Regional Patterns of American Speech

The Eastern Coastal Pattern Because the coastal communities of colonial America maintained regular contact with England and the inland communities did not, Coastal American speech developed a pattern of significant differences from Inland speech. Many of these differences remain today. Although the speech communities along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts exhibited extensive variation, especially in the contrast between the Northern cultural centers of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia and the Southern cultural centers of Richmond, Charleston, and New Orleans, they all shared some remarkable concordances. The most notable features are these: the loss of constricted r after vowels (making popper homophonous with Papa); a contrast of stressed vowels in Mary, merry, and marry; a most distinctive diphthong in dues, news, and shoes that approaches that in few, music, and pupil; the loss of h in whip, white, wheelbarrow, and similar words; and even a “broad a” in hammer, pasture, and Saturday. Besides the familiar British past form et (of eat), the coastal dialects also shared lexical features, such as hog’s head cheese, haslets (or harslets, a dish made from animal viscera), and piazza (porch). 22 Atlantic Coastal—Northern and Southern The Coastal pattern divides near the Potomac River. The language and culture drifted away from British influence more quickly to the North than to the South, where the early planters of Jefferson’s agrarian democracy required close association with British commerce, education, and industry. Strongly influenced by the speech of Boston in New England and of New York City further south, Southern Coastal dialects preserved several other British features: the “clear l” of lean in Billy and Nelly, as opposed to the “dark l” of look and law; a flapped r in three and thresh, as heard in some British pronunciations of very; and even an occasional back vowel in pot and crop. Along the Gulf Coast these forms had mixed currency, largely because of the powerful influence of New Orleans, a cultural center that dominated the entire interior South until the Civil War. Basic Northern and Southern contrasts persist from the Potomac to the mouth of the Rio Grande: the Southern drawls (patterns of diphthongs, lengthening, and intonation), the vowel of ride [a] (which Northerners confuse with rod (ä) or rat , the vowel of bird (which Northerners confuse with Brooklynese), a positional variant in house and mouse but not in rouse and cows, the plural pronoun you-all (or y’all), the past form drug (of drag), and a large set of vocabulary forms, such as mosquito hawk (dragonfly), crocus sack (burlap bag), snap beans (string beans), and tote (carry). 23 Gulf Coastal The New Orleans focal area interrupts this pattern, extending its influence from Mobile Bay to beyond the Sabine River. New Orleans words, such as shivaree (or charivari), pirogue, cream cheese, and cush-cush, contrast with serenade, bateau, clabber cheese, and mush elsewhere along the Gulf Coast beyond the domain of New Orleans. Although cush has currency throughout the South, nowhere else is there a double form to match the New Orleans usage. And although no river person will confuse the dugout pirogue with the all-purpose bateau (rowboat), the term pirogue marks the New Orleans focal area and particularly the adjacent Cajun territory, especially in the Atchafalaya basin. Other distinctive New Orleans terms are flambeau (makeshift torch), (h)armonica (instead of Southern harp), lagniappe (something extra, instead of South Carolina brawtus, Texas-Spanish pilon, and Florida-Minorcan countra), wishbone (instead of South Midland and Southern pulley bone), and creole tomatoes (instead of Northern cherry tomatoes and Southern tommytoes). 24 Interior Development Interior dialects include Northern, Midland, and Southern varieties of American English. Each developed before the Revolution from the Canadian border to Georgia, and each reflects the distinctive history of a cultural area. The Inland Northern dialect extended westward out of western Massachusetts, upstate New York, and the Connecticut Valley. The Midland dialects emerged in Pennsylvania, from Philadelphia in the east and Pittsburgh in the west. Interior Southern dialects outline the plantation culture of tobacco, cotton, and later of rice and sugar cane. 25

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