Our Southern Highlanders

Poststructural Pub
1

I love this book. But then it’s about my “mountain people” here in the Appalachians.

Written by Horace Kephart in the 19teens, it is a true portrait of how my folks lived then. It also explains a lot about why we are like we are today, and how the still to this day, stereotypical, “hillbilly” came about and how it is all wrong.

This book made me even prouder to be from where I am from, to have descended from these folks and to continue on this heritage.( I particularly enjoy the fact that we still use many of the same types of speech listed in the book, still have the same independence and toughness of these folks)

Here’s practically the whole thing -
http://search.netscape.com/ns/boomframe.jsp?query=Our+Southern+Highlanders&page=1&offset=0&result_url=redir%3Fsrc%3Dwebsearch%26requestId%3D7a63c7f7ffe41715%26clickedItemRank%3D3%26userQuery%3DOur%2BSouthern%2BHighlanders%26clickedItemURN%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.ls.net%252F%257Enewriver%252Fosh%252Foshtoc.htm%26invocationType%3D-%26fromPage%3DNSCPTop%26amp%3BampTest%3D1&remove_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ls.net%2F~newriver%2Fosh%2Foshtoc.htm

2

I can relate to this bit. To me, I always wanted to write with proper spellings, because to do otherwise would be like admitting local pronunciations are sub-par, which I do not think. OTOH, you want to get across the color of it.

ONE day I handed a volume of John Fox’s stories to a neighbor and asked him to read it, being curious to learn how those vivid pictures of mountain life would impress one who was born and bred in the same atmosphere. He scanned a few lines of the dialogue, then suddenly stared at me in amazement.

" What’s the matter with it? " I asked, wondering what he could have found to startle him at the very beginning of a story.

" Why, that feller don’t know hoes to spell!"

Gravely I explained that dialect must be spelled as it is pronounced, so far as possible, or the life and savor of it would be lost. But it was of no use. My friend was outraged. " That tale-teller then is jest makin’ fun of the mountain people by misspellin’ our talk. You educated folks don’t spell your own words the way you say them."

A most palpable hit; and it gave me a new point of view.

To the mountaineers themselves their speech is natural and proper, of course, and when they see it bared to the spotlight, all eyes drawn toward it by an orthography that is as odd to them as it is to us, they are stirred to wrath, just as we would be if our conversation were reported by some Josh Billings or Artemas Ward.

The curse of dialect writing is elision. Still, no one can write it without using the apostrophe more than he likes to; for our highland speech is excessively clipped. " I’m comin’ d’reck’ly " has a quaintness that should not be lost. We cannot visualize the shambling but eager mountaineer with a sample of ore in his hand unless the writer reports him faithfully: “Wisht you’d ‘zamine this rock fer me-I heern tell you was one o’ them 'sperts.”

3

Oh, wow! Wonderful reading!

4

also read the cracker culture, celtic ways in the old south, by grady mcwhiney

a very good read!

5

Where? Website? Book?

6

Great reading so far.

I’ve always had a fascination with the culture of the mountains Ever since I was a wee lad and our family made a couple trips to the Huntington WV area to visit an aunt who’d married a coal miner from there. I’m sure the image I’ve developed, in spite of trying, is still flawed but there’s no doubt that my love of bluegrass music and Old Time fiddle tunes exists because of the strong associations between it and my childhood impressions.

I’m sure “The Waltons” gave the general population a different viewpoint about the people of the mountains but was it accurate?

7

For those that are interested:

A CD Written especially to accompany Kephart’s book

http://www.elephantrock.com/waysThatAreDark/hk.asp

Plus I just found out Kephart was instrumental in founding the Smokey Mountain Natl Park. Probably as a reaction to the lumber companies.

8

Huntington is “the city” (which is strange, considering how Charleston has more people, but I’ve always felt more “at home”, rural or whatever in Charleston) and have only heard Huntington referred to as “the city”.

If you think Huntington is typical of “hillfolk” life, you should really go further south, into Mingo and Logan counties. I live down here in “Hatfield and McCoy Country”. That’s what the city dwellers call it anyway. It kinda seems a derogatory name, though, they way they use it.

9

peggy, its a book i bought at a highland games. amazon.com has it.

10

When it is done with honesty and reverence for the people, it is beautiful. When it is used to stereotype and belittle it is very ugly. This is beautiful.

Thanks both of you.

11

I’ve read the first 8 chapters. Excellent. I’ll have to wait until later to read the rest.

