Appalachian accents are like no other. A mash up of influences—British Isles, German, African dialects, probably some Native American—all mixed together and baked in our secluded hills for a couple centuries.

Some say that the resulting sound is more like Elizabethan English than the contemporary accent in England. I'm not sure how to confirm that without a time machine, but I do know that the minute Appalachian natives leave the mountains, that accent sets them apart.

You know how it goes. A friend from, say, New Jersey is deaf to his own thick intonation but doesn't hesitate to reference the Beverly Hillbillies or Deliverance when poking fun at yours. Some folks call it vocal imperialism. I just call it mean.

But it works. Countless mountain people are ashamed of the sound of their own voices, some going so far as beating the accent into submission with diction classes.

This pitiful pattern set today's guest blogger Chelyen Davis to thinking. A Southwest Virginia native who lives in Richmond, she sees "code switching" among Appalachian folks all the time. That's when someone switches dialects depending on the circumstances.

Chelyen, who also writes on her own blog Homesick Appalachian, asks an important question—now that we're constantly exposed to people from other regions, is code switching just a fact of life or are we losing a key piece of our mountain heritage?

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NPR recently started an interesting conversation on Twitter by asking if public radio voices are “too white” and if those white-sounding public radio voices are limiting the audience, shutting out people who don’t necessarily choose to listen to people who don’t sound like them.

The discussion grew out of an African-American professor and hiphop artist who did some radio work and noticed that he talked differently for radio, and was considering why. From what I could tell from the Twitter discussion, folks of other ethnicities weighed in, and then people started talking about how public radio voice isn’t just white, it’s a sort of standard, non-accented white. You don’t often hear regional accents on NPR, no matter what race the speaker is.
That’s an interesting and valuable conversation to have, and it gets into all kinds of issues — race, ethnicity, regional dialects, the value placed on how we talk, how we sound, the words we choose, how others judge us by all that, etc. An interesting comment on that is here.

But it got me thinking off on a specific related tangent — Appalachian code-switching. This probably would apply to any strong regional accent (hi, Boston), but Appalachian accents are my own experience.

I don’t think everyone in Appalachia (or the south, or another region with a strong accent) code-switches. Not everyone needs to. My uncles and cousins mostly still live in the small communities where they grew up, and I doubt they talk any differently at work on the strip job than they do at home. They might change their words a bit when they go to, say, the doctor’s office in Bristol or Johnson City. But largely, their lives are lived around people who talk the way they do.

But I grew up hearing my parents code-switch, because they left those communities. They were both the first in their (large) families to go to college, and we lived in a town — still in Appalachia, but outside the more isolated, small communities where they both grew up. You could hear my mother’s voice change when she called her parents on the phone. To neighbors where we lived, it was your basic “Hi, how are you?” To her own parents, it was
“Howdydo. Howre you’uns a-doin?”

She still does that when she calls her dad or brothers, or when we visit them. And so do I. It seems you only need to code-switch when you leave. (Or become a radio/tv host.)

I am an adopter of accents. I think there’s actually a word for that but I don’t know it — I unconsciously mimic the accent of the person I’m talking to, if I talk to them for long enough and if their accent is distinctive enough. I don’t mean to, and they aren’t necessarily flattered by it, and I don’t always do it strongly. I first noticed it when I spent a month in England in college.

But my own accent is softly Southwest Virginian. I’ve lived away a good long while, so it’s not as strong as, say, some of my cousins’ accents. And probably it never was, because we lived in town and my parents went to college and I grew up watching public TV and, as I noted in a previous post, I was the kind of kid who thought “ain’t” wasn’t a proper word. But it’s there. People here, away from the mountains, sometimes comment on it, or ask where I’m from. It’s a great way to find fellow mountain folks here — we can hear each other talk, and believe me, if I hear an accent that sounds like it’s from Southwest Virginia, I’m going to ask that person where they’re from.

My sister’s accent has mostly faded, but mine hasn’t. I think I’m just prone to an accent. Also, I lived back home for a couple of years after college, so maybe it sort of “set” then. It gets stronger if I’ve had a glass or two of wine, and it gets stronger when someone asks about it. It knows when it’s being talked about, and it likes to show off.

