A reader writes:
Mr. Akin,Your post about coke-soda-pop usage
brought to mind a question I have about southern accents. A friend told me
that while visiting up north a sales clerk asked her what part of Tennessee
she was from. Connie was surprised by the question and asked the
clerk how she knew that she (Connie) was from Tennessee. The clerk replied
that only people from Tennessee say "dudn’t", as in "He dudn’t like any kind of
ice cream but vanilla".As soon as Connie mentioned
it I realized that I also say "dudn’t". However, I am skeptical
that it is only used in Tennessee. I’ve lived in Louisiana and
Oklahoma and no one ever commented on my use of "dudn’t" so that makes me
suspect it is fairly common, at least in the south. What do you
think?
The phenomenon you’re talking about is a common feature of Southern accents. It’s a feature of my own accent, as Fr. Vincent Serpa (Catholic Answers’ chaplain) pointed out to me. (Previously I had been unconscious of it.) Listen to the radio show sometime, and you’ll hear me using it.
What is going on here is that the /s/ and /z/ sounds (both sibilant or "hissing" sounds) are being dentalized (pronounced againt the teeth) in certain circumstances. Thus "wasn’t" > /wadn’t/, "isn’t" > /idn’t/, and "doesn’t" > /dudn’t/. ("Wasn’t" and "doesn’t" commonly uses /z/ in non-Southern speech, while "isn’t" commonly uses /s/.)
This shift isn’t surprising since the point of articulation for both sibilant and dental sounds is just behind the teeth.
The more interesting question is the circumstances in which this occurs. I don’t have enough data to tell for sure, but my guess is that it’s due (at least in part) to the /n/ sound that follows the /s/ or /z/ in the cited examples.
/n/ is a nasal sound (you may be stunned to learn), where the airflow is directed through the nose. If you’re gearing up to make a nasal sound like /n/, it might be a little harder to make a sibilant sound (where the airflow is directed through the mouth with the teeth in a particular configuration to allow us to hiss), and so a simplification of the situation might be to dentalize the sibilant in preparation for the nasal /n/.
Alternately, the speaker may be so focused on getting ready for the /n/ sound that what he is doing is omitting the sibilant, and the resulting pronunciation effort creates a de facto /d/ as he makes the transition.
Further research (or a professional linguist) could tell us for sure whether such conjectures are correct.
See, there’s this whole interesting world of pronunciation that occurs unconsciously to us most of the time, but linguists spend endless hours pulling apart transcriptions of what sounds people use when they speak and trying to figure out the arcane rules that we’re unconsciously obeying.
The study of these pronunciation schemes area is called "phonology," and each accent within a language is basically a different pronunciation scheme or set of rules that people unconsciously follow when pronouncing words. There’s even a different module in our brains that governs phonology (separate from the modules that govern grammar and meaning). If you’re learning a new accent, you’re building yourself an additional phonology module.
Kewl, huh!
For all I know, it may be inaccurate, but there is a wonderful book based on a PBS series, called _The Story of English_.
It explains why Minnesotans and rural Georgians are mutually incomprehensible, but a lalans Scott and an Iowan can understand each other reasonably well.
Remembering my Baptist days, I can relate to Circuit Rider’s comment. On occaison our Baptist Church in Wisconsin would bring up an evangelist from the South. If he were talking typical Southern, a slow and melodious tone, we would be fine. If he got a little fired up though, we would be about half a sentence behind just interpreting in our mind what he just said.
I watched a show on PBS last night called “Do you Speak American” it was about regional dialects/accents in the US. Very cool, though the host is obsessed with slavery and diversity. I think it is on again this week. Check your local listings for times…
It’s interesting ‘cos I’m used to going about this sort of thing sorta backwards! I was a theater major in college & I drive my friends/co-workers crazy with all the voices & dialects I do. (And sometimes I even get laughs!) Many times, actors will employ little tricks to build a working dialect or accent but they usually end up sounding slightly wrong. It’s better to develop one from the actual *rules* that the dialect or accent uses & that’s where phonology comes into play. It’s really fascinating & can take quite a lot of work to get right. And, while a good ear for this stuff can be developed, I’ve know some actors who find this stuff difficult & just can’t get it. A lot like music theory seems to be for me!
Thanks for the head’s up on the PBS show, Mike. I’ll have to look for it.
BTW . . . I’ve heard it said repeatedly that, in general, the speech patterns used in the US today is closer to that of the folks in Shakespeare’s day than that of modern-day Brits!
Forsooth!
I had a roommate in (presbyterian) seminary who was from the uplands of Georgia. We could not understand each other even when he spoke quickly and I spoke glacially. The other guy was from Taiwan, so he could translate. On the other hand, the Scots family which was there at the time were very easy to understand, though the southerners had a lot of trouble. It seemed to me that the -vowels- were the same, and that helped a lot. I grew up north of US 20, and the southerners thought I was from Canada. I should have let them believe that, as prejudice, blacklists and the caste system were still present in the deep south.
Aye verily, ya sure ya betcha
I’ve always been partial to Yooper myself. Yooper is a dialect spoken in northern Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Penisula. It is heavily influenced by Norwegians and Swedes. I’m still waiting for a Bible to be translated into the vernacular for that region. Maybe someday…
The language may not last though… http://www.detnews.com/2004/metro/0412/19/A01-36853.htm
I remember that while living in Germany with some other America students, we were speaking English as some of us were going out to see a movie. I asked, “Are you coming with?” and the Texans giggled saying “Your German is showing.” That’s because in German, the phrase is “Kommst du mit?” and in English it is “Are you coming with us/me?” (mit=with) No dangling prepositions I guess.
In response, I looked at them strangely and told them that, and everyone I knew in Illinois, routinely said, “Are you coming with?” which seemed to flabbergast the Texans.
The linguist among us pondered for a bit and eventually decided that the reason I spoke differently was that the massive number of German immigrants to the Midwest affected the way people spoke English.
I had an English teacher once insist that it was not proper to end sentences with prepositions and went into this discussion of Latin, prepositions in Latin, grammar, and how it was impossible for prepositions to not have nouns after it. I then mentioned that in German, prepositions routinely ended sentences. He then informed me wrily that that was German, not English. I then responded that since English was a Germanic language, it made more sense for it to follow German than to use a strict definition of a Latin word that describes Latin grammar for a non-Romantic language. He did not seem pleased.
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