Southern Mountain Dialect
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8730353 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lester V Berrey (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1940 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 45-45 |
| Publication date | 1940-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Speech (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-1283 • E-ISSN: 1527-2133 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/452728 |
| OpenAlex | W2322424126 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 8 |
T HE Southern Appalachian and Ozark mountains cover an area approximately the size of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania combined, and have a population of almost seven million. A vocabulary study' affords the following general description of the speech ways in this large area. ELEMENTS. The dialect of the Southern Highlands is to be distinguished from the illiterate usages of the lower mountains and of other isolated districts. It is largely a survival of earlier English rather than a degradation of language. Though these regions were settled late, the student of English literature is struck by the survival here of characteristics, now archaic, that marked the literary language in other periods. Most noticeable is the presence of 'Elizabethan' strong preterites such as holp(ed), swum, clum, wropped, fotch, drug-to mention only a few. Their pronoun hit for it recalls the Anglo-Saxon neuter of he. 'Chaucerian' syllabic plurals survive in nestes, beastes, postes, ghostes and jiste-es (joists). A great many 'Elizabethan' pronunciations are retained, as in natur, Scriptur, yander, ag'in, yit and sence. Swarve as the pronunciation of swerve, maught of might, and for of fur recall Spenser and Sidney. As with Alexander Pope and his contemporaries, jine is the pronunciation of join, bile of boil, spile of spoil, and pizen of poison. Like characters of the Canterbury Tales and Piers Plowman they speak of a heap of things. Their use of sight is shared by Gower; allow for suppose by Hakluyt; admire for to be astonished by Milton; and contrary as a verb meaning to antagonize by Chaucer. In common with Shakespeare they call a bag a poke, a sermon a preachment; salad is pronounced sallet, least is used in the sense of smallest or youngest, resty has the significance of indolent, mind is used for intend, and a couple contemplating matrimony are said to be talkin'. When the highlander calls a wallet or bag a budget, he is merely employing the original and literal meaning of the word. His quaint argufy was once respectable; while his invariable adjective descriptive of his state of health, middlin' for moderately well, was formerly in general good use.2 Commentators have made much of the Scotch-Irish heritage. The Blue Ridge of West Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia have a
Geography · Linguistics · Lexicography and Language Studies · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · History · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,21 |
| Citation span | 2007 - 2018 (12) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |