwa of the Baraga reservation host “Reggae on the Rez,” where
UP-identified performers entertain an ethnically mixed audience. The name
of the popular performing band, Conga Se Menee, mixes the conga of
Caribbean and South American musical traditions with Finnish se menee,
a reflexive third person singular, that means “it/that goes,” but which, in
modern Finnish, occurs only in such colloquial phrases as kuinka se menee?,
“how’s it going?” Conga Se Menee is a linguistic creation exemplifying
how language changes as different kinds of speakers come into contact,
bringing with them new sets of experiences and new linguistic possibilities.
Although the financial good times of the last two decades have brought
more visitors to the UP, some of whom have built vacation homes
with views of Lake Superior, the permanent population has not increased
dramatically. While seasonal migrants generally do not exert much
direct influence on a local dialect, the influx of non-local speakers, whose
dialects more closely match the notion of a standard, may have contrib-
uted to the unease that some locals have about their own speech (an issue
investigated by Kate Remlinger of Grand Valley State), and may perhaps
lead to change in some of the more salient or commercialized features
associated with UP dialect.
Beth Simon 135
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PART IV
THE WEST
Penelope Eckert and Norma Mendoza-Denton 137
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138 Getting Real in the Golden State
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22
Getting Real in the Golden
State (California)
Penelope Eckert and Norma Mendoza-Denton
22 Soaking up the rays in southern California. © by Jason Stitt.
When people think of California English, they often recall stereotypes like
those made famous by Frank and Moon Unit Zappa in their song “Valley
Girl,” circa 1982. “Like, totally! Gag me with a spoon!” intoned Moon
Unit, instantly cementing a stereotype of California English as being
primarily the province of Valley Girls and Surfer Dudes.
But California is not just the land of beaches and blonds. While
Hollywood images crowd our consciousness, the real California, with a
population of nearly 34 million, is only 46.7% white (most of whom are
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not blond and don’t live anywhere near the beach). For generations,
California has been home to a large Latino population that today accounts
for 32.4% of the state’s total numbers. It has also been home to a large
Chinese American and Japanese American population and, with the influx
in recent years of immigrants from other parts of Asia, the state now
boasts a large and diverse Asian American population (11.2%). Most of
the sizable African American population (16.4%) in California speaks
a form of African American Vernacular English, with few traces of surfer
dude or valley girl.
Each of these groups speaks in a distinctive style providing a rich set of
linguistic resources for all inhabitants of the state. Ways of speaking are
the outcome of stylistic activities that people engage in collaboratively
as they carve out a distinctive place for themselves in the social landscape.
In fact, linguistic style is inseparable from clothing style, hairstyle, and
lifestyle. No style is made from scratch, but is built on the creative use of
elements from other styles, and California’s rich diversity makes the state
a goldmine of stylistic activity.
In 1941, linguist David DeCamp proclaimed that California English
was no different from the English of the East Coast. But, over the decades
since the 1940s, a distinctive accent has developed among much of
the population of the state. Some of the features of this accent were
highlighted in Moon Unit’s parody of California speech.
It is important to remember that California is a new state. It takes
time and a community to develop common ways of speaking, and
English speakers have not been settled in California long enough to
develop the kind of dialect depth that is apparent in the East Coast
and the Midwest. In a study of three generations of families living in
the Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco, linguist Birch Moonwomon
discovered that what was a fairly diffuse dialect at the beginning of the
twentieth century became quite homogeneous by the end of the 1990s.
While the oldest speakers born in the Sunset district pronounced their
vowels in a variety of ways, their grandchildren pronounced them in
a more uniform way.
So what are these features that constitute the stereotypical California
accent? A group of linguists led by Leanne Hinton at the University of
California at Berkeley studied the accents of a range of speakers in Northern
California. In the speech of white people in California, as in many parts
of the West, the vowels of hock and hawk, cot and caught are pronounced
the same – so awesome rhymes with possum. Also notable is the move-
ment of the vowels in boot and boat (called back vowels because they are
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pronounced in the back of the mouth). These vowels all have a tendency
to move forward in the mouth, so that the vowel in dude or spoon (as in
gag me with a . . . ) sounds a little like the word you, or the vowel in pure
or cute. Also, boat and loan often sound like bewt and lewn – or eeeeuuw.
Finally, the vowel in but and cut is also moving forward so that these
words sound more like bet and ket. These are all part of the commonly
imitated California surfer speech. But there are also a few vowel shifts that
go by almost unnoticed: the vowel of black often sounds more like the
vowel in block, the vowel of bet is moving into the place of bat, and the
vowel of bit is moving into the place of bet. Some linguists refer to these
coordinated changes as chain shifts – one can think of them as a game of
musical chairs played by the vowels in the mouth. It is different configura-
tions of these games of musical chairs, as it were, in progress in different
parts of the country that create regional accents. The chain shift occurring
in California, although relatively early in its progress, will have a lasting
effect on the system, eventually resulting in significant differences from
other dialects.
Of course, the prototypical California white speech variety is not just a
matter of vowels. A single feature like this does not make a style, marking
someone as a Californian. Rather it is the coordination of both linguistic
and paralinguistic features in time, organized according to topic and
differentially highlighted according to audience that characterizes the speech
of any dialect. The extreme versions of the pronunciations that are
described above are primarily found among young white Californians.
Innovative developments in the stereotypical California linguistic system
may be so new as to be restricted to certain speech settings, with the most
extreme pronunciations evident only in peer-group youth interactions.
It is precisely these interactions that are the crux of stylistic development,
and that is why linguists in California are spending considerable energy
studying young people. One of the innovative developments in white
English of Californians is the use of the discourse marker I’m like, or she’s
like to introduce quoted speech, as in I’m like, “where have you been?” This
quotative is particularly useful because it does not require the quote to be
of actual speech (as she said would, for instance). A shrug, a sigh, or any
of a number of other expressive sounds as well as speech can follow it.
Lately in California, I’m all or she’s all has also become a contender for
this function. We know that the quotative be all is not common in the
speech of young New Yorkers, for example, while be like is. This allows us
to infer that be all might be a newer development and that it may also be
native to, or at least most advanced in, California.
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With its diverse population, California’s communities bring together
adolescents from a wide variety of backgrounds, and their styles play off of
each other. Hostility may cause people to differentiate their styles, while
curiosity or admiration may cause people to pick up elements from other
styles. So the real story of California dialects is a story of influx and
contact, evident demographically in migration patterns and evident
linguistically in the flux of styles and their accompanying features.
One important group in California is the Mexican American popula-
tion or Chicanos. Some Chicanos exhibit a distinctive variety of English,
which we will call California Chicano English. (For a discussion of Chicano
English see chapter 36, “Talking with mi Gente.”) This variety is the result
of speakers socializing in networks in which other Mexican Americans
participate, innovating and reinforcing a historically distinctive speech
variety. Much of California was ceded from Mexico to the United States in
1848, so the indigenous and Mexican populations have had the longest
continuous linguistic history in the state. Pervasive Spanish/English bilin-
gualism among Mexican Americans has had a tremendous impact upon
Chicano English. Spanish has influenced the development of Spanish-like
vowels among native speakers of English. In Northern California, the vowel
in the second syllable of nothing, for instance, has come to sound more
like ee among some subgroups of Chicano English speakers, differentiat-
ing them from other minority groups where nothing sounds more like
not’n. In this case, Spanish is drawn on as a distinctive stylistic resource.
This does not mean, however, that all innovations in Chicano English
necessarily derive from Spanish. Sometimes innovations develop inde-
pendently and in the opposite direction from what one would expect if
one were to assume Spanish influence. One of the most salient innovations
in Los Angeles is the lowering of the vowel in the first syllable of elevator
so that it rhymes with the first syllable of alligator – not Spanish-sounding
at all. Carmen Fought has shown that in LA, young Mexican Americans
participate in other changes that are characteristic of whites as well – such
as the fronting of boat and the backing of black mentioned earlier. How-
ever, they do so in distinctively patterned ways that mark communities
and subcommunities, social networks and personal histories.
The turbulent history of migration and ethnic relations in California is
another lens through which we must view past and current developments
in California English. If dialects reflect the history and meaningful activity
of subpopulations within the body politic, why is it that some groups have
ethnic linguistic varieties (such as Chicanos) and others do not? With a
historically large population of Japanese Americans and close proximity to
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the Pacific Rim, why do we find very little contemporary evidence of
an ethnic variety of English among Japanese Americans in California?
Research by Melissa Iwai and Norma Mendoza-Denton into generational
differences among Japanese Americans indicates that the oldest generation
of Japanese American native speakers of English, the nisei, do exhibit a
distinct patterning of vocalic and consonantal phenomena, while the yonsei,
or fourth generation (now in their twenties and thirties), are indistin-
guishable from their white counterparts. Detailed interviews with nisei
residents revealed that, when they were detained in internment camps in
California and Arizona during World War II, torn from their families and
subjected to ostracism, they felt it was a distinct disadvantage to sound
Japanese American or be distinguished as being Japanese in any way.
Furthermore, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s policy of dispersal in resettle-
ment prevented the reconstitution of the original communities, fatally
rupturing established social networks and preventing the entrenchment of
their nascent variety of English. In this example of the death of a California
dialect we can see how stereotypes and discrimination about people and
their language (what linguists call “language ideology”) can have dramatic
effects on a community’s linguistic development. For Japanese Americans,
assimilating to the speech of the white majority of the time was a linguistic
consequence of the catastrophic events in their community.
California English is a reflection of the politics, history, and various
intersecting communities of the state. Sixty years after DeCamp’s original
investigation, we can confidently say that Californians have developed
distinctive ways of speaking. As the real California continues to show an
even greater degree of linguistic and ethnic contact, we hope that stereo-
typical images of California English will be changed to include some of
the linguistic realities that we have described above.
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23
Desert Dialect (Utah)
David Bowie and Wendy Morkel
23 The chapel at Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Utah. © by Sathis VJ.
Up until the 2002 Winter Olympics, Utah didn’t really get much attention
from the rest of the world. Sure, some people knew that Mormons live
there, and a few even knew that Utah is home to some fabulous skiing, but
it wasn’t at the forefront of most people’s minds. Over the past few years,
though, not only has the world learned a bit more about Utah’s scenery
144 Desert Dialect
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and culture through the Olympics, but even a bit of Utah English man-
aged to get noticed – the “Oh my heck!” of Survivor: Marquesas contestant
and Layton, Utah, native Neleh Dennis.
What Is “Utahn” English?
What is now Utah had been visited by English speakers in the early 1800s,
but the first permanent English-speaking settlement began in 1847. That’s
the year that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
(the LDS Church), having been forced from their religious colony in
Nauvoo, Illinois, began arriving in the Salt Lake Valley to establish a new
colony. By the 1850 census, 11,380 people, excluding Native Americans, had
settled in the Territory of Utah. The population continued to rise through
the nineteenth century at rates similar to the surrounding territories, and
the 1900 census showed 276,749 residents of Utah. The vast majority of
nineteenth-century “Utahns,” the common label for residents, lived in a
line of cities less than 100 miles long sandwiched between the Wasatch
Mountains on the east and the Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake on the west.
So what makes Utah English? If you were to ask Utahns this question,
you would find some widely held stereotypes – one of the strongest being
that they change their vowels when they come before l. The most widely
recognized of these is where short i becomes short e, so that milk gets
pronounced as melk and pillow gets pronounced as pellow, but there are
others. For example, long e can become short i and long a can become
short e, so that steel mill gets pronounced still mill and house for sale gets
pronounced house for sell. (It isn’t even that unusual to see that last one in
classified ads.) These examples appear in other parts of the US, but Utahns
tend to be aware of them as “Utah English.” Utahns often associate these
features with rural areas of the state, but a dialect survey conducted by
linguist Diane Lillie in the 1990s found that they are most strongly present
in the urban corridor along the Wasatch Front.
There is another change in vowels before l heard in Utah English –
although it is not seemingly recognized by Utahns themselves – where
long u changes before l, so that pool and fool are pronounced like pull and
full. Linguists Marianna Di Paolo and Alice Faber have investigated the
ways all of these vowels before l are produced in Utah English, and have
concluded that it is undergoing changes in its vowel system analogous to
those occurring in the United States South.
David Bowie and Wendy Morkel 145
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Possibly the most interesting stereotype Utahns hold about their own
variety, however, is that they pronounce the vowels in words like card and
cord the same (a feature linguists have called the card/cord merger). In Utah
English, instances of or can be pronounced as ar, so that (to take one widely
used example) the name of the town of Spanish Fork is pronounced like
Spanish Fark. This is a highly stigmatized form in Utah, although it is
fairly geographically widespread in the state. This feature has also had an
interesting history. With only a few exceptions, linguists tracking linguistic
changes have found that if a change starts in a particular area and it starts
to gain traction, its momentum builds and builds until it finally “succeeds”
– that is, the changed form completely replaces the original one. Utah’s
card/cord merger, however, hasn’t followed this pattern quite so cleanly.
In the middle of the twentieth century, linguists Val Helquist and Stanley
Cook found that the card/cord merger was very strongly present in the Salt
Lake City metropolitan area. In fact, it was so strongly present that you
could have probably said that pronouncing born like barn and corn like
carn was completely ordinary there. By the end of the century, however,
Diane Lillie found that the merger was only occurring at very low levels,
and there were signs that it was actually disappearing. Going back to the
nineteenth century (which you can do indirectly by listening to audio
recordings of Utahns who lived at that time), you would find that the
card/cord merger occurred at very low levels mid-century (when English
speakers first settled in Utah), and that it increased later. So there was a
linguistic change in Utah when the state was first settled: ar and or were
generally pronounced differently, but the trend of pronouncing them the
same took hold and gained momentum over the next hundred years. For
some reason, though, during the following fifty years the trend suddenly
shifted into reverse.
There is another feature of Utah English that has followed the same
trajectory: the pronunciation of the long i in words like time and bye. This
trait often gets brought up in descriptions of Southern American English
– the change of a long i to something like ah, so that the question What
time is it? gets pronounced more like What tahm is it? This feature isn’t
really thought of as being part of Utah English, and Utahns themselves
seem to be pretty much unaware of it, but it can be found at low levels
throughout the state. This feature seems to have followed the same path as
the card/cord merger and it is clear that this pronunciation of the long i
was increasing from the beginning of Utah’s English-speaking settlement
through the rest of the nineteenth century, but it has been in decline from
the middle of the twentieth century.
146 Desert Dialect
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The pronunciation of time as tahm is generally thought of as a Southern
feature, but discussions of Utah – linguistic or otherwise – have emphasized
Utah’s links to the Northern United States (also, to a lesser extent, with
northern England and parts of Canada). The tradition of emphasizing
these links goes back at least to the 1930s, when dramatist and historian
T. Earle Pardoe drew connections between words (particularly place names)
used in Utah and New England. Later studies confirmed the linguistic
links between Utah and the United States North for most of Utah. More
recent studies by linguists in Utah have found strong links between Utah
English and Southern varieties of American English. So why have different
analyses come to different conclusions regarding whether Utah English is,
at core, a Southern or a Northern variety? And which analysis is correct?
The answer to the first question makes the second one easier to answer.
If you look at the studies that have connected Utah English to Northern
varieties of English, you’ll notice that they all deal with issues of lexical
choice: that is, they find that the words Utahns use are generally Northern
in origin. (For example, Utahns use the Northern husk to describe the
leafy covering of an ear of corn rather than the Southern shuck, and they
use the historically Northern moo for the sound a cow makes rather than
the Southern low.) The studies that draw connections between Utah
English and Southern American English, on the other hand, all look at
issues of phonetics: they find that the sounds of Utah English are, to
a great extent, Southern. A close look at the data reveals that these claims
are both based on solid footing, so that depending on whether you focus
on words or sounds, you can reach different conclusions about Utah Eng-
lish. And that gives us the answer to the second question: Utah English is,
at core, both Southern and Northern. But how did this mixed variety
come about?
In order to understand present-day occurrences in the language variety
of certain areas, we have to look at the group that first brought the
language there. Utah is unique among the Western states in that it was
founded as a religious colony by members of the LDS Church; this history
is reflected in the historical majority of LDS Church members in the state.
As mentioned earlier, these first English speakers in Utah settled there
after having been forced out from Nauvoo in west-central Illinois. Before
they left Illinois, the group had settled for some years in and around
Independence, Missouri, and before that in Kirtland, Ohio (near
Cleveland). The church itself had been officially founded in Fayette, New
York, and most of its members lived in western New York and northern
Pennsylvania.
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If this list of places represents the history of the group of individuals
who planted English in what was to become Utah, a possible reason for
the mix of Northern and Southern features becomes apparent. The early
members of this group were largely from areas where Northern varieties
of English are spoken: New York, northern Pennsylvania, northern Ohio
and a sizable number from Massachusetts. Many of their children, how-
ever, were born in areas that have had a notable amount of Southern
linguistic influences: western Missouri and southern/western Illinois. As a
result, Utah’s initial English-speaking settlers were themselves linguistically
mixed, with largely Northern-speaking adults and Southern-speaking
children. The result of this mixing at the outset, then, seems to be that the
adults had greater influence on Utah English words, while the children
had more influence on Utah English sounds.
So what is Utah English? It is a mixed system, with some Northern
features and some Southern features – and together they make up a system
all its own.
148 Desert Dialect
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24
Dialects in the Mist
(Portland, OR)
Jeff Conn
Jeff Conn
24 Fishing on the banks of the Willamette River, Portland, Oregon. © by Norman Eder. 149
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Like many people from Portland, Oregon, I grew up thinking that an
accent was something that other people had. It wasn’t until I began study-
ing linguistics that I realized that my “General American” accent was, in
fact, not. The first shock came in an introductory phonetics class, where
I was determined to produce all the sounds of the world’s languages.
Much to my dismay, I did not have a distinct pronunciation for the word
caught, but pronounced it the same as cot. Not only was my accent
deficient of a vowel, but I was also unable to produce or perceive the
difference between this phantom vowel and the vowel of cot. This merger
of the vowels in cot and caught was the first sign of my accented speech.
Since then, I have been able to identify other characteristics of my
accent. However, my narcissistic search for a description of my own dia-
lect has led to the realization that there are practically no descriptions of
this dialect. Furthermore, the reliable Linguistic Atlas projects, a series
of exploratory projects designed to investigate North American dialects,
did not collect data from Oregon before the project was prematurely
abandoned. Like other dialect areas of the American West, descriptions
are lacking, contributing to the myth that there are no distinctive dialects
in the United States west of the Mississippi River.
There has been a lot of work on various North American dialects, in
traditional dialectology as well as in contemporary sociolinguistics. The
traditional dialectology approach uses word choices as a primary way to
categorize dialects, while the sociolinguistic approach typically organizes
North American dialects according to changes in pronunciation of vowel
phonemes. The dialects of the Pacific Northwest, however, have been
virtually ignored in both lines of research.
Besides the Linguistic Atlas projects, another traditional dialect project
that investigates North American varieties of English is the Dictionary of
American Regional English (DARE). The analysis of the data from DARE
suggests that there is a unique dialect region in the Pacific Northwest, and
Portland may be the center of it. Culturally, Portland and Seattle continue
to grow as independent urban centers, while at the same time, they are
bound together, creating a larger Northwestern identity. Dialect-wise, this
may indicate subtle dialect differences emerging from a common variety
of English.
In a sociolinguistic approach, Portland is considered part of the West.
This large dialect area stretches from the Pacific Coast states east, and
includes Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Nevada,
Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. One project adopting
this framework is the Atlas of North American English (ANAE), a survey of
150 Dialects in the Mist
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North American English pronunciation conducted by William Labov,
Sharon Ash and Charles Boberg at the University of Pennsylvania. In
order to understand this project’s organization of dialects, including Port-
land as part of the West, it is necessary to briefly outline their approach to
describing dialects. While traditional dialect studies examine different words
used by different communities for the same thing, e.g. bucket vs. pail, and
characterize dialects by these vocabulary differences, modern dialectology
and sociolinguistics organize North American English dialects by pronun-
ciation of vowels using a language change approach. Dialects are grouped
by speakers’ participation in a handful of identified vowel shifts. These
shifts indicate a change in pronunciation of vowels, using a historical
organization of these vowels as a starting point. This historically based
phonemic inventory represents the pronunciation of Modern English
vowels in North America during the seventeenth century. From this set
of vowels, historical word classes are established, which group words
together that contained the same vowel. For example, the short-a word
class includes words such as dad, bat, pan. This framework was established
in order to preserve original contrasts in vowel production between two
sets of historical word classes that may have lost the distinction and merged.
An example of a merger for many North Americans is what is known as
the horse/hoarse merger, where the vowels in both word classes are ident-
ically produced for many, but not all, speakers.
Over time, the way a vowel is produced can change, which in turn may
cause a chain reaction of modifications in other vowel pronunciations.
One of the prominent vowel chain shifts is the Northern Cities Shift,
so called because it was first discovered in the inland metropolitan areas
of the United States, such as Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo.
Figure 17.2 on p. 109 shows how a change in vowel production of one
vowel can trigger changes in other vowels in order to maintain distinc-
tions between them and in order to fill voids in phonetic space – the space
located in a speaker’s mouth where the tongue changes position in order
to produce vocalic sounds.
According to the Northern Cities Shift, a speaker from Detroit says cat
like kee-at and cot more like cat. Some advanced speakers of the Northern
Cities Shift produce vowels in bet that sound to many speakers like but.
Dialects follow different shifts over time and become distinct, which is
why American English differs from British and Australian English, for
example. Although different dialects can share some of the same vowel
changes, it is a combination of different changes that make a dialect unique.
For example, Southern British English, Southern American English, and
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Australian and New Zealand English all have front pronunciations of the
vowels in boot and boat (sounding like biwt and bewt), as well as low and
more central pronunciation of the vowels in key and bay (sounding like
Kay and buy), but the pronunciation of the front short vowels (bit, bet and
bat) is what makes each dialect unique. Therefore, a dialect is defined by
its participation in a combination of vowel changes.
The Inland North region of the United States is following one series of
vowel changes, while the American South is following a different one. In
addition to these two large dialect areas, there are smaller dialects that can
be identified by a combination of vowel changes that may or may not be
organized into a comprehensive vowel shift. While ANAE describes in
detail much of the English spoken in North America, the dialect area
classified as the West is still largely undefined. One characteristic of this
area is the cot/caught merger. This is the identical production of the vowel
in the words cot, Don, collar and the vowel in caught, Dawn, caller. This
merger is not limited to the West, and is a characteristic of many other
dialects, such as Pittsburgh, parts of New England and the Midwest, as
well as Canada. In addition to this merger, Canadian English is participat-
ing in the Canadian Shift, which is the lowering and centralization of the
front short vowels bit and bet (sounding something like bet and bat),
similar to the Northern Cities Shift shown above. However, unlike the
raising of the vowel in bat in the Northern Cities Shift (to bee-at), Canadians
are lowering and centralizing (retracting) this vowel (sounding something
like bot or baht). This shift is also reported to be operating in Californian
English, and is stereotyped in the speech of Valley Girls, as in gahg me to
the mahx. Another aspect of Californian English is the fronting of the back
vowels in the words boot, book, and boat, similar to Southern American
English. This can be heard in the words totally and dude (sounding like
tewtally and diwd). Since Portland, Oregon is located half-way between
California and Canada, it is not surprising that a Portland dialect would
contain some of these features.
With regard to a Portland dialect, it seems unlikely for two people to
meet and for one of them to say to the other, “You have such a strong
Portland accent.” This may be due to the very young age of the West
in general. The dialect has not had time to unify, emerge and become
recognized as either a unique dialect, or part of a larger dialect. Like the
California dialect, the Portland dialect is rather diffuse in older speakers,
but seems to be becoming a unified and focused among the younger
speakers. Furthermore, a small group of researchers at Portland State
University have begun to describe characteristics of the dialect, and data
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collected so far have shown that Portlanders are beginning to participate
in a shift similar to its neighbors to the north and south.
The cot/caught Merger
One of the characteristics that Portland shares with Canada and with
other Western cities is the cot/caught merger discussed above. Nearly all
Portland speakers, especially those under the age of 60, have a merged
low back vowel. This merger, however, is not present in some older
speakers (over 80), which indicates that this merger is relatively recent in
Portland.
The cat Vowel
While Canada and California seem to be a bit more advanced in the

backing of this vowel toward the vowel of cot, the speech of younger
Portlanders suggests that Portland is also changing. Before nasal con-
sonants, however, this backing does not happen and Portlanders produce
a higher vowel in this environment. So, Anne does not have the same
vowel as add, but sounds very like Ian. Another Portland pronunciation is
in words with this vowel before g, such as bag, tag, and gag. Instead of
a simple bat sound, many speakers produce a vowel with a y-like glide. In
addition, a similar glide quality is produced in e before g, making beg and
bag sound nearly identical, and sounding like the vowel in bake. Although
this has not quite reached a merged stage, there is an increase in these
productions in younger speakers. Another Canadian/Californian quality is
a more open and lower realization of the vowel in bet words, sounding
almost like bat. This lowering is evident in a few Portland speakers, and
this may be a change that Portland will participate in in the near future.
Back Vowel Fronting
In addition to the front short vowels, Portlanders share another character-

