"Heynabonics. Kina funny, hey na?"

[Wilson Gray]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sMI2jb16eo

According to my wife, when she was a girl in the late 'Fifties, there
was a song, sung to the tune of "Boola, Boola":

Hey na, hey na
Hey na, hey na
I'm from Plymout'
Pennsylvania
....

Anymore, she's unable to recall the rest of the words, but says that
the song was meant as a put-down of speakers of the non-middle-class
version of the Scranton / Wilkes-Barre regional dialect.

How about the way that the "teacher" pronounces "h" as [heiC]? I've
heard "h" pronounced as approximately [hiEC] by Catholics from
Northern Ireland, where the lack of [h-] is said to mark the speaker
as a Protestant, but this is the first time that I've ever heard "h"
pronounced with [h-] by an American.

-Wilson

On 11/16/07, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> I apologize for failing to add the relevant URL's. That was pretty
> stupid of me, since I made a point of copying the URL's before writing
> the post.
>
> -Wilson
>
> On 11/16/07, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: "Heynabonics. Kina funny, hey na?"
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Nov 16, 2007 3:20 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > FWIW, four minutes on YouTube of a "class" on the dialect of NE PA.
> >
> > Here's the link:
> >
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sMI2jb16eo
> >
> > And some background:
> >
> > http://www.timesleader.com/news/20071115_15heynabonics_ART.html
> > http://www.ecweekend.com/features/story.asp?id=45626
> >
> > > Not much new, except for the use of _hey na?_ for "right? you agree?
> > > okay wit chu?", etc.
> >
> > DARE's got _haina_ (one cite from nePA, 1986), cross-referencing
> > _ainna_ (used chiefly in German settlement areas, contraction of
> > _ain't it_, influenced by Ger. _nicht wahr_).
> >
> > This came up in a discussion here last year on "innit":
> > http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0611B&L=ADS-L&P=R2030
> >
> > --Ben Zimmer
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
> --
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
>                                               -Sam'l Clemens
>


--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                              -Sam'l Clemens

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org