The Carolina Brogue: Outer Banks Vocabulary
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- Опубліковано 2 лип 2024
- Excerpt from "The Carolina Brogue," a documentary about the language and life of the North Carolina Outer Banks
Available on DVD: languageandlife.org/documentar...
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ABOUT THE CAROLINA BROGUE
The North Carolina Outer Banks is one of the most popular travel destinations in the world. Eery year millions of visitors descend on coastal towns from Manteo and Kitty Hawk to Ocracoke and Harkers Island, while some villages along the sound remain relatively isolated. Most of the early residents of the Outer Banks came south by boat from Tidewater Virginia and the eastern shores of Maryland, and many of them had originally come from Southwest England and the Ulster province of Ireland. Features of British and Scots-Irish English have been retained in the local dialect, though the language developed independently to take on a distinctive regional characters. This dialect is now recognized as a part of our national heritage and a vital part of coastal culture.
Rooted in twenty years of fieldwork, research and community ties, "The Carolina Brogue" is a candid portrait of contemporary life on the Carolina Coast, and a look at one of the most unique dialects in the world.
Film by NEAL HUTCHESON
www.suckerpunchpictures.com/
Executive Producer WALT WOLFRAM
A production of THE LANGUAGE AND LIFE PROJECT
at North Carolina State University
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Want to learn more about the Language and Life Project?
Website:
www.ncsu.edu/linguistics/ncll...
Twitter:
/ ncstate_llp
Facebook:
/ ncllp
Podcast:
www.mixcloud.com/Linglab/
DVDs:
commerce.cashnet.com/NCSUNCLLP
the old man on the shrimp boat and the lady peeling shrimp is my grandparents mary and LJ hardy
At a store in Tennessee I told a lady that I just loved her accent. She said, in the sweetest southern accent, I don't have an accent, you do.
For me, US Southeners are among the sweetest and friendliest people you'll ever meet. Lived there. All the positive stereotypes 'bout them is just not fair enough.
Bless your heart
They sound similar to the folk from Norfolk which is East England. They are called Dumplings. A famous speaker was Bernard Matthews. If you Google his name you should find an old advert where he explains how to pronounce beautiful in the local dialect.
I hope you didn't tell her she was wrong.
You know the hill people in Tennessee when they say "worsh" "winder" and "yeller"
The Brogue really does sound like somewhere in between a rural NC accent and some dialect that you can hear in a spot like Southwest England haha
Almost sounds like they're from Bristol, to me, sometimes
"I've been here since before you were born!"
"It doesn't matter!" LMAO
I love hearing these special words that exist only in regional dialects, especially as explained by those who use them. Now I kind of want to add _whopperjawed_ to my active vocabulary...
I live in Norfolk - East Coast county here in the UK and it has a very ancient English accent. Many of the English immigrants to America would have had this same accent and I can hear it in the voices of these people .
To me it almost sounds similar to the west country accent too or similar to cornish english. Im from the boston area so we are non rhotic like londoners.
Live in the beach
yes i can hear the cornish in there, and some words even sound Australasian
Forest Bertrand English accents still change noticeably every 10-20 miles, neither is closer to an ancient English accent (there was never just one) but both this and East Anglian retain a lot of features going back centuries no doubt
That’s pretty cool! My dad’s family is from this area, going way back, and his dna test came back 83% English which is more English than the current average Englishman. So I guess that makes sense you’d hear it still. These communities stayed pretty isolated until WWII.
the guy in the yellow shirt explaining drime breaks into what sounds to me for a moment like the most authentic english accent outside of Britain that you're likely to hear. It goes to show that much of an accent is built around how vowels come out of the mouth.
This sounds like the link between the British accent and what it became in the US: the Southern accent.
A British rural West Country accent, and/or a Suffolk burr. Not your posh Downton Abbey one!!!
