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.
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