Gotta Love Those Mountain Folks!

Yon and yonder are used as a locative too in almost exactly the same way in Britain even today, usually used instead of saying "over there". You here it quite a lot in certain parts of Britain(And Ireland of course). I hear it a lot in Yorkshire and in some places of Lancashire you might hear it, especially from older people.

Quite a bit of it is decidedly British/Irish actually. Reckon is another which is used in Yorkshire(and throughout the UK) often to mean think or believe. Fillum for film is how many Scottish still pronounce it. Battree for battery is actually standard English most the world over. Most English speakers, even in England, skip a syllable for that one.

I understood most of it as an English person, apart from si-gogglin, which I've obviously never heard

Have a go at trying to crack this accent from Sheffield in England, not particularly rural, but different to stereotypical English accents because of norse influence



Your dialects probably will die out, slowly, it's inevitable as younger generations come through and try to get away from the inbred yokel stereotypes. Same as in every location on earth, people gravitate towards speaking how they're told intelligent people speak.

The video also reminded me of someone I watch on Youtube who has a real odd way of pronouncing because. He says "beecouoooooooooooooooooooooooowssss", don't know how common that is in America but it's noticeable enough to make me laugh when I hear it

My whole family talks that way, I did when I was younger...we moved out from the hills when I was 12, just 200 miles to the east; I thought I was in yak'sville when we moved... I remember being called a redneck for the longest time.

Now when I go home to see family, I have a hard time understanding them

Great thread...S&F...

Up here, where I live. The locals born and raised up here for generations, still say you-uns, and us-ens...call a chimney a chimlly, and take a stick and draw a rain turtle in their dirt driveways to make it rain.

Des

If granny was still around she'd say, "Well bless her heart."

And then she'd fix us some cornbread and sweet tea.

reply to post by htapath


When going to someone's home at supper time...I'll likely hear *jeet jet...junt to?* Translation..did you eat yet, do you want to? I love the colloquialism of my Mountain born neighbors.

Des

reply to post by Destinyone


I was in my late teens before I realized it was "chimney". I also said "Chester draws" instead of chest of drawers, and I still use ain't, y'all, and fixin, reckon/s'pose and crook.

My favorite is britches though, I think it sounds so cute.

Originally posted by Destinyone
reply to post by htapath

 

When going to someone's home at supper time...I'll likely hear *jeet jet...junt to?* Translation..did you eat yet, do you want to? I love the colloquialism of my Mountain born neighbors.

Des

Makes perfect sense to me. I think if I heard that I might know what your mountain dwelling folks were asking, based on how you wrote it, maybe when spoke it sounds different to how i'm imagining it

There's a similar bastardisation of syllables where I live for those two questions. Skipping out on syllables and merging words is common practice around the world. I was reading about it once, probably on a thread like this, in linguistics they call it "syncope", it's basically the removal of syllables in the interior of a word - or multiple words in the cases you're mentioning. So Did you eat becomes d------eat, and said quickly the d takes on a j sound. Do you want becomes D---------ant or maybe D--w---------ant, again said quickly the d takes on the sound of a j.

Here is how I would say the two questions:

'Did you eat yet' I shorten to 'Jeetyet'(the y for yet remains, it doesn't switch to a j like in your case - i'd also say it without a real break, ie as one word.) And 'do you want' is said more often like 'jwont', but some people do say junt and when I say it to myself it feels natural enough, even though I favour the 'one' sound rather than 'un' in my natural speak

another point of difference would be that where I am we use glottal stops for our t's quite often. So the way I would say 'to?' would be a massive giveaway even if the rest sounded similar, my to is more of a t'

I would love to hear someone say your suppertime example, just to see how similar it actually is to how I'm imagining it. Without the translation I wouldn't have made sense of it, but after repeating the translation to myself and imagining how it might be said in your local tongue, it doesn't sound all that foreign




Very cool thread, didn't know about these people as a Brit.

Originally posted by Mijamija
reply to post by Destinyone

 

I was in my late teens before I realized it was "chimney". I also said "Chester draws" instead of chest of drawers, and I still use ain't, y'all, and fixin, reckon/s'pose and crook.

My favorite is britches though, I think it sounds so cute.

It's strange how you all write these words the same way that many British and Irish people do actually say them(chester drawers, reckon, s'pose or sposeso) but in the video everyone sounds very much American, you don't really see(from a british perspective) the similarities until it's all written down

it's sort of like UK dialect with an American hick(excuse my ignorance lol) accent grafted onto it

Thanks to everyone who has posted.

Here is some information about Grace Moore, born in the foothills of Appalachia. I will post more famous people after I catch some zzzzzs. :-)

Source: www.gracemoore.net...

Grace Moore 1898 - - 1947 Comparable to Janis Joplin, Grace Moore was a "rebel" of her time. She broke many rules of convention and sometimes even shocked the small town she grew up in. She left her mark however on the world and such a mark it was that Elvis is said to have named his beloved Graceland after her. "To produce something in life that outlives your own life " is said to be the true mark of a legend, and for that reason,this site is established in honor of Grace Moore: The Life of a Legend .

