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Sibiu Alma Mater University Journals – Series C. Social Sciences – Volume 5, no. 2 / 2012 American dialects Adina ILIESCU George Bariţiu University of Brasov, 6 Lunii St., 500327 Brasov, Brasov County, Romania Tel.: +40 268 319948, E-mail: [email protected] Abstract The main aim of this paper is to present the history of the American regional dialects. Today, English is spoken by three hundred million people, on four continents. Among these, two hundred million live in the United States of America. We may understand from this fact that there are many variations of this language. English is used to different purposes and in different social contexts. From this paper, we may notice that English has numerous dialects. At the same time, there are differences in vocabulary, the same word having various meanings in different regions of the same country. Keywords: dialect, colonists, colony, region, development, trade, map. Rezumat Prezenta lucrare are ca scop principal prezentarea istoriei dialectelor regionale americane. Astăzi, Engleza este vorbită de trei sute milioane de oameni, pe patru continente. Dintre aceştia, două sute milioane trăiesc în Statele Unite ale Americii. Prin răspândirea Englezei se poate înţelege faptul că există multe variaţiuni ale acestei limbi. Engleza este folosită în diferite scopuri şi în contexte sociale variate. Din această lucrare se poate observa că limba engleză are nenumărate dialecte. In acelaşi timp, vocabularul diferă, acelaşi cuvânt putând să aibă mai multe înţelesuri în regiuni diferite ale aceleaşi ţări. Cuvinte cheie: dialect, colonişti, colonie, regiune, dezvoltare, comerţ, hartă. The number of settlers from London for New England was 193, or fifteen percent; for Virginia 179, or twenty eight percent. The counties which sent the most settlers to New England were: Norfolk, Kent, Essex, Devon; to Virginia, Gloucester, Kent, Yorkshire, Lancaster sent settlers. Among the emigrants from Gloucester to Virginia and New England, more than half came from Bristol (Paullin & Wright in Ken & Aderman, 1. Introduction We best understand the different dialects if we take into consideration the districts in England from which the earliest American settlers came. The English spoken by the colonists who came in the 17th century, determined the language of the communities in which they settled. The people who came later in these districts were incorporated to the speech which already existed there. 1963, p. 108). The nucleus of the New England colonies was around Massachusetts Bay and the earliest settlements in the South were in the district of Virginia. Of the settlers in New England before 1700, 1281 have been traced to their source in England, and for Virginia during the same period the English homes have been found for 637. The result shows that the predominant element in New England was from the south-eastern and southern counties of England. So that two thirds of the New England colonists before 1700 came from the south of England, mainly the southeast. As regards Virginia, 42 percent were derived from London, Gloucester and Kent all in the south. More than 50 percent of the Virginia settlers came from the southern half of England. The conclusion is that the English brought to New England and Virginia was the English spoken in the southern parts of England, and the likeness of the New England and Southern 26 Adina ILIESCU – American dialects dialects in this country in Standard English is due to the predominance of settlers from the south of England in these colonies. 2. Discussion With respect to the early settlers in the middle colonies, the Quakers played the principal part in the settlements along the Delaware, and this sect had its largest role following in the north of England and the north Midlands. Many settlers in eastern Pennsylvania and the bordering parts of New Jersey and Delaware came from the northern half of England. Many Scotch-Irish also came to Pennsylvania and later to the South and West. They were mostly Scots, settled for quite a long time in northeastern Ireland so they spoke Northern English. The Germans, a large element in the population of the middle colonies acquired English from the English - speaking colonists among whom they settled. It is possible that the population of the Middle States was much more northern than that of New England and Virginia. The predominance of the Scotch-Irish at the western frontier was an important factor for carrying the English spoken in the middle colonies into the newer areas of the West and in making this speech the basis of General American. In 1949 Professor Hans Kurath in A Word Geography of the Eastern United States, on the basis of lexical evidence, mainly in the Atlantic Coast states, distinguished eighteen speech areas, which he grouped into three main groups: Northern. Midland and Southern. Later on, Wolfram, on the basis of Kurath's work and The Pronunciation of English in the Atlantic (written by Kurath and McDavid in 1961), and The Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada, came up with another distribution of American Regional Dialects. This is based on lexical and pronunciation differences. 