Homestead mailing list

[<eureka AT hctc.net>]

And I could go on all day reading about it, very 
interesting. I remember when I first moved here people 
wanted to introduce me to some of the "cow poners" and I 
honestly didn't know what a cow poner was, I thought it 
might be some form of cowboy. However, I soon found out 
what they were saying was "camp owners". Ha ha.

On Thu, 4 Dec 2008 11:51:10 EST
 Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:
> > >I just recently found out I have Cherokee ancstors. How 
> > would you describe the Cherokee influence on southern 
> > speech? I have not heard about this influence before.
>
> I have a collection of recordings of native Oklahoma 
> Cherokee speakers and of 
> course Morganton, NC, is close by where most of the 
> Eastern Cherokee are 
> located.  After having lived in Oklahoma for 180 years 
> (after the removal) the 
> people's speech, whether speaking Cherokee or English, 
> has the pure Appalachian 
> twang to it.
>
> The people who first populated the wild craigs and 
> ridges of this part of the 
> world (I say 'first' because the place is so 
> hardscrabble that even the 
> Indians didn't live here, they just visited) were not in 
> the majority English 
> speakers.  They spoke various forms of German, French, 
> Gaelic, and there were even 
> enclaves of speakers of Portuguese and Italian.  Each of 
> those left its mark 
> on the lingua franca that developed.  For example, in 
> Scottish Gaelic there is 
> no actual present tense of the verb.  The present tense 
> is expressed thus:  
> instead of saying "I am drinking" one says "I am at 
> drinking"  (Tha mi ag ól.  
> Pronounced roughly 'ha me a goal').  This pattern 
> carried over into Appalachian 
> version of English as "I am a thinking, I'm a going.") 
>   From the Romance 
> languages Southern English and Appalachian English in 
> particular absorbed the 
> copious use of the reflexive which is common in those 
> languages "I'm a thinking 
> I'll get myself down to the store and have myself an 
> RC."
>
> But back to the Cherokee.  When the folk looked around 
> for an example of 
> common English speech, the best English speakers were 
> the Cherokee.  Cherokee has 
> six vowel sounds and no diphthongs.  The vowels are the 
> continetal values of 
> a,e, i, o, and u, plus a completely nasal vowel written 
> in translitertions as 
> 'v' (since that letter has no other use in Cherokee). 
>  English, however, has 
> no pure vowel sounds.  ALL vowels in English are either 
> diphthongs or glides or 
> both.  For example, the word 'they' is pronounced in 
> English as "thay-ee"  
> and "note" is pronounced "noh-oot".  This feature of 
> English makes it a somewhat 
> difficult language to learn to pronounce if you weren't 
> born to it.
>
> So the Tsalagi speaker came into contact with the 
> English speakers and heard 
> them saying two vowels with every syllable.  But the 
> Tsalagi speaker didn't 
> use diphthongs so they took the one vowel sound and said 
> it twice imitating the 
> glide.
>
> When we say "I" we are saying vowel that does not occur 
> by itself in common 
> English but is sort of like "ah" then followed by "ee". 
> Try saying "I" but cut 
> it off short before you add the "ee" on the end.  The 
> Cherokee heard the 
> rhythm of the glide, but said the "ah" part twice as 
> "ah-ah" (no hiatus between 
> them, say it as a glide).  Thus Appalachian English 
> acquired the characteristic 
> of holding and gliding the same vowel twice rather than 
> making a diphthong out 
> of it.
>
> That's why you hear "boh-oh" and "oh-ohl" instead of 
> "boy" and "oil".  
>
> The Cherokee word (one of them) for "yes"  is "hv-hv" 
> and this carried over 
> into common speach here and is used to this day often 
> writen "uh-huh".
>
> Around here you will most often hear the expression 
> "ever where" and "ever 
> what" and "ever when" instead of "where ever", 
> "whatever" and "whenever".  This 
> traces back to a Low German influence.
>
> Could go on all day but mustn't.  Got to get a going, 
> uh-huh!
>
>
>
> James