Grace Moore, one of America's favorite and widely known operatic stars, was a native Tennessean. She was born in Slabtown, Cocke County, Tennessee, on December 5, 1898, and was raised in Jellico, Tennessee.

She was known as "The Tennessee Nightingale," and endeared herself far and wide with an operatic voice that made people listen. But, perhaps more important, was her ability to establish a strong communication between herself and her audience. She became a prima donna, and during her celebrated career her roles included Mimi in La Boheme at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, Marguerite in Faust, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Micaela in Carmen, and many others.

Fans all over the world flocked to hear her and also to see her as the star in a number of Hollywood films, such as One Night of Love, a charming black and white film produced by Columbia Pictures in 1934 which made Moore a sensation at the box office.

Miss Moore used her talent as a way to reach out to people. This human quality in her personality helped earn her the fame she worked so hard to achieve. Miss Moore married Valentin Parera in a wedding ceremony held in Cannes, France, on July 15, 1931.It was an extravagant wedding for the time period.

Among the many distinguished honors she received from various countries was the decoration as a chevalier of the Legion of Honor of France in 1939. In 1937, she was commissioned a colonel on the staff of the governor of Tennessee, and was also made a life member of the Tennessee State Society of Washington, D.C. Between her operatic engagements, she appeared on radio and as a soloist at concerts throughout the United States and Europe. These performances included those given for the United States occupation forces in Vienna and Salzburg in Austria, and Heidelberg and Wiesbaden in Germany. She was also known for her exquisite gowns.

In Copenhagen, Denmark, on January 26, 1947, Grace Moore boarded a KLM DC3 to fly to Stockholm. The aircraft taxied out to the runway and was cleared to takeoff. The aircraft rotated and climbed to an altitude of about 150 feet. The aircraft stalled, crashed to the ground and exploded. On the evening before her death, Grace Moore had sung to a packed audience of more than 4000 people.

Tragically, Ms. Moore lost her life in that plane crash following a concert which ended in a standing ovation and countless encores. She was buried in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

"Analyzing what you haven't got as well as what you have is a necessary ingredient of a career", Grace Moore once said, and with those famous last words, Grace Moore: Life of a Legend is concluded.

Cathy Rhoden, a native of Ms. Moore's hometown of Jellico, Tennessee has written a play entitled, More Grace which is scheduled to premiere during the 2002/2003 season. The play chronicles Ms. Moore's life in a candid but refreshing glance and offers insight into the life of the Tennessee Nightingale. Visit this site often for official information about the Premiere. If your theatre group is interested in learning more about performing More Grace, you may get additional information by contacting the author at [email protected].

Did you all read the dictionary of mountain talk? Have you heard this slang used anywhere else?

One word I don't see in here is "eachin", meaning "itching".

My mother pronounces it as "eachin", as do many others from that area. I have found myself correcting her grammar. I'll say, "You are itching?"
Then she looks at me strangely and says, "Yeah, I'm eachin right here!"
She just doesn't "git it"!

www.tngenweb.org...

The man with the long beard in the beginning of the video in the opening post is "Popcorn" Sutton. He became legendary nationwide as one of the last mountain moonshiners.

Until his death in 2009 at the age of 62, Mr. Sutton, known as Popcorn, was a moonshiner. He was not quite the last, as he often claimed, but he was probably the most famous ever to work out of Cocke County, which long had a claim as the nation’s moonshining capital. It may yet again. As of last Thursday, microdistilleries are legal in Cocke County for the first time. And at the head of the line is a distillery making Mr. Sutton’s recipe. Nestled in the rocky embrace of the Great Smoky Mountains, Cocke County was a moonshine center for as long as anyone here can recall.

Source: www.nytimes.com...

reply to post by sled735


My mom says "wharsh" and it drives me crazy! She also says "flier" for both flour and flower and she interchanges "meanin" with "aimin" "fixin" or "bout to". My favorite is when she'll say that she "ahready done did" something, I just crack up, and then she gives me a sour look and says " god don't like ugly".

We are not from the mountains, but our people came over from the mountains, so we got some words we use, but we tend to add that "h" to words, like "ahready" and "wharsh" "whine". Almost becomes "haulmost". Another one would be "haulpin" instead of helping.

Here a few more gems:

"pin" is used for "pen" but "pen" is where you keep your huntin dogs. I got window seals, not window sills.

My "Lawndry smells right fresh when I put it on the line" "I'm right about to give him a cussin" "I'm right tuckered out from all that comin an a going"

My granny was a "sharp" dresser, she always wore her hat and gloves.



I always thought "pid'lin" was interesting because it was used in different ways. For example:

"oh, I'm just pid'lin around, ain't doing much a nothin"

But you could also say:

" you only left me two pid'lin pieces of cornbread?"

"and you ate all the sorghum up with "em??!!!"

