Interesting article about Appalachian speech.

"Though its speakers are aging and declining in number, there are still places in West Virginia where folks speak in what's known as the Southern Mountain Dialect, more often called Appalachian Speech.


Professor Wylene Dial was one of several authorities on the matter and studied it after she arrived in West Virginia in 1945 to attend Marshall University. She became enamored and was lucky to have been able to listen to the dialect as it was spoken in the '40s, '50s, and '60s—before radio and television helped erode much of its pure form.


Though it was often mocked as uncouth, Dial defended it as "well preserved." Isolated by the mountains, its speakers employed a form of speech that had not evolved as quickly as had speech in the open lands beyond.

"People from outside Appalachia frequently think the folk-speech sounds strange or even downright uncultured," Dial wrote in 1980 for the collection Mountain Heritage.

"This is because they don't realize that what they are hearing is antique English. In the days of the first Queen Elizabeth, the highest-ranking nobles of the realms of England and Scotland employed many of the same words, expressions, and grammatical forms that can be heard today on the lips of living West Virginians."

Thankfully, Dial collected many samples, examples of which can still be heard today in isolated areas, most particularly in the state's southern mountains.


"All of the following samples are at least Elizabethan," she wrote, "and many are considerably older."

a sight of - a lot of. "There was a sight of folks come to the funeral."

all fire and tow - said of a high-tempered person. "Man! She's all fire and tow!"

brickle - brittle. "She's not very work-brickle." (She's not a very good worker.)

board - table. "The food's on the board."

bum - the buttocks. "She's getting so fat she's a regular fatty-bum."

clean - completely. "I clean forgot."

fox fire - the phosphorescent light emitted by decaying timber.

heard tell - "I heard tell of that two weeks ago."

fit - "Them two fellers fit for nigh onto an hour."

git shed of - get rid of. "I cain't git shed of these old cats nohow."

least - smallest. "He's my least 'un." (My smallest child.)

pair of beads - a string of beads.

plumb - shows degree. "He lives plumb to the head of the holler."

poke - a paper bag. "Be sure to put my groceries in a poke."

pearl - feeling well; to be sprightly or lively. (Not the same word as pert.) "Mamaw's feelin' right pearl today."

press - a clothes closet or wardrobe. "Hang my clothes in the press."

quietus - death, or something that quiets or oppresses. "There, that'll put the quietus on him!"

right - very. "I'm getting right hungry.''

smouch - to kiss. Another old word meaning the same thing is buss.

tole - to lure. "Get an ear of corn, and tole the cow into the shed."

"There is a Scottish flavoring to the dialect," Dial pointed out, "because of the predominantly Scotch-Irish heritage of the region, and pronunciations such as whaur (where), daur (dare), deestrict schools (district schools), Commeesioner of Agriculture (Commissioner of Agriculture), feesh, eetch, and deesh (fish, itch, and dish), poosh and boosh (push and bush) and the like abound, and so, of course, do Scottish words. Backset, flinders, haet, inguns, skift, and how soon are all of Scots extraction."

So are other very old words, she noted, such as—

again (frequently written "agin") - means against. "I'm again the whole durn thing."

craps - crops. "This hail won't do the craps any good."

drap - drop. "I've sware off-I haven't touched a drap all month.

handwrite - handwriting. "It was right there in his own handwrite."

let on - pretend. "You let on like you don't know nothin' about it.

my lone - "I've been sitting here all by my lone the live long day."

residenter - a resident, usually one who has resided in a locality for a long time.

skutching - a whipping. "He give me a proper skutching." This is used in other parts of Britain as well.

Dial also noted that Southern Mountain Dialect, as it is known by linguists, has a distinctly masculine flavor—robust and virile.

"It is spoken by a red-blooded people who have colorful phraseology born in their bones, and who are undoubtedly the best talkers in the world."

"Their conversation abounds with such gems as, 'Awkard? That gal was eighteen afore she could walk and chew gum at the same time!' and 'We went so fast we burned the wind.'

