Ahra-lessnes in white-Southern speech (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

Can you give some specific example words beyond "gummint" in which this might be seen?  I live in Huntsville, and might recognize some of this speech.

If I look through the text of the email below, the following pronunciations wouldn't sound odd to my ear:

Ah-meh-kihn (American)
Suthun (southern)
Nor-thun-ners (northerners)
Wheh-thuh (weather)

Bill

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Wilson Gray
> Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 10:18 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Ahra-lessnes in white-Southern speech
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header ---------------
> --------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Ahra-lessnes in white-Southern speech
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> Are there any white-Southern speakers left who *don't* use [r] in all
> the places where Northerners do? I watched a Weather Channel show on
> the Great Tornado Season of '74. Many ordinary white folk from
> Kentucky and Alabama were interviewed WRT their memories of that
> season. Only one speaker, from around Dothan and Huntsville, Alabama,
> failed to use [r] and that was in only one word: *government*, which
> he pronounced as approximately "gum mint" [g^m mI at nt].
>
> They all used what black speakers usually characterize as the
> "hillbilly" dialect. The "Southern" dialect is the ahra-less one
> usually attempted nowadays only by Northern actors attempting to
> portray Southern-speakers.
>
> Is BE the only r-less AmE dialect left with a number of speakers large
> enough to bother to count?
> --
> -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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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