English as an Official Language - Page 3 - Historum

**Richard Stanbery** · March 4th, 2011, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patito de Hule

The Scotch-Irish dialect of Appalachia in English, and I've kind of wondered from the outset whether the poem might just be some garbled Appalachian dialect. We have our stereotypes about Appalachian English, but one thing about it is that you can go five miles and find a new variant from what you've been hearing. At least this was true in the 40's.

Some of my grandmother's poems were alleged to be Welsh or Scottish, but they were always garbled, even though she had an excellent memory for that kind of stuff. Her family had come from Ireland to Canada in the 1840's. My Appalachian relatives all lived in Arkansas--mostly Washington County--by the time I knew them. They too had variable dialects living up there in the Ozark back country.

Interestingly, these small isolated pockets of Appalachian speakers can be found as far west as Oklahoma. When I lived in Eastern Oklahoma, there was such a pocket living in a community 20 miles from me, and I even found a distant cousin of my grandfather there.

Yes, the number of isolated dialects of Appalachian was mind-numbing indeed. I probably use words of it that few outside my kin would use, or know. And the folks on the other side of Roans Creek, why they hardly talk English at all. They sound like them folks from Shady Valley!

BTW, do the Cherokee in Oklahoma use a dialect of Appalachian when they speak English? Or at least, did they used to, in years past?

I guess this is all relevant to the OP about whether to make English the official language. The first thing that would have to be done was to come up with a standardized English that would be actually spoken outside of a classroom. And one thing I can guess about American English is that what one hears on the streets and rural areas may be 1000 variants of English. But the one thing it will not be is the standardized language that is taught in schools.

Nobody uses that outside the classrooms.

In many cases, the Appalachian speaking students just cannot understand everything that the teachers are saying, so different are some of the vocabulary words. Were it not for the advent of television on the 1950s, Appalachian would still be the dominant language of our region.

Even still, it was a nightly event in our families to gather around the TV set and watch national shows. Without fail, once or twice in every hour the family would all turn to my grandfather (the patriarch) and ask..."What does that word mean"?

And he would only shrug. Nobody else knew either.

And so it went. It got so that my poor grandfather kept a set of hand-me-down encyclopedias and 3 or 4 dictionaries on the table beside his TV watchin' chair so he could field the answers. They stayed there until the day that he died. And it was those encylopedias that was my door to the world. Through them, I learned about history and developed a love for it. And I still have that ancient set of encyclopedias. They are my most cherished possessions.

**Patito de Hule** · March 4th, 2011, 07:46 PM

Here's what scrunched up nose means to me:

**Richard Stanbery** · March 4th, 2011, 07:49 PM

That boy looks like he's a'studyin' on pure old meenice! I think he's a'fixin to cut a dido!

**Nemowork** · March 4th, 2011, 07:59 PM

Meeniss and scrunched arent Scots or Irish theyre familiar northern English.

Meeniss or menace is like the character Dennis the Menace (not the US one, just a similarity in names) as in 'that lads a menace'

Scrunched is just what you say, you scrunch up paper, the hairband that girls used to gather their hair in was a scrunchy although i think that one came to us from the US.

**Richard Stanbery** · March 4th, 2011, 08:07 PM

I always wondered about them words. Thanks, Nemowork.

Hey, how about this melancholy, almost dark music that permeates Appalachian culture...is that a Northern English thing too?

Here is an example of our music, as sung in original Appalachian dialect...

YouTube - Dr Ralph Stanley : O Death 2008

Where are the roots for this dark music?

**Nemowork** · March 4th, 2011, 08:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard Stanbery

But it is a reverent thing to go into the "High Appalachian" and speak with the thick accent of old British. But in a time when the High Appalachian is spoken ( only for 1 or 2 sentences at a time, as a rule) then the vocabulary changes too. The word "Bride" would be used instead of the more common word "wife", for example. The word "wrought" may be used instead of the word "made" or "Make". Or, even the word "Rived", or even "Reeved", depending upon mood and intensity. And if an older grandfather was conveying a very important message to a grandson about the young mans wife, the grandfather may also use a series of nasal conjectives, or low grunts to add emphasis to the message.

What context is rived used in? Over here we have rithe, it usually means to twist or to break as in (angry) 'I'll rithe your head off'

Or if you mean 'reaved' it usually means a well armed man turning up and stealing your livestock in the dead of night.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard Stanbery

"Hugh (grunt)

No, you can keep Hugh, everything after 4 weddings wasnt funny.

**Nemowork** · March 4th, 2011, 08:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard Stanbery

I always wondered about them words. Thanks, Nemowork.

Hey, how about this melancholy, almost dark music that permeates Appalachian culture...is that a Northern English thing too?

Here is an example of our music, as sung in original Appalachian dialect...

Where are the roots for this dark music?