I have a professional job, but I rarely consciously talk differently than I would, say, at a party or at home. The primary exception has been at public events — say, if I’m on a speaking panel — or the occasional times when I’ve been a guest on a radio show (public radio, at that!). I think the accent tightens up a bit then, tries to behave itself. I probably make some different word choices than my colloquial speaking voice, although I know I’ve said “might could” on the radio.

My writing changes some, too. I’m rereading this post and it sounds awfully formal. If you and I were sitting down and just chatting about this, I would probably say things a bit differently.

But that’s all code-switching, I suppose, to an extent. I also know I talk differently when I call home to Mom, and even more so when I call my grandfather. I talk differently when I visit my parents’ families. My boyfriend tells me I talk differently when I come back from a visit home. So I code-switch both ways, to a lesser accent and to a stronger one.

And I’m glad. I’d rather switch than talk blandly all the time. I don’t want to lose my accent, my word choices, the colorfulness of Appalachian ways of talking. I’d be fine with that accent getting stronger. I know many people outside the mountains assume someone with a strong mountain accent is a dumb hick, but I figure that’s their problem, not mine. I love using terms like “might could/should/would” — and it is so handy, perfectly describing that point between “I could go to the party” and “I only MIGHT could go to the party.” I love having that vocal connection to home, to a place and a culture and a history.

My boss once told me he had heard a theory that we talk like where we want to be. I miss home, so I love talking like people back home. People who are glad to get out of the mountains (and there are some such misguided souls) probably welcome the disappearance of their accents, consciously work to shed them. The boss had come from a poor, flat farming area in North Carolina. He didn’t seem to much miss it, and he didn’t talk like his roots either.

I’m not a linguist. I assume there are studies and papers and research and opinions out there about this subject, about Appalachians shedding their accents in the flatlands. I know there are many papers and studies and ruminations about the broader issues of the homogenization of language, the pernicious effects of TV (and radio!) on making us all sound the same, the value judgments placed on word choices and on speaking “proper” English, and all that.

But I love accents and words that change by region. Perhaps because I value them so highly for my own sense of culture and place, I’m all for everyone else having their own too. Why should we all talk the same? Language should be colorful. So while I love public radio, I hope it doesn’t Henry Higgins us all, stamping out accents and strange pronunciations and weird words.

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How do you pronounce Appalachia?
We don't need Merriam Webster to tell us that the word's third vowel can be a short A or a long A. If you've spent fifteen minutes in the mountains and fifteen minutes anywhere else, you know that.
You also know that this little difference in pronunciation can lead to some big arguments. I've seen folks launch into fiery diatribes to defend their version. Long A People say that Short A People don't know how to speak proper English and ought to get their snaggle-toothed selves on a bus, plane, or train and learn how the rest of the country talks. Short A People point out that the dictionary has both pronunciations and then call Long A People a bunch of vocal imperialists who wouldn't know the value of local identity if it smacked them in the behind.
From this point on, broken beer bottles or firearms are often involved. I can't say who comes out on top, because I usually make a quick retreat. But I bet you can tell me--who's right? And why on earth does this one little vowel matter so much?
Before you leave your comment, be sure to check out this clip from novelist Sharyn McCrumb. She is the author behind the Appalachian "Ballad" novels, including the New York Times best sellers The Ballad of Frankie,so she knows about dialect. Sharyn doesn't think this is just a case of tuh-mey-toh or tuh-mah-toh. She believes that Appalachia is one mighty important word and how you pronounce it tells the listener a lot about who you are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGCqWrsAZ_o

[caption id="attachment_1301" align="alignleft" width="187"] Me, when I had a strong accent.[/caption]

Once I had a mountain twang. It was thick as bacon fat and stronger than the scent off a rose bush in full bloom. When I was three and living on Bent Mountain, my daddy recorded me. On that tape, you can hear me sassing at bedtime, "Maw'ma, ayan't slea'pee. Ayan't red'ee for bed, Maw'ma."

