# Rural American dialect = Shakespearean English??! **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 31, 2001, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111 "2001-05-31T18:13:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![hazel-rah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hazel-rah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazel-rah)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2001, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/21 "2001-06-01T22:28:38Z")
> [@](#): > > The idea that there was a ‘correct’ way of speaking English was not even on the horizon of most folk until then. Nah, that idea was around in force for English since the 16th century, and probably long before that. -fh ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2001, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/22 "2001-06-01T22:59:59Z")
Well the original ‘correct way’ to speak English was at least partly derived from the Norman conquest when those Saxons who would not fit in with the Norman way of doing things were replaced in pretty short order by Normans who would. The then French way of speaking then became associated with aristocracy and was desirable for anyone who had ambition. Accent in British culture has long been a mark of education and of supremacy and as such it has always been fairly exclusive. For the overwhelming population, especially in a feudal economy where one never rose above a certain position in life, accent was not something they would not have considered. It is only a fairly recent phenomenon in UK tv that the BBC have used presenters with strong(ish) regional accents, certainly up until around ten years ago anyone who had an accent as a frontperson tended to be pigeonholed into certain roles, the classic has to be Eddie Waring with his very strong Lancashire accent which was both an oblject of gentle amusement and affection but at the same time kept him out of more mainstream ‘serious’ BBC reporting. For most Britons when they tuned into a BBC broadcast of any sort the accent was nearly always ‘estuary’ English. Virtually every program was included in that BBC rule and for such a major output of tv media in the UK it would be surprising if it had no influence on the way people speak in the rest of the country. At the more extreme end of accents the Welsh had to fight long and hard to prevent their entire language simply being swallowed up by English, and one of their strategies for dealing with this was to ensure that tv based media broadcast had a certain percentage of local Welsh programs in that language, they certainly thought that such media had an important role to play in keeping a whole culture alive, let alone an accent. ---
**Author:** ![hazel-rah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hazel-rah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazel-rah)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2001, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/23 "2001-06-02T05:27:31Z")
> [@](#): > > Virtually every program was included in that BBC rule and for such a major output of tv media in the UK it would be surprising if it had no influence on the way people speak in the rest of the country. It _is_ suprising. But it’s also true. Go to your local bookstore and have a look at _Language Myths_. It’s the easiest thing to find on the topic, and you only need to read one chapter. It lists some sources so you can look at the research that has been done if you’re still not convinced. They specifically discuss the BBC English phenomenon. Yes, it’s counterintuitive, but a lot of things about language are. -fh ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2001, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/24 "2001-06-02T11:31:50Z")
It looks like I’ll have to nip along to my bookstore and do some reading then. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2001, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/25 "2001-06-02T22:41:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by casdave \* > \*\*Much of Great Britain’s power came from the sea with much of the fleet being based around the Southern UK ports such as Plymouth, Portsmouth, Dartmouth, Torbay,and Chatham so that Navy slang would have originated from the Cornish tongue which was a separate Gaelic derived language. > \*\* Apart from the fact that Cornish isn’t Gaelic, it’s an _enormous_ leap to suggest that because there were naval ports in southern England, Navy slang would have originated from Cornish. I mean _Portsmouth_, for God’s sake. When did anyone speak Cornish in Portsmouth? And I won’t even mention Chatham. I think you may want to back this up with some examples. ---
**Author:** ![Beruang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/77aa72/32.png) [@Beruang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beruang)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2001, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/26 "2001-06-03T05:13:24Z")
Another book discussing the phenomenon is The Story of English. It’s been a lot of years, but I seem to recall them saying that certain island communities in the mid-south US had accents (not grammars or vocabularies) that hearkened back to the earliest settlers. – Beruang ---
**Author:** ![zoogirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b9bd4f/32.png) [@zoogirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoogirl)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2001, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/27 "2001-09-23T06:59:35Z")
I’m rather late, but I just found this thread. As regards the Elizabethen accent theory in mass media, I first ran into the idea in “Christy” by Catherine Marshall. This is an account, somewhat fictionalized, of her mother’s work as a missionary in Appalachia c1912. She mentions the idea that the language had remained unchanged for hundreds of years. Keep in mind that this was pre-radio. I particularly remember her talking about the speech rhythms and the way some phrases had a sing-song quality eg, “Tuesday, twas a week ago”. I have also run into the theory while researching folksongs. Many of them were handed down virtually unchanged since the original settlers arrived. I know a number of people made recordings in the early part ot the 1900’s of “Hillbilly” musicians singing traditional songs. As these were also pre- radio, they ought to give a fairly clear idea of the actual regional accent. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2001, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/28 "2001-09-23T07:41:56Z")
hibernicus writes: \> Apart from the fact that Cornish isn’t Gaelic . . . Actually, it is. There was a Gaelic language called Cornish that died out two or three hundred years ago. It was spoken in Cornwall. On the other hand, a Cornish dialect (i.e., the dialect presently spoken in Cornwall) is just a dialect of English. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2001, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/29 "2001-09-23T08:16:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Wendell Wagner \* > \*\*hibernicus writes: > > \> Apart from the fact that Cornish isn’t Gaelic . . . > > Actually, it is. There was a Gaelic language called Cornish that died out two or three hundred years ago. It was spoken in Cornwall. \*\* Was it really a Gaelic language, or only a Celtic language? ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2001, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/30 "2001-09-23T11:39:52Z")
