The Covington leader. (Covington, Tenn.) 18??-current, 1919-06-12
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DIALECTIC DIFFERENCES

8 g 81 r. y g ~ q q q q q @ 81 p g Y $.%
"A correspondent presents a theory
that the rolled "r" SO pronouced in
the speech Of the northwest is the
result of German influence on Ian
guage in that section. He is himself
a Northwestener, but after travel in
both England and Germany he has
arrived at conclusion producing this
theory.
1t is hardly probable that the cor
respondent will find many persons
proficient in philology or who have
made a study of the varying dialects,
idioms, accent, intonations, etc.
among the English-speaking people
who will agree with him in this re-
spect.
The original English colonists who
came to America all, most likely,
brought with them practically the
same manner of seventeenth century
English speech, but all Americans of
today diverge quite noticeably in
their manner Of speech from any
class of contemporary English peo-
pie, while in different sections of the
country they differ from each other.
1t didn't require the miracle of
Babel to produce a confusion of
tongues. Speech changes rapidly.
Godfrey Chaucer, who lived and
wrote the best English of his day
the latter half of the fourteenth cen
tury-can't be read by anyone in the
English-speaking world today without
the aid of a glossary. There is no
fact better assured than that English
and German had common origin;
and Dutch, Flemish and the Scandi-
navian languages came from the
same source, but they are very much
apart today. 1t is plain as a matter
both of history and philology that
Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese
and other romance languages ALI had
Latin as their basis.
Going further back, the whole
group of European languages, ancient
and modern, together with Sanscrit
and ancient Persian, are, or were,
plainly of the great Aryan family,
and the suggestion is strong that
they came from the same original
source.
General education, improved facili-
ties of travel, and the printing of
many books, papers, etc, has tended
to retard linguistic changes among
the people of modern civilizations,
and are now visibly having the eff
feet of diminishing provincialisms
and creating common standards, though
the inroads of the philistines, COM
mercial and other sorts, are still diff
ficult to stay.
1t is entirely possible that if there
had been no English literature, or if
the art of printing had not been in
vented, the people of England and
America would today be hardly able
to understand each other.
The habit of sharply accentuating
rs and Of frequently supplying RS
where there should be none, begins
in the Pittsburgh region and prevails
over the entire northwest. It is most
pronounced in the Chicago environ
ment. 1t has been accounted for on
the supposed ground that there were
many immigrants from Ulster, com
monty called Scotch-Irish, in Western
Pennsylvania in early days, but the
settlers Of the northwest didn't by
any means all come from that source,
and speech heard in Belfast and Lon
donderry today doesn't in any special
respect resemble Chicagoese.
Henry james, the Banner has on
another occasion made note, told the
students in lecture he delivered at
Bryn Mawr that American girls will
say vanilla rice" and @Cuber." This
brought protests from several parts
of the country, and especially from
the south, but they say things like
that in Chicago, and some of them
up there also say, Come here, En-
mar, and see the dorg."
On the other hand in large por-
tons of the south, the letter r, ex-
cept when in initiatory, is little, or
not at all, sounded The story is told
of circuit Judge, who was well
known in Middle Tennessee some
years ago, that he spelled the word
court, cote. 1t is a fact that the
prevalent speech of this section
makes little difference in the pronun-
citation of court, coat or cote. Many
sound door as if it were doe, and the
termination ing is almost universally
slurred.
The omission of the r, however, is
not characteristic of the mountain
people of the south. They sound
that letter quite distinctly, but not
with the energetic jerk of the North
westerner. Their speech varies es-
sentially in several respects from that
of the Southerners of the lowlands.
The original settlers of the Appala-
chan mountain country came in large
part from immigration down the
mountain from Pennsylvania, while
the population of the trans-Appala-
chan south was supplied from the
south Atlantic coast region.
The Virginians have some peculi-
rarities of speech not hoard among
their descendants in the southwest,
and on the South Carolina coast, es-
pecially in Charleston, there is pc
culiar accent. This is heard. too, to
some extent in Savannah. The ne
groes Of the coast region thereabout
speak the so-called gullah dialect, not
like that spoken by any other negroes
anywhere in the south.
Educated southern people have no
-prepossessed pride about their prov
incialism of sneech. hut thew find