istic with Californians. This is the fronting of the back vowels in words
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like boot, book, and boat. This change, although not characteristic of the
Inland North, is characteristic of many other North American dialects.
The fronting of the vowels in boot and book is more common, and
Portlanders, like their Californian neighbors, are producing very fronted
boot vowels, where boot and beet differ mostly in the glide part of the
vowel (sounding like bi-wt and bi-yt). While the book vowel is not quite as
front, many young speakers can be heard saying gid for good, and
are often misunderstood when saying look, which sounds to others like
lick. The fronting of the boat vowel is not as common, and is one measure
that the Atlas of North American English uses to categorize dialects.
Therefore, boat fronting is an important quality to identify in order to
accurately describe and classify a dialect. Younger Portlanders can be
heard saying boat vowels with a fairly central nucleus, sounding like the
vowel in but. The more extreme examples sound almost like ge-ow for
go, but these extremes are not the most common, although Portlanders
will probably continue to front this vowel over time. In addition, research
also shows that fronting is strongly disfavored in the production of the
boot and boat vowels before l (as in pool and pole). Also, there is some
evidence that pool and pole vowels are moving toward a merger in the
future. Another characteristic of the back vowels is the boat vowel before
nasal sounds, like home and bone, where some speakers produce words
such as home with a vowel closer to a cot/caught vowel than to a boat
vowel.
Intonation Patterns
Another aspect of the Portland dialect that may be noticed is the use of
a particular intonation pattern. This intonation pattern is known as
“up-speak,” or high rising terminal contours. Basically, this is the use of a
rising question intonation on a declarative sentence, so that a statement
like Then we went to the store may sound like a question rather than a
statement. While this intonation pattern has been found in many different
dialects (Australian English, for example), it is usually associated with
teenage girls. This is the case in Portland, but research also shows that the
use of this intonation contour is not limited to women, and not limited to
teenagers. The functions behind the use of this intonation contour are still
under investigation, but its use may become more and more a part of the
Portland dialect as it spreads outside the teenage female realm.
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Vocabulary
Though there are many other aspects of the Portland dialect that remain
to be investigated, Portlanders show signs that they are following a similar
pattern to one that is found in Canada and California. The distinctiveness
of a Portland dialect may remain in its way of life, where granola is more
than a breakfast food; it’s an appropriate adjective to describe clothing,
beliefs and attitudes. Or in lexical choices, terms such as full on and rad
indicate coolness. As Portlanders continue to front their back vowels, they
will continue to go to the coast (geow to the ceowst), not the beach or the
shore, as well as to microbrews, used clothing stores (where the clothes are
not too spendy ‘expensive’), bookstores (bik-stores), and coffee shops (both
words pronounced with the same vowel). Also, the existence of buckaroos
(Oregonian cowboys) may continue a Southern connection that may play
out linguistically. What lies in store for the Portland dialect is the emer-
gence of a dialect from the mist (or the rain, or the drizzle, or the spitting,
or the pouring, etc.). Dialect regions of the Pacific Northwest may just be
emerging, but it is clear that they now are carving out a unique niche
among the varieties of American English.
Acknowledgment
A special thank you to Dr. G. Tucker Childs, Rebecca Wolff and Mike Ward for
all their work on the Portland Dialect Study at Portland State University.
Resources
Information about the Atlas of North American English can be found at www.ling.
upenn.edu/phonoatlas/ and more information about the principles of language
change can be found in Labov’s two volumes Principles of Linguistic Change
(1994, 2001). For more information about DARE and a dialectology approach
to American dialects, see Craig Carver’s 1987 book American Regional Dialects:
A Word Geography or visit the DARE web page at http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/
dare/dare.html. For more information about the Linguistic Atlas projects, visit
http://hyde.park.uga.edu/index.html.
Jeff Conn 155
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25
Arizona’s not so Standard
English
Lauren Hall-Lew
25 Monument Valley, Arizona. © by Kenneth C. Zirkel.
To the outside world, Arizona might be “cowboys and Indians,” Route 66,
or the O.K. Corral. It’s known for the SUVs of Scottsdale and the Sun City
golf carts, or its picturesque sunsets and its prickly green cacti. If you ask
any Arizonan what makes the state unique, they might agree with some
of these judgments from the outside world, but they certainly won’t
claim that it’s the way that they speak. In fact, most white Arizonans will
vehemently deny that they have an accent, calling their English standard,
156 Arizona’s not so Standard English
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unaccented, general, or even bland, blah, or boring. Even linguists of the
past have passively agreed with these folk perceptions, and there is a near
void of dialect data from Arizona or even most of the Southwestern US.
Like other states in the West, the settlement populations have just been
too young and too new to study any one established regional speech
variety. Consequently, until the past couple of years, no one had looked at
the speech of Arizona English. But most Arizonans will still insist that a
local Arizonan accent doesn’t exist.
So then why study Arizona English, anyway? Even proud Arizonans will
be the first to proclaim how boring their speech is. Well, I am one proud
Arizonan who disagrees. Everyone in the world has an accent when
compared to their neighbor, and Arizona is sure to be linguistically inter-
esting because it has some very interesting neighbors. The Southwestern
states are flanked on either side by California and Texas, and this location
is important both for how Arizonans identify themselves and for
understanding the web of European American migration patterns into the
Southwest. Arizona has been hanging out at the pawn shop lately, trading
in some well-worn boots and stirrups in exchange for a new cellular phone
– at least, as far as language is concerned.
A Brief Arizona History
Well before white migration, the linguistic landscape of Arizona was

complex. The borders of current-day Arizona enclose the homes of
the Hopi people, the Navajo people, the Hualapai people, the Gila River
people, the White Mountain-, Yavapai-, and Tonto Apache peoples, the
Yavapai people, the Pascua Yaqui people, the Ak-Chin people, the Tohono
O’odham people, and at least 11 more separate native communities,
all totaling over 256,000 people. Five percent of the state’s population
is Native American, the third highest percentage in the country after
California and Oklahoma. Arizona was home to countless other established
and transient native peoples who may or may not appear in the main-
stream recorded history. Although good linguistics work has been done
on many of these native languages, linguists haven’t systematically studied
the accents of English spoken by any of these particular indigenous
nations in Arizona.
Spanish was the first European language to reach what is now Arizona,
and the influence of Mexican Spanish continues to thrive with healthy
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zeal and to assert a tremendous influence on the diversity of English
spoken throughout the Southwest (see chapter 36, “Talking with mi
Gente”). The influence of Mexican Spanish of course bears on both
the words and the speech sounds used by Arizona’s monolingual
Chicano English speakers, but it also shows up in English of the general
mainstream population. The words corral, ranch, canyon, and adobe are
just a few of the well-established Spanish derivatives in the vocabulary
of today’s white Arizonans. One of the defining characteristics of the
Southwest is the place names based on Spanish, including Arizona towns
like Casa Grande, streets like Tanqueverde, features of the landscape
such as the Rio de Flag River, and of course the little mountain with the
redundant title, Table Mesa.
The official state of Arizona began in the late 1800s with railroad
builders, lumberjacks, farmers, cattle ranchers, and copper miners who
migrated in from the Southern and Midwestern states. These laborers
settled the land and some stuck around for good, with some types of
these lifestyles still active today. Arizona’s big urban boom began in the
mid-1900s when industrial manufacturing became more profitable than
mining and farming, continuing to the present day with the growth
of high-tech industry. Many of these later migrants came and still come to
Arizona to escape the congestion of urban California. Arizona residents
often blame these Californians for the state’s all-too rapid urban expansion,
although current migrants also come from places like Colorado, Illinois,
Texas, and Oregon. Today the state’s total population is about 5.5 million
people, of whom about 80 percent are European American. Arizona is
a Sun Belt state, boasting 1000 percent population increase since the 1940s.
These migration patterns have changed the face of the population and,
consequently, the way that English is spoken.
Arizona’s geographical and social place ultimately affects how people
speak and how people identify themselves. For example, when the
Californian business person meets the Oklahoman rancher, there is
a meeting of two contrastive English dialects – urban and rural, West
and South. The amazing fact is that their grandchildren, who have
all become native Arizonans, will retain measurable traces of these
dialect differences. What’s more, if the grandchild of the rancher likes the
urban California lifestyle, her speech may be perceived as Californian,
but if the grandchild of the businessman grows to admire and emulate
the historic Arizona cowboy, he may articulate a form of the rural dialect.
This is what makes the Southwest a complex and fascinating area of
dialect study.
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Contemporary Urban Dialect
Arizona is best understood by looking at dialect research from the Western

states (including California, Oregon, and Utah) and from research on rural
Texas or Oklahoma. In American English, different dialects are often based
on how the speakers say their vowels; studies of how consonants vary
don’t seem to correlate as well or as frequently with US regional differences
of English, although they’re quite useful for looking at an individual’s
style of speech, class, ethnicity, and dialect variation in languages other
than English. Urban-oriented speakers of Arizona and the other Western
states are differentiated from the rest of the US by a particular way of
pronouncing certain vowels. One of the most salient vowel shifts relates to
the vowels of words like so and dude. Though usually pronounced in the
back of the mouth, these are often pronounced more to the front of
the mouth, so that so is pronounced more like seh-ow and dude more like
diwd. Vowels of the second type, iw vowels, move more often and more to
the front than the ow vowels. Another well-established vowel difference is
that the words caught and cot are pronounced the same, while they’re
differentiated in the South, the Northeast, and most of the East Coast. The
words filled and field might also sound the same when some Arizonans
speak, but this is less frequent and it happens only before an l-type sound.
Finally, like other speakers in the West, most urban Arizonans say the
vowel in Anne with their tongue high in the mouth so that it sounds
almost like Ian. But unlike the vowels of Michigan, for example, this is
only true when the vowel is before the nasal sounds n, m, and ng. An
Arizonan might take you to visit the Greeand Keeanyon, but you would
also stop for lunch in the town of Flagstaff. A young person might even
tell you that you’re lunching in Flahgstahff, if they’ve tuned into a more
recent California vowel change where young people pronounce the cat
vowel with their tongue toward the back of the mouth. Together, these
vowel changes comprise just one part of a speech style that typifies
Arizona English.
The Rancher Accent
Arizona ranchers are distinguished by a different set of vowels, although

there is some overlap with the Californians. For example, the vowel change
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that makes dude pronounced as diwd is very common for many accents of
English, and is characteristic of speakers from Oklahoma, Texas, and the
South, as well as of speakers from California. It’s no surprise that it’s
found for both the urban vowels and the rural vowels in Arizona. What’s
different, though, is that the ranchers distinguish a field from a filled thing
and a cot from a caught thing, and they don’t say Greeand Keeanyon.
Another prominent rural feature is that the vowel in my doesn’t glide from
ah to ee, as it does in urban speech. For rural speakers my and fine sound
more like mah and fahn, although not quite as strongly as they would in
the South or in Appalachia. And sometimes, vowels in unstressed syllables
may be lost completely, so that every day might be pronounced just as
ever’ day.
Unlike the urbanites, the Arizona ranchers also have noticeable vari-
ation in their English grammar. The -s of verbs with third person subjects
(e.g. she goes) may attach to verbs with other subject forms as well, as in
you’s for you’ve, including somewhat novel conjugations such as we’s gots.
Finally, rural Arizonans use a common yet socially stigmatized speech
pattern found in many other varieties of English: the double negative, as
in We didn’t have none. Double negatives have been used in English for
centuries and across many dialects. These are simply another linguistic
resource that rural Arizonans use to distinguish themselves from urban
Arizonans.
Along the lines of double negatives is the use of ain’t, that very handy
contraction that has no good equivalent in the urban dialect. In fact, even
if you can’t tell a rancher by his vowels or his syntax, you can probably tell
him by the words he uses. Besides living on a ranch, something that doesn’t
even exist in many parts of the country, a rancher’s children probably
raise animals for the county fair and compete in barrel racing, if they’re
girls, or bull riding, if they’re boys. Participation in such pastimes is one of
the only ways to tell which kids in the urban schools come from a rancher
background. Finally, if your conversation partner is quite elderly, they
may even talk about taking the covered wagon to visit Phoenix last week –
that’s certainly an object you won’t hear about all that often in urban places!
Just how the rural Arizona dialect compares to other rural dialects in
the United States is still a big question for linguists. In any case, it’s
evident that many speakers who were born and raised in Arizona still
speak with the dialect that their parents or grandparents brought with
them from Oklahoma and Texas. This formed the basis for white Arizona
English, and can still be found in some urban speakers who identify with
or emulate the ranching lifestyle.
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The Big Picture
Present-day Arizona English is a mixture of the rural South and the urban
West. Given its location, this dialect complexity is really no surprise, and
in fact is found in other parts of the Southwest, such as in Utah
(see chapter 23, “Desert Dialect”), where the choice of words tends to be
Northern but some pronunciation features are Southern. A similar situation
is true for Arizona, but with the pronunciation traits matching up to the
West for the urban speakers, and the grammar and some words derived
from the Oklahoma/Texas area for rural speakers.
Describing Arizona English doesn’t stop with understanding this dialect
mixture or even with seeing the impact of an individual’s identity on the
way they speak. The exciting fact of Arizona English is that we can see it
changing right now. The future of Arizona English is fairly predictable; as
ranches become less profitable, the younger generations move into the
cities, and the use of the rural accent diminishes. This trend is not a new
one, as changes in international trade policies have been affecting domestic
ranching for several decades now. Consequently, the large majority of
Arizonans are sounding more and more like our Californian neighbors
and less and less like our Oklahoman predecessors. Arizonans who are in
their twenties today are already using more of the shifted California vowels
than are Arizonans in their fifties. As migration into Arizona from
California increases, it’s likely that this change will follow suit. It’s not just
a matter of vowels, but a matter of the person’s identity: as an Arizonan,
as a young person, or as a member of urban society. The only other
foreseeable influence on Arizona English, at this point, is the linguistic
pressure from the growing Mexican and Chicano populations, as well as
the growing numbers of immigrants from all corners of the globe. Such
changing demographics are sure to impact the future dialects of Arizona
and the rest of the United States.
Further Reading
Arizona Commission of Indian Affairs. www.indianaffairs.state.az.us/tribes/index.

html.
Craig, Beth (1991) American Indian English. English World-Wide 12: 25–61.
Labov, William, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg (2000) The Atlas of North Amer-
ican English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/.
See also chapters 22, 23 and 26 of this volume.
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PART V
ISLANDS
Miriam Meyerhoff 163
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164 Topics from the Tropics
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26
Topics from the Tropics
(Hawai’i)
Miriam Meyerhoff
Miriam
26 Place of Refuge, located on the Big Island, Hawai’i. © by Ken Meyerhoff
Anderson. 165
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The young woman behind the photo counter at Long’s drugstore in
Mo’ili’ili wasn’t taking especially long with my order, and it was actually
quite nice to escape the mid-August sun pounding down outdoors. But
for some reason, my three-month-old, Sam, wasn’t happy. As his face
scrunched up to let rip with a full-blown howl, the woman serving us
leaned over to him: “Sorry, baby, sorry,” she crooned, drawing out each
“sooory” in a singsong. Two things about this epitomized Hawai’i.
One was her orientation to and inclusion of even very little babies in day-
to-day conversation; the other was the way she used sorry as an expression
of empathy, instead of as an apology. It was one of those moments when
you are reminded that you really are in the Pacific when you are in Hawai’i.
Many things are different from the mainland, not least of which is the way
people talk.
Like most things that are ubiquitous in Hawai’i today, English is a
recent introduction. And also like most of the things that have been intro-
duced – plants, birds, mammals – it has had a devastating effect on what
was originally there. Despite the strength of Hawaiian right up until the
end of the nineteenth century, and despite the subsequent introduction of
other languages, English has taken over.
English didn’t become particularly widespread until after the overthrow
of the Hawaiian monarchy and the annexation of Hawai’i by the United
States in the last decade of the nineteenth century. In fact, the poet and
naturalist, Adelbert von Chamisso, writing about his travels in 1815–18,
reported that, “Many Hawaiians understand a little English, but none of
them have good command of the language, not even those who have
worked on American ships (as many have).” As contact with English
speakers increased, so did its use in the Islands. In the 1840s and 1850s,
there are some initial reports of mixed or “broken” English being spoken
in various places, but at that time Hawaiian (a Polynesian language closely
related to Maori, which was simultaneously being squeezed out of most
public domains by English in New Zealand) was still remarkably vital. The
Islands were then an independent and internationally recognized country;
Hawaiians were highly literate and had a rich oral tradition, so through-
out the nineteenth century the pressure on newcomers to the Islands was
to learn Hawaiian.
But as the plantation and grazing economies became more important,
the demographics of the Islands began to change. More English speakers
took up permanent residence, and migrant workers with other native lan-
guages began to arrive. The first to arrive came from China; subsequent
migrations saw large numbers of Portuguese, Japanese, and Filipinos come
AVC26 166 21/7/05, 10:52 AM

for work, and many Haoles, or whites, also prospered from the economic
development of Hawai’i. In 1893 a group led by a number of US business-
men staged a coup and took the head of the Hawai’i nation, Queen
Lili’uokalani, hostage and in 1898 they formally annexed Hawai’i to the
United States.
Indigenous Hawaiians, who today are fighting to hold onto their tenuous
language and economic rights, are now far outnumbered by migrant
ethnic groups. There have been some modest successes in revitalizing and
providing institutional support for the language in recent years, and the
Pünana Leo or “language nests” are helping speakers of Hawaiian pass on
their language to a new generation. There are some Hawaiian-medium
schools which enable children to keep up their Hawaiian throughout their
education, but fluent speakers of Hawaiian remain a small minority of the
state’s population, even within the ethnic Hawaiian community.
The English spoken by Locals today in Hawai’i is distinctive on many
levels. Naturally, borrowings from Hawaiian make it stand apart. At least
a couple of hundred borrowings are known and used in colloquial speech.
They include words like hula and ukulele which would be familiar any-
where in the United States, and words like ’a’a and pahoehoe (types of
lava) which are part of the international vocabulary of geology. Some
Hawaiian words used on a day-to-day basis only in Hawai’i are keiki ‘child’,
kuleana ‘responsibility’, akamai ‘clever’, äina ‘land’, kökua ‘care for,
support’, tütü ‘grandmother’, and hulihuli ‘barbecue’. A good many relate
to food – liliko’i ‘poi ‘pounded taro’, limu ‘seaweed’, and poke, a Local
style of ceviche – this reflects the importance food has virtually anywhere
as a way of defining and identifying with local culture. Even to say some-
thing tastes good, Locals use a borrowing from Hawaiian, ’ono meaning
“delicious, tasty.”
However, even though these words all have a Hawaiian source, it’s
debatable whether you would want to say that these are borrowings from
Hawaiian into English. That’s because most of them have made it into
Hawai’i English via Pidgin. This can be seen in some subtle changes of
meaning. In Hawaiian, your tütü is either your grandmother or your grand-
father, but in Pidgin and in general use in Hawai’i English its meaning has
specialized to mainly refer to a grandmother.
Pidgin is the language spoken by most of the people who were born and
grew up in Hawai’i. These are the people who think of themselves and are
called Locals (which is why I have been using the capital L; people are only
called “Hawaiian” on the Islands if they actually have Hawaiian ancestry).
Pidgin is a creole that is based on English, but only in the sense that most
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of the vocabulary was taken from English. It’s a language that took its
shape in the mouths and interactions between members of the ethnic and
linguistic mix that came together to work the nineteenth-century forms
of agri-business. This means that even though Pidgin superficially looks
like Standard English, the grammar of the language is very different.
Unfortunately for many Pidgin speakers, this superficial similarity fosters
misconceptions that can disadvantage them at all stages of the education
system.
There are a number of levels on which Pidgin differs from English. For
one thing, there is a fairly distinctive Local accent. Locals use compara-
tively full vowels where mainlanders would have a reduced vowel, a schwa,
or no vowel at all. For example, the word button has a full o sound in the
final syllable, and you will hear pronunciations like this even in relatively
formal contexts, like when a computer programmer is explaining features
of new web-based software to a journalist. This lack of reduced vowels in
unstressed syllables often leads to differences in how words are stressed
and changes the rhythm of Hawai’i English. For many Locals, the main
stress in ceremony falls on the third syllable – seraMOni, and there are
different rules for stressing compounds like volley BALL.
In addition, the o sound whether stressed or unstressed is more likely to
be an unglided vowel than it is on the mainland. In other words, instead
of boat sounding like bowt, or so sounding like sow, in Hawai’i English,
you get a long, steady o, soo. This is also true for the long e diphthong in
words like wait and fate. There is marked lip-rounding with the vowel in
words like shoot or rude and Pidgin is one of the r-less varieties of US
English. And syllable-final l is almost invariably vocalized: you see signs
advertising Loco (i.e. local) food and the name Russell is often spelled
Russo in Pidgin writing.
Mike Forman, who teaches linguistics at the University of Hawai’i at
Mänoa, has suggested that another important accent feature of Pidgin is
that Locals put their tongue right on the edge of their teeth when they say
n and l. You can get some idea of how this sounds if you try almost biting
your tongue when you say Nanakuli (the name of a town on O’ahu).
People often say Pidgin sounds “softer” than other accents of American
English and I suspect that this perception has something to do with these
dental consonants, the l-vocalization and the r-lessness of Pidgin.
But pronunciation differences alone don’t make a different language.
Many of these pronunciation features typify Pidgin but they also occur
when Locals are speaking Standard English. What makes Pidgin clearly a
different language from Standard English are more fundamental properties
AVC26 168 21/7/05, 10:52 AM

of its grammar. Clear examples of this can be seen in the way Pidgin
expresses time and manner relations with verbs.1 A particularly striking
difference is how the two languages use the base form of the verb. In
Pidgin, the base form may be used to refer to present events, generic
events, or even past events. Here is a good example of the last option from
a story told to the linguist Viveka Velupillai by a man from Maui:
Dis spri wen jamp intu dis wan gai, fal awntu da graun eriting
This spirit had jumped into this one guy, he [=the guy] fell onto the ground
and everything
Here, Pidgin uses the base verb fal (fall) where Standard English would
use the form marked for past tense.
The example also shows a unique feature of the way Pidgin marks the
manner of an event. Velupillai found that wen forms (like wen jamp) are
used when the event being discussed has some limit that’s crucial to what’s
being discussed. In other words, the meaning of wen V forms is different
from any single verb inflection or helping verb in Standard English.
Another feature of the verb phrase that is considered highly stereo-
typical of Pidgin (both by Locals and outsiders) is the use of stei ‘stay’ as a
helping or auxiliary verb. Stei, too, means something very different from
any single verbal form in Standard English. Moreover, its meaning varies
depending on what form of the verb it combines with. When stei occurs
with the base form, as in hi stei wak araun ‘he walks around’, the meaning
overlaps with the habitual and the continuous in Standard English. But
when it combines with the -in(g) form of the verb, as in da sista stio stei
stanin bai da fon bu ‘the girl is still standing at the phone booth’ or hi stei
reikin da livs ‘he was raking the leaves’ there is a superficial similarity to
the Standard English progressive. But the resemblance ends there. The
way stei V-in forms are used in discourse shows that Pidgin stei V-in
requires a greater focus on some idea of “now” than the progressive does
in Standard English.
Pidgin also allows more subjects to be left out than Standard English
does. This is particularly noticeable with existential sentences where Stand-
ard English requires a dummy subject, there (in this respect Standard
English differs from many of the world’s languages), e.g., There are still
some places on the left, There’s more than one way to skin a cat. However
Pidgin doesn’t need a dummy subject here and instead you get sentences
like, At lis, —— get kompetishin ‘At least, [there] was a competition’. As
the example with fal awntu da graun showed, Pidgin also allows speakers
AVC26 169 21/7/05, 10:52 AM

to leave out the subject when it refers to a person, and the constraints on
when you can and can’t do this are rather different from the constraints in
Standard English (where it is really only acceptable with the same subject
across coordination, e.g. Yves Klein liked blue a lot and —— painted
mesmerizing work in it).
Finally, negation is expressed according to different rules. As with the
dummy there subjects, Pidgin negation manages without the material
required in Standard English, specifically, the auxiliary verb do. Pidgin can
simply negate a verb by prefixing it with no (or neva in the past). So
standard English We didn’t like to play with him anymore, is wi neva laik
plei wit him no moa in Pidgin.
This rough sketch gives you some sense of what Pidgin is like as a
language, but as I draw it to a close I find myself wrestling with some
dissatisfaction. I feel like I have ended up further away from the reality
of Pidgin than I was with the anecdote at the start. A real problem with
brief outlines like this is that they give a pretty disembodied picture of
a living and changing language. The ideal palliative to this, of course,
would be for every reader to go to Hawai’i and find out first-hand
what English is like there. But since for most people that’s not an option,
perhaps the best way to really savor how Pidgin sounds and differs from
Standard US English is by reading some of the Local writers – search out
names like Lois-Ann Yamanaka, R. Zamora Linmark, Darrell Lum, and
Lee Tonouchi.
Some of them make concessions to their wider audience and tailor the
syntax of their Pidgin accordingly, but even so, this literature will open
your eyes to a Hawai’i that transcends the mass-marketed fantasies of
swaying palms on beaches, swaying hips on hula dancers, and endless
sunny days reflected in sunny smiles. To be sure, there are aspects of that
in Hawai’i, but it is also a place where real people live real lives, quietly
and defiantly defining themselves as different from the rest of the United
States. It is also a place where an entrenched history of multilingualism
and the oppression of the indigenous language Hawaiian mean that lan-
guage openly functions as both a resource and a commodity.
But the best reason for reading the Local literature is that not only does
it give you an idea of what Pidgin actually is, it also gives you an idea of
the more evanescent aspects of language use that are impossible to cover
in an article like this – What do people talk story about in Hawai’i? What
attitudes to others come out in everyday discourse? How do you tease
your little brother? How do you fight with your parents or school mates?
How do you make love to the person you want to grow old with?
AVC26 170 21/7/05, 10:52 AM

More than palm trees in the wind, more than waves on the shore, more
than ukuleles and falsetto singing, those are the sounds of Hawai’i for me.
Go read, listen, and see what you hear.
Note
1 What follows here is necessarily a simplification of a very rich grammatical

system and it draws heavily on work by the linguist Viveka Velupillai and
Alison Tonaki, a native speaker of Pidgin who worked with me in Honolulu.
My thanks to both of them.
Further Reading
Tonouchi, Lee (2001) Da Word. Honolulu: Bamboo Ridge. (Fiction).