(those last two phrases were frequently used during our Sunday mornin breckfusts)

reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha


I think its because the Southern accent is deep and slow normally that gives the folk their stereotype of being stupid.

reply to post by sled735
I don't know,maybe its my country roots coming out.But I find those accents both amusing and fascinating when I here them.Also have a touch of southern in us (y'all is a common phrase in our family).I have never thought of people that talk in that fashion as being either dumb or foolish or whatever others may think about them.But I also grew up out in the country as a child and was surrounded by this type of talk.It brings back sweet memories for me.Plain, simple, hard working, honest, decent people is all I here.

I'm staying with some friends down in a holler and they do sound different; although,not as bad as others I've heard from other places. At any rate, mountain people rock. They're good people.

When including famous people here we can't forget the queen of the mountains, Miss Dolly Parton:

Source: www.biography.com...

Singer, songwriter, actress. Born Dolly Rebecca Parton on January 19, 1946 in Locust Ridge, Tennessee. Raised in a poor family with 12 children, Parton learned to escape her life by making up songs. By age 11, she was singing on a local radio station and after graduating from high school, she moved to Nashville to pursue a career in music. Parton launched her solo career in 1967, and though she partnered with Porter Wagoner for his television show from 1967-1975, she remained primarily a solo act. (It was for Wagoner that Parton dedicated the ever-popular "I Will Always Love You.") She won the Country Music Award for female vocalist in 1975 and 1976.

Dolly went to high school with my sister-in-law. Locust Ridge is in Sevier County.

She's made us proud!

And then we have Mr. Don Knotts:

Source: www.nndb.com...

Born to a pair of farmers, Don Knotts was raised "dirt poor" in West Virginia during the Great Depression. During his childhood, Knotts' father became a paranoid schizophrenic and alcoholic, and Knotts has sometimes joked that he drove his father crazy. Beginning in high school, he performed as a ventriloquist, with modest success. At 19, he joined the Army, where his duties consisted primarily of entertaining the troops in traveling GI variety shows called "Stars and Gripes". Upon being discharged, he tried breaking into show business as a ventriloquist and stand-up comedian, but found that his thick Southern accent made his act almost unintelligible beyond the South. To overcome the accent, he went to college, majoring in education but with a strong minor in speech. After graduation, his first break came when 25-year-old Knotts was hired to play the decrepit old "Windy Wales" in a revival of the popular radio western Bobby Benson. Knotts first met Andy Griffith when he auditioned for Griffith's hit play, No Time for Sergeants. The two Southern boys soon bonded by wordlessly whittling sticks, and worked together for almost two years on Broadway. They eventually reprised their roles in a well-received film adaptation of No Time for Sergeants, which was Knotts' first movie. Early in his TV career, Knotts played it relatively straight on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow in the mid-1950s. He also played a fidgety chap in recurring bits on the late-1950s Steve Allen Show. When Knotts heard that a sitcom was in development with Griffith as a small-town sheriff, he phoned his friend and pointed out that every sheriff needs a good deputy, but a deputy who is not so good might be funnier. Knotts envisioned Deputy Fife as a bumbling but proud character, clearly not cut out for work as a lawman. His manic performance made the laid-back Griffith seem wiser, and the sheriff's respect for Fife signaled to audiences that the deputy was more than merely a buffoon. "I was supposed to be the funny one on the show," Griffith said in a 2002 interview. "But halfway through the second episode, I realized Don should be the funny one and I should play straight man to him. And that's the best thing we ever did. That's what made the show." Playing Fife, Knotts won Emmys for Best Supporting Actor in 1961, '62, '63, '66, and '67.

I loved this man, especially on "The Andy Griffith Show". Funny man. Very talented.

And here we have a whole slew of people from Knoxville, TN.

www.whosdatedwho.com...

And don't forget Peyton Manning:

Source: en.wikipedia.org...

Peyton Williams Manning (born March 24, 1976) is an American football quarterback for the Denver Broncos of the National Football League (NFL). He played for the Indianapolis Colts for 14 seasons from 1998–2011. He is the son of former NFL quarterback Archie Manning and an elder brother of New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning. Manning played college football at the University of Tennessee, leading the Volunteers to the 1997 SEC Championship in his senior season. He was chosen by the Indianapolis Colts with the first overall pick in the 1998 NFL Draft. From 1998 to 2010, he led the Colts to eight (seven AFC South and one AFC East) division championships, two AFC championships, and to a Super Bowl championship (Super Bowl XLI). He has won a record four league most valuable player awards,[1] was the most valuable player of Super Bowl XLI, has been named to eleven Pro Bowls, has eleven 4,000-yard passing seasons (including a record six straight),[2][3] and is the Indianapolis Colts' all-time leader in passing yards (54,828) and touchdown passes (399). In 2009, he was named the best player in the NFL[2][3] and Fox Sports along with Sports Illustrated named him the NFL player of the decade of the 2000s.

Okay, you get my drift? A lot of talented people come from "the hills".

Now back to the dialect... As you can see, people shouldn't be judged by their accent.