On Talking
Diversity is more subtle than you think. As a word it gets allot of lip service and little true appreciation. Division and diversity start out the same. Where ever you go and who ever you see and talk to are different and there ain't nothing wrong with that. It's a good thing, it makes us unique.
What provokes that statement is the language I grew up with. The way people speak around here...And sadly the word spoke could be used...Is a part of the broader southern accent. Yet, it's distinct. I say this for entertainment purposes only...Or do I? No. Leave the way I talk alone. As long as you understand someone, what is the problem?
I really grew up with two forms of the Southern accent. One, Southern Appalachian and the other the way people talk in the Piedmont of South Carolina. I think that is a reason I use "you'll" a little more than "Yuns". I remember using "yuns" as a kid in SC and getting puzzled looks from other kids. They thought it was funny. If I had said it in Northern Pickens, Upper Oconee or Northern Greenville Counties, it may not have been so odd as it did in Anderson County further into the Piedmont. Those other places are in the Mountains, the foot of the Blue Ridge, SC's back door. The same as anything beyond Burke County is to NC.*
The Cherokee were not exempt from this. The Lower Towns, in what is now Pickens and Oconee County SC and Stevens County GA used a rolling "R". While across the Blue Ridge they used an L in it's place. Hence Cherokee from Tsarigi, Tsaligi in the Middle, Valley and Overhill Dialects. From what I know, none of the Lower dialect exists other than in documentation.
As it turns now, someone on the head of Savana River uses their Rs while someone further down it in SC tends to drop theirs.
Some people try to make the language here sound romantic. It's likened to Shakespeare's English, and, maybe some. They claim Appalachian English is more in line with Old English. Yet, most of the people here in Southern Appalachia descend from the Scots of Ulster. Make the connection. Sometimes you don't know how you got what you have, other than you have it. And, once you have it, it's yours.
While searching information on a man that lived in Swain County, "Uncle" Mark Cathey**, I came across the web site, Southern Appalachian English. It has recordings of Men and Women that lived around the Smokeys***. One being Mark Cathey, which you would think immigrated from Ireland. He was born and bred in Swain County. No one I've ever known from over there talks with such an accent.
One word I'd never heard used out of these Mountains is the word "Haint". Haint is a ghost term. The way I had heard it used always made me think of it as a hostile ghost. "Got chased out by a haint". One book I have, Dish Pan Pie and Snow Bird Gravy, documents a man named Hicks from Watauga County that said a ghost is heard, but a haint is seen.
Now the people of North Alabama speak some of the same way as they do here. But further down, not so much. I watched a video made in Tuscaloosa the other day and it caught me when I heard the word haint used. The Urban Dictionary puts it as a Southern Term. I'd not heard it used anywhere but here, and never heard it used to describe a contrary woman.
Here is the video, a Rock Band goes to an abandoned Mental Institution and plays (some good!)Gospel Music. During this time they get caught for Trespassing but the cops are lenient. When the tape is edited it's found it caught a few things. You will hear different accents from the same general area in this video.
Ladies, Fellars, Heathens and Saints, The Dexateens and "Old Bryce"...
Wheew...That was fun!
Back to Southern Appalachia...So, we talk the way we talk and you talk the way you talk. Dialects and (most) accents are beautiful. There is no need in coercing someone into speaking a bland form of English. Now that I made you wonder why you say the things you say, don't worry about it. I'm not going to be ashamed of the way I talk. And, if you take issue with it, you don't know nothing.
* The Mountains run north east, but I use Burke as a central point.
** I recently read a book that talked about Mark Cathey and I was curious of what Rifle he used, which I determined was a Winchester Model 1910.
***Flat Land Tourist like to refer to any of these Mountains as the "Smokeys", while we of the Western counties of North Carolina refer to the Smokeys as the actual range.
In a word consumed by "isms", there is Appalachiaism...
The Appalachianist
PS: It took me days to put this together. Like writing a book.
What provokes that statement is the language I grew up with. The way people speak around here...And sadly the word spoke could be used...Is a part of the broader southern accent. Yet, it's distinct. I say this for entertainment purposes only...Or do I? No. Leave the way I talk alone. As long as you understand someone, what is the problem?
I really grew up with two forms of the Southern accent. One, Southern Appalachian and the other the way people talk in the Piedmont of South Carolina. I think that is a reason I use "you'll" a little more than "Yuns". I remember using "yuns" as a kid in SC and getting puzzled looks from other kids. They thought it was funny. If I had said it in Northern Pickens, Upper Oconee or Northern Greenville Counties, it may not have been so odd as it did in Anderson County further into the Piedmont. Those other places are in the Mountains, the foot of the Blue Ridge, SC's back door. The same as anything beyond Burke County is to NC.*
The Cherokee were not exempt from this. The Lower Towns, in what is now Pickens and Oconee County SC and Stevens County GA used a rolling "R". While across the Blue Ridge they used an L in it's place. Hence Cherokee from Tsarigi, Tsaligi in the Middle, Valley and Overhill Dialects. From what I know, none of the Lower dialect exists other than in documentation.