Tonouchi, Lee, Normie Salvador, and Carrie Takahata (eds.) Hybolics. (Literary
magazine.)
Velupillai, Viveka (2002) The Tense-Mood-Aspect System of Hawaii Creole English.
Munich: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften. (This book
is written for a linguistics audience.)
Yamanaka, Lois-Ann (1997) Blu’s Hanging. New York: Avon. (Fiction.)
Yamanaka, Lois-Ann (1999) Heads by Harry. New York: Avon. (Fiction.)
Zamora Linmark, R. (1996) Rolling the R’s. New York: Kaya. (Fiction.)
There is also a vibrant Local recording industry. You can get a lot of comedy
in Pidgin and a lot of music in Hawaiian (some singing is also in Pidgin).
Music by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, Hapa, and Sudden Rush are reasonably
widely available. Classic comedy is by Rap Reiplinger. Somewhere between
the two is Bu La’ia. On the Internet: www.aloha-hawaii.com/pidgin/pidgin.html;
www.extreme-hawaii.com/pidgin/vocab; www.une.edu.au/langnet/hce.htm.
AVC26 171 21/7/05, 10:52 AM

27
Speaking Strictly Roots
(West Indies)
Renee Blake
27 Women preparing crayfish, Jamaica. © by Tony Arruza/Corbis.
Global appreciation of music originating from the West Indies has con-
tributed greatly to the world’s familiarity with Caribbean English. This
recognition began in the 1950s, with Harry Belafonte and his calypso hit
“The Banana Boat Song” and extended in the 1970s with the explosion of
Bob Marley’s reggae tunes onto the pop scene. In 2001, the best-selling
CD in the US was the mellifluous “Hotshot,” by the Jamaican American
artist Shaggy, who refers to his artistic style, in which he combines his
172 Speaking Strictly Roots
AVC27 172 21/7/05, 10:52 AM

Jamaican-accented voice with a fusion of reggae, jazz, rhythm and blues,
and pop music, as “dog-a-muffin.”
The spoken word of the West Indians is a clear example of how
language is used to mark or identify a people. In the US, their rhythmic
and lilting singsong accents connote an easy-going and luminous charm.
This was no more evident than at the opening of the 2002 Winter
Olympics in Utah when newscaster Katie Couric introduced the Jamaican
delegation with an exuberant “Yes mon!” reminding viewers of the
motion picture hit Cool Runnings, which endeared the Jamaican bobsled
team to American audiences.
The West Indies are comprised of highly oral societies. Many oral tradi-
tions are found on the islands with ritualized speech styles and linguistic
performances, be it at the church pulpit, in literary dialogue, everyday
conversation and songs or at entertainment venues. A combination of
creativity, eloquent diction, originality, quick wit, and elaborate grammar
Angel (by Shaggy with Rayvon)

Now, dis one dedicated to all a you dem who out dere,
An’ wan’ fi say nice tings to dem girls.
Treat (h)er like diamonds an’ pearls.
Dedicated to all de girls aroun’ de worl’.
An’ dis is Rayvon an’ Shaggy wid de combination whi(ch) cyan’ miss
Flip dis one ’pon yah musical disk, well
Chorus
Girl, you’re my angel, you’re my darling angel.
Closer than my peeps you are to me, baby [Tell (h)er]
Shorty, you’re my angel, you’re my darling angel
Girl you’re my frien’ when I’m in need, lady
Life is one big party when you’re still young

But who’s gonna have yah back when it’s all done
It’s all good when yah little, you have p(y)ure fun
Can’t be a fool, son, what about de long run
Lookin’ back Shorty always a mention
Say me not givin’ (h)er much attention
She was dere through my incarceration
I wanna show de nation my appreciation
Renee Blake 173
AVC27 173 21/7/05, 10:52 AM

rewards speakers with “But yah talkin’ gud,” “Oh gawd nah mon, soundin’
sweet,” “Tell it!” or “Teach!” and “Sweet talking” (i.e., using flattering
words to persuade or pacify). Extemporaneous oratory is steeped in folk-
loric tradition as it exploits the local vernacular language. This is evident
in the Shaggy hit, “Angel.”
Caribbean English: A Little History
While the predominant present-day stereotype of West Indians in the US

may be one of laid-back, fun-loving people, this view hides the multiple
dimensions that exist within the people and their language. The disquiet-
ing history of the Caribbean is reflected in the languages spoken by the
inheritors of a colonial past. Five hundred years ago Columbus arrived at
Caribbean shores, most of them populated with societies of Carib and
Arawak Indians. His encounters marked the beginning of European
exploitation of indigenous, enslaved, and indentured peoples. Following
the Spanish conquistadors were the British, Dutch, French, and Portuguese
in the sixteenth century.
Under colonization, the social and political structures of the Caribbean
evolved around the plantation system, in which a sharp stratification existed
between the owners or administrators of the land and those exploited to
work it. The plantation was the breeding-ground for the process of creoliza-
tion, i.e., the mixing of a variety of people, their cultures and languages.
Creoles arise among individuals and groups who do not share common
tongues and yet need to communicate. Out of the framework of coloniza-
tion in the West Indies an amalgamation arose of the language spoken by
the colonialists with those who were colonized. While a creole may sound
like the European language from which it derived, it also contains many
linguistic elements from the original languages of the subordinate popu-
lations. As a creole becomes the mother tongue or native linguistic sys-
tem for succeeding generations, it stabilizes into a full-fledged language.
In the Anglophone Caribbean, West Indian Creole has the status of the
local vernacular, or the language of the masses, co-existing with a form
of English similar to British English, its European lexifier language. As
national identities emerge in a post-colonial West Indies, the vernacular
variety, also referred to as “dialect,” “patois,” “slang,” or “broken English”,
gains in linguistic, cultural and political currency although Standard
English carries institutional prestige.
AVC27 174 21/7/05, 10:52 AM

Features of Creole English
As a group, the creoles spoken in the West Indies are referred to as

Caribbean English Creole (CEC). While there is variation found among
the CECs, they share many linguistic features. The most salient difference
between the Standard English spoken in the Caribbean and standard British
English or American English is the sound system. The distinctive Caribbean
accent gives the impression of having a singsong sort of rhythm or intona-
tion, which results from each syllable receiving approximately the same
amount of time and stress. These languages, produced with syllable timing,
stand in contrast to American and British varieties of English, which are
produced with stress timing. In stress timing, stress is prominent in different
places and each syllable does not receive an equal amount of time.
Three vowels in the CEC sound system help outsiders to distinguish a
Caribbean accent – the sound in the standard American English pronun-
ciation of the vowel in box, the sound in the pronunciation of a in scale,
and the sound in phone. CEC, like some varieties of British English, does
not have the sound found in the American English pronunciation of man;
in CEC, man is pronounced so that it has the same vowel as Tom.
Furthermore, in many of the CECs, the a and o sounds are pronounced in
their “pure” state rather than in combination with another vowel in the
same syllable (making a diphthong). In CEC, for instance, the a in cake is
pronounced as a pure vowel, not as the diphthong found in non-West
Indian Englishes. In some CECs, if a diphthong is present, it is in reverse
to the non-West Indian varieties. Thus, in some varieties of Jamaican
CEC, the a in cake would be pronounced as eeuh rather than a, and the o
of vote as uo rather than o.
The most prominent consonant trait is the production of the voiced th
sound in that and the voiceless th sound in thing as d and t, respectively.
In “Angel,” we see many examples of the voiced th as d in words like
dis (this), dere (there), dem (them), and de (the). Another consonantal
feature is the pronunciation of ing as in in words like lookin’ and givin’.
Consonant clusters at the ends of words are also reduced to one consonant;
in “Angel” this is apparent in an’ (and), aroun’ (around), and worl’ (world).
Another noticeable feature of the CEC varieties is the y sound after k and
g, e.g., kyan (can), gyarden (garden). A feature specific to Jamaican Creole
is the loss of h, such that you can get it for hit.
Prominent grammatical features include generalization of the pro-
nominal system where the same form of the pronoun can be used for the
Renee Blake 175
AVC27 175 21/7/05, 10:52 AM

subject, object and possessive, as seen in the “Angel” lyric “Me not givin’
(h)er attention.” In this same sentence, there is another key feature of
CEC, the uninflected verb, or absence of the verb be. Unmarking is also
extended to past tense (we eat ‘we ate’), as well as to third person singular
verbs (she like it so ‘she likes it so’). In CEC, dem is used instead of a plural
marking on a noun, even in cases where it may not be marked in English
(“Dis one dedicated to all a you dem who out dere”). Finally, CEC has an
elaborate verbal system and uses particles to mark the verb (“Lookin’ back
Shorty always a mention”).
While much of the CEC vocabulary is attributed to English, other influ-
ences are present depending upon the colonial history of a given island.
On all of the islands, there are imprints on the lexicon from West African
languages like Yoruba and Twi, including eye-water ‘tears’, susu ‘coopera-
tive savings plan’, and obeah ‘sorcery’. Other influences can be found on
various islands from French, Spanish, and Indic, as well as often over-
looked Amerindian survivals (such as canoe, papaya, and mauby). Across
the CECs a variety of words are used for the same referent (e.g., a susu
in Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Trinidad is a box in
Guyana, a pardner in Jamaica, and a syndicate in Belize).
West Indians in the US
Since the 1900s, New York City has been the magnet for the majority of
West Indians coming to the US in search of a “better life.” Today, West
Indians as a whole are the largest immigrant group in the city, comprising
approximately eight percent of the population. With the largest groups
coming from Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados and Trinidad, there is a growing
pan-Caribbean influence on US politics and economic structure, as well as
its cultural and linguistic constitution. West Indian communities are largely
transnational in nature, with continuous movement between the US and
native Caribbean homelands. As a result, there has been a strong American
impact on the “home” societies.
The West Indies and the United States share colonial trajectories.
Therefore, it should be no surprise that overlap exists between Caribbean
English Creole and African American Vernacular English. Nonetheless,
just as there are sociocultural distinctions between blacks in the Caribbean
and blacks in the US, there are also linguistic differences. The superficial
similarities between CEC and English may lead educators to place West
AVC27 176 21/7/05, 10:52 AM

Indian immigrant schoolchildren in mainstream classes. While children
who are highly educated and adept at standard English (albeit with Creole
pronunciation) excel in mainstream classes, most are CEC speakers needing
some degree of educational assistance. This is an area of growing concern
for educators in the US – sensitivity is needed as these students believe
that they are speakers of something close to standard English.
If past and present are any indication, the trend toward mass West
Indian migration to this country will continue for years to come. It is clear
that contact between West Indians and others in the US fosters multi-
directional influences. We may also safely assume that such exchanges
will continue to add colorful details to the nation’s language mosaic.
Further Reading
Allsopp, Richard (1996) Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.
Foner, Nancy (ed.) (2001) Islands in the City: West Indian Migration to New York.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Henke, Holger (2001) The West Indian Americans. Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press.
Kasinitz, Philip (1992) Caribbean New York: Black Immigrants and the Politics of
Race. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Roberts, Peter A. (1988) West Indians and Their Language. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.
Winer, Lise, and Lona Jack (1997) East Caribbean Creole in New York. In
O. Garcia and J. A. Fishman (eds.), The Multilingual Apple: Languages in New
York City. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 301–40.
Renee Blake 177
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28
Gullah Gullah Islands
(Sea Island, SC, GA)
Tracey L. Weldon
28 South Carolina river basin. © by Index Stock/Alamy.
Anyone who has traveled to the coast and Sea Islands of South Carolina
and Georgia is likely to have heard the distinctive sounds of Gullah
being spoken by African Americans native to the area. While it is difficult
to capture the true rhythm and sounds of Gullah on paper, the fol-
lowing excerpt from the tale “Ber Rabbit and the Lord,” as recounted
by a resident of Wadmalaw Island, South Carolina, is illustrative of its
character.
178 Gullah Gullah Islands
AVC28 178 21/7/05, 10:51 AM

Ber Rabbit jump on Ber Gator head. When Ber Gator get cross to other
shore, Ber Rabbit knock the Ber Gator in e head and knock all he teeth out,
and carry em to the Lord.
As this passage from Patricia Jones-Jackson’s When Roots Die illustrates,

the vocabulary of Gullah is primarily English (described in linguistic
circles as “English-based”) but its distinctive nature derives from the
African languages that contributed to its development.
Creoles are language varieties that emerge among speakers who do not
share a common language. The term is also applied to these varieties as
they develop into the native tongues of later generations of speakers. As
the only English-based creole spoken in the United States today, Gullah
(also known as Geechee or Sea Island Creole) traces its roots back to the
days of slavery. Gullah developed during the Atlantic slave trade era among
Africans who spoke a variety of mutually unintelligible languages. They
had to communicate not only with each other but also with their owners
who spoke English. Thus Gullah, like the English-based creoles of the
Caribbean, grew out of contact between English and a number of West
African languages spoken during this era. The structure of Gullah reflects
these multiple influences.
Gullah Features
In the Ber Rabbit example cited above, one can observe some of the dis-
tinctive grammatical features that are characteristic of the variety. One
such feature is the variable marking of tense on verbs. Though taken out
of context, this excerpt describes an event that occurred in the past. How-
ever, past time reference is not marked on the verbs themselves in this
passage. Instead, past time reference is established at the beginning of the
tale by the adverbial expression once upon a time. Gullah speakers also
occasionally indicate past time reference through the variable use of the
preverbal marker been. The sentences in table 28.1 illustrate the use of this
preverbal marker and others used for marking time distinctions in Gullah.
As well as its verbal system, the pronominal system of Gullah also
exhibits some distinctive characteristics. In the passage above, the use of
the pronoun e for his in the sentence Ber Rabbit knock the Ber Gator in e
head represents one such feature. In Gullah, the pronoun e may be used
in instances in which English would require the subject pronoun he, she,
Tracey L. Weldon 179
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Table 28.1 The use of preverbal markers for marking time distinctions in Gullah
Time reference Gullah English
Past I been work I worked

Continuous I da work(ing) I am working
Completed I done work I have worked
Habitual I does work I usually work
or it, or the possessive pronoun his, her, or its. In addition, one might
find the use of the pronoun um used in Gullah where English would have
the object pronoun him, her, or it.
Other grammatical features that characterize Gullah include the verb
say, which may be used to introduce a quotation, as in (H)e tell me, say, “I
ain’t got no car right now.” And the word for may be used in place of to in
Gullah to form infinitival expressions, as in He come for get the car washed.
Many of these distinctive features may be attributed either directly or
indirectly to influences from the West African languages that contributed
to Gullah’s development. Such influences are also found in the vocabulary
of Gullah, with words such as buckra ‘white man’, gumbo ‘okra’, and tote
‘carry’.
Gullah’s Origins
Linguists have attempted to reconstruct the course of events that led to

the formation of Gullah. A number of competing theories have emerged
from these efforts. Early descriptions of Gullah were non-linguistic, and
often racist, accounts that attributed the distinctive features of the variety
to laziness or to physical or mental limitations on the part of its speakers.
Dialectologists, who primarily study regional dialects, later debunked these
myths by showing the systematic nature of the variety and arguing that
Gullah was an English dialect whose distinctive features were retentions
from earlier varieties of British English. This theory was later challenged
by Lorenzo Dow Turner, whose book Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect led
several scholars to argue that the Gullah system was primarily African.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, a theory developed that linked the origins
of all Atlantic creoles to a putative sixteenth-century Portuguese-based
AVC28 180 21/7/05, 10:51 AM

pidgin spoken along the West African coast during the Portuguese
monopoly of the African slave trade. Like creoles, pidgin varieties emerge
in situations of contact among speakers who share no common language
among them. Unlike creoles, however, pidgins typically are not spoken
natively by any group of speakers, but are instead very simplified systems
used as second-language varieties among speakers in contact situations.
The belief was that as other Europeans entered the Atlantic slave trade,
they relexified the Portuguese pidgin with their own native vocabularies,
while preserving the basic grammatical structure of the original pidgin.
Some scholars, therefore, argued that a seventeenth-century West African
Pidgin English emerged out of the English trade and was transported by
the slaves to the North American plantations, where it was passed on to
succeeding generations of slaves, eventually creolizing into Gullah. Others
questioned, however, whether the process of creolization took place on
the American plantations themselves or whether the slaves arrived on the
plantations already speaking a creole. Proponents of the latter view argued
that the creole developed either on the West African coast itself or on the
island of Barbados before slaves were transported to North America.
An alternative theory suggests that Gullah emerged independently in
the Carolina region between 1720 and 1750, as the growth of the rice
industry, institutionalized segregation, and an African majority on the
plantations created the need for communication in the form of a creole.
In this case, Gullah would have been preceded in its development not by a
pidgin, as proposed by earlier scholars, but by Africans in the colony
speaking closer approximations to English. This theory is based on the
observation that Africans would have had greater access to English during
the early years of the colony’s development, when Europeans formed a
majority. It is not clear whether the variety of Gullah spoken in Georgia
emerged under similar but independent conditions or whether the creole
was directly transported to the Georgia coast by slaves relocated from
South Carolina.
Gullah Today
Following the end of the plantation era, the distinctiveness of Gullah was
preserved for many years by the isolation of the Sea Islands and limited
travel to and from the mainland. Those who believed that a Gullah-
like creole was fairly widespread on the plantations of the Southeast
Tracey L. Weldon 181
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hypothesized that mainland varieties of the creole became more English-
like following the breakdown of the plantation system as blacks and whites
began to interact with one another on a more regular basis. This process,
known as decreolization, has been said by some to have resulted in what is
now recognized on the mainland as African American English. In this
sense, Gullah is believed to represent not only a modern-day descendant
of the early plantation creole, but also a key element in the search for
clues about the history and development of mainland African American
English.
Today, however, the building of bridges and the growth of the tourism
industry have resulted in a significant increase in mobility to and from
the Sea Islands, which many believe has also contributed to the merging
of Gullah with mainland dialects. It has led many, in fact, to argue that
Gullah is in the process of dying. In addition, negative stereotypes and
misconceptions about the variety have discouraged some locals from
speaking Gullah or passing it on to their children for fear that they will
be ridiculed by outsiders. Still Gullah serves an important function in
the communities where it is spoken as a marker of culture, history, and
identity. And while outsiders may not always be aware of the extent to
which Gullah is used, it appears that both young and old Gullah speakers
are at least subconsciously aware of its importance in their communities.
This awareness alone may be enough to preserve the dialect for many
years to come.
Jones-Jackson, Patricia (1987) When Roots Die: Endangered Traditions on the Sea
Islands. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
Mufwene, Salikoko (1993) Gullah’s development: Myth and sociohistorical
evidence. In Cynthia Bernstein, Thomas Nunnally, and Robin Sabino (eds.),
Language Variety in the South Revisited. Tuscaloosa and London: University of
Alabama Press, 113–22.
Nichols, Patricia C. (1983) “Linguistic options and choices for black women in
the rural south.” In Barrie Thorne, Cheris Kramerae, and Nancy Henley (eds.),
Language, Gender, and Society. Cambridge: Newbury House Publishers, 54–69.
Turner, Lorenzo D. (1949) Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect. Chicago: University
of Chicago.
Wood, Peter H. (1974) Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from
1670 through the Stono Rebellion. New York: Knopf.
AVC28 182 21/7/05, 10:51 AM

29
Islands of Diversity (Bahamas)
Walt Wolfram, Becky Childs,
Jeffrey Reaser, and Benjamin Torbert
29 Governor’s Island, Bahamas. © by Harry Thomas.
While Caribbean English is certainly one of the most readily identifiable

English accents in the world, there is also great diversity based on cultural
background, regional location, and language contact history. No set of
islands represents this variation better than the Commonwealth of the
Bahamas.
The Bahamas consist of more than 700 sprawling islands. They extend
from Grand Bahama in the north, located about 60 miles off the Florida
coast, to Inagua to the south, located approximately 50 miles from Cuba and
Haiti. The 30 inhabited islands are home to almost 300,000 permanent resid-
ents. Many Afro-Bahamians, who comprise 85 percent of the population,
Walt Wolfram, Becky Childs, et al. 183
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originally came from the Gullah-speaking area of South Carolina, while
many early Anglo-Bahamian settlers were British loyalists from North
America who came to the Bahamas after the American Revolutionary War.
A Distinct History
The first known inhabitants of the Bahamas were the Lucayan Indians who
migrated to the Bahamas from South America as early as 600 ad and inhab-
ited the islands until the Spanish invasion led by Christopher Columbus at
the end of the fifteenth century. The Spanish conquest managed to destroy
the indigenous population. Its lasting contribution is the name Bahamas,
taken from the Spanish words baja and mar, meaning “shallow sea.”
In 1648 the first English settlers in the Bahamas arrived from Bermuda
and established a colony on the island of Eleuthera. Limited natural
resources and disease caused many of the settlers to return to Bermuda.
During this time, the first colony, New Providence Island, was established
on the site that is now the Bahamian capital city of Nassau.
After the American Revolutionary War, in the 1780s, many British loyalists
fled the newly formed United States and settled on the major and outlying
islands of the Bahamas, coming from ports in New York and Florida.
There is an apparent connection between a historically isolated group of
Anglo-Bahamians located in the out-island community of Cherokee Sound
on Abaco Island and the speech of coastal North Carolina. Approximately
5,000 to 8,000 loyalists remained in the Bahamas after an extensive immi-
gration during the years following the American Revolutionary War.
The abolition of slavery in 1833 changed the social structure of the islands
to some extent. In the 1950s, the Bahamas established long-term economic
stability through the tourist industry. In 1973 the Commonwealth of the
Bahamas became independent. The unique cultural history, the ethnic
demographics, and the past and present social dynamics of the islands have
helped create and maintain distinct varieties of English in this vast chain
of islands.
Sounds of Bahamian English
Some of the most distinctive traits of Bahamian English are found in its
pronunciation. A sentence like Ve ’ope you like honion highlights a couple
184 Islands of Diversity
AVC29 184 21/7/05, 10:51 AM

of distinctively Bahamian pronunciation features. The pronunciation of
v and w in the same way, usually more like a v than a w, as in vatch
for watch or vin for win, is a notable feature of Bahamian English. This
pattern was found in some earlier English regional dialects in England, in
Gullah, the Southeastern US creole, and even in some dialects spoken
by white loyalists from the Carolinas, but it is not common in other
Caribbean creoles or in most present-day native English dialects in the US
or England. Another distinctive trait of Bahamian English is h-dropping
as in ’ope for hope, as well as the insertion of h before a vowel as in honions
for onions. Most people attribute this to earlier Cockney influence, one of
the primary British influences on Bahamian speech, but h-dropping is a
naturally developing trait in a number of English dialects.
The vowels of Bahamian English illustrate its diversity and complexity,
as they blend aspects of British English, American English, and Caribbean
English. The vowel of trap is pronounced like the vowel of father, as it is in
some other Caribbean dialects. The diphthong of words like prize and
time shows both ethnic distinction and regional distribution. For Anglo-
Bahamians living on out-islands like Abaco, this vowel sounds like proize
or toime, similar to its pronunciation on the Outer Banks of North
Carolina and much of the Southern Hemisphere, including Australian
and New Zealand English. Afro-Bahamians, however, tend to align
their pronunciation of these vowels with African American speech in the
Southern US, so that prize is pronounced as prahz and time is pronounced
as tahm. The cadence of Bahamian speech, like other Caribbean varieties,
is syllable-timed so that each syllable gets approximately the same beat,
and vowels in unstressed syllables are not reduced as they are in American
English. The intonation of affirmative sentences makes them sound more
like questions than statements to the ears of most North Americans, who
may interpret a statement with rising intonation such as We’re going now
as a question instead of a statement.
Sentence Structure
The sentence structure of Bahamian speech ranges from the use of

creole forms to a style that closely approximates standard English. The
most creole-like version, which linguists refer to as the “basilect,” may be
difficult for outside listeners to understand when it is spoken among friends
in a casual context, whereas the more standard-like variety, the “acrolect,”
AVC29 185 21/7/05, 10:51 AM

doesn’t seem very different from varieties of English spoken elsewhere.
Some speakers shift their speech when talking to different people in differ-
ent circumstances. Code-switching, ethnic variation, social distinction, and
regional distribution within the Bahamas all contribute to the complexity
– and the intrigue – of Bahamian language use.
The basilectal version of Bahamian English spoken by Afro-Bahamians
in Nassau and other Bahamian locales reveals creole-like features that
include the lack of past tense marking for past tense events and the
marking of aspect with verbal particles. We hear sentences like When he
get money yesterday he buy a present for an activity that occurred in the
past. Completed action is indicated with done as in She done go straight to
bed after she eat. The verb be may be absent in sentences like She nice or
They actin’ nice, linking it with other creoles such as Gullah as well as with
English varieties with historical creole connections that include African
American English in the US. Isolated out-island Afro-Bahamian com-
munities are particularly noted for their use of these remnant forms of
English.
Words and Sayings
Some of the most engaging differences of Bahamian speech are found in

vocabulary items and phrases. Though the vast majority of words are
shared with other English dialects, there are also words that would likely
confuse the first-time visitor to the Bahamas, such as obeah for ‘witch-
craft’ or a ‘hex’. Many words are identifiable because of their association
with common English words, but they are used with different meanings:
reach for ‘arrive’ in Have they reached yet? and back-back for ‘reverse’.
There are also a number of words used by Afro-Bahamians that suggest
a connection with other Caribbean English varieties, Gullah, and even
African American Vernacular English. For example, day-clean is used for
‘sunrise’ as it is in other varieties of Caribbean English and in Gullah.
Cut eye in Don’t cut your eyes at me! refers to a type of disdainful rolling of
the eyes.
Finally, a visitor to the Bahamas can be treated to a rich assortment of
proverbs and sayings that describe universal kinds of social relations and
conditions. For example, you can’t hold two cow tail the same refers to
the biblical admonition “you can’t serve two masters.” These are just a few
of the dialect treasures found in Bahamian speech that link language and
AVC29 186 21/7/05, 10:51 AM