12

And Born Fighting : How the Scots-Irish Shaped America by James Webb . When he’s talking history and not whining about poor white folks or tootig his own horn, it’s pretty interesting.

13

And Born Fighting : How the Scots-Irish Shaped America by James Webb . When he’s talking history and not whining about poor white folks or tootig his own horn, it’s pretty interesting.

14

The other week I was running eBay searches for Scots language (or the English-variant, if one prefers) and that book came up more often than ‘Mary, Queen of Scots’ type of books.

I almost bought it, just because it seemed interesting.

Only found one single book on Scots (the language), though. :frowning:

15

Isn’t Scots also known as “Lallans”?

I always figured that’s the language Stacy (she of the bodacious fipples and flashy avatars) uses for her posts. :laughing:

16

I always thought that was Doric, the language of a thousand creepy old songs. :smiling_imp:

17

Go to http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?bx=on&sts=t&ds=30&bi=0&kn=Scots+AND+language&sortby=2 and scroll down to numbers 16 (Scottish English, English Scottish) and

17 (The Pocket Scots Dictionary).

Then, on to

19 (Pocket Guide to Scottish Words),
21 (The Pride O’ Scotland. A Scots-English Parallel of Matthew , Mark, Luke and John),
27 (The Old Scots Tounge : Scottish Words and their Meanings – ‘10,000 Scottish Words and their meanings.’ A useful little book but please note the typeface is very small and a magnifying glass may be required),
30 (Scottish Words and Phrases), and
49 (The Scots Dialect Dictionary --on the second page).

There are several pages of stuff. Many entries appear more than once–different prices from different sellers. Pay attention to the condition, which is usually noted. American Book Exchange is one of my major sources for academic texts. A used text book can cost a quarter of what it would sell for new, and they can be in really good condition.

On searching for “lallans” (thanks to DCrom) as a keyword, I found http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?kn=lallans&bsi=30 and

number 36 (THE SCOTTISH TONGUE, a Series of Lectures on the Vernacular Language of Lowland Scotland),
89 (and 94 & 95) (LALLANS, A SELECTION OF SCOTS WORDS ARRANGED AS AN ENGLISH-SCOTTISH DICTIONARY WITH PRONUNCIATION AND EXAMPLES and
98 (Scots : The Mither Tongue).

That should get you started. If I recall correctly (what are the chances?) from discussions on sci.lang, “Scottish English” and “Scots” are quite different. “Scots” is not just a variety of English.

A quick Google found http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Scots_language saying:

Scots (or Lallans, meaning ‘Lowlands’), properly Lowland Scots, is a Germanic language used in Lowland Scotland, as well as parts of Northern Ireland and border areas of the Republic of Ireland, where it is known in official circles as Ulster Scots or Ullans but by speakers simply as “Scotch” or “Scots”. On the whole, Lowland Scots descends from the Northumbrian form of Anglo-Saxon, albeit with influence from Norse via the Vikings, Dutch and Low Saxon through trade with, and immigration from, the low countries, and Romance via ecclesiastical and legal Latin, Anglo-Norman and later Parisian French owing to the Auld Alliance. Lowland Scots also has loan words resulting from contact with Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language distinct from Lowland Scots still spoken by some in the Highlands and islands to the west. Loan words from Scottish Gaelic are mainly for geographical and cultural features, such as clan and loch (‘lake’). Like any living language, Lowland Scots has changed to some extent over the years, though it has arguably remained closer to its Anglo-Saxon roots than English. Many Lowland Scots words have become part of English: flit, ‘to move home’, greed, eerie, cuddle, clan, stob, ‘a post’.

18

Ooooooh. Thanks. :slight_smile:

I know they’re different, Darwin…but apparently nobody else does.

So many people confuse Scots with Scottish Gaelic and Scottish English, but it is neither.

19

Found this, but lost the URL after copying the text:

There are at least five Scots dialects:

  • Northern Scots, spoken north of Dundee, often split into North Northern, Mid Northern — also known as Northeast Scots and affectionately referred to as the Doric ---- and South Northern.
  • Central Scots, spoken from Fife and Perthshire to the Lothians and Wigtownshire, often split into North East and South East Central, West Central and South West Central Scots.
  • South Scots Spoken in the Border Areas.
  • Insular Scots spoken in the Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands
  • Ulster Scots, spoken by the descendants of Scottish settlers in Northern Ireland, and sometimes described by the neologism Ullans as a merging of Ulster and Lallans .
20

Umm, I knew. :sunglasses: