LL-L "Language varieties" 2003.07.07 (06) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 07.JUL.2003 (06) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties

Dear Lowlanders,

I just arrived back in Seattle after a very bumpy and scary flight
(through electric storms) from the North American Southeast via Houston,
Texas.  Many thanks to Mathieu van Woerkom for having run the List
during my vacations.

James Wren <fwren at MINDSPRING.COM>:

> While we are at it, can anyone explain another phenomenon heard in the
> American South?
>
> tarred < tired (exhausted)
> retard < retired (e.g., I recently retired from the local library where I
> had worked         for thirty years.)

This is a common Southern feature, spread from Northern Florida in the
east to Central Texas in the west.  Some of these dialects (including
Appalachian ones) render as monophthong [a:] whatever in other English
dialects is /ai/ -> [aI], e.g., by = baa, mine = maan, tile = taal, tire
= taar, biting = baatn.  Other dialects have this feature only (or more
pronounced) before liquids (/l/, /r/); e.g., tire = taar, tile = taal.
What is the diphthong [oI] (as in "boy") before a liquid in other
dialects is monophthong [O:] in most of these Southern dialects; e.g.,
toil = tawl, oil = awl, boil = bawl, choir = kwawr ~ kwaw.  I believe
these dialects consider glides (/y/, /w/) and liquids (/l/, /r/) to be
of the same or a similar class, and they to not permit two of them at
the end of the same syllable, in which case a glide is assimilated to
the preceding vowel, which lengthens the vowel.

Interestingly, though, these dialects have diphthongs where other
dialects have monophthongs; e.g., gone [gOn] ~ [gQn] = gone [gO.Un] ~
[gQ.Un].

> thank < think (e.g., What do you thank about the situation in the Middle
> East?)

I suspect this to be related to and a further development (i.e., further
lowering) of Scots (and Northumbrian?) "short /i/ lowering" (rendering
short /i/ as in "think" not with the "usual" [I] sound but with a lower
sound that approached [e] and [E].  The Southern US dialects took this
one step lower to approach a sound that lies somewhere between [E] (as
in "well") and [æ] (as in "bad").

We ought to be careful not to think of Standard English (anywhere) as
the origin and of the non-standard dialectal forms as (corrupted)
derivatives.  All of them go back to the same source, are equal
descendants, with the exception that Standard English forms happen to
have been given higher social status.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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