LL-L "History" 2002.10.16 (04) [E]

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From: robert bowman <bowman at montana.com>
Subject: LL-L "History" 2002.10.16 (07) [E]

On Wednesday 16 October 2002 13:12, Ed wrote:
> I have an ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War (what I now prefer
> to call the First American Civil War, but we all know how prickly yuins
are
> about that) who moved to northern Appalachia after the war, namely to
> Vermont. ?

Yeah, well to quote from a website listing the  early settlers of Sand Lake,
NY,  http://www.rootsweb.com/~nyrensse/sandlake.htm

"Bowman, John (said to have been unpopular "because of his supposed sympathy
with the mother-country during the Revolutionary struggle")"

I've seen the old county history that reference probably comes from. It
doesn't take in account the anglization of many of the names, and the fact
that 'Sand Lake' was, and still is, more an area than a settlement. When he
moved out there from town it was more a lack of sympathy with either side in
a war that didn't concern him.

> In the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire they still speak a
> very ancient Anglian dialect. ?A popular expression in the mountains when
> strangers stop for directions is "You can't get the-ah from he-ah." ?The
> rest of what they have to say is usually pretty unintelligible to
> flatlanders.

Rensselaer county adjoins Vermont, and i have lived in both Vermont and New
Hampshire also. It's only a couple of hundred mile square to encompass the
whole area. I never really thought of it as a dialect, especially an ancient
Anglian one. The vowels just got a little flatter as you went east.

In fact, when i was out hiking Sunday, a couple asked me if they would get
to
the trailhead the way they were going. They had crossed a ridge and were
going 180 degrees in the wrong direction. There was no way they could have
continued in that drainage and gotten to their car without a very long
detour
-- I really used just that phrase, 'you can't get there from here'.

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