Appalachian English - Origins

Origins

Early theories regarding the origins of the Appalachian dialect tend to revolve around popular notions regarding the region's general isolation and the belief that the region is culturally static or homogenous. 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. Beliefs about Appalachia's isolation led to the early suggestion that the dialect was a surviving relic of long-forgotten forms of English. 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. However, while Shakespearean words occasionally appear in Appalachian speech (e.g., afeared), these occurrences are rare. Most European speech patterns and vocabulary that occur in Appalachian English come from the greater British Isles, rather than just England itself.

The earliest settlers in Southern Appalachia, who arrived in the region in the 18th and early 19th centuries, came primarily from the Anglo-Scottish border country and other areas bordering the Irish Sea. A great number came from Ulster in Ireland, although these were typically resettled Lowland Scots known in the United States as the Scots-Irish. The English dialect of these settlers formed the core of what would later develop into Appalachian English. Examples of Scots-Irish influence include the use of might could for might be able to (cf. Scots and Ulster Scots micht could), the use of "'un" with pronouns and adjectives (e.g., young'un), the use of "done" as a helping verb (e.g., we done finished it), and the use of words such as airish, brickle, swan, and bottom land. The use of double negatives wasn't uncommon in the English Border region in the 17th and 18th centuries. The use of the "a-" prefix (e.g., "a-goin'" for "going") and the attachment of "-ed" to certain verbs (e.g., knowed), originated in South England. Many Appalachian speech habits were used throughout the British Isles, including the h-retention (e.g., hit for it), the use of the word right in the place of rather (e.g., right cold), and the presence of words such as yonder.

While the Scotch-Irish and Northern English settlers had a strong influence on the Appalachian dialect, linguistic analyses suggest that Appalachian English developed as a distinctive dialect among English-speaking people in North America. The Appalachian dialect retains a number of speech patterns found in Colonial American English but largely discarded in Standard speech, such as "r" intrusion (e.g., "warsh" for "wash") and a "y" sound in place of "a" on the end of certain words (e.g., "okry" for "okra"). The southern drawl is of an unknown American origin, although some suspect it originated in African-American English.

Native American influences in the Appalachian dialect are virtually non-existent, the exception being place names (e.g., "Appalachia", "Tennessee", "Chattahoochee River", "Cheoah Mountains"). While early settlers adopted numerous customs from tribes such as the Cherokee and Shawnee, they typically applied existing words from their own languages to these customs.