A Sample of Bahamian English Words
biggity uppity, self-important
big eye greedy, selfish
big up pregnant
bridle dry saliva
burying place cemetery
camolly big bump on the head
creek narrow inlet
crocus bag coarse woven material used for packaging material
cutlass machete
eye winker eyelash
fetch in, fetch up come ashore
fix put a hex on someone
gapseed gossip
gussy mae heavy woman
haint ghost
hoe cake unsweetened cornmeal cake
kitty corner crooked
long out pout
manjack, mainjack special male friend
one-one scattered
peanut cake peanut brittle
parrot toe pigeon-toed, feet turn inward when walking
pick somebody’s mouth get gossip from someone
pone baked pudding
potcake hybrid dog, mongrel
puckertery confused, in a quandary
quarm walk in an affected manner
sometimey inconsistent, moody
souse boil meat with onions and seasoned water
stench to be stubborn about something
switcher a lime drink
tarpree short fence
yuck jerk
AVC29 187 21/7/05, 10:51 AM

culture. There is little doubt that the English language in all its variations
is one of most attractive cultural resources of the Bahamas.
Further Reading
Details about pronunciation and grammar come from Becky Childs and Walt
Wolfram, “Bahamian English: phonology” (Vol. I, 435–49) and Jeffrey Reaser
and Benjamin Torbert, “Bahamian English: morphology and syntax” (Vol. II,
391–406) in A Handbook of Varieties of English (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2005).
Information on the words of Bahamian English can be found in John Holm
and Alison Shilling, Dictionary of Bahamian English (Cold Spring, NY: Lexik House,
1982). More lighthearted phrase books by Patricia Glinton-Meicholas, such as
Talkin’ Bahamian (1994) and More Talkin’ Bahamian (1995), are published by
Guanima Press in Nassau.
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30
Dialects in Danger
(Outer Banks, NC)
Walt Wolfram
30 Ocracoke Island. © by Ann Eringhaus.
As the public argues about the status of well-known dialects such as

Southern American English and Ebonics, a unique dialect heritage along
the Southeastern coast is quietly eroding. For a couple of centuries, the
dialect spoken on the barrier islands and the adjacent coastal mainland of
North Carolina has been one of the most distinctive varieties of English in
the US.
Small, isolated communities dotting the Outer Banks once nurtured the
so-called Outer Banks brogue, a borrowed word from Irish meaning
Walt Wolfram 189
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“twisted tongue.” In the last half century, however, the Outer Banks has
been transformed into a tourist mecca flooded by outsiders, or dingbatters,
for up to nine months of the year. In the process, a longstanding, unique
dialect of American English has become an “endangered dialect.”
Traits of the Outer Banks Brogue
The most distinguishing traits of the Outer Banks “brogue” are the
pronunciation of several vowel sounds, although there are more subtle
differences as well. The pronunciation of long i in words like tide and
high, which sounds like the oy vowel of boy or toy to listeners, is the most
noticeable trait, and the reason that these speakers are sometimes referred
to as hoi toiders. (The actual production is more like the combination of
the uh sound of but and the ee sound of beet, so that tide really sounds
something like t-uh-ee-d.) This region is not the only place where
this sound is found; it is characteristic of particular regions in the British
Isles and in the English of Australia and New Zealand as well. But in
the American South, including mainland North Carolina, the pronunci-
ation contrasts sharply with the pronunciation of tahm for time or tahd
for tide.
The Outer Banks production of the vowel in brown and found is also
very distinctive. The vowel actually sounds closer to the vowel of brain
and feigned, and outsiders often confuse words like brown and brain. In
fact, when we play the pronunciation of the word brown to listeners from
different areas and ask them what word it is, they typically say “brain.”
Another pronunciation trait, the augh sound in words like caught and
bought is produced closer to the vowel sound in words like put or book, a
pronunciation that is quite distinctive among the dialects of American
English. The pronunciation of this vowel is actually more like its pronun-
ciation in many British dialects of English and one of the reasons that
Outer Bankers are sometimes thought to sound British or Australian. As it
turns out, North Americans are not the only ones who think that Outer
Banks English sounds more like British dialects than it does American
dialects. At one point in our study of Outer Banks English, the well-
known British dialectologist Peter Trudgill visited the Outer Banks to hear
the dialect for himself. He took back with him a sample of Outer Banks
speech and played it to a group of 15 native speakers of British English in
East Anglia. The listeners were unanimous in attributing a British Isles
190 Dialects in Danger
AVC30 190 21/7/05, 10:51 AM

origin to the Outer Banks speech sample; most listeners identified its place
of origin in the “West Country” – that is, southwestern England.
Most people focus on the pronunciation of the Outer Banks brogue,
but there are also vocabulary and grammatical dialect traits. Although we
have found only a couple of dozen uniquely Outer Banks words out of the
thousands of dialect words used in this area, they point to some important
differences.
Words like dingbatter, and in some locations dit dot, are widely known
terms for outsiders, whereas a term like O’cocker (OH-cock-er) is reserved
exclusively for an ancestral islander of Ocracoke – that is, a person whose
family genealogy is firmly rooted on the Outer Banks. There are also some
meaning nuances of dialect words. The use of the word mommuck, an
older English word found in the works of Shakespeare and in some more
isolated dialect areas such as Appalachia, has developed a meaning on the
Outer Banks that sets it apart from both its original meaning and its
current meaning in other regions. In the works of William Shakespeare
it is used to mean ‘tearing apart’ in a literal sense (e.g., They mommucked
the curtain), whereas on the Outer Banks its meaning has been extended
to refer to mental or physical harassment (e.g., The young ’uns were
mommucking me).
Dialect words also reinforce an important point about Outer Banks
dialects: it is the combination of the old with the new that defines its
current state.
For example, words like mommuck, quamish, meaning ‘upset’, as in
quamished in the gut, and token of death, meaning ‘an unusual sign of
impending death’, such as a rooster crowing in the middle of the day,
have been in the English language for centuries. On the other hand, words
like dingbatter for ‘outsiders’, and scud for ‘riding around the island’ are
relatively new. In fact, our research on the term dingbatter shows that it
was adopted from the popular 1970s television sitcom “All in the Family.”
In this show, Archie Bunker regularly calls his wife Edith a “dingbat”
when she displays a lack of common sense. Prior to that time, terms like
foreigner and stranger were used for outsiders.
A few grammatical differences also distinguish the dialect. The use of
weren’t where other dialects use wasn’t, as in I weren’t there or It weren’t in
the house, is only found in the Mid-Atlantic coastal region, although its use
extends from the coastal areas of Virginia and Maryland to the north down
to the southern areas of coastal North Carolina. The use of the preposition
to for at, as in She’s to the house tonight is also fairly limited, though it is
found in some other coastal areas of the mid-Atlantic coastal region.
Walt Wolfram 191
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The use of an -s on verbs in sentences such as The dogs barks every night
is characteristic of the Outer Banks brogue, but it is also found in other
historically isolated dialects as well, such as those in Appalachia, as is the
use of the uh sound with verbs, as in The dogs was a-huntin’ the possum.
The grammar of the Outer Banks does not add many unique dialect
features to the make-up of the dialect, but it is certainly part of the overall
mix that makes Outer Banks English what it is.
The History of the Brogue
Most of the early residents of the Outer Banks came south from Tidewater
Virginia and from the eastern shores of Maryland, starting in the first
decades of the 1700s. The early migration south along the coast was by
boat, as the complicated network of rivers, estuaries, and inlets and the
expansive marshlands made overland travel impossible. Although residents
of the tidewater area did not come from a single location in the British
Isles, southwestern England was well represented in the early population,
although there were people from East Anglia and other areas as well,
including some Scots-Irish. Some dialect traits can be traced to prominent
features of southwestern English, but there are also some features that
can be traced to Irish English that make Outer Banks English similar
to the dialects of Appalachia, where the Scots-Irish English effect is well
established.
The dialect resulted from a selective molding of various traits from the
British Isles that took on a regional dimension along the coastal areas and
islands of the Mid-Atlantic, concentrated in the islands running from the
Chesapeake Bay to the Outer Banks. Although we can only speculate about
the time of its emergence, the examination of some of the written docu-
ments, including the logs kept by lighthouse pilots, letters, and memoirs,
shows that the dialect was well in place by the early and mid-1800s and
flourished well into the mid-twentieth century.
The Future of the Brogue
What will happen to the brogue as the Outer Banks is flooded by the
ever-increasing wave of dingbatters who transformed the barrier islands
AVC30 192 21/7/05, 10:51 AM

from a self-contained, marine-based economy into a service-based
tourist industry during the past half century? The classification of
the brogue as an “endangered dialect” has sometimes caught the fancy
of the media, but the threat to the brogue in communities up and down
coastal Carolina is very real. If we compare just three generations within
the same family, we can see how quickly a unique language can die.
In some families, the grandparents may still retain many traditional
speech characteristics of the dialect, including the traditional pronunci-
ation, vocabulary, and grammar; the children, however, show a significant
reduction in the use of the forms, and the grandchildren have virtually
none of these traits. We have documented this pattern of dialect erosion
in a number of families we have interviewed over the past decade, so
we know that the traditional dialect could, in fact, vanish in a couple of
generations.
Dialectologists and linguists worry about the disappearance of the
brogue, and liken language loss to the extinction of biological species,
arguing that science, culture, and history are lost when a language or
dialect of a language dies. In our quest to understand the general nature
of language, we learn from diversity, just as we learn about the general
nature of life from biological diversity. When a language or dialect dies,
there is an essential and unique part of a human knowledge and culture
that dies with it. The Outer Banks would certainly still be the Outer Banks
if the dialect were to disappear completely, but a part of the traditional
culture of the island surely will be lost if it does. I personally find it hard
to imagine certain stories being told without the resonating sounds of
the brogue.
One thing seems to be certain about the brogue. It has been an essential
part of the traditional Outer Banks culture, and people in the community
and students in the schools need to know about it if they have any desire
of staying in touch with the legacy that has made the Outer Banks such a
unique place. The dialect heritage deserves to be indelibly documented
and preserved – for hoi toiders, for new residents, and for tourists
who wish to understand why it is such a special place. To this end, our
activities on the Outer Banks have included recording interviews with
islanders of all ages, producing video documentaries and audio compact
disks and cassettes that preserve the brogue, and developing a school-
based curriculum for students to learn about their dialect heritage.
Walt Wolfram 193
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Ocracoke Dialect Vocabulary Quiz: How to Tell an O’Cocker
from a Dingbatter
Word List
across the beach buck dingbatter doast good-some
call the mail over meehonkey mommuck quamish goaty
miserable in the wind Russian rat say a word scud O’cocker
up the beach slick cam smidget to young ’uns
1. They went ________ to Hatteras to do some shopping.

2. That ________ is from New Jersey.
3. That place sure was smelling ________.
4. Elizabeth is ________ the restaurant right now.
5. I put a ________ of salt on my apple.
6. We took a ________ around the island in the car.
7. They’re always together because he’s his ________.
8. Back in the old days they used to call hide and seek ________.
9. The ocean was so rough today I felt ________ in my gut.
10. Last night she came down with a ________.
11. I saw a big ________ in the road.
12. That meal last night was ________.
13. When Rex and James Barrie get together they sure can ________.
14. You can’t be an ________ unless you were born on the island.
15. The sea was real rough today, it was ________ out there.
16. When they ________ I hope I get my letter.
17. She used to ________ him when he was a child.
18. There was no wind at all today and it was a ________ out there on the sound.
19. There was a big, dead shark that they found ________.
20. ________ don’t act like they used to back then.
Answers
1. up the beach 2. dingbatter 3. goaty 4. to 5. smidget 6. scud 7. buck 8. meehonkey
9. quamished 10. doast 11. Russian rat 12. good-some 13. say a word 14. O’cocker
15. miserable in the wind 16. call the mail over 17. mommuck 18. slick cam
19. across the beach 20. young ’uns
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An Ocracoke Lexicon
Following is a sample of some of the vocabulary items used on the Outer Banks Island
of Ocracoke, taken from Wolfram and Schilling-Estes, 1997.
buck friend (male). He’s my buck.

breakwater Set up a barrier to stop the flow of water. They breakwatered the inlet.
dingbatter A non-native resident or tourist. Dingbatters now outnumber O’cockers.
goaty Foul-smelling. It sure does smell goaty there.
meehonkey Hide and seek. The kids used to play meehonkey a lot.
mommuck Harass, bother. They sure were mommucking the young ’uns.
O’cocker A native of Ocracoke. There are about 300 O’cockers on the Island.
quamish sick to the stomach. They were quamished in the gut from the rough sea.
say a word Talk a lot. Some folks sure can say a word.
slick cam Smooth water. The sound is slick cam today.
Resources
A popular description of Ocracoke speech is found in Walt Wolfram and Natalie

Schilling-Estes, Hoi Toide on the Outer Banks: The Story of the Ocracoke Brogue
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); a more technical descrip-
tion is provided in Walt Wolfram, Kirk Hazen, and Natalie Schilling-Estes, Dialect
Change and Maintenance on the Outer Banks (Publication of the American Dialect
Society 81, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1999). A video, The Ocracoke
Brogue, and a CD/cassette, “Ocracoke Speaks,” which gives the stories of Ocracoke
in the voice of the residents themselves, can be purchased from the Ocracoke Pre-
servation Society (www.ocracoke-museum.org). Speech samples can also be found
on the web at www.ncsu.edu/linguistics and www.ocracoke-museum.org.
Walt Wolfram 195
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31
Fighting the Tide
(Smith Island, MD)
Natalie Schilling-Estes
31 Fisherman, Smith Island, Maryland. © Nathan Benn/Corbis.
There is a widespread belief that dialect differences in the English

language are fading away, as speakers of localized varieties come into more
contact with prescribed standards. But linguists who study American Eng-
lish dialects have discovered that the situation is more complex. Dialect
differences do survive in some measure, even as older, localized dialect
words, pronunciations and sentence structures are disappearing.
One place in which dialect differences have not only persisted but have
actually become more pronounced over several generations is Smith Island,
Maryland. Smith Island is located in the Chesapeake Bay, about 10 miles
196 Fighting the Tide
AVC31 196 21/7/05, 10:55 AM

from the mainland Delmarva Peninsula. It is actually a small group of
islands, extending about eight miles north and south and four miles east and
west. The current population is about 360. Smith Island has been accessible
only by boat since its first English-speaking inhabitants took up permanent
residence there, in the late 1600s. Many of these early settlers came from
southwest England, particularly Cornwall (usually via Maryland or Virginia).
Over the centuries, a unique dialect has developed on the island, fostered
in part by the island’s geographic isolation from the mainland, and in part
by the islanders’ longstanding sense of cultural distinctiveness.
The Island Dialect: Preserving Older Ways of Speaking
Like many small dialects in isolated places, the Smith Island variety is
often characterized as “Elizabethan English,” “Shakespearean English,” or
even “Old English.” Perhaps this is because isolated dialects like this
one often retain vestiges of older usages, long since faded from more
mainstream varieties. Some examples of older lexical items found on Smith
island are drudging, meaning ‘catching oysters by pulling them up with a
net attached to a metal frame’ (this dates back to at least 1709; the activity
is also called dredging); jag ‘big load of oysters’ (late 1500s); mudlarking
‘picking up oysters or crabs in the shallows’ (dates back to at least 1796);
and progging ‘collecting arrowheads and other artifacts from the marshland’
(early 1600s). Pronunciations that represent older usages include saying
zink for sink (which dates back to Middle English) and adding an extra g
sound to the ends of ng clusters, as in hung up or long island. (Think of
how some New Yorkers pronounce “Long Island.”)
Islanders’ pronunciation of the long i sound in words like night and
nine is also reminiscent of the way i was pronounced in Elizabethan times,
when it sounded something like uh (as in but) and ee (as in beet) pro-
nounced in rapid succession. However, the fact that older speakers on
Smith Island (and in other areas where this feature occurs) actually use
this pronunciation less frequently than younger speakers strongly suggests
that today’s pronunciation is a comparatively recent innovation that
happens to sound like an older usage, rather than a holdover from
Elizabethan days. Older sentence constructions found in Smith Island
English include adding an uh sound before verbs ending in -ing, as in The
men went a-huntin’, using the word it for there to indicate the existence
of someone or something, as in It was a lot of wind for There was a lot of
Natalie Schilling-Estes 197
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wind, and using phrases like of a night or of a winter instead of at night
or in the winter, as in We used to visit our neighbors of a night (meaning
We used to visit our neighbors at night) or We go ice skating of a winter
(meaning We go ice skating in the winter).
Something Old, Something New
Despite the persistence of all these older features in the Smith Island
dialect, it is not correct to classify it as “Elizabethan.” Like all dialects,
even the most isolated, Smith Island English has undergone considerable
change over the centuries, and it includes many words, pronunciations,
and sentence constructions that originated in the Americas rather than
in the British Isles. For example, of all their unusual pronunciations,
islanders are most noted for their pronunciation of the ow sound in words
like house and down as more of an ey (as in hey) or i (as in my) sound, so
that house sounds something like hace or hice, and down sounds like dane.
However, this pronunciation does not date back to Elizabethan days; in
fact, it seems to have sprung up on the island itself, and it did not attain
widespread usage until the mid-twentieth century.
Similarly, the lexical feature for which the island (and surrounding coastal
areas) is best known is their rich stock of terms having to do with the
intricacies of the crabbing industry, which did not become the chief
way of making a living on the island until the latter half of the 1800s.
(The original settlers were farmers; following this, most families supported
themselves through oystering.) Among the many terms associated with
crabbing, we find dozens that refer to the crabs themselves, including
terms for various sizes of soft crab (ranging from mediums to hotels to
primes to jumbos to whales) and crabs in various stages of their molting
cycle. For example, greens are crabs that are two weeks or less from shed-
ding their shells, peelers are hours away from shedding, busters have started
to shed or bust, and soft crabs have shed their old shell but not yet grown
a new one. Soft crabs are highly prized as a delicacy, and so it is important
for islanders to recognize how long it will be before a crab reaches this
short-lived stage, and to have the words to be able to talk about it. Other
terms associated with crabbing include scraping and potting (two methods
of catching crabs), crab floats (wooden boxes where peelers are kept until
they shed), shanties (the small buildings that house crab floats), jimmies
(male crabs), and sooks (sexually mature female crabs).
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Perhaps the best-known dialect feature of Smith Island, and also of
neighboring Tangier Island, Virginia, is “backwards talk.” Backwards talk
is similar to irony, in that it involves saying the opposite of what you
mean (for example, saying It sure is nice out when it’s raining cats and
dogs). It is also similar to what linguists refer to as “semantic inversion,”
or using a word to mean its opposite. However, on Smith and Tangier,
backwards talk is ubiquitous, not just occasional, and is highly creative,
not just confined to one or two conventionalized words or phrases. For
example, among more commonplace usages like She’s pretty for She’s ugly
and She ain’t pretty none for She’s very pretty, we also find such creative
constructions as He ain’t headin’ it none (He’s going too fast – that is,
making too much headway), That weren’t no common trick (That was a
low-down trick), and He’s barefoot (He’s wearing a great-looking pair
of shoes). Clearly, backwards talk can be confusing or even downright
incomprehensible to an outsider, but islanders always know whether they’re
talking backwards or “frontwards,” probably through a combination of
intonation, facial expression, gesture, general context, and close relation-
ships with their neighbors. And just like the ow sound and the crabbing
vocabulary for which the Smith Island dialect is so well known, backwards
talk doesn’t seem to have become common until at least the mid-1800s,
two centuries after English speakers first began emigrating from the
British Isles to Tidewater Virginia and surrounding regions.
Population Loss and Dialect Increase
In recent history, Smith Island has undergone a number of changes. With

the rise in large-scale seafood harvesting and processing plants and the
seeming decline of crab and fish populations in the Chesapeake Bay, it has
become increasingly difficult for small-scale crabbers to make a living. The
island population has been steadily declining over the past half-century or
so, and even those who remain are often forced to seek employment on
the mainland, sometimes commuting back and forth on the ferry every
day, sometimes returning home only on the weekends. In addition, the
island suffers from massive erosion problems and may even be sinking
into the Bay (as has happened with several other inhabited islands before
it), and large portions of habitable land mass have been lost over the years.
The seeming doom of the traditional island community, coupled with
increasing contact with mainlanders among those who remain on the
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island, seems like a recipe for the decline and eventual death of the
Smith Island dialect. Interestingly, though, just the opposite is occurring.
The dialect has actually become more – rather than less – distinct from
surrounding varieties over the course of several generations, and it is
holding its own today, even among its youngest speakers. For example,
pronunciation features like the long i and ow sounds mentioned above
have increased dramatically in frequency in the past half century or so, as
have such grammatical features as using it for there.
Also on the rise is another interesting grammatical feature – the use of
weren’t for past tense to be in negative sentences, regardless of subject
person and number (as in It weren’t me, She weren’t home, They weren’t
there). The use of the were stem for all subjects does not extend to
affirmative contexts, where things are fairly standard: we are far more
likely to hear I was, you were, and he was than I were or he were. It is
not at all uncommon in vernacular dialects for speakers to regularize
irregular verbs like to be by using one form for all persons and numbers,
even though standard English might dictate the use of two or more forms.
(For example, constructions like you was and they was are commonplace,
as is ain’t for all forms of negative present to be.) However, using weren’t
for all subjects is rare in American English and has been found in only
a handful of mid-Atlantic and Southern dialects to date. Despite its rarity,
its usage has increased dramatically on the island in the past couple
generations, further contributing to the heightening distinctiveness of
the dialect.
Because the dialect is becoming stronger as fewer and fewer people
speak it, we classify it as a case of “dialect concentration,” as contrasted
with the “dialect dissipation” that usually occurs when formerly isolated
communities come into contact with the wider world. Although it is
not uncommon for speakers in such communities to heighten their
usage levels of one or two distinguishing dialect features as they relinquish
traditional ways of speaking, cases of the increasing distinctiveness of
an entire dialect are rare. In fact, none has been conclusively documented
for any other English language dialect.
Why Concentration and not Dissipation?
How has Smith Island retained – and even enhanced – its dialectal character
despite the loss of its speakers and their distinctive culture? There are
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several factors involved. First, although islanders are indeed coming into
more contact with mainlanders in some ways, in other crucial ways they
are not. For example, the island school only goes through eighth grade,
and teenagers must attend high school on the mainland. In previous
generations, transportation was available to them only on a weekly basis,
and they had to board with mainland families during the school week,
bringing them into sustained contact with mainland ways of speaking.
In recent decades, however, a daily school began operating, and today’s
teenagers now come home every afternoon, which restricts their contacts
with mainlanders and solidifies their relationships with fellow islanders.
Secondly, we have to consider not only amount but also type of contact.
For Smith Islanders, most contact with mainlanders takes place off-island
and not in their home community, since few tourists or other outsiders
visit the island. In other formerly isolated communities, insiders often
reach out, but outsiders also come in; and this close contact on one’s
home territory is probably more conducive to dialect diffusion. Thirdly,
it is likely that Smith Island’s small population concentrated in a
restricted geographic area allows the community to heighten its dialectal
distinctiveness to a level that is impossible to attain in larger, more diffuse
communities, where there is necessarily more intercommunication with
outsiders. Finally, Smith Islanders have always considered themselves
a highly independent, distinctive people, and they consider their dialect to
be an important symbol of their cultural uniqueness. Thus, no matter
how often they encounter other language varieties, they are not likely to
assimilate to them, since they value their own unique ways of living – and
talking – so highly.
The importance of the Smith Island dialect has been heightened in
recent decades as islanders have come face to face with the possible
demise of their environment and their traditional ways of life. It makes
sense that they would heighten their dialectal distinctiveness even as they
fight to maintain their cultural uniqueness. And there is hope in sight:
Jetties are being put into place to stem the island’s erosion, and islanders
are experimenting with new ways of making a living without leaving
their island home, even as they work persistently, and hopefully, to hold
on to their traditional water-based livelihoods. If the islanders’ ability to
maintain – and enhance – their dialect is any indication of how successful
they will be at preserving their way of life, then their culture is sure to
persist, just as the tides continue to rise and fall, and the crabs to shed
and re-form their shells, in the waters surrounding this small island
community.
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A Smith Island glossary
bail (n.) lunch, as in “When it was time for a break, the men took out their bails and
chatted while they ate.”
carry (v.) take or escort, as in “He carried her out on a date.”
edge of dark (n.) twilight
fly flap (n.) flyswatter
fuzz cod (n.) gale or storm
gut (n.) marshy creek
hide and switch (n.) hide ’n’ seek
kofered (adj.) warped or bent, as in “The pier was old and kofered by the wind and
tide.” This word may derive from “coffer,” an obsolete verb meaning “to curb up,
twist, warp.”
noogs (n.) sweets or desserts, as in “She baked us some really good noogs for
Thanksgiving dinner.”
Pancake Day (n.) St. Patrick’s Day
pop (n.) soda
right smart (n.) a lot, as in “She puts right smart of pepper in her crab cakes.”
rinch (v.) rinse
skiff (n.) small boat
sun dog (n.) reflection of the sun that may appear next to the sun; brings an easterly
wind, cooler temperatures, and fewer crabs
yarney (n.) what Smith Islanders call people from Tangier and vice versa. Comes
from the common practice on both islands of yarnin’, or telling yarns
Further reading
Dize, Frances W. (1990) Smith Island: Chesapeake Bay. Centreville, MD:

