The US Island That Speaks Elizabethan English

BBC ^ | Brian Carlton

[nickcarraway]

Native Americans, English sailors and pirates all came together on Ocracoke Island in North Carolina to create the only American dialect that is not identified as American.

I'd never been called a "dingbatter" until I went to Ocracoke, North Carolina for the first time. I've spent a good part of my life in the state, but I'm still learning how to speak the Hoi Toider brogue. The people here just have their own way of speaking: it's like someone took Elizabethan English, sprinkled in some Irish tones and 1700s Scottish accents, then mixed it all up with pirate slang. But the Hoi Toider dialect is more than a dialect. It's also a culture, one that's slowly fading away. With each generation, fewer people play meehonkey, cook the traditional foods or know what it is to be "mommucked".

In an effort to put his "America first" stamp on the nation's speech, US President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order making English the country's official language. It marks the first time in the US's nearly 250-year history that the nation has had an official language. Yet, on this small 9.6-square-mile island surrounded by the swirling waters of the Atlantic, residents still speak what is arguably the most English version of English in the country – and many Americans don't understand it.

As the island's official website proudly proclaims: "With origins dating back to the 1600s, Ocracoke brogue is about as American as it gets."

Located 20 miles from the North Carolina mainland, Ocracoke Island is fairly isolated. You can't drive there as there are no bridges, and most people can’t fly either as there are no commercial flights. If you want to go there, it has to be by boat.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

I’ll remember that now on the mornings when I have to get up early.

[Jamestown1630]

Salutation to the Dawn

Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life

In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendor of beauty

For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow only a vision,
But today well lived makes every yesterday
a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day!
Such is the salutation of the dawn.

- Kalidasa, Hindu philosopher/poet

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Nice! What is a good source for reading more such as this?

[AdmSmith]

Thanks, it’s an informative video.

[Jamestown1630]

https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/poetry-indian-religious-poetry

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Thanks!