"Aunt Jenny Wilson said to me, 'Gini, I want you to look at that feller. You could take his face and a jug of buttermilk and standoff judgment thirty days!' And a doctor from Philippi told me of an old gentleman who used to say, gently, 'She can't help bein' ugly, but she could stay home!' "
"


https://wvexplorer.com/2019/09...67rnvFh2Bk1nzM9hCfPQ

Thank you for that, Sunset, and for the link.

Having grown up in southern WV and southwest VA, I'm familiar with a lot of those phrases.

I never knowed I were speakin a 'furnin' language!

Interesting. I heard much of that type speech in rural Missouri growing up.

My last two years of high school was spent amongst ‘em in the mountains of Macon County NC...everyone talks like that...listening to my retired forest Ranger neighbor almost required a translation book.

My grandmother grew up in southeast Ohio, and while her Appalachian accent isn't usually very pronounced, it comes out noticeably in certain words. The one that used to make me giggle when I was little was when she'd ask me to help her "warsh the deeshes".

I grew up in SW Roanoke, but worked as a teenager at an egg farm in Floyd Co. Many of the expressions on that list were used regularly by the locals.

I never realized "smouch" was considered mountain talk. I still use it today, along with "plumb." As in "I'm plumb worn out."

I still hear about half of those, on a frequent basis. And, I live in a (for West Virginia) more-populated area of the state.
I use a few of them, myself. It's just what I was taught/learned/heard growing up with parents who were the first in their respective families to escape the coalfields.

I'm familiar with most of those from rural New England.

When I brought my wife to visit my family the first time, I had to translate "hillbilly" for her. My paternal grandparents are from SW Virginia and the dialect is foreign to most and the accents are THICK which rubbed of on their kids. I hear most of that list every time I visit.

quote:

Originally posted by ArtieS:
I'm familiar with most of those from rural New England.

Yup. Between that and several years spent in the South, I'm familiar with about 75% of them, and use maybe 50% from time to time.

I had a good friend from WVa, and wife’s family is from Beckley. One saying I remember, because I had never heard it before is, of the morning, or of the evening.

I recall working in Texas with my rep who had an appointment with a business manager, Suddenly he spots her heading out towards the door. My rep said, "You reckon' she's fixing' to cut and run?"
I have since used that just to throw a curveball to people that would have no idea what that meant.
That and the popular expression for going to lunch in Georgia, "you ready to get some groceries?"

90% of those are still common expressions back in the old country

At least half of those words I have heard and used in my life and I live 1000 miles from West Virginia but further south.

quote:

Originally posted by sigcrazy7:
I grew up in SW Roanoke, but worked as a teenager at an egg farm in Floyd Co. Many of the expressions on that list were used regularly by the locals.

I never realized "smouch" was considered mountain talk. I still use it today, along with "plumb." As in "I'm plumb worn out."

my maternal grandparents lived in Halifax, and we had kin in the Roanoke area,

most of those sayings and words were common speech and still are in that area

Mark Twain's 'Tom Sawyer' and 'Huck Finn' novels are replete with a lot of those terms.

I am from Western Michigan and so were my parents and grand parents. The only words in that list I do not recall ever hearing used are; brickle, fox fire and tole. Although for some reason I knew the definition of all except brickle, & tole.

I did have great aunts from Scotland (western Isles)who used to mind me when I was 2-4 yrs old so that may be the source.
Many of these words are common in Shakespeare.

I hear a few of those where I live in south central Va.

Mostly what I hear is mispronounced words and slang

quote:

Originally posted by ArtieS:
I'm familiar with most of those from rural New England.

Seabrook, NH, was a very insular community (in more ways than one ) until 50-60 years ago. Their dialect was very close to Elizabethan English. Al Capp of Lil Abner fame was from South Hampton which abuts Seabrook. Dogpatch was modeled on Seabrook - one of its nicknames was Dogtown - and that was years before the now defunct greyhound track.