-y redundantly on adjectives: fainty, floweredy, jaggedy, mingledy, raggedy, ramshacklety, shackledty, stripedy. Them be all right to ride in, but you'll find out they ain't good to hike in. This sketch is based largely on four types of sources: A) Interviews recorded by Joseph Hall in 1939 and by personnel of and volunteers for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park between 1954 and 1983. 13.7  Adverb Placement. xxxv-lxix. It's a wildcat. Hain't nobody never set it for any bears since; that's been thirty years ago. Appalachian Mountains; Appalachians; appall; appalled; appalling; appallingly; appaloosa; appanage; apparatchik; apparatus; apparel; apparent; Paramètres : Cliquer sur le mot : donne une traduction ne donne rien. Most of them were blockaders their own selves. 1999. -er redundantly on comparative forms: worser. People will up with their guns and go out a-rabbit hunting, a-bird hunting. With the expletive there (commonly pronounced they), is or ’s generally prevails whether the following subject of the clause is singular or plural: They's about six or seven guitar players here. The prefix occurs on verbs of all semantic and most structural types, as on compound verbs and on verbs in the middle voice (i.e. The superlative suffix -est is sometimes added redundantly, including on adjectives that are historically superlative or absolute. “The evolution of verb concord in Scots.” Studies in Scots and Gaelic: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on the Languages of Scotland, ed. {size:8.5in 11.0in; down: I shot the bear in the mouth and killed him down; Quieten down a little! As in general American English, the phrase is usually equivalent to “why” (but sometimes “how”) and may introduce a clause marked for tense. font-size:12.0pt; A pattern following the same rule involves verbs with a personal-pronoun subject not adjacent to the verb. 14.7  Prepositional Phrases for Habitual Activity. If you call [a turkey] too much, you'll never get one to ye. everwhere “wherever”: They had to get their breakfasts, eat, and be in the field or everwhere they were working. In its relation to south of the Midland, it has several terms in common with its North Midland counterpart, including poke (paper bag), hull (to shell), and blinds (shutters). It most often precedes a past participle and may be accompanied by a form of have or be. 15.2  SME features two types of tense-less clause, both introduced by subordinate conjunctions. I ain't a-fearin’ of this man, nor no man that walks on two laigs. span.DefaultPara They went ahead there and went to running a-backwards and forwards. See: Shelby Lee Adams, "Of Kentucky," New York Times (Sunday Review), November 13, 2011, p. 9. 'Liketa' carries a meaning similar to "on the verge of" or "came so close that I really thought x would", where x is the subject of the verb. I got me a little arithmetic and learned the multiplication table. You been sleepin’ all day near about, and you done broke a sweat, and that's good for you. That's the cheatin'est place at the fair! If he killed ary’un, it was before my recollection. 4.2.2  Verbs with Variable Irregular Forms. lay off “plan for a considerable time”: I laid off and laid off to visit Aunt Phoebe, but never got around to it. Mister Wilson Queen that lived there at the campground, he was a song leader when I was a little girl. 10.2  An apparently recent, American development of the infinitive is its use to express the “specification” or respect in which something is true. 1.5  Plurals of nouns for animals are noteworthy in two respects. owing to “according to, depending on”: It's owing to who you're talking to, of course. until “so that, with the result that”: I've done this until they could take and interpret the pictures. They'd shear the sheep, and she'd spin the wool, the thread, and make our britches and our shirts all. (i.e. start to + verbal noun: Then we'd all start to shelling [the corn]. When I was three and living on Bent Mountain, my daddy recorded me. Did you hurt your finger? [30], The traditional Appalachian dialect spread to the Ozark Mountains in northern Arkansas and southern Missouri. by Alexander Fenton and Donald A. MacDonald, 81-95. The fire were plumb out. A panther is more of a dog specie, a lot bigger and way longer than a wild cat. (= He was a hard drinker.). Uncle Jim used to come up to home and me and him would bee hunt. I would get them [=oxen] a-gentled up, and then I put the yoke on them. 2.1.2  In the third-person singular, hit (the older form of the pronoun) alternates with it, occurring most often in stressed positions (usually as a subject) and less often elsewhere. I never seed a deer nor saw nary'un's tracks. This here's the old residenter bear hunter, Fonze Cable. This is commonly referred to as the, Verb forms for the verb "to lay" are used instead of forms of the verb "to lie." For example, "Lay down and hush. The nominative and objective forms of personal pronouns brhave for the most part as in general American English, with the most noteworthy exception of you’uns (for you ones), you all, and y'all in the second-person plural and hit in the third-person singular. Hit's been handed down to him, you see, so he's the third or fourth generation. 