It’s only a Celtic language. The languages on the Gaelic branch of the Celtic family are Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Cornish is on the Brythonic branch, along with Welsh and Breton. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2001, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/31 "2001-09-23T16:46:59Z")
Sorry, you’re right after all. Cornish was a Celtic language, but it was not a Gaelic one. ---
**Author:** ![SqrlCub](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SqrlCub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SqrlCub)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2001, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/32 "2001-09-23T17:33:52Z")
Wendell, actually, the Bryhonic branch of Celtic languages are related to the Gaelic branch of languages. Just how English is related to German and Dutch. Afflau i chi, heddiw! Sqrl ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2001, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/33 "2001-09-23T17:54:53Z")
Yes, in fact, I do know what the structure of the Celtic language subfamily is. (Celtic = Brythonic + Gaelic. Brythonic = Welsh + Cornish + Breton. Gaelic = Irish + Manx + Scottish.) It’s just that posting in the middle of the night I momentarily confused Gaelic with Celtic. ---
**Author:** ![TheThill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheThill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheThill)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2001, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/34 "2001-09-24T12:38:15Z")
There were, however, many other continental (European) Celtic languages and dialects spread all the way across the continent: Celtiberian in Spain, Gaulish in France, Galatian in present-day Turkey, etc. All the “Gall” place and regional names today (also Gallicia, Gaul, etc.) seem to be variants on the same Celtic theme. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2001, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/35 "2001-09-24T12:56:19Z")
Visit Tangier Island in the middle of the Bay, speak to some of the older inhabitants, and you’ll hear a very distinctive accent (I go over for my job a couple of times a year). Its dying out pretty quickly, but there are some traces of it. I don’t know its origin, I’ve always heard it was much like the Cornish accent heard in Britain. The Northern Neck of VA has similar sound related to it. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2001, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/36 "2001-09-24T13:53:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by hibernicus \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by casdave \* > > \*\*Much of Great Britain’s power came from the sea with much of the fleet being based around the Southern UK ports such as Plymouth, Portsmouth, Dartmouth, Torbay,and Chatham so that Navy slang would have originated from the Cornish tongue which was a separate Gaelic derived language. > > \*\* > > Apart from the fact that Cornish isn’t Gaelic, it’s an _enormous_ leap to suggest that because there were naval ports in southern England, Navy slang would have originated from Cornish. I mean _Portsmouth_, for God’s sake. When did anyone speak Cornish in Portsmouth? And I won’t even mention Chatham. I think you may want to back this up with some examples. \*\* I’m not convinced Cornish would have been that much of an influence even in Plymouth, Dartmouth or Torbay. By the time of significant West Country emmigration to America and the creation of a permanent Royal Navy, Cornish was already a minority language within Cornwall, being largely confined to the western tip of the county. This is what this website [http://artalpha.anu.edu.au/web/arc/resources/papers/cornish/cornishresearch.htm](http://artalpha.anu.edu.au/web/arc/resources/papers/cornish/cornishresearch.htm) has to say on the subject: > [@](#): > > **Wakelin (p.77), however, suggests that Cornish had largely ceased to be spoken east of a line from Veryan to Illogan by about 1500 AD. But the -n to -dn change in place names which he bases his case on is actually first attested only in the period 1570-1590 and did not necessarily occur uniformly over the whole area where Cornish was spoken. More recently, Ken George has placed the 1500 AD boundary of Cornish further east in the Bodmin area and the 1600 AD boundary as running through the Ladock area. Wakelin’s 1500 boundary roughly corresponds to George’s 1650 boundary.** Ladock is over thirty miles from Plymouth. _Some_ Cornish influence on either English naval slang or American dialects or accents seems perfectly plausible, but I would be careful about overstating such claims. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2001, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/37 "2001-09-24T15:03:57Z")
I read somewhere that “gotten” was the original past tense for “to get”, but somewhere along the line the “ten” has been dropped in British English but not in American. I have searched but cannot find reference to this (searching for “gotten” tends to come up with a lot of results :o) - so has anyone here got an idea? ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2001, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/38 "2001-09-24T17:07:28Z")
I thought that this was a discussion about regional dialects, not about language, and the dialect of the South-West of England certainly extends right the way through Cornwall and up into West Sussex, ie from Landsend past Plymouth, Portsmouth and beyond Bognor Regis and further than that. Yes one can pick up differances btween say Devon, Cornish and Hamphire accents but to those unfamiliar with the region these sound fairly similar, actually the Bristol accent can sound similar to those who are not too familiar with the area. Since dialects have tended to become less and less distinct over the last 70 or so years particularly it is fair to say that these would have been even more distinct in the 1500’s. If you travel to certain islands in the Carribean there are very similar accents to those in the South-West, they may be parallel but separate developements but I would think this unlikely since these were primarily British possessions for sugar plantations. The British navy bases were there primarily to protect trade(and yes they also were around to protect the Cinque ports and prevent invasion too) which took place in a large part from places in the South-West, some of the earliest colonists left from those ports and they would have been in contact for long periods at sea with South-Western men manning the sailing vessels. ---
**Author:** ![Beruang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/77aa72/32.png) [@Beruang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beruang)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2001, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111/39 "2001-09-24T17:28:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by amanset \* > \*\*I read somewhere that “gotten” was the original past tense for “to get”, but somewhere along the line the “ten” has been dropped in British English but not in American. > > I have searched but cannot find reference to this (searching for “gotten” tends to come up with a lot of results :o) - so has anyone here got an idea? \*\* > **[Penguin Random House](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com?date=19990611)** > > Committed to publishing great books, connecting readers and authors globally, and spreading the love of reading. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-american-dialect-shakespearean-english/67111.md?page=1)