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.”
That’s so Yankees think you’re dumb while you stealing their shoes and shorts.
I have a Lithuanian friend fluent in Russian.
He told me Muscovites have a ‘whining’ accent.
I’ve lost much of my Texas accent. But when I speak to my family it comes back without my realizing it. Same goes for my wife and her Philly accent. When we first met I had to act as an interpreter when they spoke to one another.
Its extremely well documented in the history of English.
And its very common sense. Emotions aside, the region was flooded with non English speaking Africans, who had to learn commands from the whites.
A close interaction blended words and accents. The north didn’t experience this so much until much later.
A large number of West African words came into Standard American through the medium of Black English: bug (bugu = annoy), dig (degu/ understand), tote bag (tota = carry in Kikonga), hip (Wolof hepicat one who has his eyes wide open), voodoo (obosum, guardian spirit) mumbo jumbo (from name of a West African god), jazz (? Bantu from Arabic jazib one who allures), banjo (mbanza), chigger (jigger/ bloodsucking mite), goober (nguba /Bantu), okra (nkruman/ Bantu), yam (njami/ Senegal), banana (Wolof). Also, the phrases: sweet talking, every which way; to bad-mouth, high-five are from Black English—seem to be either American innovations or loan translations from West African languages.
The speech of African Americans gradually became more like the speech of their southern white neighbors—a process called decreolization. And the speech of the whites became slightly more like that of the blacks.
I think they mostly can’t help it. I left home when I was 18 to go to school on the west coast. By Christmas I was shocked to hear my Dad had picked up a mid-western accent. Of course he didn’t. I was the one who had changed. My ears were hearing something different for 3 or 4 months and all of a sudden it stood out.
I was also teased endlessly for how I pronounced my vowels. Apparently I drew them out. I listened to the laughter but I could not hear what they heard. The joke went past me.
A friend traveled west to see me. I drove her home. As we were driving one night she said “Look, a woof...” I said, “A what?” She said “A woof..” LOL. I laughed pretty hard at that one.
The west coast has their own bad speech habits. They are more to do with what used to be called “valley girl” sorts of cultural talk than they are accent. I bet a professional would say they too have an accent that is all their own.
“probably”
One sharp cookie...better not mess with you...I know my betters!
there is a Dictionary of American Slang which gives information about slang words and terms and how they vary by region.
For example, a large sandwich may be called a hoagie or a hero, or a submarine, depending on the section of the country.
Somehow I got on a list to provide information to the editors on slang from Texas and gave them a few examples they used. It was a neat experience.
A Brazilian acquaintance of mine told me that the differences between Brazilian and Lusitanian Portuguese are greater than those between British and American English, and that he could barely understand people from Portugal.
Forgot yins..(you plural) Pittsburgh
All regional accents in my observation are becoming less noticeable among the young. I do not think it has to do with college, but more a result of mass communications in today’s world. Accents are acquired from ones peers more than ones parents. When I grew up, my peers were located pretty much in my regional area, the NYC area. I have a noticeable Irish NYC accent. My kids peers with the internet and all is a much wider area than what I experienced, thus they do not have a strong NYC area accent, even though they live in the same area I grew up in. Accents are acquired in ones adolescent stage, and will lessen if you move out of the area you grew up in. However, when you reach senior citizen status, the accent of your youth will creep back in. For example, my grandfather was born in raised in the north of England. By the time he was middle aged, you would have thought he was born in Ohio. In his seventies, the old accent came back to an extent, and really came back when he was angry.
Yinz got any wooder?
Freepers are often as usual..,, stupid
People anywhere have accents based on where they come from compounded by who comes later
The white south is very homogenous and reflects a strong Scots Irish English dialect of the 1600s thru early 1800s
The black south adopted that slower spoken English as well as their own and added their pronunciation characteristics
And there are tons of sub sets all over the south as well as class affectations
But south haters here rejoice
White trash will talk and be black here soon enough
And whites further up the food chain are losing their accents quick or being overrun by job hungry or culture hungry yankees
So rejoice
The south will die and Texas will go blue and all will be right with the new brown monotone world
LOL! Talk about ass-backwards anachronistic thinking.
It was “ebonics” that was heavily influenced by Southern dialects, not the other way around.
Southern dialects come from Scot-Irish brogues (mostly from mountain-dwellers) colliding with more traditional lower English speech patterns and French.
“Do you troll everything dumbass?”
Well good morning whack job! Sorry if simple history frightens you. Perhaps you can explain the southern accent then? Im eagerly waiting for you to tell me it came from William Wallace himself, and was adopted in the south during the American revolution as a way to insult the English. Lol,,
And you would be wrong. Actually, a true Southern accent is closer to English Aristocracy than anything else. A linguistics expert explained it on one of those tv shows on the subject. I am not referring to Appalachian speak, nor the guttural speech of the lazy, but a proper Southern Accent is closer to proper English than any other American dialect.
Oh, and there was no "huge" influx of slaves, ever. It has been well documented that many Southerners rarely if ever saw a slave prior to the war. And they certainly did not interact with them such that their speech was impacted by them.
I don’t have an accent, ya’ll do!!
Blurb about Brother Dave Gardner:
“Anticipating the bottled-water market by almost 30 years, he remarked that, at Hot Springs, Arkansas, he had seen “some o’ them ignorant, stupid Southerners sellin’ water to them brilliant Yankees.”
We don’t havean accent down South.
Y’all do...
We don’t have an accent down South.
Y’all do...
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.