DIALECTS THAT I’VE HEARD, LIKE, Y’KNOW

 A RECENT WORDS TRIVIA WEBSITE “Top 6 English Dialects That Sound Like Different Languages” got me thinking of dialects I have known. Here are tidbits gleaned from the Words Trivia article and from my own recollection. 

WORD TRIVIA’S TOP 6. The website cites Scottish English (and its distinctive burry “r”); Newfoundland English (with a blend of English, Irish, and French); Jamaican Patois (Creole, enriched by West African and other languages); Geordie (Northeast England; remember the 1966 flick Georgy Girl?); Hibero-English (Irish-English); and Appalachian English (sorta 18th-century pronunciation). 

“Trippingly on the Tongue.” This last one is expanded upon with “OP Shakespeare,” as in “Original Pronunciation.”

In researching this I came upon an academic paper by Jennifer Cramer, Department of English, University of Kentucky: “Is Shakespeare Still in the Holler? The Death of a Language Myth, 2014. She discusses the contrast of supposedly low-brow Appalachian versus high-brow Shakespeare. “It seems, though” she says, “looking beyond wherever we might delimit Appalachia, people seem to see Deliverance, not Hamlet.”

My Cleveland Youth.  The Go Natural English website narrows it down to the four most common American English Accents: Southern, New England, New York City, and Midwestern. Being Cleveland-born-and-bred, I recall the relative flatness of my youthful accent (punctuated by the memorable time when a teacher asked me, “How long have you been in this country, Dennis?”).

WBOE radio broadcast enhancing a Cleveland elementary school lesson, c. 1941. Image from Wikipedia.

There was also a turning point in my education when I performed regularly on Cleveland’s WBOE, its pioneer education radio station. (Somehow I must have exhibited the right combination of youthful enthusiasm and sight-reading ability?) Early on, though, a kindly director corrected me in “Our Country, ’Tis of Thee” not beginning with the word “Are.”

Worcester Poly Years. For my four years of undergraduate school, I became enough of a New Englander to pronounce it “Wos-tah.” At least I learned enough English English not to say “Wore-ces-ter.” 

Before I got to pahking my cah at Hahvahd Yahd, I returned to Cleveland for grad school. And I still remembered “our” sounding close to “hour.” 

Caribbean Lilts. The islands of Caribbean, of course, encourage distinct accents. Like Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, those with ultra-sharp ears can identify a person’s home island: “He be f’om Dominica; she, f’om Sain’ Barts.” 

I recall a young neighbor on St. Thomas sweetly advising her younger brother, “Mar-VAHN, don’ talk I-LAN.”

Valley Girls, Like. I don’t recall ever meeting any authentic mall-dwelling Valley Girls, but characteristics of their dialect have merged into ’Merican English, like. Wikipedia describes, “The term in later years was more broadly applied to any woman in the United States who embodied ditziness, airheadedness, or greater interest in conspicuous consumption than in intellectual or personal accomplishment.”

Well, gee, gimme a break, y’know.

Other Dialect Encounters. It seems the farther north one goes in Scotland, the more Scottish the accent. I recall this being exemplified a while back with news coverage of an oil brouhaha off-shore the Hebrides. The oil worker’s account on the telly had English subtitles—and needed them.

Robert McGregor Innes Ireland, 1930 – 1993, British race driver, R&T correspondent. Image by Dorothy Clendenin.

By contrast, pal Innes Ireland was born in West Riding of Yorkshire, in the north of England, and very much a worldly person. I always thought he sounded like actor Richard Burton (and looked like him, sorta). I suspect Innes knew more Italian than Spanish because he always gave Wife Dottie’s El Centro, California, birthplace the Italian pronunciation: “Chentro.”

All in international good fun. ds 

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024