@Belinda Babette about an hour drive to the other side of the sound, there a big community of Viet fishermen, there's more diversity than you'd think. We also had one of the largest southern freedman colonies on Roanoke Island.
@Belinda Babette lol, as a local, it's the white transplants that are washing away the culture more than anything. The accent here is just as much black as it is white.
And african
@Belinda Babette A mosque on Ocracoke? For no purpose other than to upset the cultural hegemony? You sound evil.
Very nice. I am a descendent of the Miller clan from Buxton NC. Great grandfather Fred Miller used to make real boats for lake races. He received his boat building skills there in Buxton !
My grandmother, "Mama Dot" is talking about the word "Pizer" and I just agree with some of those who mention how much they love this video and hearing the sounds of home. It's comforting to listen to this clip over and over because it just makes me feel close to my family and the comforts of the Down East area. I read a quote recently by Lena Ennis that said " The Lord works His wonders all over the world, but He lives to the Cape". It's a beautiful place and I love the area and the people.
Very cool. I hope the Carolina Brogue survives for a while yet. It doesn't look good for small dialects. But I'm definitely adding "whopperjawed" to my vocabulary.
People have been using whopperjawed in South Florida since I was a kid (60's). Also cattywampus is another commonly used word for the same instance
its the best sounding brogue in the universe. when I hear it, I know I'm home
🙌
Otway, born and raised. I love being from somewhere with history and heritage.
A lot of people commenting about Irish or Australian accent but seems you aren't aware of how people sound around the West Country and Bristol in England. Sounds very similar. There's islands in Chesapeake which have been isolated and the original settlers came from Cornwall in the English West Country and you can still clearly see their accents are very similar.
They do sound much more West Country than either Irish or Australian but I'm guessing many Americans, including sadly some of these folks, are blissfully unaware of the West Country connection. Oh well.
I grew up a few miles from Swansboro, NC and my family used the word "mommicked" as part of its vocabulary. When I went to college (Chapel Hill), I was telling my roommate a story about how my Aunt Sis had mommicked her brand new car by driving it across a corn field. My roommate said, "There is no such word as mommicked." I said, "Yes, there is," and I went to the dictionary to prove it. Nope, not in Websters... or any of the other dictionaries that I looked through. I went more than 30 years before I found someone that seemed to know the use of the word, my barber. It was sometime later, I saw the above video clip on PBS and finally realized that I was part of a select group of people that had a few extra words thrown into their dictionary. Now ask me what a "tarkle bed" is, and I can probably tell you about that also.
Your English writing is perfect.
My daddy was born in Sea Level. but I think i did forget what a tarkle bed is..lol
I love Swansboro 💜
Lived in Swansboro bout 20 years. I loved it. My cousin was Chief of Police there many yrs. M.T. Maness.
I grew up in Hubert. Went to Swansboro High School. My dads sister lives in Newport and I can hear her accent when I hear these people speak.
My dad's side of the family is from Williston, Sea Level, Atlantic, and Harker's Island. This sounds like home to me! ❤
Where the hell is williston
@@BBAERSTANCE1 Williston is just before the straight away's before Davis. So it is between Smyrna and Davis. I was born in Sealevel hospital in 1960 and grew up in Davis :) When my Mom got a job in DC (may she rest in Peace) she left me with my grandmama until I was 9. She came back and got me and put me in school by DC. I hated it because nobody could understand a single word I said. So they put me in speech therapy everyday for 3 years so I could talk like a human (their words, not mine). I hated living there mostly because most people were hateful, always fights, robbery, and down right disrespectful. I left when I was 15 to live with my Dad (may he RIP also) in New Bern, NC. I still go down to Davis once in a while to pay respect but it's not the same anymore.