2.1. Main Regional Dialect The North, for instance, is characterized by phonological features like the pronunciation of vowels in morning and mourning, the pronunciation of roots with the same vowel as that used in boot versus the vowel of put; lexical items are of the type specified earlier pail for bucket, etc. Grammatical features include items like dove as the past tense of dive, phrases like sick to/at the stomach, etc. Each of the regions has such sets of features linked to that region. In the 19th century, the industrial revolution resulted in the growth of a number of industrial centers, so that many farm population came to live in the cities. The development of the railroad increasing the mobility of the people and the migrations westward, led to a general abandonment of narrowly local speech forms for more accessible, fewer, varieties. But some local speech forms have been preserved up to the present day. Certain colonial cities such as Boston, Philadelphia and Charleston became prestigious because they developed as centers of trade and immigration. Wolfram presents three major regional dialects areas: – The Northern Dialect from the northern part of Pennsylvania, westward through the northern part of Ohio and the southern border of the Great Lakes. New England is generally considered a separate region, as New York City is. – The Midland Area, subdivided into a North Midland and a South Midland area, runs across Maryland, and southward along the Appalachian mountain range. – The Southern Area, goes down the eastern coast from the eastern and southern portions of Maryland, and westward through the Gulf. Sub regional divisions include the Virginia Piedmont and eastern shores of Maryland and Virginia. They became economically, socially and culturally representative, dominating the areas surrounding them. Consequently, local expressions and pronunciations specific to the country side were replaced by new forms emerging from these powerful centers. Not much has been noticed for the influence of New York City on any large surrounding area. But we can not deny the importance of New York City for the language of radio, television, publication. It was said that the Brooklyn dialect of popular stereotype is similar to that of the same working-class people in New Orleans, because of the trade connections between New Orleans and New York City. In his turn, Carver proposes a summary map of American regional dialects, based on lexical items. It is the first map which is equally interested in the western United States, an area which had been ignored in previous summaries. Carver's departure point of the method is to admit layers of regional concentration. Carver reduces the distinction between North, Midland, Midland and 27 Sibiu Alma Mater University Journals – Series C. Social Sciences – Volume 5, no. 2 / 2012 South to a basic North-South regional distinction. The Midland region is reduced to secondary levels of dialect features localized in the southern North and northern South areas. Labov, in his article The Three Dialects of English comes up with a different approach to determining the major American regional dialects. His criteria for dialect distinction are phonological rather than lexical. Labov's concern is with overall shifts in subsystems of vowels in English, as a language spoken in the whole world. Labov has perceived two main rotations in English vowels: a) one rotation is called The Northern Cities Shift. In this rotation the phonetic values of the low long vowels are moving forward and upward and the short vowels are moving downward and backward. For instance, the phonetic value of a vowel like the open o of coffee is moving downward and forward toward the I a 1 of father. The low vowel in a word like pop or lock moves towards the [æ] of bat, which, in turn, moves upward towards the vowel [є] of bet. At the same time, another rotation moves the short vowel [I] of bit towards the [є] of bet. Regionally, the vowel rotation begins in western New England, goes westward towards Pennsylvania, northern Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin. More developed stages of this change can be encountered in younger speakers in the largest metropolitan areas as Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago. b) With respect to The Southern Vowel Shift, in this rotation system, the short front vowels are moving upward, having the gliding character (a gradually changing sound made in passing from one position of the speech organs to another) of long vowels. Labov's classification highlights the importance of urbanization in the common system of regional disposition, mainly as far as the Northern Cities Shift and the Low Back Vowel Merger are concerned. The former is a metropolitan occurrence whereas the latter is a non metropolitan event, at least in the West.Undoubtedly the debate about more detailed dialect subdivisions will go on. 2) 3) 4) Elisabeth M. Kerr and Ralph M. Aderman in Aspects of American English (1963), consider that the best division of regional dialects in the U.S.A. would be in seven classes: 1) The first class is Eastern New England - This includes entire New England region or parts of states that lie in the east of the Connecticut River in Massachusetts and Connecticut and 5) 28 east of the Green Mountains in Vermont. While all features of the dialect are not uniform in their distribution we may notice as characteristic the retention of a rounded vowel in words like hot and top, which the rest of the country has unrounded to a shortened form of the a in father, the use of the broad a in fast, path, grass, etc., and, the loss of the r in car, hard, etc., except before vowels (carry, Tory). The region has as focal area (an area which because of political, commercial, cultural or other importance, has influenced the speech of surrounding areas), Boston. New York City - Although often considered apart of the Eastern New England dialect, the speech of New York City and surrounding counties is on the whole quite different. The pronunciation of curl like coil, third like thoid, is the most distinctive feature of New York City in the