As it turns now, someone on the head of Savana River uses their Rs while someone further down it in SC tends to drop theirs.
Some people try to make the language here sound romantic. It's likened to Shakespeare's English, and, maybe some. They claim Appalachian English is more in line with Old English. Yet, most of the people here in Southern Appalachia descend from the Scots of Ulster. Make the connection. Sometimes you don't know how you got what you have, other than you have it. And, once you have it, it's yours.
While searching information on a man that lived in Swain County, "Uncle" Mark Cathey**, I came across the web site, Southern Appalachian English. It has recordings of Men and Women that lived around the Smokeys***. One being Mark Cathey, which you would think immigrated from Ireland. He was born and bred in Swain County. No one I've ever known from over there talks with such an accent.
One word I'd never heard used out of these Mountains is the word "Haint". Haint is a ghost term. The way I had heard it used always made me think of it as a hostile ghost. "Got chased out by a haint". One book I have, Dish Pan Pie and Snow Bird Gravy, documents a man named Hicks from Watauga County that said a ghost is heard, but a haint is seen.
Now the people of North Alabama speak some of the same way as they do here. But further down, not so much. I watched a video made in Tuscaloosa the other day and it caught me when I heard the word haint used. The Urban Dictionary puts it as a Southern Term. I'd not heard it used anywhere but here, and never heard it used to describe a contrary woman.
Here is the video, a Rock Band goes to an abandoned Mental Institution and plays (some good!)Gospel Music. During this time they get caught for Trespassing but the cops are lenient. When the tape is edited it's found it caught a few things. You will hear different accents from the same general area in this video.
Ladies, Fellars, Heathens and Saints, The Dexateens and "Old Bryce"...
Wheew...That was fun!
Back to Southern Appalachia...So, we talk the way we talk and you talk the way you talk. Dialects and (most) accents are beautiful. There is no need in coercing someone into speaking a bland form of English. Now that I made you wonder why you say the things you say, don't worry about it. I'm not going to be ashamed of the way I talk. And, if you take issue with it, you don't know nothing.
* The Mountains run north east, but I use Burke as a central point.
** I recently read a book that talked about Mark Cathey and I was curious of what Rifle he used, which I determined was a Winchester Model 1910.
***Flat Land Tourist like to refer to any of these Mountains as the "Smokeys", while we of the Western counties of North Carolina refer to the Smokeys as the actual range.
In a word consumed by "isms", there is Appalachiaism...
The Appalachianist
PS: It took me days to put this together. Like writing a book.
posted by Hill Billy Rave | Tuesday, March 16, 2010
6 Comments:
Really enjoyed this post, as I do all your stuff. As a native Midwesterner who spent last year in the Spring Creek community in Madison County, I can attest to the unique language of the Southern Appalachians. I thought I was pretty well studied up on the culture and somewhat on the dialect before I came down, but then I got there and had to listen carefully to keep up in conversation with my neighbor, whose family has lived in the area for hundreds of years. And he said that back in his youth, goin over the mountain just a few miles into TN he'd encounter dialects different even from his own (I think Kephart talks about this too in one of his books). It's a shame that language is becoming so homogenized nowadays, because different ways of speaking actually provide for different ways of seeing and living in the world.
But we've still got some linguistic uniqueness around. Aside from the Southern mountains, the upper Midwest has their own thing goin on. Way up in the Northeast as well. Nova Scotia was a surprise for me: you might look at the land, hear the music, and converse with the locals and think you were maybe in Scotland (and unlike any other place in Canada for sure). And the Southwest US: there's been lots of interesting cultural and linguistic melding goin on there for a long time now.
Anyway, I'm missing the mountains down there this spring. It's probably my favorite place to be. Thanks for bringing me back for a minute.
Those of us who grew up "down east" have a different twist to our accent, so much so that when I moved to Hickory, everyone knew I was from the coast!
Joe, good to see you and thanks for coming by. Something tells me in your profile pic your on Max Patch. I've never been there, personally. I'll go one day.
When I was little it was a joke that the people from Rosman talked different y than the ones from Brevard. At least in pronouncing things. The funnier part was, the two sides were cousins. But, yes, it can be a little different from one side of a county to another and counties can be a little varied. I can spot someone from Cherokee real quick.
Sage, I can tell if someone is from down east. I watched something on UNCTV once and there are some folks down around the Outer Banks that talk just as if they are from Scotland!
Yep, it's Max Patch. Absolutely beautiful there.
I remember an old country/rockabilly song about a man who moves into a house and a ghost tries to scare him off by drinking grease out of the hot frying pan and coffee straight out of the pot, among other things. In the chorus he states that "ain't no haint gonna run me out."
I had not heard that word in years.
That's a tough haint to drink that. I was just heading over to your place....
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