The Appalachian Dialect

When someone asks if there are dialects of English in North America, an American may be compelled to answer, "There's a northern dialect and a southern one," but in truth there are actually a plethora of dialects and accents, many of which are secluded to a particular region. The Appalachian Dialect is among those. A rather loose term, it can span across the Appalachian Mountain Range, but some scholars may argue that each state has its own brand of southern style, as the case may be for West Virginia. For the sake of this post, the Appalachian Dialect will act as an umbrella term.

 What Is It and How Does it Work?

It’s a set of speech patterns native to the Appalachian Mountains, having evolved over the length of centuries. Much of the literature surrounding the region has rural themes, coal mining being one of the biggest. In Lee Howard’s poem “The Last Unmined Vein,” the sentence structure can be seen. Take for example these lines: “A pick and shovel…was all that was took/ and didn’t hurt nothing / and kept a fire real good / and that’s it / but that ain’t what they got in mind…” Here, the reader can see the unusual syntax through “kept a fire real good,” meaning kept it alive and burning. Notice, too, the use of “took” instead of taken and “nothing” instead of “anything.” “Ain’t” is also a common auxiliary verb in this poem, as can be seen in “that ain’t” instead of “that is not.”

Some other examples of words and phrases include: “allers” for “always,” “ax” for “ask,” “sarce” for “sauce,” and “widder” for “widow.” Other common conventions includes the contractions of words like in “s’pose” for “suppose,” “nat’ral” for “natural,” and “’spect” for “expect.”



Common Examples of the Appalachian Dialect

Such language can be found in a clever translation Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland into Appalachian English. Heavy linguistic changes gave Alice a twang unlike ever before. This translation is especially interesting to analyze since it encompasses the dialect in its rawest form. Take this excerpt of dialogue from the Cheshire cat as an example: “Up the crick,” the Bobcat says, wavin hits right paw roun…” The first thing a reader may notice is the use of eye-dialect to get the accent across, meaning that the words are being spelled as they’re sounded out. Notice the word “crick” substituted for “creek.” Even “his” has a “t” added to it in “hits paws,” signifying pronunciation.

Endings of words have been dropped as well in “wavin” for “waving” and “roun” for “round” or “around.” The dropping of “-g” in endings is quite common. The addition of “-ed” on past-tense verbs such as “knowed” instead of “knew” and “telled” instead of “told,” is also a common grammatical feature.

The Stigma

A negative stigma surrounds the Appalachian Dialect. Some may call it the "hillbilly" language. That is, people from other regions assume that because they speak this way they must be uneducated. This may be due to the idea of a “standard” way to speak English. In school, students are taught one way to speak, and other dialects are shunned as improper. However, the stereotype of the hillbilly is an old one, going as far back as the nineteenth century and possibly further. This can be blamed partly on its appearances in pop culture as well as literature throughout the years as a joke. Michael Ellis explores this theory in detail, discussing how the use of the dialect was used as a sign of stupidity, and was thus meant to not be taken seriously. It’s also been grouped in with other southern dialects, and lasting tensions since the Civil War could mean that this stereotype was implemented as a way of the Union exerting its authority, not to the extent of propaganda, but somewhat similar.

In any case, one’s dialect should not be the defining factor of him or her as a person. A dialect can be a sign of heritage or even culture, something that ties them to the region they hail from. Though the Appalachian Dialect has this stigma, it is still a dialect spoken today and should be respected as such.