popular mind, although it should be said that among cultivated New Yorkers curl and coil are phonemically different. While it has generally lost the r, cot and caught are phonemically contrasted [kat, kоt] since the o in words like cot and top, before voiceless stops (a plosive consonant uttered without vibration of the vocal cords) is almost always unrounded. Middle Atlantic - It comprises the eastern third of Pennsylvania below the Northern – Midland line, the southern half of New Jersey, the northern half of Delaware and the bordering parts of Maryland. It keeps the r in all positions, it always pronounces [æ] in fast, ask, grass, etc., it has the unrounded vowel in forest, hot. In all these features except the unrounded vowel in words like forest and closet it agrees with General American. Philadelphia is its focal area. Western Pennsylvania - Perhaps it would be better to speak of this area as Western Midland, because it is known how far westward it extends beyond the Pennsylvania line. It extends into Western Maryland and the bordering parts of West Virginia on the south. In its over-all pattern it belongs to General American, so that cot and caught are homonyms , r is always pronounced, the sound [æ] is present in words like ask, path, etc. Southern Mountain - It is not possible yet to mark with confidence the limits of this area, especially on its southern and western boundaries. It covers however, all of West Virginia except the counties bordering on Pennsylvania and Maryland, the mountain Adina ILIESCU – American dialects regions of Virginia and North Carolina, most of Kentucky and Tennessee, with a small portion of the bordering states to the south. The area proves a mixed character in its speech, being settled first from Pennsylvania and later from the South. Consequently, the r is sounded as in Midland. It is impossible to say whether it should be considered a variety of Midland or of Southern, and while it appears to be a Midland type modified by Southern, it seems best for the present to designate it by a name that it is mainly topographical in character. 6) Southern - This Southern dialect includes a large area, the old plantation country and therefore we cannot expect uniformity in it. The focal areas are the Virginia Piedmont and the low country near the cost of South Carolina. In many districts it agrees with eastern New England in the loss of r finally and before consonants, as in car and hard, but tends to go further and omit the r before a word beginning with a vowel, as in far away [fa:ә`we]. But it does not have the rounded vowel in words like top and hot, or the broad a in grass, dance. Final consonant clusters are weakly articulated: last, kept, find, become las', kep', fin', mainly in substandard use. There are considerable local differences in the speech of the South, enabling a southerner to tell from a short conversation the particular state which another southerner comes from. But a northerner can seldom do this. 7) General American - It includes about two thirds of the area of the United States and comprises two thirds of the total population. All the regions included above except eastern New England, metropolitan New York and Southern are considered to form General American. General American has been called "the most distinctly American manner of speaking" (Kurath, 1928: 286 in Kerr & Aderman, 1963: 108). As major characteristics of General American, the following are noticeable: the flat a in fast, path, etc., the unrounded vowel in hot, top, etc., the retention of a strong r in all positions, and less tendency than British English to introduce a glide after the vowel [e] and [o], late, note. The diphthong heard in the Southern British pronunciation of words like note, go is missing from most parts of General American. Local preference for certain words or expressions does not prevent familiarity with other expressions for the same thing. A Philadelphian who usually says baby coach also knows baby carriage and may sometimes use it. The general pattern is felt in the major features mentioned, especially the flat a and the retention of the [r] phoneme. 2.2. Regional Words We cannot draw a conclusion without mentioning some important regional words. It's worth saying that such environmental factors as topography, climate, plant and animal life also played their role in inducing the dialect of an area. For instance, in those parts of the country where snow is a rarity or does not fall at all, terms related to snow will not be very necessary. Or, the complexity and size of the network of fresh-water flows influences the meaning and the distribution of such terms as brook, creek, branch, river, wash, bayou. In parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania, for example, the term creek is used for a much larger amount of water than in Michigan. Let us examine now briefly some regional words taken from A Word Geography of the Eastern United States (1949) by Hans Kurath. Clothes closet - In New England and the North Midland including the Shenandoah Valley and northern West Virginia, clothespress is a common term for the clothes closet in rural areas. On Narragansett Bay, in Western Pennsylvania and the bordering counties of Ohio and West Virginia, Clothespress is popular among all social classes in the country as well as in the cities. In the urbanized areas around Boston, in the lower Hudson Valley, in the lower Connecticut Valley and around Philadelphia, (clothes) closet is now used almost entirely. Picket fence - Fences with pointed or pointless upright slats which usually surround the dwelling and the garden, are named picket fences in the New England settlements area, paling