I didn't know that I spoke with a dialect. Everyone around me talked the same way--choppy and fast without stopping between words. Our sentences were punctuated by hums that could mean approval, agreement, doubt, or just plain annoyance, all depending on the tone. Sayings added flourish to our speech and framed our world with metaphor:
Lord willin and the creek don’t rise.
Can’t get ahead for tryin'.
Can’t afford a pot to piss in.
Hintin’ is in West Virginia.
Knock you into the middle of next week.
It was a gorgeous, elaborate accent, and it began to erode when I signed up for high school theater. I had to neutralize my speech on stage. For a while, the twang came back after the curtain closed, but eventually, over-enunciation took a toll. My accent softened for entire school days and even at home, where everyone thought I talked kind of funny.
Then I moved outside Appalachia. I went to college in the Piedmont of North Carolina. Natives talk slower there; the spoken word is more languid, but I didn't adopt this variation of Southern speech.
Instead I was influenced by politically progressive Yankees. They were the kind who drove clunker Saabs and spent their free time debating the merits of Ayn Rand novels. Few of them had any distinguishable accent beyond the flat intonation of America's hyper-educated class.
This dull tone wore down whatever was left of my twang. It also changed what I heard back home. On the phone and during visits, the local dialect popped. Someone would say, "Hey, swee'dee," or call me "Maur'kle'en," and I'd smile. It was like being greeted with fireworks every time I talked to my family and mountain friends.
I've heard that many Appalachians ditch their accents because of work. Some years back, National Geographic explained it this way:
"It's a common precaution among many young adults from the United States' southern Appalachian Mountains to disguise their unique way of speaking when they seek work elsewhere. They fear their distinct twang, nonstandard grammar, and obscure idioms will cause potential employers to conclude they are incapable of holding jobs."
This never occurred to me. My accent was virtually gone by the time I began working white collar jobs. I doubt it hindered my career; maybe it was because I was passing. Like people of color who used to pass for white, I blended into the dominate culture. I never denied my Appalachian roots, but for years I didn't focus on them.
I lived in Boston during my twenties and emulated New England norms. I listened to rock and jazz, not bluegrass. I vacationed at the beach or abroad, not in the mountains. I wore button downs, khakis, and rolled neck sweaters.
Once, a friend told some colleagues that I was from the Virginia mountains. Their eyes got big, and one said, "No way. I'd always assumed he was a Kennedy or something."
Of course, in Boston the local dialect was in direct contradiction to my native one. Bostonians talk as if the letter "r" had never been invented. "Pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd," is the stock joke about their accent. Meanwhile, mountain people can drag an "r" out so far you'd think it was the whole of the alphabet. "Ids nad'farrr if yeur drivin' yeur'carrr."
It's no surprise that my accent remained dormant until I headed south. Seven years ago I moved to DC. A job was waiting and there was the promise of better weather, but mostly I was ready to be close to the Blue Ridge. On weekends, I drove to the mountains to hike, kayak, hang with locals, and for the first time in a decade, talk the way I was meant to talk.
As unconsciously as it had drifted away, my accent returned. "Ain't" and "ya'll" and "s'ko" eased out of my mouth. They sounded softer than when I was a kid, but they were back, still seasoned with a distinctive drawl. Their cadence felt natural, as if it had been inside me the whole time, waiting on the sweet smell of mountain laurel to draw it out.
Now my accent comes and goes, depending on my mood, who's talking to me, how much I've had to drink, and, especially, where I am. It's like a radio station during a car trip. In general, it's clearer in the mountains, and it fades in town.
Driving West from DC, I pick up the signal somewhere around the intersection of Highways 66 and 81. My vowels get longer. Single consonant words begin breaking into two. Everything starts looking "purdy as a pikcher" once I cross into the Shenandoah Valley. If you're in the car with me, you might even hear a gentle, twanging hum of approval.
Apparently, I'm not the only one who's proud of his mountain drawl. In that National Geographic article, Walt Wolfram, a linguistics professor at the North Carolina State University says, "What we're finding is that people are taking a new pride in their mountain culture. That includes their language. People are making the comment, 'We're hillbillies, but we're proud of it. That's who we are.'"
There's even a new Facebook page called Appalachian English. It's trying to "develop a standard of wraatin da better refleck ar speech." Under the Discussions tab, it even has guidelines for spelling in our dialect.
So if you're from Appalachia, are you proud of your accent? Still got it? Ever felt pressured to lose it?
If you're not, what do you think when you hear Appalachian accents? What do they bring to mind?