Posted on 09/18/2015 9:57:02 AM PDT by chasio649
The other day, my son asked why there are such a variety of accents in the country. Why does a fellow from Mississippi have a twang that’s different from a fellow in Texas?
Long ago, I asked my father a similar question. He pointed out that it isn’t just in America – a wide range of dialects and accents are common for French, Arabic, whatever.
In recent days, some interesting pieces have appeared online. One in Slate has a list of the top slang terms from every state. Here’s what was included for the Mid-South:
Arkansas: “tump” -- to tip over or dump out. Louisiana: “banquette” – sidewalk. Mississippi: “nabs” -- peanut butter crackers. Tennessee: “whirlygust” -- a strong wind. The words from Arkansas and Mississippi are familiar. Not so those from Louisiana and Tennessee.
Humans are so inventive, language doesn’t have to be spoken words. Slate has posted a video shot in a mountainous region of Turkey where residents whistle long range conversations when their shouts won’t carry. Some 10,000 people still use this method of communication.
And if you want to get into some truly odd language characteristics, head down to northwest Brazil. There, the Piraha people speak a language unrelated to any other. Christian missionaries have spent agonizing decades trying to learn the intricacies of the Piraha’s tongue and culture.
A 2007 profile in the New Yorker says Piraha is “based on just eight consonants and three vowels, (and is) one of the simplest sound systems known. Yet it possesses such a complex array of tones, stresses, and syllable lengths that its speakers can dispense with their vowels and consonants altogether and sing, hum, or whistle conversations.”
Further, the Piraha, “have no numbers, no fixed color terms, no perfect tense, no deep memory, no tradition of art or drawing, and no words for ‘all,’ ‘each,’ ‘every,’ ‘most,’ or ‘few.’”
Why has this group been able to resist modernity? Largely because they “consider all forms of human discourse other than their own to be laughably inferior, and they are unique among Amazonian peoples in remaining monolingual.”
It is because they eat their grits, in an improper fashion.
Yuns got any sugar to spare? Don’t know much about N.W. Indiana but did live in Dearborn Mich. for a while and will never forget going into stores and either being laughed at or looked down on for my accent. I would have to repeat myself 2 or 3 times before the clerk could figure out what I was saying. They would have to repeat themselves to me also cause they talked so damned fast.
I worked in sales for 30 years and lost most of my accent until somebody from the mountains came in. It was like flipping a switch and I would start speaking hillbilly. I grew up across the highway from a ninety year old man and some of the words were Old English (probably Elizabethan).
that he used.
I hate that our speech has been corrupted by tv, it was one of things that made us special. Ever heard the word ‘jackkniving’, whatyacallsit, dofauit, my Dad used them cause it helped him cut down on his cussing. Wish I knew what jackkniving meant, but it is too late to ask.
Went to school with a girl from Va. and she had most beautiful Southern accent and she was a real looker. She is dead now, course you know the good die young.
The Irish influence seems more likely to be found in the older Bluegrass of the 20’s and 30’s. In some churches you can still catch some of it.
You eat beignets on the banquette. And if you’re lucky the shopkeeper will give you some lagniappe with your purchase.
Post of the day. Thanks for the chuckle.
My grandma and her eight or nine brothers and sisters moved north during the depression, along with hundreds of others fleeing the coal mines looking for a new life in the steel mills and auto works of Chicagoland. The old joke was that my hometown, about forty miles south of the lake on the Kankakee River, was as far as they could get on their way to Chicago on a single tank of gas.
The jobs are pretty much gone, but the people have stayed. They’re working on the fourth generation of migrants up there, and most who stayed still carry that unique patois. Yuns is a true marker separating NWI hillbillies (an affectionate term I assure you) from other Hoosiers with southern accents, but there are others - “son” used as an interjection, “I don’t reckon”, “awfulest” as a term of endearment, and so on. When I hear a phrase like “Son! I don’t reckon yuns are coming home this weekend”, it really puts a smile on my face.
Thanks for sharing.
You should listen to crooked still there bluegrass band out of Boston granted it’s northeast but they have killer tunes.
I’ll check it out.
Largely because they “consider all forms of human discourse other than their own to be laughably inferior,
...
Just like cats.
Visited a girlfriends Grandma, Grandpa, and various cousins in Magoffin County. Only time I was there. Nice people and nice country. Their last name was Sumners. Any kin?
I was always struck by how much the accent from parts of New York are similar to accents in parts of New Orleans.
The so-called Yat accent has it's origins in the Irish Channel, an old working class neighborhood of the city.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.