'Liketa' does not carry the same notion of partial truth as 'almost'. It occurs in both the singular and plural, usually in unstressed positions, as a direct object, an object of a preposition, or a subject when inverted in questions. Many may be usefully grouped according to how their past tense is formed. -es to form the plural of nouns ending in -sp, -st, or -sk: beastes, deskes, postes, waspes, etc. Daddy said he was the gamest and fightingest little rascal he ever hunted. Verbs that are regular in general usage are often irregular in the mountains, and vice versa. Yon/yan and yonder/yander most often function as adverbs (see §13.4), but you and yan  may also be demonstrative adjectives. We used to have a organ, and we don't have it there anymore. He was the mayor the year they like to went broke down there. B) Interviews recorded by Joseph Hall in the 1950s and observations made by him of mountain speech between 1937 and 1987. Hain't nobody never set [the trap] for any bears since. read after “read, read about”; Of a writer [they say] , “He's the best I read after”; I read after it last week. In addition to the boundary debates, Appalachian English is surrounded by stereotypical views of the area and the people living in it. C) Material recorded by other investigators and reported in the scholarly literature. Others have scorned or dismissed it as uneducated, bad grammar, or worse. Reflections of Olde Swain Register Log in Connect with Facebook Connect with Google. "Went" is often used instead of "gone" as the past participle of the verb "to go. with an indefinite pronoun: the both, the most. -->, (Originally published, in a slightly different form in 2004 in the Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English by Michael Montgomery and Joseph S. Hall, pp. There weren't even a sprig of fire in his place! beside of “beside”: She came over and set beside of me. We'll try another'n, being that'un paid off. The first settlers come in here in the eighteen thirties or the forties one. He'd make [the tobacco leaves] up in these fancy little twistes of tobacco. The biggest majority down there, they care. An uncle of mine and a cousin [were] making liquor in above my home. We started wooding there, along not far from Polls Gap and a-going back in on toward Heintoga, behind the timber cutting. The adjective phrase all the has the sense “the only” (as in general usage), but in addition to mass nouns it can modify singular count nouns or the indefinite pronoun one. 12.2  The pleonastic “accusative of inner object” occurs with a wider variety of verb than in general usage. occurs frequently with plural subjects of all types: You had to work the roads six days a [year] after you, no use to tell you anything about my sickness, Dr. Abels. These materials produced numerous citations for dictionary, but except for a few recordings, they have not been audited by the author. 11.1  Multiple Negation. {mso-style-noshow:yes; 1.1  Nouns of measure and weight like mile, pound, and year often lack plural -s when preceded by a numeral or another word expressing quantity. in place names: the Smoky (= the main ridge of the Smoky Mountains), the Pole Mountain. The drummers would used to come from Morristown. Hit [=a hog] could eat the guts out of a pumpkin through a hole in the fence, Ellipsis of a conjunction introducing the complement of a verb occurs after. (ed.). at the end of a phrase or clause) possessive pronouns formed with -n (hern, hisn, etc.) Smokies English has many constructions not found in general usage to indicate position, distance, or direction. Others believe that it is its own dialect with results coming from differing lexical variables. This pattern is attested in old letters written from the Smoky Mountains, but apparently did not survive into the twentieth century: I am very glad to hear that you have saved my foder and is doing with my things as well as you are. The old tom cat went up in under the chair. almost anywhere), Well, they were all kinfolks just about, you see. [40], Some nouns are spoken in pairs, the first noun describing the seemingly redundant second noun, as in "hound dog", "Cadillac car", "widow woman", "toad frog", "biscuit bread", or "rifle gun". A temporal prepositional phrase with of (especially with a singular indefinite noun as the object) indicate regular, frequent, or habitual activity, in one of three patterns. They settled up there and entered all that land up back across the river over there where Steve Whaley and them. We finally decided we might ought to stop and ask at a service station. I think there are worser things than being poor. 10, Talking Appalachian: Voice, Identity, and Community edited by Amy D. Clark, Nancy M. Hayward, The Americas and the Caribbean edited by Edgar W. Schneider pg. We used to didn't have nearly so many houses. For example, "Me and him are real good friends" instead of "He and I are really good friends." mso-font-charset:2; Much less often the prefix occurs on a past-tense or past-participle form of a verb (this form of the prefix has a different historical source from the use on present participles). Rather than being pleonastic, they suggest a speaker's attention to the terrain and the adaptation of the language to the speakers and their environment. It's where people gathers up and shucks corn in the fall when they get the corn gathered. Appalachian English is derived from Scottish and English settlers, and it's unlike any other slang language in the world. mso-style-locked:yes; -en (alteration of of) to form prepositions: offen, outen. This pattern is based in part on phonology. Appalachia is often viewed by outsiders as a dialect of uneducated people, due largely in part to the fact that this area is perceived as being low-income and lower class. The house is so far up in the hills that when me and my old woman fuss, He wouldn't eat but two messes out of a big’un and then kill, I get close around four hundred dollars a month, and it don't go, They'd pull [the trains] in and take track up and put it, Me and my brother went a-coon-huntin', but we never done. For example, "My cousin had a little pony and we was a-ridin' it one day"[31] Common contexts also include where the participle form functions as an adverbial complement, such as after movement verbs (come, go, take off) and with verbs of continuing or starting (keep, start, get to). In the present tense is (usually contracted to ’s) typically occurs with either a singular or plural subject. (1836 letter). Historically these developed by analogy with mine and thine, but many speakers today take them as deriving from a possessive pronoun + a reduction of own or one). 