@@BBAERSTANCE1 there’s a bunch of areas down East like Otway, Harkers Island, Smyrna, Gloucester, Marshallberg, Davis, Williston, Masontown, Stacy, Cedar Island, Straits, Sea Level, Atlantic, and Bettie. Beaufort is kinda but not really considered down east but we’re almost all the same
@@JackHobgood07 I want to take my wife down east this weekend while we’re in town. It’s definitely a special place. I delivered a lot of supplies to some very nice and thankful folks in Stacey after hurricane Florence tore through. It’s really a beautiful place
My grandads side of the family is from Atlantic. The “ding batter” from Wisconsin in this video is my Uncle Louie. Married my grandads aunt
I'm from Dallas and never knew this accent existed. Very fascinating... I hear a lot of Scottish/Irish in it.
My family is from Sea Level.. I love the dialect. it is music to my ears.
And there's nearly no accent in Raleigh or Charlotte, but up in the mountains you get the crazy Appalachian accents. The accents in the south are so diverse.
Some places in the mountains still speak Elizabethan English.
@@slantsix6344 That's a myth. if anything, the english spoken on the banks is MUCH much closer to original pronounciation of 1600s english settlers. Compare Shakespeare in OP performed in a 1600s English accent. There are a LOT of similarities to OBX and Hyde County speech. Heck, in Cornwall and Devon, England they STILL speak similar to that to this day. The speech of the mountains came from Scots-Irish and Scottish immigrants and isolation. If anything, they sound similar to an irish protestant or Scotsman of the 1700s.
Well of course, most metropolitan areas in the south don’t have an accent because of the influx of people. The rural areas of the state have a strong one. In NC we have the southern Appalachian, piedmont, down east, and outer bank brogue accents.
@@joshn938 The guys on this video sound West County, nothing like Scots-Irish. I'm amazed so many Americans are so ignorant of the differences in UK accents, particularly northern Irish and rural West Country ones.
I meet a lot of folks in Raleigh with fairly thick drawls, but there is nothing very unique about it - just sort of generic southern.
My dads family lives on Hatteras island and I definitely recognize this dialect from my great grandmother, grandparents and some from my dad and my lil brother. I used to have an accent but I lost it when I moved to the city, I’m still in the south and I still have that southern accent but I don’t say “wOter” I say “waHTER”
So, whopperjawed on the banks means sigogglin' in the mountains - Excellent!
This is great stuff. Fascinating stuff. And that's no drime. (Is that a proper usage?)
Love Ocracoke! Only thing is they moved the Post Office from
the little building "downtown" to out the road and its farther to
walk to. Bubby Teter's friendly campground and the fine folks
who cherished me on the island make me lonesome to stay
and recharge spiritually again. Here's hoping they never
build a bridge to it- the ferry is enough because it needs to
be kept original at all costs. God Bless y'all.
"Mommuked" is misspelled in the video. It's a word lost to time everywhere but Down East. I've never heard it used anywhere else. Spelled "mommick" you'll find it in the Oxford English Dictionary, which traces its etymology to 16th century Cockney English.
What does down east mean in that neck of the woods? We refer to the portion of the coast of Maine that’s furthest East as Downeast Maine because it’s east, and the prevailing wind blew that direction, so you were going east and downwind.
@@ericwinter4513 It's a section of land and some islands on the coast of NC about midway between the SC and VA lines. For most of last century fishing or some other profession on he water was a primary source of income for the folks who lived there. Many of the ancestors of the folks who lived on Harkers Island and elsewhere settled from southwestern England. Because the folks on Harkers Island were communicated with folks on the mainland for much of the last century, they retained some of the English brogue. Of course it changed over time but they still have a distinctive way of speaking.
When I was a kid growing up in Beaufort, everyone referred to the region as "down east." It was fairly generic. Now the area has become widely recognized as a distinct, identifiable place and it is most often capitalized when people refer to it writing. I'll try to attach a map. Not sure whether I can.
@@fredharvey9742 Wow that's really interesting. Do you know if the name has similar origins?
I was born and raised in Harkers Island, NC . I love to watch this video time after time because its the way we talked growing up. we would sit on the pizer and talk and i can remember when i was growing up I said drime once and I was grounded for a week. I guess people wouldnt understand this unless they are from around here.
