LL-L: "English" LOWLANDS-L, 31.JAN.2000 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L Administrator]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 31.JAN.2000 (02) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachean, D=Dutch, E=English, F=Frisian, L=Limburgish
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From: Edwin Michael Alexander [edsells at idirect.com]
Subject: LL-L: "English" LOWLANDS-L, 30.JAN.2000 (06) [E]

At 06:52 PM 01/30/00 -0800, John Feather wrote:
>I'd be interested to find out. An American friend of mine whose parents came
>from the Maritimes told me that they still retained their accents and a
>distinctive vocabulary. But the only example she could think of was their
>pronunciation of "buoy" as "boo-ee". That, of course, is a very common US
>pronunciation - though everyone will probably say they've never heard it
>:-). My point is that people are often unaware that things they think of as
>"local" are used elsewhere. You'll find the same thing if you look up
>www.wordplay.com/tourism/folklore/newfwords.html

And Sandy wrote:

>In fact I made a request for discussion of this dialect on the list a few
>years ago, but there didn't seem to be any takers.
>
>Newfoundland dialect is rather like the traditional English dialect of the
>south west of England ("Wessexian") and as far as I understand preserves
>more archaic forms than the Wessexian dialect spoken in the south west of
>England today. For example, Newfoundland speech better preserves the old
>three-gender dialect forms for nouns that in Wessex now involves only the
>masculine and neuter for the most part. I believe Appalachian,  the English
>of the south of Ireland, and for that matter General American, all came from
>Wessexian. In the south of Ireland this replaced Scots, which was in the
>process of replacing Gaelic, and while there's obvious Scots influence in
>Appalachian, there's also obvious Wessexian influence, and I don't really
>know which came first.
>
>I haven't got any examples of Newfoundland dialect, unfortunately.

There is a clear distinction between the speech of the Maritime Provinces
of Canada and that of Newfoundland.  The dominant speech of the Maritimes
(Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island) was determined
primarily by the United Empire Loyalists who were driven from their homes
and lands following the American Revolution, and came primarily from the
Central Atlantic States, where the indigenous speech today is still very
similar to the so-called "Canadian" accent. with its "clipped" vowels,
resulting in words like "Phildelphya" [Philadelphia]  (the local football
team is called the "Phildelphya Iggles") and "Tranto" [Toronto] and similar
strange pronunciations of the word "garage" [grage].  I suspect that this
"accent" is also originally southern English, but more Kentish.

I find more similiarities between Newfoundland speech and Appallacian,
though they don't sound the same at first.

I think the pronunciation of <boy> is better represented as <buy> as in the
famous song:

"I'se the the buy that builds the boat an I'se the buy that sails 'er".

Ed Alexander
JAG REALTY INC.
80 Jones Street Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8R 1Y1
Pager: 905-545-0177  Fax: 905-525-6671 Email: edsells at idirect.com
Jag Realty Inc.: http://www.deerhurst.com/jag/
Ontario Ultra Series:  http://ous.kw.net/
Burlington Runners Club: http://www.deerhurst.com/brc/

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