Changes in St. Louis BE

[Gordon, Matthew J.]

My understanding of the vowel pattern in St. Louis BE is that both /ir/ and /Er/ are backed so that 'here' and 'hair' sound like 'her'. The former is AFAIK unique to the area while the latter is heard in Philadelphia and elsewhere though not particularly associated with African American speech outside STL.

Wilson, are you saying that 'here' and 'her' were homophonous when you were growing up?


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Wilson Gray
Sent: Tue 9/28/2004 10:39 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject:      Changes in St. Louis BE
 
In reviews of hip-hop/rap records made by black St. Louisans - e.g.
Nelly and Li'l John, I've several times seen references to a so-called
"St. Louis drawl." In print, this "drawl" is represented by multiple
r's, as in the title of the song, "Hot In Herrrre," by Nelly. I've
listened to this song and others, but, behind the fact that the words
are chanted/sung, plus all the background noise from the musicians and
the backup singers, I haven't heard anything that struck me as
different from what I grew up hearing. And we certainly didn't speak
with any drawl! Only country folk from "outstate Missouri" drawled.

I've since heard an example of the ordinary speech of contemporary
black St. Louisans. Well, all that I can say is that didn't nobody talk
like that fit-ty years ago! A black woman who looked to be about 23 was
being interviewed on a TV show. When the MC asked what she did for a
living, she answered, "I style people hair."

I noticed several differences from the BE of my day:

1) the absence of possessive "s" - "people hair" and not "people's hair"

2) the presence of post-vocalic word-final "r" - "hai[r]" and not
"hai[@]"

3) the presence of what I take to be the "St. Louis drawl," one of the
strangest vowels that I've ever heard in English - "h[weird back
vowel]r"! The MC didn't understand what she had said and asked her to
repeat it.

Given the spelling convention, I assume that the "drawl" occurs only
before the new /r/. And, given that song title obviously punning on the
sexual reference, "hot in her," and the woman's pronunciation of
'hair," I further assume that the sound shift backs vowels before /r/.

Now, if only I knew someone in St. Louis two generations younger than I
am to act as an informant!

-Wilson Gray