Tidewater Publishers.
Horton, Tom (1996) An Island Out of Time: A Memoir of Smith Island in the
Chesapeake. New York/London: W. W. Norton & Co.
Shores, David L. (2000) Tangier Island: People, Places, and Talk. Newark:
University of Delaware Press/London: Associated University Presses.
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32
From Cod to Cool
(Newfoundland, Canada)
Sandra Clarke
32 Excavations have proven that the Vikings were the earliest European visitors to
Newfoundland. © by Cindy England. Sandra Clarke 203
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In 1949, the island of Newfoundland – along with its mainland and more
northerly portion, Labrador – became the tenth and newest province of
Canada. Of all regions of the country, Newfoundland/Labrador is linguist-
ically the most homogeneous: approximately 98% of the province’s total
population of just over half a million speak English as their sole mother
tongue. Yet the English spoken by the majority of Newfoundlanders
represents a highly distinctive variety, one that exhibits many differences
from standard Canadian English.
Historical Background
A British colony until 1949, Newfoundland has always maintained close

ties with Great Britain. Indeed, the island boasts the designation “Britain’s
oldest colony,” having been formally claimed by the British crown in
1583, to ensure control of the rich cod-fishing grounds of the Grand
Banks. Although settlement was sparse until the end of the eighteenth
century, it has been continuous since the first decade of the seventeenth
century. Up to the middle of the twentieth century (when the government
imposed a resettlement program that reduced the number of communit-
ies by about a quarter), Newfoundland’s small population was scattered
in approximately 1300 tiny “outport” fishing communities on the island’s
long coastline, many of them accessible only by boat. Since the collapse of
the inshore cod fishery at the beginning of the 1990s, small outport
communities are once again in danger. The loss of their principal source
of livelihood has resulted in considerable out-migration – not only to the
provincial capital of St. John’s, but also to the more prosperous provinces
of the Canadian mainland. Lack of a secure economic base has resulted in
very little in-migration to the island for well over a century.
Much of the English-speaking founder population of mainland Canada
consisted of Americans who moved north around the end of the eighteenth
century, after the American War of Independence. Newfoundland experi-
enced none of this wave of settlement, however. From the seventeenth
to the mid-nineteenth centuries, its European founder populations came
directly from two narrowly defined geographic areas: the southwest or
West Country of England, and the southeast counties of Ireland. The
relative geographical isolation of the island, along with the lack of in-
migration from diverse sources, are among the factors that have resulted in
a very distinctive speech variety in present-day Newfoundland.
204 From Cod to Cool
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Characteristics of Newfoundland English
Many features of Newfoundland English can be traced directly to the

linguistic heritage brought to the island by its earliest settlers from south-
western England and southern Ireland. Some characteristics are echoed in
speech patterns found in various Eastern seaboard dialect enclaves with
similar settlement histories, from North Carolina to the Caribbean. A
number of features of Newfoundland English (particularly grammatical
ones) display obvious parallels to conservative African American English
(AAE) and Gullah. This suggests the preservation in all these varieties of
certain features, which were more widespread in earlier English.
A resident of mainland North America (in local parlance, a CFA, or
“Come from away”) would immediately be struck by the distinctiveness
of Newfoundland English. To the mainland Canadian ear, though perhaps
not to Midwestern Americans, the low vowels (those typically spelled with
a or o in words such as cat/trap, start/park, cot/caught or Don/dawn) sound
very fronted or “broad.” Residents of Ontario have been known to
(mis)interpret Newfoundlanders’ pronunciation of John as Jan. Most
Newfoundlanders do not make a distinction between the pre-r vowels in
such words as beer, bear and bare, whereas many varieties of North Ameri-
can English make a two-way distinction. The same is true for such pairs of
words as pour and pore, or lure and lore. Those Newfoundlanders who
grew up in the heavily Irish-settled southeastern portion of the island,
including the city of St. John’s, do not exhibit “Canadian Raising” for the
ou vowel in words like mouth (mooth) and house (hoose). In this part of
the island, however, the vowel in words like mug or tough is often pro-
nounced with lip-rounding, as in Irish English. In addition, throughout
Newfoundland, words like side and time are pronounced much like soid
and toim, resembling the oi vowel articulation displayed by “Hoi Toiders”
on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. For traditional Newfoundland speakers,
whether of Irish or southwest English ancestry, the vowel written with
o in the sequences oi and or may be unrounded, so that toy sounds like
standard English tie, and north sounds like narth. For these speakers as
well, the vowel sound in words like gate/day and go/though may be long
and steady, pronounced (as it was in earlier standard English) as a single
vowel rather than as the present-day standard diphthong, or dual-vowel
sound.
The pronunciation of certain consonants is equally striking to visitors
from “away.” Newfoundlanders in the southeastern portion of the island
Sandra Clarke 205
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often display two obvious Irish-like pronunciations of the consonants
l and t after a vowel: the former (as in feel or pull) is fronted and “clear”;
the latter (as in put or Saturday) has a distinct h-like quality. In those parts
of the island settled by the southwest English, however, the most
noticeable consonant feature is word- and syllable-initial h, which may
be deleted (e.g. home pronounced ome), yet at the same time may be
inserted in words that in standard English begin with a vowel (as in
egg pronounced hegg). The chief factor that conditions this h-patterning
is syllable stress, as stressed syllables are more likely to insert the h. In all
areas of the province, th is often pronounced in casual speech as t or d
(e.g. thing as ting, and those as dose). In a few areas, when th is not syllable-
initial, it may be articulated, as is also the case in AAE, as f or v (so that
bath sounds like baf, and breathe is pronounced breave).
Many of the grammatical features of vernacular Newfoundland speech,
while inherited from English and Irish source varieties, are not found in
the standard English of today, and hence are often stigmatized. A number
of these features have become obsolescent, in that they were last regularly
used by speakers born by 1900. Some examples are dee (=thee) for you
(sg.), and initial a- on past participles of verbs (e.g. abeen, adrinked).
Many features, however, remain very vibrant. These include the use of -s
as a generalized present-tense suffix for lexical verbs (they runs every day,
we wants three of ’em) – a feature not confined of course to Newfoundland
English, but also found in such varieties as AAE. Another robust feature is
the use of the “after perfect,” which was brought to the island by the
settlers from Ireland, and which is regularly used as an alternative to
the more usual “have perfect” (as in I’m already after doin’ that for I’ve
already done that). Table 32.1 lists a number of non-standard grammatical
features which have been preserved in Newfoundland. Most of these are
still quite current, at least among more traditional speakers in rural com-
munities. A number bear obvious similarities to features found in dialects
of AAE, and even Gullah.
The traditional vocabulary of Newfoundland is typically described as
“colorful” by outsiders. The Dictionary of Newfoundland English stands as
a testament to the multitude of terms that are in some way unique to the
province. Many local lexical items have been preserved from their British
and Irish sources, yet have taken on new meanings and forms. These
include a host of items relating to the fishery, the weather, and local flora,
fauna, games and activities. Over the years, many of these terms have been
lost, as a result of a combination of factors including technological change,
the decline of the fishing industry and loss of rural populations. While
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Table 32.1 Some grammatical features of Newfoundland English
Feature Example
Pronoun exchange: subject-like forms used as Give the book to she, not he.
stressed objects; more rarely, object forms They want it, don’t ’em?
as unstressed subjects
do be (pronounced duh be) instead of is to express They do be sick a lot.

a regularly occurring (habitual) event (more common He don’t be here very often.
in Irish-settled areas of Newfoundland)
Habitual bees instead of is (more common It bees some cold here in the winter.
in southwest-English-settled areas)
For . . . to (pronounced fer duh) complementizer She come (=came) for to talk to us.
Stative preposition to (rather than at, etc.) Can we stay to the table?
She knocked to the door.
He/she used as a third singular pronoun for He’s an ol’ fork.

inanimate nouns, rather than it
lads in outports may still describe a favorite springtime activity, jumping

from pan to pan of ice in the harbor, in terms which differ depending on
their region of the province (e.g., copying, flip(s)ying, tabbying, jumping
clumpers/clampers, tippying, ballycattering), most traditional terms are no
longer part of the active vocabularies of younger Newfoundlanders.
The Future
Most Newfoundlanders are ambivalent about the future of their speech.

Quite a number profess pride in their dialect as a symbol of their cultural
and ethnic identity. Yet many Newfoundlanders also harbor somewhat
negative attitudes toward their speech variety, perceiving it to be of
limited value in terms of socioeconomic mobility. Throughout the history
of the island, Newfoundland speech has been identified with the low
socioeconomic status of the vast majority of the island’s residents, and as
such has often been subject to negative appraisal by outsiders. In the
Sandra Clarke 207
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Table 32.2 Some Newfoundland words in common use today
Word Meaning Origin
fousty moldy-smelling Southwest England
glitter (also known ice coating (e.g. on trees, roofs) that Southwest England
as silver thaw) results from freezing rain
horse-stinger dragonfly Southwest England
yaffle armful (e.g. of wood, fish) Southwest England
sleeveen rascal Irish Gaelic
streel untidy or dirty person, esp. a woman Irish Gaelic
toutin /touton piece of bread-dough fried in fat unclear
moldow (often stressed Spanish moss unclear

on second syllable)
emmet /immit ant common in earlier

English
words of one early nineteenth-century visitor (Lt. Edward Chappell, 1813),

“a stranger must not be surprised to observe a constant violation of the
most ordinary rules of speech.” Recent language attitude studies reveal
that mainland Canadians view Newfoundland speech as the least “correct”
and “pleasant” in the country. Inevitably, many Newfoundlanders have
been affected by this negative stance, and would no doubt agree with the
editor of a local newspaper, the Gander Beacon, who in 1982 wrote, “the
dialect as handed down to us . . . is misspelled, illiterate, and sloppy.” Such
attitudes undoubtedly were at the root of the failure to adopt the dialect
reading programs advocated by a handful of linguists and educators in the
1970s, when Newfoundland experienced its own “mini-Ebonics contro-
versy.” The idea that incorporating local dialect features into early-grade
reading programs would ultimately enhance children’s reading skills, as
well as self-esteem, was met with an outcry from local parents, and the
plan was put to rest.
Over the past decades, a fairly rapid linguistic change has been observed
among younger generations of Newfoundland speakers. This typically takes
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the form of a greater tendency to incorporate more standard or supralocal
speech features, to the detriment of local ones. For younger upwardly
mobile urban residents of such cities as St. John’s, this may mean the
adoption of features of pronunciation that more resemble the North Amer-
ican norm, such as the loss of fronted l in words like pill and pull, and even
the retraction of low vowels in words like dog and start. The inevitable
result is a degree of dialect erosion among younger speakers. Yet the
embracing of norms from outside the community does not in itself
entail that local dialects are destined to disappear. Many younger New-
foundlanders do not abandon their home speech variety, but continue to
use it on a regular basis with members of their in-group. The result is
recent generations of bidialectal younger speakers, who possess greater
style-switching abilities than did previous generations.
Newfoundland English, though in large measure stigmatized, will
undoubtedly remain vibrant for some time to come. Already there are the
beginnings of an attitude change: oil revenues are bringing some measure
of prosperity; Newfoundland’s cultural brokers (musicians, entertainers,
writers) are making their presence felt on the national and international
stage. St. John’s has recently been touted as a “cool” travel destination by
several national publications. Perhaps some day soon, Newfoundlanders
may also become, as we say locally, some proud of their distinctive
linguistic heritage.
Resources
A bibliography of over 200 publications and papers on Newfoundland English

can be found online at www.mun.ca/linguistics. The Dictionary of Newfoundland
English, by G. M. Story, W. J. Kirwin and J. D. A. Widdowson (2nd edn., 1990,
University of Toronto Press), is an invaluable resource for local lexicon. An online
version of the dictionary can be found at www.heritage.nf.ca/dictionary. The
Newfoundland Heritage website, which houses the dictionary, also provides
a good source of information on the history and culture of the province.
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33
The World’s Loneliest Dialect
(Tristan da Cunha)
Daniel Schreier
33 Edinburgh, Tristan da Cunha. © by Robert Harding Picture Library/Corbis.
What would happen if a dialect of English were isolated on one of the

most remote places on Earth? Would the dialect stop developing in
the absence of outside influences, or would it become more and more
distinctive? Few places are better suited to provide answers to these ques-
tions than the island of Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic Ocean,
more than 1400 miles from anywhere.
Tristan da Cunha is situated almost exactly in the middle of the South
Atlantic, about half-way between Cape Town, South Africa and Uruguay
210 The World’s Loneliest Dialect
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in South America. Its geophysical isolation is unparalleled: the Guinness
Book of Records credits Tristan with being “the remotest inhabited island
in the world.” Even today it is difficult to travel to the island. There is no
airfield, and the sea is the only way to get there. Only about eight or ten
ships go to Tristan each year, an 1800-mile voyage that lasts between five
and twelve days, depending on the weather.
Geographic remoteness has had a deep impact on the island’s history.
The Portuguese discovered it in 1506, but there was no permanent popu-
lation until American whalers settled there at the end of the eighteenth
century. The British colonized Tristan in 1816, when the community con-
sisted mainly of shipwrecked sailors and castaways from the British Isles,
America, Holland and Denmark. Several women emigrated from St. Helena
in 1827, but from the 1850s on, the American whale trade declined and
the community became increasingly isolated. In 1882 only two ships
stopped at Tristan da Cunha. The dwindling number of ships meant that
fewer new settlers came to the island: only two newcomers settled in Tristan
in the second half of the nineteenth century.
The social and cultural isolation of Tristan da Cunha peaked around
World War I. The community received no mail for more than ten years,
and a minister reported in the mid-1920s that the children had never seen
a football. This changed in April, 1942 when the British installed a naval
station on the island. The abrupt exposure to the outside world led to
far-reaching economic changes. A South African company established a
permanent fishing industry on the island, and the resulting economic
development led to a rapid transformation of the traditional Tristanian
way of life. These changes were further reinforced when a volcano erupted
near the settlement in 1961. The entire community had to be evacuated and
was forced to spend two years in England. The Tristanians quickly adapted
to modern life, and brought a taste for modern dress, dances and entertain-
ment when they returned to the island. A new fishing company provided
all the households with electricity, and the 1970s and 1980s were a period
of economic prosperity. The late 1990s saw further modernization as
electronic mail, Internet access and satellite television became available.
Today there are about 280 people residing on the island, all of whom
live in Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, the only settlement on Tristan. The
community has more contacts with the outside world than ever, and many
islanders go abroad for secondary education, job training and vacations.
Out-migration is limited, though. The Tristanians have a strong local
identity; most of them are happy where they are and would not want to
live anywhere else.
Daniel Schreier 211
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Tristan da Cunha English
Tristan da Cunha English has been influenced by the several dialects

of British and American English that were transplanted to the island,
along with St. Helenian English. Some of the earliest settlers were native
speakers of Dutch, Danish, Italian, and Afrikaans, but their linguistic
contribution was fairly limited. The community was reported to be en-
tirely English-speaking in the mid-1850s. Dutch and Afrikaans-speaking
settlers did leave an imprint in the form of a number of loanwords,
mainly in the areas of fishing terminology (snoek, steenbrass), everyday life
(kappie ‘knitted hat’, lekker ‘good, delicious’, kraal ‘sheep pen’, perhaps
kiki ‘ear’), and food (gurken ‘cucumbers’). Moreover, recently imported
goods led to the borrowing of loanwords from Afrikaans (such as braaj
‘barbecue’, boerewors ‘sausage’ and bakkie ‘pickup truck’). Tristanians also
picked up a few words from American English, mainly from the settlers
who arrived from New England and the American whalers who frequented
the area in the 1840s and 1850s. An English minister wrote in 1885 that
“all the people here speak English slightly Yankeefied as they do a good
deal of trade with Yankee whalers.” The American impact is found in
words like gulch, bluefish, the contracted form tater ‘potato’ or in the
second person plural pronoun y’all and the frequent usage of the phrase
your own self.
Today, however, the islanders believe that they speak British English.
As former Chief Islander Harold Green puts it: “we got this slang on
Tristan, the ‘Tristan slang’ we call it, it’s not really number one English,
but it’s British.”
Tristan da Cunha English resembles British English in a number of
ways. For instance, Tristanians do not produce r in words like car or park.
The grammar and sounds of Tristan English also were influenced by
settlers from St. Helena. The women from St. Helena had an especially
strong impact, as the men were frequently employed on whaling ships and
left the island for lengthy periods of time. Consequently, a number of
grammatical features were directly transplanted from St. Helena to Tristan
da Cunha, such as the absence of -s on verbs (that’s what make us so cross),
is with all persons (I’s a lot happier than a lot people is) and a distinctive
usage of done (they’s done kill that black bull). (Interestingly, this usage of
done bears a certain resemblance to Southern-based vernacular American
English, such as White Appalachian or African American English the
paper done jammed.)
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The legacy of British and American English manifests itself in double
modals such as might could or may should (she might could check it out for
you), the usage of for to (he tell us for to steer west) and be instead of have
(I’m checked the parcels already).
While Tristan da Cunha English has many borrowed features, it has a
number of other features that are found almost nowhere else. The dialect
has preserved features that were once widespread in British English
and are now virtually extinct, such as the usage of be for have in perfect
structures (she must be got no work to do) or hypercorrect h (in words like
egg, pronounced hegg, or expedition, hexpedition). Its speakers have inde-
pendently developed new forms as well; for example, they use the past
tense in sentences like we never used to kept records in them days and we
used to went Nightingale Island all the time. They also have unique pro-
nunciations for certain words, such as sink for think and srow for throw.
Tristan da Cunha English in the Twenty-first Century
It would be wrong to assume that the Tristan dialect stopped changing

because of its relative isolation. Even though Tristan English developed in
the 1820s and 1830s, and its speakers had little contact with the outside
world for long periods of time, it is not a relic of the early nineteenth
century. It is a mix of sounds, words and grammatical structures that
reflect virtually all of the diverse people who have settled and traded there.
From the early colonial period to the present day, the island has had
intermittent contact with the outside world, resulting in a number of
linguistic adaptations and community-based innovations.
Tristan has undergone abrupt transformation since the middle of the
twentieth century. Tristanians are now spending more time than ever in
the outside world, and their accents are often noticed and commented on
in South Africa and England. As a result, the Tristanians are very aware
of their linguistic distinctiveness. The question, then, is what the future
holds for Tristan da Cunha English. Is the dialect going to erode as the
community emerges from insularity and adapts to the modern world?
It is not easy to answer this question, and it may be too early to tell.
Younger Tristanians speak somewhat differently, but they continue to use
typical Tristan features, albeit less often than their parents and grand-
parents. Perhaps this trend will continue and the traditional features will
Daniel Schreier 213
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die out within a couple of generations. On the other hand, members of
the community may continue to speak Tristan da Cunha English with
their families and friends but switch when communicating with outsiders,
speaking a dialect that resembles British or South African English. The
best we can do is to pursue our studies and to monitor language changes
in the generations to come. What is certain, though, is that Tristanians are
aware that their dialect reflects their rich and unique history and would
feel a sense of loss if “Tristan slang” disappeared.
Resources
A more technical description of Tristan da Cunha English is Daniel Schreier,

“Terra incognita in the Anglophone world: Tristan da Cunha, South Atlantic
Ocean,” English World-Wide 23: 1–29 (2002). More information about Tristan
and the “Tristan slang” can be found on the website of the North Carolina
Language and Life Project at www.ncsu.edu/linguistics/. An excellent account of
Tristan from its discovery until the beginning of the twentieth century is Jan
Brander’s Tristan da Cunha 1506–1902 (London: Allen and Unwin, 1940). For
additional information on all aspects of life on Tristan da Cunha, visit websites at
http://website.lineone.net/~sthelena/tristaninfo.htm and www.btinternet.com/~sa_
sa/tristan_da_ cunha/tristan_history.html.
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PART VI
SOCIOCULTURAL
DIALECTS
John Baugh 215
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216 Bridging the Great Divide
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34
Bridging the Great Divide
(African American English)
John Baugh
34 Young man in the city. © by Doug Logan. John Baugh 217
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The linguistic legacy of the African slave trade has been sorely misunder-
stood within the United States and throughout the world. Exacerbated
by longstanding racial controversies, the linguistic behavior of African
Americans, and slave descendants in particular, has been a source of
political and educational contention since the birth of the nation. Many
of the linguistic stereotypes that abound regarding African Americans are
misleading and grossly exaggerated; indeed, American slave descendants
do not constitute a linguistically homogeneous group. Thus, blacks who
grew up in isolated rural farming communities speak quite differently
from African Americans who grew up in heavily populated inner-city
neighborhoods and older African Americans typically use language differ-
ently from younger African Americans.
Slave descendants share a unique linguistic history that sets them apart
from those whose American ancestors were not enslaved Africans. Whereas
typical immigrants to the United States may have come to America in
poverty, speaking a language other than English, they usually did so with
others who shared a common language and culture. The vast majority
of Americans can trace their family ancestry to homelands where the
languages of their ancestors are well known. Such is not the case for
the typical slave descendant of African origin.
The explanation for this unique historical linguistic circumstance is
fairly straightforward, as are the racial consequences of this legacy. Only
blacks from Africa were imported as slaves throughout North and South
America. Whenever possible, slave traders separated captives who spoke
the same language. This practice, a crude form of language planning,
attempted to disrupt communication among slaves to prevent uprisings
during the Atlantic crossing and thereafter. Once placed on the auction
block, slaves were then denied access to schools and literacy by law. Again,
this linguistic heritage is unlike the vast majority of other immigrants who
were exposed to Standard American English within their local public
schools.
Because the linguistic consequences of slavery are not well known, many
United States citizens, regardless of racial background, do not fully under-
stand why vernacular African American dialects persist, particularly when
public figures like Bryant Gumbel or Condoleezza Rice demonstrate full,
fluent, and facile command of Standard English. Their linguistic example
implies that speaking proficiency is a matter of personal choice, rather
than historical circumstances. However, despite the existence of thou-
sands of African Americans who have mastered Standard English, or, in
more popular parlance, the fact that “many blacks sound white,” it is all
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too easy to lose sight of the historical linguistic dislocation born of slavery
that has made it far more difficult for slave descendants to blend into
the melting pot. While the vast majority of American immigrants had the
luxury of sharing a minority (non-English) language upon their arrival to
America, such was not the case for slaves. Indeed, no indigenous African
language survived the Atlantic passage intact, giving rise to a host of
African- and European-based pidgin and creole languages that resulted
directly from the slave trade.
Due substantially to the lingering inequality that is the legacy of slavery,
educators, politicians, and linguists have had highly contentious debates
about how best to address the education of black students, and, more
precisely, how best to improve literacy among American slave descend-
ants. Does the problem lie with individual students, or are there other,
systemic explanations for racial disparities in educational achievement,
that lie beyond the control of individual students or those who care for
them? While a full understanding of the linguistic behavior of African
Americans will not resolve these pressing educational problems, it can
shed light on many of the challenges that still face those who sincerely
seek ways to overcome racial inequality.
Honest differences of opinion derived from the Ebonics controversy
that began in Oakland, California in 1996 may help to clarify the linguistic
and educational dilemma that exacerbates racial gaps in academic
achievement throughout the nation. Without question, the sociopolitical
controversy that erupted in the wake of the Ebonics debate proved to
be one of the most contentious linguistic episodes ever to jolt America.
Readers may recall that the Oakland, California school board passed a
resolution declaring Ebonics to be the language of the 28,000 African
American students who attended public schools within that district. The
public outcry denouncing Ebonics and its advocates was swift and defied
easy racial classification. Maya Angelou was among the first and most
vocal of Ebonics’ detractors, followed by Kweisi Mfume and other notable
African Americans who decried any suggestion that African Americans
speak a language other than English.
Although Oakland school officials eventually denied accusations that
their resolution was intended to justify claims to obtain federal bilingual
education funding, their official policy statement was explicit in this
regard, claiming that “African-American pupils are equally entitled to be
tested and where appropriate, shall be provided general funds and State
and Federal (Title VII) bilingual education and ESL (English as a Second
Language) programs to specifically address the needs of their limited English
John Baugh 219
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proficiency/no English proficiency” (Oakland African American Task Force
Policy Statement).
In addition, some of the most contentious political commentary was
derived from an assertion contained within the original Oakland resolu-
tion stating that “African Language Systems are genetically based and not
a dialect of English.” This poorly chosen remark stirred the smoldering
embers of Arthur Jensen’s incendiary claims, published in the Harvard
Educational Review of February, 1969, that African American students
were cognitively inferior to white students because of genetic differences
and that this inferiority was affirmed by standardized test results.
The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) waded into both the Jensen
and Ebonics controversies, each time passing resolutions that sought to
quell racially charged controversies surrounding the language of African
Americans. In the first instance, following remarks authored by William
Labov and Anthony Kroch, the LSA observed that:
The writings of Arthur Jensen which argue that many lower-class people are
born with an inferior type of intelligence contain unfounded claims which
are harmful to many members of our society. Jensen and others have intro-
duced into the arena of public debate the theory that the population of the
United States is divided by genetic inheritance into two levels of intelligence
ability: one defined by the ability to form concepts freely, the other limited
in this area and confined primarily to the association of ideas.
While these statements served to undercut unsubstantiated genetic claims

in Jensen’s comments, Oakland’s resolution inadvertently reintroduced
Jensen’s genetic folly, although Oakland educators eventually claimed that
their reference to genetics was restricted to linguistic classification and
had nothing whatsoever to do with the racial genealogy of African Amer-
icans. In this instance the LSA, under the guidance of John Rickford, passed
a resolution intended to affirm the linguistic integrity of African American
Vernacular English, stating:
The variety known as “Ebonics,” “African American Vernacular English”