14.3.1  With verbs (to form phrasal verbs). In negative clauses did usually occurs with an infinitive form and with n't (as in general English), but sometimes with never (thus,”I never did see” = “I have never seen” or “I never saw”). listen at “listen to”: Listen at that pack of hounds! Certain German-derived words such as smearcase (cottage cheese), however, are present in the North Midland dialect but absent in the Appalachian dialect. Smokies English exhibits much variation in the principal parts of both regular and irregular verbs. Pg. Accusative case personal pronouns are used as reflexives in situations which, in American English, do not typically demand them (e.g., "I'm gonna get me a haircut"). [78] The tendency of Appalachian speakers to retain many aspects of their dialect for a generation or more after moving to large urban areas in the north and west suggests that Appalachian English is conservative rather than isolated. "History of Avery County", Biltmore Press, (1964), sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFMontgomery2006 (, Kirk Hazen, "African-American Appalachian English. afore “before”: I done what you told me afore, and it holp me some. -est redundantly on adjectives modified by most: most wealthiest, etc. [34] That there sawmill I worked at was there before I married. The final consonant of liked is normally elided with the following to. English Grammar, English Spellchecker. In other cases (e.g. excepting “except”: Faultin' others don't git you nowhere, exceptin' in trouble. However, the objective pronoun is often employed in subject position when conjoined with another pronoun or with a noun (in the latter case the personal pronoun usually comes first). Human Head Noun: He was the crabbedest old feller i ever I seed. All I wanted out of it was a little bucket of honey. [33][34] Moreover, it cannot occur on –ing forms functioning as nouns or adjectives; the forms must function as verbs. An "-er" sound is often used for long "o" at the end of a word. (1862 letter), I am now Volenteard to gow to texcas against the mexicans and Expecks to start the last of September or the first of October. 1.3  On the other hand, a count noun in general usage may be interpreted as a mass noun in the Smokies: They scattered my plank on the ground. everwhen “when”: Everwhen we got there, Jack reached for his gun. It must i been forties whenever he died. See more. Way back I guess forty year ago, there was a crowd of us going up Deep Creek a-deer driving. Was occurs frequently with plural subjects of all types: They come from Ireland. When it occurs, be does not express habitual or repeated actions as in African American English. can combine with a modal verb or another auxiliary. to form the past-tense and past-participle of verbs: redundantly on prepositions and subordinate conjunctions: to form superlatives of words of two or more syllables, especially, on verbs to indicate vicarious action in the past (especially with, on verbs to indicate agreement with a third-person plural noun subject (, ---Annotated Bibliography of Southern Appalachian English, --The Phonetics of Great Smoky Mountain Speech, ---Grammar and Syntax of Smoky Mountain English, ---Wolfram and Christian: Sociolinguistic Variables in Appalachian Dialects, --Corpus of Early Smoky Mountain English (CESME), --Archive of Traditional Appalachian Speech and Culture, The Phonetics of Great Smoky Mountain Speech, © University of South Carolina Board of Trustees. In traditional Smokies speech, was and were may be used for either singular or plural, but there is today and has long been a strong preference for was in all persons and numbers. and Jess and the girl is all buried there on Caldwell Fork. on (after a verb to express an unfortunate, unforeseen, or uncontrollable occurrence): When my cow up and died on me, hit wuz a main blow. 1. [79] The most enduring of these early theories suggested that the Appalachian dialect was a remnant of Elizabethan English, a theory popularized by Berea College president William Goddell Frost in the late 1800s. That study is based on interviews conducted in the mid-1970s in southern West Virginia, approximately 150 miles north of the Smokies. [We thought] we'd a got all of them [=the bears], but we never done it. [7], Appalachian English has long been criticized both within and outside of the speaking area as an inferior dialect, which is often mistakenly attributed to supposed laziness, lack of education, or the region's relative isolation. ", Example quoted from Robert Parke, "Our Southern Highlanders,". till “to” (in expressions of time): ... quarter till five. 2.1.1  First Person and Second Person Pronouns. In Smokies speech a form of big together with the noun it modifies is equivalent to most. However, such usages do not occur on his recordings or in other sources. with names of diseases and medical conditions: can also modify the positive, comparative, or superlative form of an adjective to express extent. With ten brothers and sisters, he ain't a gonna get lonesome. being, being as, being that “because, seeing that”: We'll try another'n, being that'un paid off; Being as you weren't at the meeting, you don't get to vote; Being that the president was sick, the vice-president adjourned the meeting. The prefix is also well known in ballad lyrics. All my family thought that was the wonderfullest thing ever was. These include older forms such as liked to and such American innovations as fixing to. They don't like it real genuine. 10.4  Elliptical Infinitives. In Hall's observations you'uns occurred in traditional, familiar speech, whereas you all was more formal and used by better educated speakers. Frazer, Timothy C. `` more on the land in a car the Head of Forneys and! There from the time we came here country, we thought would *, etc. ) Tom... 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