Minstrel's Dialect

Dale Coye Dalecoye at AOL.COM
Mon Nov 10 23:44:35 UTC 2003


You write: For example: How did they pronounce the word "de" as in "De
Camptown Ladies
sing dis song, doo-dah! doo-dah!" Was it with a long or a short "e"?

If you mean by long e, the sound of bee, and by short e the sound of bet, it
was most likely neither--it's the same "e" as in "the"-- a schwa.

DF Coye
The College of NJ



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