(AAVE), and “Vernacular Black English” and by other names is systematic
and rule-governed like all natural speech varieties.
In so doing the LSA was able to accomplish two important tasks: first, and
foremost, it affirmed the linguistic integrity of black American speech, and
second, it asserted that Ebonics should be viewed as a dialect of English,
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and not as a separate language without essential English derivation. Shortly
after the LSA passed their resolution, the Oakland school board released a
revised Ebonics resolution that deleted all references to genetic classifica-
tion and conceded, albeit somewhat grudgingly, that Ebonics is “not merely
a dialect of English.”
The discussion of recent and longstanding historical linguistic contro-
versies surrounding African Americans is necessary to fully appreciate that
neither linguists nor educators have yet completely resolved these matters.
The Ebonics episode in Oakland generated so much ill-will and hostility
that educators and politicians have been loath to reconsider the topic;
that is, despite the fact that many of the educational problems that are
suffered by numerous African American students owe their existence to
the very linguistic misunderstanding that lies at the heart of the Ebonics
debate.
Some brief linguistic illustrations demonstrate the subtle but sub-
stantive barriers that many African American students face as they strive
to succeed within an educational system that makes no accommodation
for the dialect that so many of them bring to school. One of the most
common dialect features of African American Vernacular English is that
of habitual be, as found in They be happy or She be staying at home.
An uncritical reflection might wrongly assume that these sentences are
identical to Standard English They are happy or She is staying at home. In
the first instance many speakers of vernacular African American English
make a productive distinction between temporary and habitual states of
affairs. Thus, They(’re) happy and They be happy are not synonymous;
the former conveys a temporary state of affairs while the latter conveys
a habitual state of happiness. Similarly, She is staying at home can convey
a temporary state of affairs in contrast to She stays at home, which sug-
gests a habitual event. Speakers of AAVE can productively distinguish
between She(’s) staying at home (as a temporary state) and She be staying
at home (as a habitual state).
Some insightful students of African American English have likewise
observed that some African languages make similar “stative” versus
“habitual” contrasts that they believe were integrated into the speech of
slaves and their descendants. These forms were then linguistically codified
under racial segregation and willful attempts to restrict literacy among
slaves, thereby denying extensive exposure to written norms for Standard
English.
Another linguistic illustration that is not exclusive to African Americans
refers to standard versus nonstandard uses of ain’t and other forms of
John Baugh 221
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negative agreement. Whereas many speakers of American English may say
and comprehend the meaning of I ain’t got no money, few Americans
(other than speakers of AAVE) use ain’t as equivalent to didn’t as in I ain’t
drop the book. As such, the English teacher working with a classroom of
students from diverse American English backgrounds could easily launch
into a carefully planned lesson intended to illustrate distinctions between
ain’t and other negatives such as isn’t or don’t without ever realizing that
African American students also use ain’t as equivalent to didn’t.
An additional example, with strong African historical roots, illustrates
some of the linguistic challenges that educators and their African Amer-
ican students face in school. If, for example, an African American student
wrote a non-standard sentence that stated, He been sad, a teacher might
readily “correct” this sentence to state He was sad. However, it is quite
possible – even likely – that the student had intended to convey not only
that was he sad but that he has continued to be sad for an extended period
of time.
Many African languages convey changes in meaning through tonal
contrasts; that is to say, they are “tone languages,” and this allows their
speakers to convey different meanings for the same word depending upon
tone, stress, or emphasis. Speakers of AAVE and other American English
dialects have come to adopt a tonal contrast regarding the use of the word
been. In the preceding example, if the student had intended to say that He
been sad was a temporary past event, they would have intended for an
unstressed form of been to be implied. However, had it been the writer’s
intention to convey that “He is not only sad at this moment, but he has
been sad for quite some time,” then a stressed form of been as in He BEEN
sad would have been the intention.
Other examples from AAVE are numerous, and generally occupy a com-
plete monograph, but table 34.1 illustrates some of the examples worthy
of educational attention. As with non-standard uses of ain’t many such
examples are not exclusive to AAVE. However, all of the examples that are
identified in table 34.1 are common to speakers of vernacular African
American English.
The contrastive examples illustrated in table 34.1 offer a small hint
of the vast array of subtle-to-substantial linguistic variation that exists
between AAVE and Standard American English. Slight though these
examples may be, they serve to highlight the linguistic vestiges of the
African slave trade that serve to remind us of the bygone era of overt racial
discrimination that was sanctioned by Jim Crow laws and longstanding
patterns of residential and educational segregation.
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Table 34.1 Some common linguistic examples of African American Vernacular English (AAVE)
Standard English AAVE
Reduction of final consonant clusters

cold col’
left lef’
mind min’
desk des’
Suffix -s absence
cents cent
He has ten cents He has ten cent
brother’s brother
My brother’s book My brother book
likes like
He likes music He like music
Post-vocalic r absence
door do’
car ca’
Absence of present-tense auxiliary and linking verbs

He is here He here
We are leaving We leaving
Phonological inversion
Did you ask a question? Did you aks a question?
Syntactic alternation
What time is it? What time it is?
How can you do that? How you can do that?
What is the problem? What the problem is?
Non-standard Negation
I don’t have any cards I ain’t got no cards.
He didn’t leave any keys He ain’t leave no keys.
John Baugh 223
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I offer these linguistic, historical, and sociopolitical observations in the
hope of shedding additional light on the unique linguistic circumstances
born of the African slave trade, and an ensuing recognition that legislators
have yet to demonstrate the political will to adequately address the educa-
tional abyss that persists between black and white educational perform-
ance throughout the nation. Academic excellence does not demand that
we attempt to eradicate AAVE; rather, by recognizing that many black
students come to school using linguistic patterns that differ substantially
from academic varieties of English, we can better prepare them and their
teachers to bridge the linguistic and cultural gaps that will ultimately
ensure that no child is ever left behind.
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35
When Linguistic Worlds Collide
(African American English)
Walt Wolfram and Benjamin Torbert
35 Boy in a field. © by Lise Gagne.
Debate about language origins and evolution is common, but the history
of race relations in American society makes the case of African American
English, popularly known as Ebonics, somewhat special. The broad path
of historical development seems obvious. Africans speaking a rich
assortment of West African languages such as Mandinka, Mende, and
Gola – among many others – learned English subsequent to their shackled
emigration from Africa to North America. But the process of this shift
Walt Wolfram and Benjamin Torbert 225
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and the possibility of lingering linguistic effects centuries later from the
ancestral languages of West Africa remains a matter of controversy and
intrigue.
Describing the early development of African American speech presents
a historical, linguistic, and political challenge. Slave traders were hardly
thinking of documenting their exploitation of human cargo for the
historical record, and most references to speech in the early slave trade
were connected to its role in moving and marketing human merchandise.
For linguists, the reliance on limited historical records written for
purposes other than linguistic documentation is always problematic, but
the difficulties are compounded for vernacular speech that society has
deemed unworthy of preservation. Writing was an illegal skill for early
African Americans in North America, making first-hand accounts rare
and questionable in terms of accuracy with respect to vernacular speech.
But there are also questions of authenticity about other recorders of black
speech, and its representation runs the gamut – from racist caricatures
that exaggerate stereotypical differences to inclusive portrayals that over-
look any possible ethnic differences in speech. Observations about African
American speech have never been far removed from the politics of race
in American society, so that it is hardly surprising that the status of
African American English (AAE) has been – and continues to be – highly
contentious and politically sensitive.
Competing Explanations
Two major explanations have dominated the modern debate over the
origin and early development of AAE. The “Anglicist Hypothesis,”
originally set forth by prominent American dialectologists during the
mid-twentieth century, argues that the origin of AAE can be traced to
the same sources as earlier European American dialects of English – the
varieties of English spoken in the British Isles. This position assumes that
slaves speaking different African languages simply learned the regional
and social varieties of the adjacent groups of white speakers as they
acquired English. It further assumes that over the course of a couple of
generations only a few minor traces of these ancestral languages remained,
as in the typical American immigrant model of language shift.
In the mid-1960s and the 1970s, the Anglicist position was challenged
by the “Creolist Hypothesis.” Researchers of creole languages noted that
226 When Linguistic Worlds Collide
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the early language situation for African descendants circumscribed by the
conditions of slavery was hardly like that of Europeans who came by
choice and blended with other European groups. Instead, the extreme
circumstances of subordination and segregation led to the development of
a “creole language,” a specially adapted language formed when groups not
sharing a common language need to communicate. Typically, the lexical
stock of the creole comes from the language of the socially dominant
group. The Creolist Hypothesis asserts that an English-based creole lan-
guage spread throughout the African diaspora, and today creoles are still
spoken in regions that extend from West African countries such as Sierra
Leone and Liberia through the Caribbean to the Sea Islands of South
Carolina and Georgia, where the creole language Gullah is spoken (see
chapter 28, “Gullah Gullah Islands”). This creole spread to the sprawling
plantations of the American South, becoming the prototype for the devel-
opment of AAE. The Creolist viewpoint argues that the speech of African
Americans in North America has changed greatly over the centuries, but
that the imprint of its creole past is still found in a number of language
traits: the absence of the linking verb be (e.g., You ugly), the loss of inflec-
tion suffixes such as the -s on verbs (e.g. She like school), possessives (e.g.,
the dog mouth), and plurals (many time), as well as the distinctive verb
particles such as the use of done to indicate completed action (e.g., He
done went) and the use of been to indicate distant time (e.g., She been
known him forever). All of these traits are typical of well-known, English-
based creoles – from Gullah to Jamaican Creole, and to Krio, the dominant
language of Sierra Leone.
Revising the Hypothesis
New historical and linguistic information has brought the traditional

positions on the origin of AAE under intensified scrutiny. One source of
information comes from the ever-expanding written records of ex-slaves,
including an extensive set of ex-slave narratives collected under the
Works Project Administration (WPA), newly uncovered letters written by
semi-literate ex-slaves in the mid-1800s; and other specialized texts, for
example, an extensive set of interviews conducted with black practitioners
of voodoo in the 1930s known as the Hyatt texts. In addition to these
written texts, limited sets of archival audio recordings have been uncovered,
including a set of tapes made by WPA workers with ex-slaves in the 1930s.
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A quite different source of new information comes from the examina-
tion of the speech of groups of black expatriates who have lived in relative
isolation since their exodus from the United States. For example, in the
1820s, a group of blacks migrated from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to the
peninsula of Samaná in the Dominican Republic, where the descendants
of this community continue to live today in relative seclusion. A signific-
ant population of African Americans also migrated from the United States
to Canada in the early 1800s, and some of their descendants continue to
live in remote, out-of-the-way regions of Nova Scotia. It is commonly
assumed that secluded groups will be relatively conservative in their use
of language and thus may provide a window into the earlier state of a
language. The examination of speech in these transplanted, black-enclave
communities has shown a striking resemblance to the speech of earlier
European American varieties spoken in North America, reviving support
for the Anglicist Hypothesis. However, there is an important difference
between the British-origins position of a half-century ago and the current
position referred to as the “Neo-Anglicist Hypothesis.” The original
Anglicist position concluded that the early accommodation of European
American speech by African American speakers has been maintained to the
present, so that there remain no essential differences between the speech
of comparable groups of African Americans and European Americans
in the rural American South, the regional source of the earliest African
American speech in the United States. The Neo-Anglicist position,
however, argues that AAE has diverged from European American varieties
over the years, so that present-day AAE is now quite different from
contemporary benchmark European American dialects. The differences
are not due to earlier language history, but to the evolving nature of
African American speech during the twentieth century.
Resolving the Controversy
For almost a decade now, a team of researchers from North Carolina State
University has been re-examining the development of AAE based on yet
another set of historical circumstances – longstanding, enclave African
American communities in geographically remote areas of the United States.
As in studies of expatriate situations, the lack of everyday contact with
outside groups may provide insight into the history of African American
speech. In one respect, these communities in the US may be preferable
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to expatriate situations because they offer the advantage of long-term
continuity in a regional context. For example, in Hyde County, North
Carolina, a sparsely populated coastal region characterized by the unique
Outer Banks dialect (see, for example, chapter 30, “Dialect in Danger”),
African Americans and European Americans have co-existed since the
first decade of the 1700s. Until the mid-twentieth century, the marshland
terrain made it difficult to travel overland and there was little movement
into and out of the region. The long-term seclusion and stable bi-ethnic
settlement that included a 25 to 50 percent African American population
for three centuries present an ideal laboratory for examining the develop-
ment of language over time. Through our interviews with more than a
hundred speakers ranging in age from 5 to 102, we can project what the
earlier language was probably like for both African Americans and Euro-
pean Americans, as well as how it might have changed during the course
of the twentieth century. Similar communities have also been examined in
other regional settings of the South, including a couple of geographically
remote communities of African American speakers in Appalachia, where
their speech is surrounded by a dialect influenced historically by Scots-
Irish (see, for example, chapter 3, “Defining Appalachian English”, and
chapter 4, “If These Hills Could Talk”).
The research shows that the speech of older African Americans was
more influenced by the regional dialect of the area than that of younger
speakers. For example, in Hyde County, where the unique Outer Banks
dialect features the pronunciation of high tide as hoi toid and the forma-
tion of negative sentences with be as I weren’t there or She weren’t there,
older black and white speakers sound much alike. In Appalachia, older
African Americans and European Americans share characteristic regional
features such as the pronunciation of fire as far, the use of the prefix uh- in
He was a-huntin’ and a-fishin’ and the use of -s on verbs in People goes
there all the time. In fact, when we play excerpts of speech from these older
speakers to outside listeners, they are often unable to identify the ethnicity
of the speaker. This kind of evidence would seem to support the Anglicist
position as the correct historical interpretation.
Closer inspection indicates that matters are not as simple as they might
appear at first glance. The detailed investigation of different kinds of
language structures shows that there are some features that have continu-
ously distinguished speakers ethnically, though these are sometimes more
subtle than the more salient items found in the current urban version of
AAE. For example, we find a few pronunciation and grammatical features
that apparently have been ethnically distinctive for centuries, co-existing
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comfortably with a shared set of regional features. Though older African
Americans and European Americans may have the same regional traits,
they have differentiated themselves in the pronunciation of consonant
blends before a vowel such as the loss of the final consonant in wes’ en’ for
west end. The groups have also been different in the pronunciation of
consonant sequences such as skr for str, in skreet for street. In grammar,
the patterned absence of be in sentences such as He ugly and the absence
of various inflectional suffixes in she go, the boy hat, or many time have
probably differentiated black and white speech in some outlying Southern
regions for as far back as we can project in the history of American Eng-
lish. Many of the traits that have distinguished black and white speech for
centuries are directly or indirectly traceable to the early contact situation
between English and West African languages. As African languages and
English collided, there was an obvious accommodation to the regional
manifestations of English, but the imprint of the original impact also
remained indelible. This is hardly remarkable in language contact situ-
ations. The English vowels of some Minnesotans, for example, still bear the
language marks of the earlier Scandinavian settlers, and southeastern
Pennsylvanians continue to reflect German language influence in con-
structions such as Are you going with for Are you going with me? and It’s all
for It’s all gone long after German was used regularly in the area – or, after
German is all.
AAE has been influenced both by its earlier regional context in the US
and its heritage language situation, making a clear-cut winner in Anglicist-
Creolist debate difficult to pick. As is often the case in such debates,
both sides have a point – and the truth lies somewhere in between. The
position presented here, which admits both earlier regional influence
and the persistent influence of the original language contact situation, is
referred to as the “Substrate Hypothesis” simply to distinguish it from
other positions.
The Evolution of Contemporary AAE
The story of AAE is an ongoing one. In fact, its modern path of change is
every bit as intriguing as its earlier history. Current studies show that
the distinctive traits of AAE are probably stronger at the beginning of the
twenty-first century than they were a century earlier. Older speakers in
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remote regional contexts may still sound quite local, but their younger
counterparts are likely to sound more like their transregional urban AAE
counterparts. Younger speakers in the outlying region of Hyde County,
for example, usually reject the regional pronunciation of high tide as hoi
toid and the use of weren’t for wasn’t as they pick up the use of habitual
action be in sentences like Sometimes they be trippin’ and intensify the
absence of the -s suffix on verbs in sentences like She go for She goes. In the
process, AAE has become a transregional variety that is more ethnically
distinct today than it was a century ago. The fact that ethnicity now
usually trumps region in African American speech is one of the great
stories of modern dialectology.
There are a couple of reasons for the emergence of AAE as a super-
regional, ethnically based variety of English. The expanded mobility
of African Americans in the last century linked speakers from different
regions, making it easier for interregional language spread to take place.
At the same time, the pattern of persistent segregation in American
society served as a fertile social environment for developing and maintain-
ing a distinct ethnic variety. Many Northern urban areas are, in fact, more
densely populated by African Americans today than they were several
decades ago, and the informal social networks of many urban African
Americans remain highly segregated. Population demographics, however,
do not tell the only story. Over the past half-century, there has been a
growing sense of ethnic identity associated with AAE, supported through
a variety of social mechanisms that range from community-based social
networks to stereotypical media projections of African American speech.
In the process, regional dialects – and Standard English – have become
associated with “white speech.” The development of “oppositional
identity,” in which behavior with strong associations with white norms
is avoided, became an important part of the ethnic divide. Though it
might seem ironic that the association of Standard English with white
speech would develop in a social and educational context that steadfastly
rejects vernacular speech of any type – and African American English
most vigorously of all – it is a true testament to the symbolic role of
language in the African American experience. It is also an indication
of the enduring cultural clash between white-dominant mainstream
institutions and people of color in American society. In an important
sense, there is no greater testament to the durability of African American
culture than the vitality of the past and present voice of African American
English.
AVC35 231 21/7/05, 10:54 AM

Acknowledgment
North Carolina. National Science Foundation grants BCS 9910224 and 0236838
supported the research reported here.
Further Reading
Even the most restricted list of the articles and books on African American English
would be excessive to cite here. The Substrate Hypothesis is presented in great
technical detail in Walt Wolfram and Erik Thomas, The Development of African
American English (Blackwell, 2002). Shana Poplack and Sali Tagliamonte, in
African American English in the Diaspora (Blackwell, 2001), set forth the Neo-
Anglicist position in equal technical detail. A more accessible description of the
history and development of AAE is John Russell Rickford and Russell John
Rickford’s book, Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English (Wiley, 2000).
AVC35 232 21/7/05, 10:54 AM

36
Talkin’ with mi Gente
(Chicano English)
Carmen Fought
36 Time out on the railroad tracks. © by Jamison Boyer.
A coworker of mine asked me recently, “Why do so many Mexican Amer-

ican students seem to have such a hard time speaking English, even if they
were born here in the US?” I realized that her comment was based on a
mistaken impression. She heard some students speaking English with what
sounded like a Spanish accent, and assumed that Spanish was their first
Carmen Fought 233
AVC36 233 21/7/05, 10:54 AM

language. Instead, what she was hearing was probably Chicano English.
Chicano English is a dialect spoken mainly by people of Mexican
ethnic origin in California and the Southwest. There are other varieties
associated with Latino communities as well. In New York City, for
example, one finds Puerto Rican English, which shares some properties
with Chicano English, but is different in other ways.
Why Study Chicano English?
One of the factors that makes Chicano English worth a long linguistic
look is the fact that it “grew up” in a bilingual setting. As immigrants
from Mexico came to California and other parts of the Southwest,
communities developed which included many people who spoke only
Spanish. Many of these speakers began to learn English and, like other
learners of a language, they spoke a non-native variety which included
sounds and grammatical constructions from their first language, Spanish.
But the children of these immigrants grew up using both English and
Spanish, and as the communities began to stabilize, so did a new dialect
of English.
Because of its origins, Chicano English does have many features,
especially in the phonology, that show the influence of Spanish. For
example, the a sound in words like pasta or saw sounds much more
like the Spanish a than in other dialects of English. In the ending on
words like going or talking, Chicano English speakers tend to have a higher
vowel, more like the i of Spanish (as in sí), so that the words end up
sounding more like goween and talkeen. There is also a special use of
the word barely in Chicano English to mean ‘had just recently’ as in
These were expensive when they barely came out. (In my dialect, this would
be translated as These were expensive at the beginning, when they had
just come out.) This may come from the Spanish adverb apenas, which
can mean that something almost did not happen but then it did
(which is what barely means in many English dialects), or it can mean
that something happened just recently. This latter meaning can some-
times be attached to barely in other dialects of English (Don’t leave;
you barely got here!) but not always (e.g., I barely broke my leg, which
speakers of most other dialects don’t say, but which is acceptable in Chicano
English).
234 Talkin’ with mi Gente
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Is Chicano English Just the Non-native English of
Spanish Speakers?
It would be a mistake to characterize Chicano English as “learner English,”

somehow imperfect and non-native. Chicano English is a stable and fully
formed dialect, linguistically and structurally equivalent to other dialects
of English, such as the varieties spoken by Anglos in the same regions.
Like the coworker I mentioned earlier, many people hear Chicano English
and assume that what they are hearing is the “accent” of someone whose
first language is Spanish. The problem with this theory is that many speakers
of Chicano English are not bilingual; they may not know any Spanish
at all. Despite the mistaken impression that many people have, these
Mexican American speakers have in fact learned English natively and
fluently, like most children growing up in the US. They just happened to
have learned a non-standard variety that retains indicators of contact with
Spanish.
My students often insist that they can tell whether someone is bilingual
or not from their English. To test this, I have made up a tape of short
segments (in English) spoken by four Chicano English speakers from my
fieldwork in Los Angeles in the mid-1990s. Two of the speakers are bilin-
gual, and two speak only English. I play this tape for the students and ask
them to identify each speaker as bilingual or monolingual. In every class
where I have done this test, the students are unable to classify the speakers
correctly. The most non-standard sounding speaker, for example, is usually
labeled by a majority of the class as bilingual, yet I discovered in the
interview that the most he can do in Spanish is count to ten. The truth is
that you don’t need to know any Spanish to speak Chicano English.
Chicano English also includes features that are not clearly attributable
to Spanish. An example is multiple negation (She didn’t tell me nothing
about it) which could be related to Spanish, but could just as easily have
come from other non-standard dialects spoken by working-class African
Americans or Anglos, for example.
More recently, it has been discovered that some Chicano English
speakers also incorporate features from the local Anglo dialect, a Cali-
fornia variety known colloquially as the “Valley Girl” dialect. Additionally,
some speakers use features from African American English.
Of course, not everyone in a particular Mexican American community
speaks Chicano English, and there is also a wide range of styles encom-
passed by this label, as is the case with other dialects, including standard
Carmen Fought 235
AVC36 235 21/7/05, 10:54 AM

ones. Some middle-class speakers in a Mexican American community
may speak a variety that is grammatically fairly similar to more standard
dialects, but retains a special phonology, while other middle-class speakers
might not speak Chicano English at all. Women, in general, speak Chicano
English a bit differently than men. The language used by young speakers
who are gang members includes terms that other members of the com-
munity do not use.
What is “Spanglish”?
Also characteristic of Chicano English is the use of Spanish lexical items.

Even speakers who do not know much Spanish will occasionally throw in
a word or phrase like ándale or hasta la vista as a kind of identity marker.
This occasional use of a Spanish word is different from code-switching –
the more complex mixing of lexical items and structures from English and
Spanish in a single sentence. An example of code-switching would be
Es un little boy (It’s a little boy). This pattern is most common among
speakers who are highly fluent in both languages. It can also occur among
Chicano speakers who don’t speak Chicano English, but mix Spanish with
some other dialect of English.
Linguists have discovered that there is code-switching in most com-
munities where two languages are spoken on a regular basis. It seems to be
a basic human reaction to the everyday use of two languages in a society,
and is subject to rules and norms just like any other part of language.
Nonetheless, people often have a negative reaction to it, and assign it a
negative label. In the communities where Chicano English is spoken, the
term used for code-switching is usually “Spanglish.” I think of this term
as a somewhat negative one. However, I was surprised to find that the
attitude toward Spanglish among the young adult speakers I talked to in
Los Angeles was very positive.
David, 17, for example, told me, “Two languages sounds better for us
Mexicans.” Jorge, 18, told me he liked code-switching, and explained to
me that it is what distinguishes Chicanos or Mexican Americans from
people actually living in Mexico. He referred to code-switching as “Chicano
language.” Several other young Chicano speakers described this way of
talking as “cool.” So in some sense, one might say that fluency in Chicano
English includes the acceptance of using Spanish and English in the same
sentence, whether or not one does it.
236 Talkin’ with mi Gente
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Is Chicano English Influencing Other Dialects?
We know that Chicano English has been influenced by other dialects,

such as Valley Girl English or African American English. An interesting
question is to what extent that influence has gone in the other direction.
The pronunciation of going as goween, for example, is something that
I hear increasingly among California Anglo students. Did this come from
Chicano English? I don’t know the answer to this question, but in the
meantime, I will keep a sharp eye on barely to see what happens in the
future.
Carmen Fought 237
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37
Stirring the Linguistic
Gumbo (Cajun English)
Megan E. Melançon
37 Boaters at the mouth of Bayou Cane, Louisiana. © by Darryl Lodato.
“Get down out dat car and come have a coffee”

Cajun English speaker
The ingredients in the gumbo that is southern Louisiana’s linguistic

heritage include several varieties of French (seventeenth-century, Cajun, and
Creole), Canary Island Spanish, German, and, the most recent addition
to the dish, English. All of these ingredients have flavored the speech of
238 Stirring the Linguistic Gumbo
AVC37 238 21/7/05, 10:54 AM

French Louisiana, yielding a unique dialect called Cajun English. The
dialect is spoken mainly in southern Louisiana, although migrations to
southern Texas and southern Mississippi have resulted in pockets of Cajuns
living in those areas. The Cajuns have been called a “linguistic curiosity,”
and, in fact, their versions of English and French differ from American
English and the French spoken in France. So, who are the Cajuns, and
where did they come from?
History of the Cajuns
Cajuns are descendants of French settlers who moved into the area of
Canada known as Acadia (modern day Nova Scotia) in the early 1600s.
For many years, the territory was ceded back and forth between
France and England as the spoils of war, and the settlers were left virtually
undisturbed. In 1713, however, the Treaty of Utrecht permanently
sealed the fate of the small colony – it became a permanent possession
of the British. The Acadians were allowed to live in peace for a period
of time, but because of their friendship with the Native Americans
living in the area, and also because of an influx of British settlers, the
British crown decreed that all persons of French ancestry must pledge
allegiance to the British government. Beginning in 1755, those who
refused to do so were deported and scattered across various coastlines in
the American colonies in what their descendants still refer to as le grand
dérangement.
There are pockets of French culture and language surviving in diverse
areas of the United States as a result of this forced migration, includ-
ing Maine, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana. Some
deportees also ended up in the then French-ruled Caribbean islands of
Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Haiti, while others went back to Europe.
The Acadians (shortened by English speakers to ’Cadians and then to
Cajuns) were reviled and feared by their English-speaking Protestant
neighbors in the American colonies, so they sought out isolated com-
munities where they could practice their religion and teach their native
language to their children. This isolation led to the preservation of some
elements of French as it was spoken in the mid-1700s. In fact, some of
the lexical items in Cajun French today are essentially unchanged from
the French of that era, e.g. le maringouin ‘mosquito’ (modern French
le moustique).
Megan E. Melançon 239
AVC37 239 21/7/05, 10:54 AM

