[Ads-l] Pronunciation of Appalachia

Charles C Doyle cdoyle at UGA.EDU
Tue Nov 24 22:36:21 UTC 2020


It seems to me that during the Kennedy years, most of the discussion (by northern liberals?) was about rescuing Appalachia with /e/.  But certainly citizens who dwell in or near the mountains pronounce Appalachian with /ae/.  It's somehow almost impossible (for me) to pronounce the name of the Appalachee River (it's in Georgia)  with /e/.

Charlie
________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2020 5:25 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Pronunciation of Appalachia

[EXTERNAL SENDER - PROCEED CAUTIOUSLY]


I don't know what the time frame is meant to be, but when I came there in
1974, /ae/ was already universal.

My /ei/ was mocked.

JL

On Tue, Nov 24, 2020 at 3:54 PM Joe Salmons <
000008f18d0e0c45-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> A colleague – non-linguist – mentioned today that he thinks the
> pronunciation of ‘Appalachian’ has changed over time, namely toward having
> /æ/. Does anybody know of data on this? It’s obviously variable with a
> regional piece to the variation, but I don’t know about diachronic change
> here.
> Thanks,
> Joe
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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