My grandmother is from Cedar Mountain, but before that her family came from Carteret Co. We've always wondered where some of her expressions come from, glad to have cracked the case.
I moved from Kill Devil Hills to Newport. I can't understand these Downeasters.......
The origins of the word DRIME that I have known growing up maybe the reason it is considered a curse word.
Legion has it that some older kinds were making out in one room of a house and some younger siblings heard the sounds of passion. In the midst of the commotion they could hear the girl yelling ,"Draw Him Ramsey." With a down East accent that was translated to Drime Ramsey. Which is an other way of using the word Drime.
I can see why the elders didn't like kids using this term.
Spent some good time in NC...mountains and coast, but not Outer Banks yet. This is a really excellent project! I hear some similarities here in Northern Minnesota with my grandfather and his Scotch-Irish family. "Whopperjawed" doesn't seem too far out there, we say "kittywampus" (or more properly, "catawampus"...but I think that's the Scots version, which seems to pop up all over the US).
No offense, but their accents are much more West Country than anywhere close to Scots-Irish. Think pirates.
when I was growing up in Beaufort county NC I use to hear people talk like that. I thought it was so funny! Come to find out that that is how my ancestors and family on the Banks talk! I never knew them until I was in my forties... I would give anything to be able to be a part of that.....
Linda Lentz Beaufort county?
Or the town Beaufort
Bill Gibson I grew up in Cedar Point and with just a few exceptions that's just how my grandfather and all of his generation spoke. I heard it spoken in okrakoke on a visit many years later and it really took me back.
this is the best video on youtube i love being from there
How odd....I'm from eastern Tn. and we use "mommocked" too.! It's most often used when talking about something being very messed up and/or horrific. The Manson family mommocked up their victims would be an example of the mountain usage.
I love this - makes me miss home.
Shout out to Columbia NC!! My family from there talks the same way. Love it!!
So homesick after watching this video.
You can tell a bunch of pirates & sailors from all over the place stayed there from wrecks or retirement.
The way they say 'drime' could pass for Australian in a stiff gale
Theodric It's closer to "droym". Gotta have that "oi" sound in the middle, and draw it out. The longer it's drawn out, the more sarcastic it is. Story goes, a bunch of guys were bragging about their manhoods, and one fellow told a whopper. Another said "draw him" (Show it!), and droym was born!
phaedrusalt excellent.
Theodric Glad I could help. By the way, this isn't from the Outer Banks, most of the people they interview are from Atlantic and Harkers Island. (These dit-dot dingbatters can't get nuthin right!)
phaedrusalt I just hope this info is recorded somewhere other than a UA-cam comment. This is the sort of context that makes field recordings more meaningful and interesting!
Theodric Unfortunately, most of the kind of researchers who "grace" down east with their presence are the kind who will listen to the speech, and not hear a word.
These are lovely.
LOVE IT!
I enjoyed meeting many Cay Bankers at a family reunion and blue fish fish fry they held down east. It was great to hear about life on outermost Island from one who lived there and hear a biographer who was from there tell of their story,
=) i love hearing this accent, im glad i still live in eastern NC and can hear this accent
i remember goin out to the banks as a kid and hearin a lot of these words used! i guess im what they call a "woodser'' cause im from the inland in jacksonville. im livin up in ohio now for a little while and this video brought home right back to me! thank you! good video.
Very cool... reminds me of the Mississippi Delta...
So “drime” means “bullshit”. The fact that none of them translate it that way, and can only explain it by using it in the exact situations you would use “bullshit” is very fascinating to me!
After you watch this Google Shakespeare original pronunciation.
