Local dialects: How do you pronounce it?

The study of language presents interesting and satisfying insights into our past. Sometimes the spellings or use of a particular word or phrase can be just as revealing as an artifact that comes to light.

Research in our town record books has revealed the following, which serve as a guide to the accents of those who lived in these hills during Colonial times. Remember that it was the town clerk who did the writing, and any accents hinted at would have been his alone, but nevertheless it is a valid assumption that the majority of his contemporaries would not have spoken much differently. Here are a few selections from Colebrook, Winchester and Norfolk in the 18th century:

Ceare (care), as in “take ceare of the ----�; chesenut (chestnut tree); mash (marsh); Magret (Margaret); potators (potatoes); Sandersfield (Sandisfield); Berkhamsted (Barkhamsted); parsonally (personally); ajineing (adjoining); garding (garden).

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The source of our use of the English language had roots back in the home country of England. The situation was complicated by the fact that each of the English counties had their own distinct dialect. New England pronunciations and usage derived largely from the County of Kent, which became the topic of a speech given in 1885 to the American Antiquarian Society by Professor Hoar of Clark University. Here are some that apply locally:

Swath or swarth, the row of grass left on the ground by the scythe; grub, meaning food; bail, the handle of a pail; along, used in the phrase “get along with you�; bar-way, the passage way into a field after the bars are removed; bat, a large stick; biddy, a chicken; bay, the space between two beams; by-gollie, a mild oath; botch, to do something badly; bolt, to swallow whole or fast; bolt-upright, booby-hatch, which originally meant a clumsy carriage; boozy, drunk; brand new; buck, the body of a cart or wagon; cess, a tax (the root of our term “cesspool�); moonshine, illicit spirits.

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One of my pet peeves is the mispronunciation of the word “northeast.� Weathermen and other mass-media types no doubt will carry the day, but the original pronunciation was that of the New Englanders, or perhaps more specifically, the Nantucket fishermen. They do say “nor’west� and “sou’west,� but north is “no’th� with the long “o� and the soft “th.� Northeast is “no’theast.� pronounced with the same soft “th� (like “mouth� when used as a verb).

When either north or south is used as an adjective before the noun, however, each takes its ordinary dictionary pronunciation, as a “north wind� or “the south shore.�
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Another example of a general mispronunciation is the name of the largest city in Florida. It will probably come as a revelation to the vast number of readers that native Floridians prior to the coming of radio in the late 1910s and early ’20s, always pronounced it “Miam-uh,� with the accent on the middle syllable.

My paternal grandfather lived there at that time and owned three bakeries in the city. He said that the radio announcers on the early stations were all from the north and somehow got into the habit of mispronouncing it “Mi-am-ee,� and none of the natives were about to talk to them, let alone correct them.

I can’t swear to the last part being exactly true, but the rest is correct. Once in a great while I will hear a person who has a longtime Florida background pronounce it “Miam-uh,� so the correct version lives on.

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Locally, vestiges of our former dialect can still be heard. “Nor-fork� is an example; it has the same spelling as all the other Norfolks that are scattered about the earth, all of which are named for the English city of Norfolk, but for some obscure reason the locals phonically inserted the second “r.� Today it only serves to separate the “locals� from the “newcomers.�

There is a city in central Connecticut that has the same spelling as the capitol of Germany, but instead of being pronounced “Ber-lin,� as in Germany, where the second syllable is stressed, has the accent on the first syllable. This same pronunciation also is true for the town in New Hampshire.

A similar name pronunciation that differs from its European original is the small town of Genoa, east of Lake Cayuga in the Finger Lakes Region of central New York. The Italian city is pronounced Gen-o-ah, with the accent on the first syllable.

The Italian immigrants who came to upstate New York and established the wine industry there left several communities bearing names familiar to their ears, but for some strange reason Genoa came to be pronounced “Gen-o-ah� with the second syllable stressed.

I had a cousin who lived there, and I visited there fairly often, but several attempts at uncovering the origin of the local dialectical change drew a complete blank.

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During our Colonial period, many Scotch-Irish people came here and settled along the Appalachian Mountain uplift, where they eventually became isolated by the more numerous immigrants from Germany, Scandinavia, France and other northern European countries whose primary goal was either to acquire a nice flat piece of productive bottomland or perhaps to become a merchant in a more urban setting.

The Scotch-Irish, who were familiar with hilly, stony surroundings, remained on the land unwanted by the others. Actually, the settling of Colebrook and her surrounding townships was done along these very lines. The proprietors who were given the right to develop these uplands were residents of the fertile Connecticut River Valley and saw a future here only after the valley and shoreline was fully occupied.

Now, with the ever-increasing pressure of a growing population, coupled with a modern transportation system, our acreage is in demand by people who wouldn’t have given this area a second look a generation ago.

My point here is that the southern Appalachian accent and the accent of the residents of extreme northern Vermont in Caledonia County are very similar, and close attention will reveal that what you are hearing is the last gasps of spoken Elizabethan English. It ceased to be spoken in the home country several generations ago, but has survived in the isolated mountains of the United States. Sadly, it is fast fading and before much longer will pass into oblivion along with many other aspects of our cultural background.

 Bob Grigg is the town historian in Colebrook.