Rare Dialects

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:46 AM -0500 2/23/09, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Many of us remember the best episode of the otherwise blah "Story of
>English" on PBS many years ago.

OT query:  I still use SoE in class for the
"Mother Tongue" hour ("Program 2"), in which
McNeil depicts the early history from the Angles
and Saxons through the Viking invasions (with the
conversation in the Danelaw between a Saxon and a
Viking about the selling of a horse, or hros as
the case may be) and the Norman invasion, to
Chaucer and Caxton and the beginning of the vowel
shift.  I find it useful, if somewhat dated (to
judge from the increase in student giggles over
the years at certain parts).  Is there a good
substitute?  (The pronunciations of Old and
Middle English texts and mock conversations along
the way, and a fragment of the colorful
performance of "Mankind" (that's [man'kInd], not
[maen'kaind]) strike me as particularly helpful
for illustrating the effect of the changes the
language has undergone.)

LH

>The old Chesapeake dialect sounded
>relatively unintelligible to me, though I assume it would not be too hard to
>get used to after a day or so.
>
>The Gullah dialect may be/ have been the least intelligible to outsiders.
>Inner-city and deep-south "basilects" are pretty hard for outsiders too.
>
>Of course we're only talking about English in the U.S.
>
>JL
>On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 11:27 PM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com>wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
>>  Subject:      Re: Rare Dialects
>>
>>
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>>  Unitelligible dialects? absolutely.  I attended a talent show at a local
>>  college with my parents and wife.  The MC was a black man and much of the
>>  audience was black.  He must have been funny because they were having a
>>  ball.  Meanwhile we kept looking at each other wondering what he was saying.
>>   I will never forget it.
>>
>>  It happened in England as well.  I had to avoid this fellow member of a
>>  society I belong to because I couldn't understand a word he was saying.
>>
>>
>>  Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>  see truespel.com
>>
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>>  ----------------------------------------
>>  > Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 08:11:41 -0500
>>  > From: djmetevia at CHARTERMI.NET
>>  > Subject: Rare Dialects
>>  > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>  >
>>  > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  > Sender: American Dialect Society
>>  > Poster: David Metevia
>>  > Subject: Rare Dialects
>>  >
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>  >
>>  > An interesting article in the LA Times yesterday:
>>  >
>>  > http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-interpret21-2009feb21,0,5139254.story
>>  >
>>  > This man could communicate easily in his home town and even somewhat
>>  > outside of that as he knows some Spanish. However, it is a big culture
>>  > shock to be in California.
>>  >
>>  > Are there examples in the US of AmE dialects so isolated from the
>>  > mainstream that most of us would have difficulty communicating?
>>  >
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