The English that the Cajuns acquired for trading and economic
purposes has been strongly influenced by their native French. The dialect
has also been affected by the assimilation of the Cajun culture by various
other ethnic groups living in the region: Native American tribes, German
and Irish immigrants, African and Caribbean slaves, and the Spanish-
speaking Isleños from the Canary Islands. More recently, forced schooling
in English pursuant to the 1921 Louisiana constitution (which established
English as the official language of the state), and the intrusion of mass
media into even the most isolated bayou communities, have led to fewer
and fewer people speaking French, with a consequent rise in the use of
English. Today’s reality is that English is just as much a part of the culture
as French, and English is rapidly overtaking many of the sociocultural
parts of the Cajun heritage.
Characteristics of Cajun English
Although there are many dialectal oddities in Cajun English, five features
strike the listener right away: vowel pronunciation, stress changes, the
lack of the th phonemes, non-aspiration of p, t, and k, and lexical differ-
ences. The use of these features has resulted in no southern drawl at all in
Cajun English. Cajuns talk extremely fast, their vowels are clipped, and
French terms abound in their speech. These variations have been studied
by a few linguists, more folklorists, and, in a casual way, many more
tourists.
The vocal differences of Cajun English are both qualitative and quanti-
tative. The qualitative differences (the differences between the standard
forms of English vowels and Cajun English vowels) are easily identifiable.
Quantitative differences are changes that are across-the-board and
non-random in the speech of most Cajuns. Some examples? Diphthongs
(or dual-vowel sounds) change to monophthongs (single vowels) in words
such as high. Standard American English uses a diphthong i as in tie while
Cajun English speakers use an unglided vowel as in tah. The word tape,
pronounced in English as ta-eep is pronounced without the ee glide, as
tehp. In addition, many Cajun English speakers use the tense version of
English vowels, making words like hill and heel “homophones,” or words
which have the same pronunciation – heel.
Intonation and stress are so striking in Cajun English that entire joke
repertoires have been based on them. The French spoken by the older
AVC37 240 21/7/05, 10:54 AM

Cajuns was passed on to their descendants, who found it necessary to
speak English for socioeconomic reasons, and the syllable-final/phrase-
final stress of French persists to this day in the speech of Cajuns. Bilingual
stress patterns often exhibit a form of mutual borrowing, and even though
many Cajuns do not speak French at the present time, or speak it very
poorly, the patterns of French are still imprinted on the dialect. As has
been found in French Canada, English-like stress patterns are invading the
French of the Cajuns, while the syllable-final stress pattern of the French
has seeped into the English of the former Canadians. This leads to
words such as Marksville, normally pronounced with the stress on the
first syllable, being pronounced with stress on the second syllable (with a
shortened and raised final vowel sound).
Voiceless and voiced th replacements occur frequently in the speech
of non-standard speakers, and the Cajuns are no exception. In fact, the
replacement of the th sounds with a t or a d sound is another source of
the numerous jokes and imitations of Cajun speech made by others
(and sometimes by Cajuns themselves, as in the “Cajun Night Before
Christmas” recording made by Jules D’Hemecourt). Although many
southern English and African American English speakers use f or v in
place of the th phonemes, both Creole and Cajun English speakers use
the voiceless and voiced alveolar stops t and d. Many bilingual French-
Canadians exhibit this same linguistic behavior with regard to the th
phonemes, while standard French speakers tend to use s or z in place of a
th sound.
Standard English speakers normally aspirate (exhale a breath of air)
when pronouncing the stop consonants p, t, and k in stressed, syllable-
initial position. Cajun English speakers do not, yielding words like pat
sounding much like the word bat, with a shortened vowel sound. The
source of this is probably the French language. French speakers do
not aspirate the voiceless stops. The mystery is why the Cajun English
speakers in Louisiana, many of whom do not speak French, and who are
more than 300 years removed from contact with French speakers, still
retain this feature in their speech.
Lexical differences are perhaps the most apparent to the casual observer:
boudin, lagniappe, making groceries, and get down out of (a vehicle) are all
unacceptable to modern-day spell- or grammar-checkers, yet are quite
normal in southern Louisiana (meaning ‘a rice and sausage mixture
wrapped in an intestinal sack’, ‘a little something extra’, ‘going grocery
shopping’, and ‘get out of’, respectively). Some (like boudin and lagniappe)
are borrowings from French; others are calques, or direct translations,
AVC37 241 21/7/05, 10:54 AM

from French (e.g. making groceries, from the French faire les courses and
get down out of the car/truck/bus from French descendre). In addition,
various areas of southern Louisiana have vocabulary items and pronun-
ciations which are specific to the community, such as zink for sink in the
New Orleans area. The French influence is also apparent in the use of
definite and indefinite articles. One has a coffee during a visit (and, given
the strength of the coffee, one is grateful not to have “some”!). French
endearments (cher, a short form of chéri(e), pronounced sha), curse words,
and conjunctions are often sprinkled into conversations (“mais I don’t
know, me”).
Current state of the language
Despite being subjected to abuse and stigmatization for many years, Cajun
English speakers abound. Why would this be? Why would a dialect which
was considered a mark of ignorance until very recently be heard on the
lips of Cajuns young and old? The explanation most applicable to Cajun
English is that the language is seen as a marker of being an insider to the
community. This is seen most clearly when the French language ability of
Cajuns is assessed: that language is dying, and is now only used among
the older folks in the community. However, Cajun English use has been
documented among even the youngest Cajun descendants, a fact that is
easy to verify simply by going to any café in any small town in south
Louisiana. To be a Cajun these days, the necessary and sufficient condition
seems to be that you must speak Cajun English.
In many communities, a culture survives long after the language
associated with it dies. In the case of the Cajuns, the differences from
the surrounding Anglophone community are quite marked, making it
easier to resist the encroachment of English culture. The retention of
the unique music, food, and religion of the Cajuns has been aided by
a history of endogamous marriages, geographical isolation, and stigmat-
ization by the Anglophone community. Despite the fact that these things
have changed tremendously in the past 40 years, Cajun people young and
old still retain a distinctive flavor in their speech. So, the culture may
survive. As long as Cajun English is used as a dividing line between the
Anglophones and the long-exiled French Canadians, Cajun English will
continue to flourish.
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Some Cajun Phrases
alors pas of course not
cahbin bathroom
co faire? why?
dit mon la verite! tell me the truth!
en colaire angry
fais do-do go to sleep
he’s got the gumbo his pants are too big in the seat
hot, hot very hot
magazin store
make a bill buy groceries
Mo chagren I’m sorry
my eye! (or my foot!) no way!
slow the TV turn down the volume
speed up the TV turn up the volume
sussette pacifier
une piastre a dollar
Resources
A useful resource on Cajun English is Dubois and Horvath, “From accent to

marker in Cajun English: A study of dialect formation in progress,” English World-
Wide 19(2), 161–88 (1998). Dubois and Melançon discuss Cajun French in “Cajun
is dead – long live Cajun: Shifting from a linguistic to a cultural community,”
Journal of Sociolinguistics 1(1) (1997). Father Jules O. Daigle published A Diction-
ary of the Cajun Language in 1984.
Action Cadienne was formed in April, 1996. It is a non-profit volunteer asso-
ciation dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the French language
and the Cadien (Cajun) culture of Louisiana. Its website is at www.actioncadienne.
org/. Other websites of interest are: Council for the Development of French in
Louisiana (CODOFIL), www.codofil.org/ and Kreyol Lwiziyen: The Language of
French Louisiana, www.angelfire.com/ky/LeCorde/cajun.html.
AVC37 243 21/7/05, 10:54 AM

38
From the Brickhouse
to the Swamp (Lumbee
Vernacular English)
Walt Wolfram
38 Lumbee girls. © by Neal Hutcheson.
Native American languages are in a cultural crisis. Many once-vibrant

languages are now used by only a handful of elderly speakers, and as those
last speakers die, their languages die with them. Despite efforts by some
community members and linguists to maintain and revitalize these indi-
genous languages, they often simply disappear with the passing years. As a
result, only a few of the Native American languages that were spoken in
AVC38 244 21/7/05, 10:54 AM

the 1800s are still spoken today, and the remaining ones are disappearing
at an alarming rate.
What happens to the speech of Native American groups when their
heritage language base erodes? Do they simply adopt the speech of the
surrounding non-native community and blend into the English main-
stream, or do they develop a distinct vernacular? In many cases, Native
Americans have adopted the English dialect of the surrounding com-
munity. But there are also some instances where Native Americans have
carved out a unique dialect niche – a kind of “American Indian English.”
No group is more representative of this latter category than the Lumbee
Indians of North Carolina.
Who are the Lumbee?
The Lumbee are the largest Native American group east of the Mississippi
and the seventh largest Native American group in the United States, with
over 50,000 members listed on the tribal rolls. Although Lumbees can be
found throughout the nation, they are concentrated in Robeson County,
North Carolina, and are relatively unknown outside of southeastern North
Carolina. In Robeson County they make up 40% of the population, and
some communities in Robeson County are over 95% Lumbee. In contrast,
European Americans comprise about 35% and African Americans approx-
imately 25% of the Robeson County population, making the county a
stable tri-ethnic area.
One of the curious aspects of the Lumbee is how little is known about
their exact historical origins. There is ample archaeological evidence that
Native Americans have inhabited the Robeson County region for thousands
of years. In colonial times, the Carolinas were inhabited by speakers of
several different major families of Native American languages, including
Siouan, Iroquoian, and Algonquian languages. The Lumbee were among
the first Native American Indians to learn English during the early English
settlement of the Carolina coastal plain and were reported to be speaking
English as early as the first half of the 1700s. With the growth of European
settlements in the region, some tribes may have relocated or blended
together, making it even more difficult to identify a specific ancestral dialect
lineage for the Lumbee. Although some Lumbees believe their history can
be traced to the famous Lost Colony on Roanoke Island, most scholars
think that they are an amalgam of several different Native American groups.
Walt Wolfram 245
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The Lumbee were officially recognized as a tribe by a congressional act
in 1956. Unfortunately, while the act recognized the Lumbee as an Indian
tribe, it explicitly denied them entitlements usually afforded to recognized
tribes, such as federal funding or reservation land. In fact, the Lumbees’
ambiguous status as a tribe may be the ironic and unfortunate result of
their early adoption of English, and their uncertain historical origin.
They are one of the few Native American groups to be assigned such an
ambiguous status. The Lumbees’ century-long quest for full recognition is
certainly one of the unheralded stories of the Native American struggle to
maintain cultural identity and integrity.
Lumbee English
Since the loss of their heritage language generations ago, the Lumbee have
perpetuated their identity through the development of a distinctive dialect
of English. Even the congressional act of 1956 acknowledged their distinct
dialect by noting that Lumbees could be identified by a “distinctive
appearance and manner of speech.” Residents of the area also recognize
the existence of Lumbee English, which differs from the speech of the
neighboring African American and European American communities
in Robeson County. Given tape-recorded samples of African American,
European American, and Lumbee residents, listeners from Robeson County
correctly identified Lumbees over 80 percent of the time – a higher rate
than their correct identification of European Americans in the county.
Although patterns of social and cultural segregation, population density,
and historical continuity have contributed to the development of Lumbee
English, there is an important sense in which the dialect is a constructed
identity, by which they have defined themselves as neither white nor black
– a cultural “other” in the ideology of the bi-racial Southeastern US. Like
other dialects, Lumbee English has distinct lexicon, pronunciation, and
grammar. Although it possesses a few unique words and phrases, Lumbee
English is defined more by the combination of words and structures that
set it apart from Southern white and black varieties of English than by the
existence of exclusive Lumbee lexicon. A few distinctive terms, such as
ellick ‘coffee with sugar’, juvember ‘slingshot’, and yerker ‘mischievous child’,
are mostly restricted to the Lumbee, but words like fatback ‘fat meat of a
hog’, mommuck ‘mess up’, and headiness ‘very bad’ are shared with other
dialects in the Southern coastal plains. As is often the case in enclave
AVC38 246 21/7/05, 10:54 AM

communities, a number of social designations are also embodied in some
of the vocabulary items. Thus, the term daddy is used for close friends as
well as a parent, and teenagers may greet one another with What’s up,
Daddy? The term Lum, a clipped form of Lumbee, is reserved for
those who have identified with their Lumbee cultural heritage. Social
distinctions within the community are captured by terms like brickhouse
Indian and swamp Indian, which refer to higher and lower status in the
community.
Pronunciation features of Lumbee English combine patterns from
Mid-Atlantic coastal speech and from Appalachian English. For example,
older Lumbee Indians in isolated communities pronounce side and time
something like soid and toim, more like the traditional pronunciation
of these vowels on the Outer Banks of North Carolina than the wide-
spread current Southern pronunciation of sahd and tahm. Tobacco
and potato may be pronounced as ’baccer and ’tater, combining the loss
of an unstressed syllable and intrusive r in the final syllable in a way
that parallels both the coastal dialect and Appalachian English. When
combined with pronunciations such as tar for tire and far for fire, the
dialect seems to resemble Appalachian speech to listeners from other
regions.
Several prominent grammatical features characterize Lumbee English.
One of the dialect icons of Lumbee English is the use of bes in sentences
such as That’s how it bes or The dogs bes doing that. Although the finite use
of be is often associated with African American Vernacular English, its use
in Lumbee English differs from its African American counterpart in two
important ways. First, it is inflected with -s, whereas be in African Amer-
ican English does not take the inflectional -s. Second, finite be is more
expansive in its meaning; it is not restricted to habitual activities as it
usually is in African American Vernacular English. In Lumbee English,
speakers can say both She usually bes playing, as well as She bes playing
right now. Another prominent feature of Lumbee English is the use of
weren’t as the past tense form of be in sentences such as It weren’t me or
I weren’t down there, a feature shared with coastal dialects in the Mid-
Atlantic South. Also, the use of forms of be where the perfect use of have
is found in other dialects, as in I’m been there already for I’ve been there
already or He be took the food for He has taken the food characterizes the
dialect. Although all of these structures are found in other vernacular
dialects of English, the particular combination of traits sets Lumbee
English apart, both from surrounding vernacular dialects and other dialects
of English.
Walt Wolfram 247
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The Development of Lumbee English
No single source can account for the development of Lumbee English.

There may be some residual effects from the ancestral language, but if so,
they are very subtle and not readily apparent. This is hardly surprising
given the tribes’ early acquisition of English, and the fact that all traces of
a heritage language can be lost within a couple of generations. Instead,
Lumbee English has been molded primarily from the available models of
English used by the Europeans settled in the area. For example, structures
like I weren’t there and the pronunciation of fire as far were apparently
adopted originally from the regional dialects in the vicinity. In the 1700s
and 1800s, Lumbee English was connected with the coastal dialects of
North Carolina, and this historical connection is still reflected in some
dialect features. At the same time, there is obvious influence from the
Scots-Irish who spread eastward from the Appalachian region, as well as
from the Highland Scots who settled in the region during the eighteenth
century. Some of the features incorporated into the dialect are retentions
of earlier forms that were once widespread in the English language, such
as the use of forms of be for have in sentences like I’m been there or the use
of the prefix a- in She’s a-fishin’. The final ingredient added to the dialect
mix includes innovations that took place within the Lumbee community
itself, such as the development of some of the specialized meanings of
lexical items. The resulting dialect is a distinctive mix blended from the
various dialects in the region and some internal, community-based dialect
development.
The Future of Lumbee English
Although many historically isolated dialect communities are now dimin-

ishing because of outside influences, this is not as evident in Lumbee
English as it is in some other dialects. The set of identifying structures has
shifted over time, but the dialect is still vibrant. In fact, the use of some
dialect structures is actually increasing rather than receding. The use of be
for have and the use of weren’t as in I weren’t there are still quite robust in
the speech of some young people, even in the face of school-imposed
standard English norms. As one Lumbee educator put it, “Since the 1880s,
when they started the Indian schools, they have been trying to teach us
standard English and they haven’t succeeded yet.”
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The non-mainstream status of Lumbee Vernacular English has sub-
jected the Lumbee to a type of double jeopardy. The community lost its
ancestral language heritage originally to accommodate the sociopolitical
and economic exigencies of European encroachment. Regrettably, their
early adoption of English was subsequently used against them, as they
were denied full recognition as an Indian tribe. There is little doubt that
the Lumbee would be fully recognized by the US government today if they
had maintained their heritage language. But they have not lost their lin-
guistic identity. Instead, they creatively molded the English language to
mark their ethnic distinctiveness. Their dialect supports their unflagging
confidence that they are simply and utterly Indian. Unfortunately, many
ill-informed individuals considered the dialect to have no linguistic integ-
rity and dismissed it as an unworthy approximation of standard varieties
of English. While Lumbee Vernacular English is undeniably different from
standard English, it is much more than just another non-standard dialect
of English. It remains one of the most transparent and authentic markers
of cultural and ethnic identity for the Lumbee, even as they embrace other
dimensions of the Native American cultural renaissance.
Despite persistent institutional efforts to repress and obliterate any
linguistic traces of cultural distinctiveness in their language and dialect,
the Lumbee have creatively maintained a distinct manner of speech as a
symbolic indicator of their identity. As local artist Hayes Allan Locklear
put it: “That [the dialect]’s how we recognize who we are, not only by
looking at someone. We know just who we are by our language. You
recognize someone is from Spain because they speak Spanish, or from
France because they speak French, and that’s how we recognize Lumbees.
If we’re anywhere in the country and hear ourselves speak, we know
exactly who we are.”
Lumbee Vocabulary Quiz

Word List
bate brickhouse buddyrow chicken bog ellick
headiness jubious juvember Lum on the swamp
mommuck sorry in the world swanny toten yerker
1. He acts like a real ________.

2. She ate a ________ of greens.
Walt Wolfram 249
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3. You’re my ________ for doing me the favor.
4. Come on down and we’ll have some ________.
5. How are things ________?
6. I felt right ________ after I saw the haint.
7. Don’t ________ the room.
8. She was ________ when her horse died.
9. They tell stories about how she heard a ________.
10. Fetch me some ________; I need to wake up.
11. They made a ________ from some branches they found.
12. I know you made this mess, you little ________.
13. She made the ________ mess in her room.
14. I ________ that I’ll punish you if you don’t behave!
15. He thinks that he is a ________ Indian.
Answers
1. Lum (Lumbee) 2. bate (lot) 3. buddyrow (friend) 4. chicken bog (chicken and
rice) 5. on the swamp (neighborhood) 6. jubious (strange) 7. mommuck (mess up)
8. sorry in the world (sad) 9. toten (ghost) 10. ellick (coffee) 11. juvember (slingshot)
12. yerker (mischievous child) 13. headiness (very bad) 14. swanny (swear) 15. brick-
house (upper status).
Resources
A more technical description of Lumbee English can be found in Walt Wolfram

and Clare Dannenberg, “Dialect identity in a tri-ethnic context: The case of Lumbee
American Indian English, English World-Wide 20: 79–116 (1999), and in the
various publications by the staff of the North Carolina Language and Life Project.
These are listed at www.ncsu.edu/linguistics, along with audio samples of repre-
sentative speakers. For additional information on Lumbee history and culture,
visit web sites at www.lumbee.com and www.uncp.edu/nativemuseum. More
information on Native American varieties of English in general can be found in
William A. Leap’s book American Indian English (University of Utah Press, 1993).
The video documentary on Lumbee English, Indian by Birth: The Lumbee Dialect
(2000), can be ordered at www.uncp.edu/nativemuseum.
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39
More than Just Yada Yada Yada
(Jewish English)
Cynthia Bernstein
39 Young Orthodox Jews. © by Eddie Gerald/Alamy.
Yinglish, Yidgin English, Yidlish, Yiddiglish, Ameridish, Anglish, Heblish,

Engdish, Engliddish, Engbrew, Englibrew, Jewish English, Jewish Dialect,
Frumspeak, Yeshivish, Hebonics: all of these terms have been used to
name a variety of English spoken by Jews in the United States. Of
course, not all Jews speak alike, and many use the same variety of English
as their non-Jewish counterparts; but those who identify closely with
religious and cultural aspects of Jewish life often represent their affiliation
in speech.
Cynthia Bernstein 251
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Among the most observant Jews, almost all aspects of life are associated
with group membership. Since driving on the Sabbath is forbidden, they
live within walking distance of their place of worship, creating a strong
sense of community among group members. A physical boundary, called
an eruv, delineates an area outside of which objects are not carried on
the Sabbath and high holidays. Orthodox Jews meet at shared schools,
synagogues, kosher restaurants, and kosher grocery stores. They talk, study,
read, pray, and sing together; and all these linguistic performances
serve to reinforce shared dialect features. Specialized vocabulary names
religious objects, holidays, rituals, household items, clothing, food, and
other objects and activities associated with the culture. Shared ancestral
languages, particularly Hebrew and Yiddish, also contribute to the dialect
we typically refer to in America today as Jewish English.
History
Two main varieties of Jewish English emerged in America, originating

from two regionally distinct European groups: Sephardim and Ashkenazim.
Sephardic Jews immigrated to America from Spain and Portugal, begin-
ning in the 1600s, and from the Ottoman Empire during the late 1800s
and early 1900s. In addition to the languages of their native countries,
Sephardic immigrants brought with them a language known as Dzhudezmo
(or Judezmo) and its literary counterpart, Ladino. Although the linguistic
heritage of these groups is represented in the pronunciation of modern
Hebrew, Sephardic speech has had less influence on English in the United
States, where many assimilated among non-Jews as well as among the
more populous Ashkenazim.
Ashkenazic Jews began arriving in large numbers during the early 1800s
from Western Europe: Germany, Holland, Alsace, Bohemia, Switzerland,
and western Hungary. Later in the 1800s, there were increasing numbers
from Eastern Europe: Russia, Austria-Hungary, Romania, and Poland.
Both groups of Ashkenazim spoke Yiddish, in addition to the separate
national languages of their countries. Although Yiddish relates linguistic-
ally most closely to German, among Western Ashkenazim the language
was disappearing in favor of the speakers’ national languages prior to their
arrival in America. It was primarily the Eastern Ashkenazic group that
maintained Yiddish in America.
252 More than Just Yada Yada Yada
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Yiddish appeared in newspapers, plays, songs, and prose fiction. It was
used for scholarly writings in education, history, and folklore. Although
Hebrew was considered a more learned language, Yiddish translations of
scripture and prayer were available. Among second and third generations
in the United States, however, use of Yiddish began to decline. English,
intermingled with Yiddish and Hebrew features, became more common,
especially among Jews attending public schools. For many descendants
of Eastern Ashkenazim, Jewish English thus emerged as the primary
language. Like other dialects defined geographically, socially, or ethnically,
features of vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, and discourse set Jewish
English apart from other varieties of English.
Vocabulary
The Jewish English lexicon ranges from items in the mainstream of Amer-
ican English to ones that are highly specialized. Large numbers of words
have spread from Jewish English into more general American usage:
kosher ‘ritually clean, legitimate’, glitch ‘slip-up’, bagel ‘doughnut-shaped
roll’, maven ‘expert’, schlock ‘junk’, mensch ‘decent person’, klutz ‘clumsy
person’, schmooze ‘chat, gossip’, chutzpah ‘impudence, guts’, tchotchke
‘knick-knack’, schmuck ‘jerk, prick’, kvetch ‘whine’, nebbish ‘nonentity,
nerd’, kibitz ‘to observe, as in a card game, and give unwanted advice’.
Hebrew names for popular holidays and celebrations, such as Chanukah
and bar mitzvah are used among Jews and non-Jews alike. Blends with
English words are readily formed, as in Chanukah card or matzo ball soup.
Some terms have both Hebrew and Yiddish variants that are used
interchangeably. The skullcap worn by Orthodox and Conservative Jews,
for example, may be referred to as either a kippah (Hebrew) or a yarmulka
(Yiddish). Some variants, however, convey subtle differences in Jewish
identity: in referring to their place of worship, for example, Reform Jews
typically refer to temple, Conservative Jews to synagogue, and Orthodox and
Chasidic Jews to shul. Holidays may be named either in English (Passover)
or in Hebrew (Pesach), depending on speaker and speaking situation. This
distinction is exploited by Alfred Uhry, in The Last Night of Ballyhoo, in a
conversation between Joe, an observant New York Jew, who uses the word
Pesach, and Lala, a Southern Jew whose family is trying desperately to
assimilate, who understands only when he translates for her, Passover.
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Names for many holidays as well as everyday activities are unfamiliar
outside the religious Jewish community: religious holidays, e.g., Tisha B’Av
‘Ninth of Av’, a fast day; marriage, e.g., shadchen ‘matchmaker’; death,
e.g., ovel ‘mourner’; study, e.g., limud ‘learning’; prayer, e.g., tallis ‘prayer
shawl’; and kinship, e.g., zeide ‘grandfather’. Expressions include wishful
terms, e.g., halevai ‘would that it were so’, greetings, e.g., boruch habo
‘welcome’, curses, e.g., yemach shemo ‘may his name be blotted out’, and
interjections, e.g., nu ‘well, so’.
Pronunciation
Pronunciation of Jewish English is most closely associated with New York

