In the mountains they talk like Shakespeare...

So, in my last post, I talked about mountain stereotypes and gave a little background to where they came from. However, there are other stereotypes about the mountains that come from the inside, that is, natives to the region. One of the big ones is that the speech of the mountains is like that of Shakespeare. Or Chaucer. Or some other literary giant from some unspecified point in the past. It's almost a reflex, as people will bring this up usually as a retort to some slight about culture or speech. It usually goes like this: Person A (from the mountains) says something that reflects mountain heritage; Person B says that it's wrong/weird/incorrect etc. Person A replies with the Literary Giant from the Past idea.

But, Shakespeare and Chaucer were not contemporaries. In fact, Chaucer lived from 1343-1400, whereas Shakespeare lived from 1564-1616, roughly two hundred years later. The English that each spoke was not the same (just google 'Romeo and Juliet' and read a few lines in the original. Then google 'The Canterbury Tales' and read a few lines in the original. Not the same!). Shakespeare would've spoken and did write in Early Modern English, and it's fairly comprehensible to most of us modern speakers. We can read it decently well. But, it would've sounded a little strange, and to understand it would have been more difficult. Below is a fascinating video showing how it might've sounded (plus it's a cool video in general).

Here's a link in case it won't play...

Chaucer wrote in and would've spoken Middle English, and it would not have been very comprehensible to us at all, below is a video.

here's a link just in case.

Now, I've heard lots and lots of mountain voices in my life, but none sound like either one of these!

This idea also has a fundamental misunderstanding of language and language change. Language is constantly changing, from word meanings (tweet...) to new words (blog...) to word order/syntax (want to go with?) to pronunciation as in the videos above. Language never stands still. It is constantly in flux. You can listen to your grandparents or great-grandparents and hear the difference (or listen to your grandchildren or great-grandchildren!), notice new usages that are slightly unfamiliar, etc. Then just imagine 400 or 600 years of little changes (which become slightly bigger changes, and even bigger changes, you get the idea!). Hard to see how we can speak like either one!

But, getting back to my main point. Why do we feel we have to invoke this Literary Giant of the Past idea? Let's reflect just a minute about this. Why would we (and I include myself because I've said it too) say this? What are we actually doing? At its core, what we're doing is saying that whatever Person B reacted to is worthy because it has a fine literary tradition and is associated with the great English of the past. We feel as if the way we speak is not worthy in and of itself; we must borrow prestige from the past. It's high time we started to recognize that our way of speaking is just as worthwhile as any other variety. All ways of speaking have worth. There is no need to rely on some other sense of worth (from the past, literary, or any). The way we speak reflects where we are from, who raised us, who we associate with, basically who we are. Some may not like that and want to change. Others will want to embrace it. It's time to stop the stigma without relying on a false idea of sounding like Shakespeare or Chaucer. No one needs to rely on outside sources of prestige to justify how they sound. If someone doesn't like the way we sound, that reflects them and their prejudices and not the way we speak.

Stereotypes and the Mountains...

One thing that everyone from the mountains knows about is the fact that lots of people don't know anything about the mountains, but think they do. This has been highlighted recently with the water contamination tragedy in WVa. Many people have tweeted, posted, and said many ignorant things about the people of WVa (I am most decidedly not going to repeat the stuff, but we all could guess what they mentioned). By extension, they are talking about all of us mountain folk. Just a few months ago, DirectTV aired a pretty offensive commercial about mountain people, and had to pull it and apologize (Google it, but be prepared to be pis-, er, I mean upset...). Mountain people seem to just invite mis-characterization (as well as other groups, as I'll discuss below).

People caricature the mountain people in lots of ways. I will always remember two big stories. The first is while I was on a trip to NYC for a basketball visit. One of the players at the school I visited heard me talk, and asked where I was from. I replied, 'East Tennessee.' He laughed, and said something about how it was easy to tell. He then asked, 'So, like, do you guys even have phones there?'. I replied, 'Nope, we have a bunch of cans and lots of string. Of course we have phones! Do you guys even know what good air smells like?'. Not the best sarcastic retort I've ever said, but I think it did the trick. The second story is when a friend and I were in line at a fast food joint. This particular friend ordered his food, and some guy behind us said, sort of under his breath to his friend but loud enough for us to hear, 'What rock did this guy come out from under?'. My friend, unfazed, turned and calmly asked, 'Do you know anything about algorithms?'. The other guy replied, 'No.'. My friend, 'What about soil acidity or alkalinity? Or the ways to understand (something I don't remember but sounded really complicated)?'. Dude's reply, 'No. I don't even know what that is.' My friend, with the best retort ever, said, 'Well, that's what I thought. Now, just because my mouth moves slow doesn't mean my brain does. Can't say the same for you.' He then casually walked away. Now, obviously, that was a pretty cutting remark. But, why would someone say these things about a stranger? It's because our language causes people to make judgments.

This is, as you've probably guessed, stereotyping. The question is, why are the mountains and the people who live there such an object of stereotyping? Why have our language varieties been so stigmatized? Well, this is obviously a complex question with a complex bunch of answers, but I'll try to summarize what people have said and add my own two cents.

Most things that people say about the mountains and our language(s) are not original. In fact, most of them began in the late 19th century, from about 1880 on. A particular kind of popular literature, local color, was popularized. This writing focused on far-flung locales and unique places in the US and around the world. The idea was to find an area that was 'different', compose a description or a story about that area focusing primarily on the differences. Now, as I'm sure you're guessing, this isn't a great way to get factual information. Focusing on what is the most different while ignoring the similarities, in any area of life, is most likely going to devolve into stereotyping. With regard to Appalachia, there were many things that were different from a burgeoning middle class, East Coast urban norm. But, there were lots of similarities. Yet, the writers focused on what was most different. (This idea is more fully developed in Henry Shapiro's Appalachia on our Mind, a must read for anyone interested in the region. There are many other great sources. I'd be happy to point you to them, just contact me.)

So, the most different things were written about, and of course language was one of them. The characters in some of the literature (such as John Fox Jr., Mary Murphree, or George Washington Irving, to name a few) are flat hard to understand at times. So, readers got the impression that the people from the mountains talked 'funny'.

Here's the thing about language. We tend to place how we feel about a group onto the way that group talks. So, when someone feels that mountain people are stupid, ignorant, inbred, etc, their way of speaking is characterized the same way. The same thing happens with women's speech. People who think women are emotional, needy, weak, etc. say that the way women talk is the same. The same with African American speech. The same with all groups. We say that a particular way of speaking is (insert adjective here), not because the language is like that, rather because we feel that way about the group who speaks like that.

The really insidious thing is that, oftentimes, that disparaged group buys into the stereotypes. How many of us Appalachian people have ever said 'we don't talk correctly/proper/well'? What about other groups? Same thing for them. We've (and they've) heard it so much that it becomes almost like a truth. It's like we think, 'Well, if so many say it, it must be true.' So, we buy in (not all or in all ways, but some). I'll explore some reactions in my next post.

We don't call this what it really is: prejudice. Language isn't lazy or uneducated. People may be, but language isn't. And you know what? There are lazy and uneducated people in all groups. There are also really hardworking and educated people in every group. No group is monolithic or without variation. Anytime we try to fit a group into a single box (or limited boxes), we are showing more about ourselves and our own lack of understanding than the group we are trying to put down.