Rare Dialects

Gerald Walton gww at OLEMISS.EDU
Mon Feb 23 22:37:14 UTC 2009 

Wilson, you mentioned language in the Bronx. With
your interest in BE, you may find this of
interest. I was once staying at a motel in the
Bronx. Some friends and I had had too much to
drink already but wanted to have a nightcap at my
motel room. I didn't have enough glasses for all.
We stopped at a diner as we walked to the motel,
and I asked the waitress, in my slurred
Mississippi speech, "What'll you take for a paper
cup?" She had no idea what I said, and I repeated
it several times. She never understood, but an
African American cook in the back was listening
and laughing. She explained: "Da man wants to buy a paper cup."
Gerald

At 03:42 PM 2/23/2009, you wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail
>header -----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject:      Re: Rare Dialects
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>A funny thing is that when *you* are the one who isn't understood, as
>was the case with me when I first went to Los Angeles, it's impossible
>to tell what it is about your speech that makes it hard to understand.
>
>Once, a guy that I was giving a lift to asked me whether I noticed
>anything strange about the way that he talked.
>
>Yes. You sound like a West Indian.
>
>Mon, I don't understand! Everybody tells me that. But I talk the same
>as everybody else!
>
>Not hardly, as we say in the 'hood. Based on my own earlier experience
>of having people in Los Angeles continually ask me what it was that I
>had said, however, the poor guy had my complete sympathy. You do feel,
>in such cases, that there's absolutely nothing about your idiolect
>that's in any way so distinct from the local dialect that people
>simply have no idea what you're saying or think that you're some kind
>of foreigner, especially when you understand them perfectly, because
>to your ear, you and they are speaking exactly the same dialect. But,
>nevertheless, they react as though you were speaking some foreign
>tongue that they've never heard before.
>
>-Wilson
>
>-Wilson
>–––
>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.
>-----
>-Mark Twain
>
>
>
>On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 12:04 PM, Laurence Horn
><laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the
> mail header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: Rare Dialects
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > 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
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>---------------------------------------------
> ----------------------------------
> >>>
> >>>  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
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>  ----------------------------------------
> >>>  > 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?
> >>>  >
> >>>  > ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>  > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>>  _________________________________________________________________
> >>>  Windows Live  Hotmail(R) more than just e-mail.
> >>>
> >>>
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> GLM_WL_t2_hm_justgotbetter_howitworks_022009
> >>>
> >>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>>
> >>
> >>------------------------------------------------------------
> >>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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