City. Early studies found the following features of pronunciation to be
most closely associated with Jewish English: raising of pitch and emphatic
exploding of t and d; slight lisping of s and z; strong hissing of s; substitu-
tion of th or sh for s; pronunciation of a hard g sound in ing words, so that
the ing of singer sounds like that of finger or Long Island sounds like Long
Guy Land; and occasional substitution of k for g as in sink for sing. Some
features were common to both Jews and non-Jews of New York: loss of
distinction between wh and w, so that which and witch sound the same;
intrusive r, as in idear for idea; and several substitutions in vowel sounds.
Current research supports the maintenance of Jewish English pronun-
ciation. According to Tom McArthur, editor of The Oxford Companion to
the English Language, some New York City descendants of the Eastern
Ashkenazic immigrant population still pronounce circle, nervous, and first
as soikel, noivis, and foist. McArthur notes hard g in -ing words, over-
aspiration of t, variations in s and z sounds, and certain Yiddish-derived
vowel substitutions. Other pronunciation features derived from Yiddish
include loudness, exaggerated intonation, and a fast rate of speech.
Grammar
When Yiddish or Hebrew words become part of Jewish English, they

may be integrated through the use of English suffixes. Yiddish verbs, for
example, typically lose the -(e)n Yiddish infinitive and take on English
inflections: Yiddish bentshn has become bentsh ‘to recite the Grace after
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Meals’; dav(e)nen, dav(e)n ‘to pray’; kvetshn, kvetsh ‘to complain’; shlepn,
shlep ‘to drag, carry’. These are conjugated, then, as English verbs: bentshes,
bentshed, bentshing; shleps, shlepped, shlepping. English suffixes are also
used to change the part of speech of Yiddish and Hebrew words integrated
into Jewish English. The verb shlep may be converted into the adjectives
shleppy or shleppish, the adverbs shleppily or shleppishly, or the noun
shleppiness. Yiddish nouns, like English, take an -s plural; others use -im
or -lekh. In Jewish English, Yiddish kneidel ‘dumpling’ may be pluralized
either as kneidels or as kneidlekh; shtetl ‘small town’ may be shtetls or
shtetlekh. In Hebrew, masculine nouns typically pluralize -im and feminine,
-os(t). The plural of the word tallis (Hebrew and Yiddish for ‘prayer shawl’)
may be rendered in Jewish English as tallises or as talleisim. The plural of
kippah (Hebrew for ‘skullcap’) may be either kippahs or kippot.
Sometimes Yiddish suffixes are added to English or Hebrew words. For
example, the noun-forming Yiddish (from Slavic) -nik (ardent practitioner,
believer, lover, cultist or devotee) has given American English beatnik,
peacenik, and no-goodnik. The diminutive suffixes -chik and -el(e) are com-
mon and may even be combined: boychik, boyele, and boychikel (plural
boychiklekh) are all fond names for a little boy.
Word-formation processes of Jewish English can be effective in creating
a variety of phrases. One example is the use of Yiddish-sounding s(c)hm-
rhymed with an English word to suggest playful dismissiveness, captured by
the title of Fran Drescher’s book, Cancer Schmancer, which describes her
triumphant attitude toward her battle with cancer. Bridge champion Marty
Bergen offers the book Points Schmoints, which conveys his dismissive
attitude toward the point-count system of bidding popularized by Charles
Goren. The process has become popular in general American English, as
noted in the USA Today headline, “Deficit schmeficit: Not a Bush priority.”
Jewish English verb phrases often combine Hebrew or Yiddish nouns
with English verbs. English say and make are particularly productive. One
says kaddish ‘recites mourners’ prayer’ or yizkor ‘memorial prayer’ and makes
kiddush ‘recites prayer over wine’ or (ha)motzi ‘[the] prayer over bread’.
Some Jewish English expressions, including ones that have found their
way into mainstream English, are direct translations of Yiddish sayings:
[I need it like] a hole in the head (loch in kop); Get lost! (ver favalgert, ver
farblondhet); [You should live] until a hundred and twenty (biz hundert un
tsvantsik).
A syntactic feature called “Yiddish Movement,” used to convey sarcasm,
calls for moving an adjective, adverb, or noun that would ordinarily
appear at the end of a sentence to the beginning and stressing it, as in
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Smart, he isn’t. In Philip Roth’s Goodbye Columbus, Aunt Gladys criticizes
her adult nephew for not having adequately clean underwear. “By hand
you can’t get it clean,” she argues. When he tells her not to be concerned,
she exclaims derisively, “Shmutz [dirt] he lives in and I shouldn’t worry!”
Discourse
Discourse features associated with Jewish English fall into three general
categories. First, Jewish speech is characterized as being loud and fast.
Popular linguistic writer Deborah Tannen describes New York Jewish
conversational style as overlapping, loud, high-pitched, fast-paced, and
accompanied by exaggerated gesture. Another conversational analyst
describes Jewish speech style as involving sociable disagreement, non-
alignment, and competition for turns. Third, and above all, Jewish
discourse is associated with sometimes self-effacing humor. Lawrence J.
Epstein, author of The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Comedians in
America (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books Group, 2001), attributes this to
the experience of Jews as immigrants; comedy is a way to counter poverty
and discrimination. Ironically, Jewish comedians often adopt personas
consistent with anti-Semitic stereotypes: Jack Benny, the cheapskate;
Ed Wynn and Rodney Dangerfield, the fool; Woody Allen, the neurotic.
Jewish humor, according to Epstein, is characterized by wit and wordplay,
a style attributable to the importance of language in Jewish culture. A
center for the display of Jewish comedy from the late 1930s through the
early 1960s evolved as the “Borscht Belt,” a string of Catskill Mountain
resorts given their moniker from the beet soup enjoyed by many Russian
Jewish immigrants. Among the names Epstein associates with that enter-
tainment circuit are Milton Berle, Fanny Brice, Mel Brooks, George Burns,
Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Red Buttons, Danny Kaye, Judy Holliday, Jackie
Mason, Alan King, Henny Youngman, Buddy Hackett, Joan Rivers, Jerry
Lewis, Woody Allen, Sid Caesar, and Joey Bishop.
Jewish English in American Culture
Evidence of Jewish ethnic identity is still present in American culture

today. Jewish comedians frequent the airwaves, their styles ranging from
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the loud and confrontational Howard Stern to the quiet and mild Jerry
Seinfeld. Stereotypes of Jewish women, such as the Yiddishe Mama and
the Jewish American Princess, are reflected in the comic antics of televi-
sion characters Roseanne in Roseanne and Fran Drescher in The Nanny.
Some of these stereotypes are the subject of David Zurawik’s The Jews of
Prime Time (Brandeis University Press, 2003), which takes issue with the
misrepresentation of Jews in the media. Public awareness of Jewish tra-
dition has been enhanced by adaptations of stories originally written in
Yiddish: Sholom Aleichem’s character Tevye the Dairyman gained fame
as the title character in the musical Fiddler on the Roof ; Isaac Bashevis
Singer’s story “Yentl the Yeshiva Boy” was popularized by Barbra
Streisand’s film version, Yentl. A revival of klezmer bands, begun in the
1970s, has given Jewish secular music a place among popular varieties of
styles. All of these have increased public awareness of Jewish language
and how it is used to represent Jewish identity. Through print media,
theater, film, music, and the Internet, people of all ethnic backgrounds
share in Jewish English words, sounds, sentences, and styles that have
become part of American language.
Resources
Leo Rosten’s books are popular for extensive explanation and examples: The Joys
of Yiddish (McGraw-Hill, 1967), revised by Lawrence Bush and published as
The New Joys of Yiddish (Random House, 2001); Hooray for Yiddish: A Book
about English (Simon and Schuster, 1982); The Joys of Yinglish (Penguin Books,
1990). A wonderful collection of Yiddish words, proverbs, insults, and blessings
is Payson R. Stevens, Charles M. Levine, and Sol Steinmetz, Meshuggenary:
Celebrating the World of Yiddish (Simon and Schuster, 2002). A collection rich
with examples from songs, comic strips, novels, and book reviews is Gene Bluestein,
Anglish/Yinglish: Yiddish in American Life and Literature (2nd edition, University
of Nebraska Press, 1998). Chaim M. Weiser, Frumspeak: The First Dictionary of
Yeshivish (Jason Aronson, 1995) specializes in religious vocabulary. In addition,
valuable online glossaries may be found at www.koshernosh. com/dictiona.htm
(includes voiced pronunciations); www.jewfaq.org/glossary.htm; www.ou.org/
about/judaism.
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40
Fading Future for Ferhoodled
English (Pennsylvania German)
Marion Lois Huffines
40 An Amish buggy in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. © by Diane Diederich.
If you ask the waitress for cherry pie and she says, “It’s all,” if the local
butcher shop is advertising Ponhous, and if the supermarket puts out a
sign declaring “Fastnacht donuts at $1.69 a dozen,” then you can be sure
you are in Pennsylvania Dutch country.
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The Pennsylvania Dutch are, of course, not Dutch. They are descend-
ants of German and Swiss immigrants who called themselves Deitsch, a
dialect word for “German.” Americans who heard Deitsch thought they
heard the word “Dutch,” and the label stuck. The language they speak is a
German dialect and is closely related to dialects of southern Germany
along the Rhine. So while they are popularly known as Pennsylvania Dutch,
they are really Pennsylvania Germans.
The Pennsylvania Germans fall into two major groups: the Plain and
the Fancy or, in more technical but equally inexact terms, the “Sectarians”
and the “Nonsectarians.” The Plain groups include the numerous sects of
Amish and Mennonites who settled in southeastern Pennsylvania in the
early 1700s seeking religious freedom. The Fancy Pennsylvania Germans
include mainstream Lutherans and members of the Reformed Church
who also settled in Pennsylvania before the Revolutionary War. Although
estimates vary, the Germans outnumbered every other national or ethnic
group in colonial Pennsylvania during their peak years of immigration
(1749–54), with the possible exception of the English.
Pennsylvania German is still spoken natively by Old Order Amish and a
majority of Old Order Mennonites. Members of these Plain separatist
groups speak Pennsylvania German in their homes and communities. They
learn English, which they use when conversing with outsiders, in school,
usually in one-room schoolhouses maintained by their own community.
Although members of the Old Orders continue to use Pennsylvania
German, there are indications that they may not do so in the future. The
increasing number of preschoolers who speak some English indicates that
it is being used to some extent in the home. English also serves the Plain
communities for reading and writing so that friends and family members
who normally speak Pennsylvania German must write each other in
English. Less conservative Amish and Mennonites use more English
in their daily lives than do the Old Orders, and this parallels their greater
acceptance of modern society in their lifestyle.
The nonplain Pennsylvania Germans are often called the “church
people” because they worship in church buildings instead of private homes,
or the “gay” or “fancy” Dutch because they wear colorful clothing. Among
these nonplain people, the shift to English is pervasive. The number of
native speakers is decreasing. Though some can understand it, the vast
majority of young Pennsylvania Germans do not speak the language at
all. In nonplain communities Pennsylvania German is used to speak
with certain elderly members of the family and neighborhood and in an
attempt to keep secrets from children and grandchildren. There are young
Marion Lois Huffines 259
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speakers, but they typically learn Pennsylvania German as a second language
and do not speak it very well.
Why did parents stop speaking Pennsylvania German to their children?
Most indicate that they chose to raise their children to speak English
specifically because English is the language of the school system. Many
people did not speak Pennsylvania German to their children because they
believed it would “ruin their English.” As a consequence, the younger
generation exhibits little mastery of Pennsylvania German. Older people
tell stories of being mercilessly teased about their so-called “Dutchy accent”
by their peers and even by school officials. One man related that a teacher
literally washed out his mouth with lye soap because he spoke Pennsyl-
vania German at school, a story also heard about others. Because of this
abuse, many people not only stopped speaking their language, but also
suppressed their accents in order to hide their origins.
The “Dutch accent” expresses itself in a number of ways: in the words that
are chosen, in the sounds that make up the words, in how those words are
put together to make sentences, and in the melody of those sentences.
Pronunciation
Elderly people who learned Pennsylvania German as their first language

have a number of sounds in their English that generally do not occur in
the speech of younger generations. For example, a j may sound like ch,
and the words jars, juice are pronounced chars, chuice; the th of with and
thing may be pronounced wiss and sing; the v sound in visit and available
may sound like w as in wisit and awailable; the vowels of butter, nothing,
and until sound like bawter, nawthing, and ontil; and the vowel sound of
house, mountain, and down are pronounced haase, maantain, and daan.
In some respects these elder Pennsylvania Germans sound like recent
German immigrants, but their families have been in the US for over
200 years. These characteristic sounds are slowly dying out but can still
be heard in the “Dutchy” areas of Pennsylvania.
Word Usages
Pennsylvania Germans often use Pennsylvania German words in English.

For some speakers this usage is a slip of the tongue, as in this example:
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“You see him out with the sens [scythe] knocking down grass.” Other
speakers deliberately select a word to invoke humor or to impress the
listener with their knowledge of Pennsylvania German, as these examples
show:
“I can, but I get verhuddelt every now and then.”

“I used to try to talk to Daddy in that, but he always felt it was so verdreht.”
“Now I wish I wouldn’t have been so schtarrkeppich.”
Many Pennsylvania German words have made their way into the Eng-
lish language of the area. These words include: smearcase ‘cottage cheese’,
spritz ‘sprinkle’, toot ‘paper bag’, speck ‘fat, bacon’, snitz ‘slice or cut’ (usu-
ally apples), ponhous ‘scrapple’, rutsch ‘squirm, move’, all ‘all gone’, sneaky
‘finicky about food’, and dare ‘to be permitted’ as in I dared go sledding on
that hill. Other Pennsylvania German words in English are less familiar to
younger people: Fastnacht ‘donut eaten on Shrove Tuesday’, dappich
‘clumsy’, strubblich ‘disheveled, unkempt’, fress ‘eat like an animal’, and
schusslich ‘in a hurry, scatterbrain’. These words are not “borrowings” in
the sense that they are perceived as foreign; they are part of the English
language spoken by the Pennsylvania Germans, and many have been inte-
grated into the English language of central Pennsylvania.
Sentence Structures
Probably the most far-reaching Pennsylvania German influence in the

English of the region is how sentences are constructed. These features are
well established as part of the English of central Pennsylvania and are also
recognized as part of the so-called “Dutchy accent” of the area. These
structures include:
• Use of the adverb already placed after the verb in the simple past
form:
I helped butcher already.
I remember she did do that though already.
I heard different remedies already.
Other English speakers would have said, I’ve already heard different
remedies.
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• Use of the adverb once with commands, usually at the end of the
sentence:
Explain it to her once.
Show it to her once.
Not wait once.
• Use of the present tense for activities begun in the past and continuing
in the present:
She quilted several already now since she’s here.
I live there for quite a few years.
We’re five years here.
Other English speakers would have said, “We’ve been here for five
years.”
• Sentences that include the verbs to be and to have with a preposition
that appears without any expressed object:
That had a little bit of meat on.
There’s seeds in.
I didn’t know you had anything in.
The preposition “floats” at the end of the sentence. Other English
speakers would have said, I didn’t know you had anything in it.
• Intonation or sentence melody patterns characteristic of the English of
the Pennsylvania Germans that contrast with those of other varieties
of English and are very noticeable to people new to the area. These
special melodies include yes/no questions with a falling tone of voice at
the end instead of a rising questioning tone. In the question Did you
get it? the voice falls from its high pitch on get to a low pitch on it. In
the question Are you coming over? the high pitch is on the first syllable
of over and falls to a lower pitch on the second syllable. This question
melody seems to be spreading beyond the Pennsylvania German
community into the English spoken in surrounding areas
Commercial Exploitation
In the Pennsylvania Dutch areas, tourism has sprung up all around the
sectarians. This commercialism spills over onto bric-a-brac at gift shops
and into so-called “folk festivals” in Nonsectarian areas. These fairs offer
Dutch foods and crafts, many of which exist or have been developed only
for the tourist. The colorful hex signs, for instance, have been ascribed
magical origins, but they appear on barns “just for nice,” with no purpose
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other than that it suits the owners’ fancy, and the plain Pennsylvania
Germans will not have them at all.
The commercialism also promotes its own variety of so-called
“Dutchified English.” A booklet entitled Ferhoodled English: A Collection of
Quaintly Amusing Expressions Heard among the Pennsylvania Dutch Folks
has been reprinted numerous times. The unnamed authors cite “quaintly
amusing expressions” such as Amos, come from the woodpile in, mom’s on
the table and Pop’s et himself done already, or Aunt Emmy’s wonderful sick.
She don’t feel so pretty good and they’ve got her laid down yet. Much of what
the booklet insists is typical of this English variety has not been confirmed
by fieldwork. Commercial products also display this mythical “Dutchified”
English on diner and restaurant placemats, napkins, coasters, kitchen
towels, trivets, light-switch plates, and cutting boards. This is commercial
stereotyping with a vengeance.
The Future of “Dutchified” English
The Nonsectarian Pennsylvania Germans are currently extending their

contact and interaction with the dominant culture beyond the point where
it is possible for them to maintain Pennsylvania German as a language.
The process of the loss of Pennsylvania German seems deceptively slow
because of the dispersion of language enclaves throughout southeastern
and central Pennsylvania. However, the shift to English for any individual
community is swift, once it begins. Some areas continue to exist in
isolation because of their geographical location and agrarian base, but as
children attend consolidated high schools and parents work in larger
towns and cities, and as the family farms are sold to large agri-businesses,
Pennsylvania German will be heard less and less, and its influence on
English will wane in the years to come. This may be inevitable, but with
its recession will fade one of the rich and longstanding dialect traditions of
the United States.
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Notes on Contributors
Bridget Anderson is an Assistant Professor of English and Linguistics at

the University of Georgia, who does research on Appalachian English
in the Smoky Mountains and in transplant communities in Detroit,
Michigan. She is from the Smoky Mountains.
Guy Bailey is Provost and Vice-President for Academic Affairs at the

University of Texas at San Antonio; he is also a native of Texas who
has done extensive surveys of Texas speech over the past couple of
decades.
Maciej Baranowski is a Ph.D. student in linguistics at the University of

Pennsylvania who conducts research on the changing nature of Charleston
speech.
John Baugh is the Margaret Bush Wilson Professor in Arts and Sciences
and Chair of African and Afro-American Studies at Washington Univer-
sity in St. Louis. He is the author of several books on African American
English, including Beyond Ebonics: Linguistic Pride and Racial Prejudice
(Oxford, 2000) and Out of the Mouths of Slaves (University of Texas,
1999). He has been involved in national debates about linguistic profiling
that have been aired on National Public Radio and a number of national
television programs.
Cynthia Bernstein is Professor of Linguistics and Coordinator of Applied

Linguistics at the University of Memphis. She teaches and researches
connections between culture and the features of language used to express
it.
264 Notes on Contributors
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Renée Blake, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of
Linguistics and the Africana Studies Program, New York University who
conducts research on Caribbean English and on language and education.
Charles Boberg is an Associate Professor at McGill University, Montreal,

who has done extensive research and co-authored (with William Labov)
The Atlas of North American English.
David Bowie is an Associate Professor of Linguistics and English

Language at the University of Central Florida, where he works on the
historical development of varieties of English.
Richard Cameron is an Associate Professor in the Department of English

and the Department of Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese at the
University of Illinois at Chicago.
J. K. Chambers, University of Toronto. Jack Chambers is Professor

Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Toronto and a leading
researcher on Canadian English and sociolinguistic theory.
Becky Childs, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics,

Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Canada. She has
researched the speech of small communities in the Smoky Mountains and
in coastal North Carolina as well as black and white speech in Abaco in
the Bahamas.
Sandra Clarke is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics, Memorial

University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Canada, who has been research-
ing the varieties of Newfoundland English for several decades.
Jeff Conn is a visiting Assistant Professor at Portland State University,

where he is studying the emergence of the Portland dialect.
Connie Eble is a Professor of English at the University of North Carolina,

Chapel Hill. She is originally from the New Orleans area of Louisiana and
an authority on slang.
Penelope Eckert is a Professor of Linguistics at Stanford University where

she works on language change among teenagers. She is well known for her
AVD01 265 21/7/05, 10:53 AM

studies of language and gender, and is the co-author of Language and
Gender (Cambridge University Press 2003). She is also the author of
Language as Social Practice (Blackwell 2000).
Jim Fitzpatrick, a graduate student in sociolinguistics at North Carolina

State University, grew up in the friendly environs of Boston where he took
the native dialect and culture of the area for granted.
Beverly Olson Flanigan is Associate Professor of Linguistics at Ohio

University in Athens, where she teaches courses in sociolinguistics and
dialectology along with her research on Ohioan speech.
Ellen Fluharty, West Virginia Dialect Project, West Virginia University,

lives in Morgantown, West Virginia. She studied at West Virginia University
with Kirk Hazen.
Carmen Fought is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at Pitzer College

in Claremont, California and author of Chicano English in Context
(Palgrave/Macmillan 2003). She is well known for her studies of language
and ethnicity.
Timothy C. Frazer, Professor, Department of English and Journalism,

Western Illinois University, has done research on the speech of residents
of small towns in the Midwest who move to larger cities.
Valerie Fridland is an Associate Professor at the University of Nevada

at Reno and a native of Memphis who conducts research on Southern
vowels in general and the vowels of Memphis in particular.
Matthew J. Gordon is an Associate Professor of Linguistics in the Depart-

ment of English at the University of Missouri–Columbia. He has written
extensively on the vowel patterns of the Midwest.
Lauren Hall-Lew is a Ph.D. student in linguistics at Stanford who has

been studying the differences between urban and rural dialects of Arizona.
Kirk Hazen is the founder of the West Virginia Dialect Project at West
Virginia University and Associate Professor of Linguistics in the English
Department at West Virginia University. He has conducted research on
Appalachian English in West Virginia and on rural speech communities in
North Carolina.
AVD01 266 21/7/05, 10:53 AM

Marion Lois Huffines is Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs
and Professor of German and Linguistics at Bucknell University in
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. She has conducted extensive research on Penn-
sylvania German.
Neal Hutcheson is a videographer with the North Carolina Language

and Life Project at North Carolina State University; he recently produced
the documentary Mountain Talk, as well as a number of other dialect
documentaries that have aired on public television. His products are
available at www.talkingnc.com.
Barbara Johnstone is a sociolinguist who teaches at Carnegie Mellon

University. In addition to her recent research on Pittsburghese, she has
done extensive research on discourse as well as the role of the individual
in the speech community.
Scott Kiesling is a sociolinguist who teaches at the University of

Pittsburgh. He has conducted research on the use of language by members
of fraternity groups.
Christine Mallinson, a Ph.D. student in sociology and anthropology at

North Carolina State University, is currently conducting sociolinguistic
research in Texana and Murphy, North Carolina.
Megan E. Melançon is a Cajun and a linguist. Her interests and

research have centered on Cajun and Creole French and English in
southern Louisiana. She is currently Assistant Professor of English in the
Department of English, Speech, and Journalism at Georgia College and
State University.
Norma Mendoza-Denton is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at

the University of Arizona who works on speech style and language and
identity.
Miriam Meyerhoff is a Lecturer at the Department of Theoretical and

Applied Linguistics, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
Wendy Morkel completed her master’s degree in English with a focus on

English language and linguistics at Brigham Young University under the
guidance of David Bowie.
AVD01 267 21/7/05, 10:53 AM

Thomas E. Murray was Professor of English at Kansas State University,
Manhattan, KS, and has conducted research on the speech of St. Louis,
Missouri.
Naomi Nagy is Associate Professor of Sociolinguistics in the Linguistics

Program and English Department at the University of New Hampshire.
Among her linguistic interests are issues of identity related to New
England speech.
Michael Newman is Associate Professor of Linguistics at Queens College,

City University of New York, and a member of the CUNY Research
Institute for the Study of Language in Urban Society. He currently
conducts research on Puerto Rican English in New York City.
Jeffrey Reaser is an Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University

who does research on Bahamian English along with his research on lan-
guage and education.
Julie Roberts is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communica-

tion Sciences, University of Vermont. She conducts research on dialects
and child language as well as the regional and ethnic dialects of New
England.
Claudio Salvucci is an author from Holland, Pennsylvania. His books

include A Grammar of the Philadelphia Dialect, The Philadelphia Dialect
Dictionary, and A Dictionary of Pennsylvanianisms.
Natalie Schilling-Estes is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at

Georgetown University. She is the co-author (with Walt Wolfram) of
American English: Dialects and Variation (2nd edition, Blackwell, 2005)
and Hoi Toide on the Outer Banks: The Story of the Ocracoke Brogue
(University of North Carolina Press, 1997). She is also co-editor (with
J. K. Chambers and Peter Trudgill) of The Handbook of Language Variation
and Change (Blackwell, 2002).
Daniel Schreier is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University

of Regensburg, Germany, who has written several books on the speech
of Tristan da Cunha. He is currently conducting research on the speech of
St. Helena Island.
AVD01 268 21/7/05, 10:53 AM

Beth Simon is an Associate Professor in the Department of English and
Linguistics, Indiana University–Purdue University. She has conducted
extensive on the speech of the Upper Peninsula in Michigan.
Jane S. Smith is an Associate Professor of French at the University of

Maine. While focusing her research on the French dialects of Maine,
she could not ignore the varieties of English that are an integral part of the
rich language heritage of Mainers.
Jan Tillery is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Texas

at San Antonio who has focused her research on the dialects of Texas.
Benjamin Torbert is an Assistant Professor of English at Mississippi State

University who conducted research on AAE in Hyde County and black
and white Bahamian English. He also researches perceptual cues in ethnic
identification.
Tracey L. Weldon is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics in the English

Department at the University of South Carolina and who has conducted
research on the Gullah language.
Walt Wolfram is the William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of

English Linguistics at North Carolina State University, Director of the North
Carolina Language and Life Project, and the general editor of the dialect
series for Language Magazine. He is co-author (with Natalie Schilling-
Estes) of Hoi Toide on the Outer Banks: The Story of the Ocracoke Brogue
and of American English: Dialects and Variation, and executive producer
of a number of video documentaries for public television.
AVD01 269 21/7/05, 10:53 AM

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American Voices

AVA01 1 21/7/05, 10:48 AM

Edited by Walt Wolfram

AVA01 3 21/7/05, 10:48 AM

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

First published 2006 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Set in 10.5/13pt Minion

For further information on

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1 Language Evolution or Dying Traditions?

Part I The South

2 Sounds of the South 11

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Part II The North

Part III The Midwest

16 An Introduction to Midwest English 101

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22 Getting Real in the Golden State (California) 139

26 Topics from the Tropics (Hawai’i) 165

Part VI Sociocultural Dialects

34 Bridging the Great Divide (African American English) 217

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Notes on Contributors 264

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1 Dialect areas of the United States, based on telephone

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Ben Ward, Editor

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The North Inland

Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes 1

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Basic Dialects of American English

The methodical collection of data on regional dialect variation in America

2 Language Evolution or Dying Traditions?

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Changing Trends in Dialects

The continuity and enhancement of basic dialect boundaries during a

One factor that has always contributed to the distinctive flavor of

Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes 3

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Dialect boundaries often follow the migratory routes of the major

4 Language Evolution or Dying Traditions?

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Expanding Transportation and Communication Networks

The broadening of transportation and communication networks through-

Shifting Cultural Centers

Throughout its history, the US has undergone a number of major popula-

Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes 5

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American Dialects in the New Millennium

Even as some traditional American dialects recede, new ones appear,

6 Language Evolution or Dying Traditions?

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Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes 7

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Guy Bailey and Jan Tillery 9

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Southern American English (SAE) is the most widely recognized regional