I remember one of my first experiences at basic training as a kid from California who had never been to the east coast, older civilian guy was taking our pictures for our ID’s and basically sounded like all the guys in this video😂 he might as well have been speaking french
People would ask me if my grandfather was from the carribeans when they heard him speak and i would say "he's from NC coast" they had a look on their face like I was lying! lol
I feel so at home listening to these people because every relative I've ever had spoke this way.....reminds me of my Grandaddy and Sissy.....both from Atlantic
This accent has a mix of classic southern, North, and Appalachian!!! What a mix
served an LDS mission down there in Harkers Island North Carolina and boy do i miss these kind of people
NPC dialogue is interesting these days
Sounds like Scottish/Irish dialect with a southern drawl. That's why the southeast hast the dopest accents in the south. #uptowndevil #meckcounty
not nice--look in the mirror before you critisize
windstorm1000 wtf are you talking about. I said NC has the best accents in the south.
sorry, I thought you meant dopest---like in stupid===see, different uses for same word--another linguist difference
+windstorm1000 You're thinking of dopey / dopeyest :)
I think it sounds in between Cornish (pirate speak!) and Irish, accent wise.
Yes, the way these folk talk definitely has streaks of our English rural dialects. I'm thinking Devon, Somerset and East Anglia
When we say 'deadly' at home, it doesn't mean lethal, it means 'beautiful'. And this is 'deadly'. Thank you.
As a Brit, the accent is very similar to either an English Norfolk accent or a SW English accent.
I’m from Carteret County and have grown up with all these words. And then there’s the phrase “that’s common” in a negative way. I’ve also heard it’s weird for others when they hear “that tickled me” or “you’re tickled” but that could just be a typical southern phrase.
Makes me miss home
I love these videos. I catch myself saying "hightide on the sandside" at times and nobody has the slightest idea of what I'm saying.
So fascinating! Sounds totally Southern, until they say a long "I" vowel. That one vowel sounds British! Probably comes from the Cornish accent (Western England).
They are North Carolina people with Carolina accents, that from isolation have coined a few of their own words. Most of the Wooders, as they call them, have their own linguistic oddities. Most are derived from old English. For example; yonder, tote, poke, swigger, stob.
Miss ya Mr Milt
I live in Texas, and if something wasn't right, not straight, I'd say it's "Cockeyed". :-)
David Hliva They say that in Appalachia too
In South western Pennsylvania, if someone tells you it's cockeyed, you better do it over. Of course we have our own dialect here too.
David Hliva haha that’s a very British thing to say too
We say cattywampus
cockeyed is perfectly good English :-)
I love visit the vocabulary of my youth. I love hoi-toiders...I am a descendant of a many of them.
Poindexter is an interesting name. Is it English, Irish or French? It reminds me of something a Norman Crusader knight would be called ... Sir Roger de Poindexter!!!
Controversial Christian
Exactly, it’s a Jersey name, I am descended from Raoul Poingdestre, Lieutenant bailiff of Jersey
((sigh)) I truly MISS ... The Outer Banks: "the beautiful ribbon of sand." Cape Hatteras,. and Ocracoke Island. Spent a few summers there back in the 60s. It was quiet, peaceful and sun soaked fun. Wonderful, warm, friendly locals with a quick smile. 🌞😊🏝️🐚🐡🐚🌞😎🌞.
Would love to go back again to experience new memories as an adult. Once you go there; you never forget the beauty, history, food and people.
Sounds like a newfoundland accent. Kippens st johns logy bay eyc
Sounds like home to me. I grew up just south of the banks myself, though our accent is a tiny bit different, we use the same words and expressions as these folks.
I've lived in the southern outer banks my whole life.. I thought mommicked was a word.
From Wilmington and we’ve always used mommicked.
Is it not?
i cant believe this was caught on camera. but it was great to see people i knew. it was home.
I think it is something to do with how the US was settled, if Scandinavians went north to the colder climates, maybe East Anglian fishermen were settled in an area that is similar to where they knew from home and it does seem similar, being surrounded by water and stuck out into the sea.
