Dueling impressions

[Stahlke, Herbert F.W.]

Wilson,

Thanks for pointing to the song.  I'll look for it.  In fact, implosives
are found widely from the lower Great Plains all across the south.  They
haven't been reported in the literature, but Ken de Jong at IU has tapes
of implosives in North Carolina, and Eliot Moreton reports them around
Oxford, MS, and they are also reported in north Texas.  I've heard them
in Oklahoma and Nebraska.  William Stewart reports them in AAVE in his
article 1971 "Observations (1966) on the problems of defining Negro
dialect" in The Florida FL Reporter 9:47-49, 57.

Herb Stahlke


I was once chatting with a Kentucky-born, white linguist about
dialects. In the course of the conversation, he asked me about the
implosive consonants of BE. I was caught off guard. I asked, "Implosive
consonants of Black English? What implosive consonants?" He replied,
"You know. As in 'boy' and so forth." When I heard his example, I was
totally flabbergasted. The type of pronunciation that he considered to
be a defining characteristic of BE is one that I've always considered
to be a defining characteristic of the speech of "country"
White-English speakers! I didn't know what to say, not wishing to
contradict someone famous in the field, so I just changed the subject.
This type of pronunciation can be heard in an old song entitled
"All-American Boy" in which the singer, a white man with a "country"
accent, uses exactly this implosive b. I haven't looked, but there's
probably a sample of the song at towerrecords.com, if anyone cares.

-Wilson Gray