fences, paled fences or simply palings in the Midland and the Southern area. The variant paled fence is common to the Philadelphia area. Picket fence comes as a modern term in large parts of the Midland and the South, namely in the Ohio Valley, on Chesapeake Bay, in north-eastern North Carolina, in the Charleston area in South Carolina. Roller shades - The term roller shades is widely used in the Hudson Valley, the Virginia Piedmont, the greater part of the Carolinas, and in other urban areas. Curtain is very much used in the sense of roller shades in New England and the New England settlement area, in the Philadelphia area, or, Chesapeake Bay and in the coastal part of 29 Sibiu Alma Mater University Journals – Series C. Social Sciences – Volume 5, no. 2 / 2012 north-eastern North Carolina. The term blinds is used in Midland. In the Philadelphia area and on Delmarva, blinds rivals with curtains. In all of the South 'Midland and the rest of Pennsylvania, blinds has won over. There, this term is never employed as the equivalent of shutters. the South Midland quarter till. The Midland till has been carried seaward and even rivals the Southern to on the Neuse. Pennsylvania shows a picture of great confusion. In the central part of the state the characteristic Midland till is still usual, but it is losing ground in the east to of, which now preponderates in Philadelphia and the southeastern part of the state: and in the Pittsburgh area of and to are gradually replacing till. Store room - Many houses have a room in the attic or the cellar for storing old furniture and utensils. In the South Atlantic States we find a variety of words to designate it: lumber room, plunder room, trumpery room, junk room, catch-all. Lumber room is the Virginia Piedmont and Tidewater term, which is now popular also on the Eastern Shore of Virginia (but not of Maryland) and in the Valley of Virginia. The greater part of North Carolina and bordering parts of South Carolina have plunder room, and this word is not uncommon, by the side of lumber room, in Virginia south of the James. From Albemarle Sound to the lower Neuse trumpery room is popular, on Delaware Bay, catch-all. The expressions for this storeroom were not systematically recorded in the Middle Atlantic States and in New England, but for the eastern half of Pennsylvania. Store room appears to be the common term in the Philadelphia area, junk room from the Susquehanna westward. Junk room is also common in the Pennsylvania settlements of the piedmont of North Carolina and on the Cape Fear River by the side of plunder room. 3. Conclusions Undoubtedly, the language of the United States has a major influence everywhere that English is spoken as a first language. And this influence will probably increase in time even more, because as Clive James said. "It is an American characteristic not to stop running even after you have arrived" (Frost & Shea, 1987: 27). Not only do Americans form by far the largest single body of speakers of English, but they also have a preponderance of economic and political power and prestige. The wealth and power of the United States make her a creditor nation in linguistic matters. The American influence on English speaking countries and mainly on British English, manifests itself especially in vocabulary. Many people are surprised to learn that some commonly used words are of American origin: words like cockroach, loafer, stevedore, tornado, are so familiar that we do not think of them as Americanisms, and the same is true of more recent importations like: blurb, cagey, gimmick, rugged (in the sense of robust). Living room - In all the Eastern states living room and sitting room (settin ' room among the common people) are the usual names for the room in which the family gathers evenings, and receives and entertains friends. Sitting room is now rather a rural expression. Living room is fully established in the cities and among the younger generation of the country. Only the larger houses have or had a best room for formal occasions: weddings, funerals, and the reception of honored guests, which is known as the parlor from Maine to the Carolinas. The oldtime parlor is now a thing of the past. Some now call it the front room. In this paper I tried to illustrate: some historical data about the formation of American language and American people, the major aspects in which American English differs from British English as well as the homogeneity of American English. References All these terms are usual almost everywhere in the Eastern States, but with varying frequency. Barber C. 1993. The English Language. A Historical Introduction, Cambridge University Press Quarter of eleven - Of, to, and till are all used over large areas in this phrase. In the Northern area, on Delaware Bay, and on Chesapeake Bay of and to stand side by side in this expression. Quarter of prevails in the Boston area and in the Hudson Valley, elsewhere of and to seem to be in balance. The greater part of the Southern area (Eastern Virginia, northwestern North Carolina, and the Low Country of South Carolina) has quarter to, Cobb T. & Gardiner R. 1994. Today’s English Grammar, Ed. Prietenii Cartii, Bucuresti Crum R., Cram W. & MacNeil R. 1992. The Story of English, Faber & Faber, London Boston, BBC Books Frost D. & Shea M. 1987. The Mid-Atlantic Companion. Or How to Misunderstand Americans as Much as 30 Adina ILIESCU – American dialects They Misunderstand Us, Sphere Books Limited Wolfram W. 1991. Dialects & American English. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs. Kerr E.M. & Aderman R.M. 1963. Aspects of American English, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. 31