Definitely. West Country folk were seamen. Usually sailors, fishermen or pirates!!!
Key was the Eastern part of Carteret County (NC) was geographically and socially isolated from the main land until around the early '40s. Geography was such, the only way to get to us was by a fairly specific flat bottom, shallow draft, sailboat. The language simply didn't evolve much from Elizebethen English (over simplifying). The language evolution diverged from the rest of the US.
I remember that they'd (UNC and NC State professors) would get us out of Elementary School to listen to us talk. I guess we were research subjects. Dr. Wolfram (who was involved with this video, if I"m not mistaken) did a lot of research on our brogue.
It sounds like my local Mississippi hill country accent combined with British west country.
I just visited the Outer Banks a few weeks ago. I didn't meet anyone who was from there I suppose. I was able to understand every word that was spoken.
Mommucked is used in eastern nc in craven county area and on down south to SC too I know bc my great grandma said it and I say it
Whopperjawed is not only heard in obx. I'm from washington DC area and I've heard that from many different people in many different places and I say it myself
When I first encountered this accent someone called me a dingbatter, and I of course had no idea what the hell it was. He laughed because he thought it was some alien concept to Virginians, but I had to explain to him that we have the equivalent "jasper".
I love home
We got names for them too !!!!
Drime sounds like “draw him” as in “prove it and draw him,”
I've lived in North Carolina my whole life, but Ocracoke is like a different country.
Drime: it’s like, “awww, bs!”
Chincoteague, VA, an oldtimer seafood vender always said 'PIND of shrimp', pind rhymed with kind. rather than 'pound'
That first guy is an old friend of mine, Rex O'Neal, what a great guy, and if u go, ask him to do his version of the famous song Shi**y Mop!!! HILARIOUS!!!
ah, livin in the OBX is just so great
The accent in Carteret county differs a lot.
Youdotoo yeah
Whopperjawed is used beyond this island.
It is in use in rural Indiana
They sound like the Red Legs from Barbados, who have Irish or Scottish ancestry. Same kind of drawl.
i remember using "dip dots"as a term refering to the tourists.
Dit-dots* (just an FYI, I grew up there!) Same meaning as dingbatters
Woodsies and Dingbatters are called Grockles here in Southwest England.
Love "whopperjawed." Reminds me of my Dad (from WV) calling something "catawampus."
Grew up near the area these folks live. Grew up learning whopperjawed, mommicked and catawampus.
I lived in Dare County for 10 (best) years of my life and I LOVE that accent! There's no southern drawl -- they speak fast and the accent is so unique. It sounds like home to me.
Come to Wessex, south west of England, you Dixie lot will feel at home. The two accents are so close to each other................
If anyone is wondering why their accent sounds so close to a western British accent (Im being very vauge with calling it that) They have been one of the most isolated areas in the east cost of the US. So their accent hasn't changed to much from what it was when the Africans and English settlers live there. (Not nearly as much as other areas in the east cost)
I'm from the Eastern Shores Of Virginia we also call outsiders ding batters
Same here on East Coast of NC
At 2:37, he's talking about how hot the weather is.. I think..
GREAT PLACE TO LIVE WOW WANNA GO THERE NOW HOLY SHIT
If someone from the outerbanks became popular and had enough reach to spread this dialect and accent, it would survive another century.
@jn20000 Haha, well, you've gotta understand, over here in the mountains (Western North Carolina), everything is down east of us.
I can hear my Pop say, " I have been mommucked to death" right now. He was an Outer Banker.
the outter banks speech is only in the outter banks few words are different but the main land people get most of it.in north carolina.only a few words confuss us.when we visit the outter banks.i dont live far from their i live in little washington.about a 100 miles from kitty hawk.
Thank you. I have been vacationing in Ocracoke for years, and now I will know when I'm being insulted. LOL
@1:47 I never knew Kenny Rogers was from the outer banks
Shoot, we use wamperjawed in East Texas.