I don't know specifically but if you look at the Northumbrian/Scottish border their 'Border ballads' have a history of being very grim and melancholy, especially the Cumbrians but they're an odd lot in that part of the country.

Its all unaccompanied singers recalling battles, spirits and vengeance, but then various clans of Armstrongs, Maxwells, Nixons and Nevilles were running vendettas over both sides of the border so complex you'd need a dance card and a slide rule to figure out who was on who's side.

Which is odd because if you give them a pair of clogs and some fiddles or smallpipes they'll dance and whoop up a storm

Quote:

"They were cruel,coarse savages, slaying each other like the beasts
of the forest; and yet they were also poets who could express in
the grand style the inexorable fate of the individual man and
woman, the infinite pity for all cruel things which they none the
less inflicted upon one another. It was not one ballad- maker alone
but the whole cut throat population who felt this magnanimous
sorrow, and the consoling charms of the highest poetry."

Quote:

The border widows lament

My love he built me a bonny bower,
And clad it all wi' lilly flower
A brawer bower why ye ne'er did see
Than my true love he built for me.
There came a man by middle day
He spied his sport and went away
And browt the kin that very night,
Who broke my bower and slew my knight.
He slew my knight te me sae dear,
He slew my Knight and stole his yield,
My servants all for life did flee,
And left me in extremity.
I sewed his sheet marking my name
I washed the corpse my self alane,
I watched his body night and day,
Nae living creature came that way.
I took his body on my back,
And whiles I pray and whiles I sat
I digged a grave and I laid him in,
And covered him with grass sae green.
But think nae ye my heart was sair,
When I laid the clay on his yellow hair
Oh think nae ye my heart was wae,
When I turned about and went away
No living man I'll love again
Since that my lovely knight was slain

The last known notable raid raid by an Armstrong was in 1969, he claimed it was one small step for mankind, we reckon he only came back because there was no livestock worth pinching

**Richard Stanbery** · March 4th, 2011, 08:36 PM

"Rived" or "Reeved" are forms of "Wrought", as in "to make".

If one is working with wood, making something like a trunnel, perhaps, then it has to be "rived" out of the wood by working very hard with hand tools. I remember my grandfather telling me about how the Longbows of England were made. They had to be "rived" out of the tree.

I think the modern English word "derived" has its ancient root in our word "rived".

Got any good examples of depressing Scottish border music? I bet it sounds rather Appalachian. oh, BTW, I simply loved those lyrics! They are indeed very similar to Appalachian music!

Here is another little ditty fer ye, Nemo, in good ole Appalachian dialect. Yes, believe it or not, it is English...

YouTube - ROSCOE HOLCOMB - DARLING CORY

Depressing music is one way to see into the mindset of any given culture.

**Patito de Hule** · March 4th, 2011, 08:56 PM

The debate on the origin of Appalachian English is summarized well and briefly on

Appalachian_English

Quote:

Extensive research has been conducted since the 1930s to determine the origin of the Appalachian dialect. One theory is that the dialect is a remnant of Elizabethan (or Shakespearean) English that had been preserved by the region's isolation.Another theory suggests that the dialect developed out of the Scots-Irish and Anglo-Scottish border dialects brought to the region by some of its earliest British Isles settlers. Recent research suggests that Appalachian English developed as a uniquely American dialect as early settlers re-adapted the English language to their unfamiliar frontier environment. This is supported by numerous similarities between the Appalachian dialect and Colonial American English.

In some ways, it's like U.S. Southern dialect with its lingual glide (the drawled vowels). But that effect is typically exaggerated in Appalacian. Long vowels become diphthongs and diphthongs become triphthongs. Unlike the Southern, r's are pronounced, some times added (fellow becomes feller). H's are often added to words like "it" and "ain't" to become "hit" and "haint." There is even a complex syntax of when they are added similar to the syntax of whether we pronounce "to" as "too" or "ta." One of the arguments used by those who argue that it came from the English of the Gaelic-speaking Scots (Scotch-Irish and they were called here) is that Appalachian is spoken with a peculiar lilt that is similar to tonal usage of the Celtic languages. I don't know if that's true or not. As mentioned, they have their own vocabulary and to some degree their own syntax.

**Richard Stanbery** · March 4th, 2011, 09:25 PM

Yes, you brought up a good point, in that Appalachian is spoken with a peculiar lilt. Since there is no way to describe it, Ill risk posting another link so that our friends from "a way over yonder" who might not ever hear-ed Appalachian can hear it for themselves. There is a few seconds a singing, and then just Appalachian talk after that.

YouTube - Dellie Chandler Norton

And that was Appalachian. Note the pauses and nasal shifts? As for me, I think we should just give up on trying to remove the Appalachian dialect from America and just make it the standard English. After all, it is probably the oldest form of English in America.

It probably will be anyway.