How to Properly Identify Hillbillies

Step 5 Hillbilly Linguistics.

The assumption is that hillbillies "talk funny" because they are uneducated. To an extent, this may be true, but often this is not the case. In fact, while a whole generation turned to the TV, a lot of Hillbillies remained avid readers. Their values, priorities, and rural upbringing tend to be very obvious in the way that they speak. You need to understand, I live in a state with community names like Toad Suck, Rooster Poot, Oil Trough, and Possum Grape.

Actually a great deal of the quaint terminology and pronunciation (in the hill-country) comes from post-Civil War attitudes (avoiding Reconstruction) and geographical isolation (living in the sticks). For a time,in the Appalachians, Blue Ridge, Smokeys, and Ozarks, people were less effected by "modern" media, the industrial Revolution and those dirty Carpet-Bagging Yankees.

Non-Metropolitan activities also produce colourful expressions. Frog-gigging, Hogging, Noodling, Grabbleing, Seining, Hog-killing, Corn-shucking, Clogging, Whittling and Snake-handling are all parts of this vanishing way of life.

I have fairly good grammar and syntax. I have a larger than average vocabulary. I also have such hillbilly-pronunciation habits, that I am constantly plagued with Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy comparisons (seriously). It's something us hillbillies just learn to live with!

Comments

[Bryan Smith]

Some of the hill billy ways of talking are descended from colonial times and the way the first settlers talked. Isolation has preserved their unusual accents.

[skunkbait]

I've always thought that. Later though, I read a paper disputing it, so I hated to mention it in the ible. I still think it's probably true. Years ago, I used to travel quite a bit. Several times I had people ask me where on earth I was from, because my accent certainly didn't sound "American". I guess they had never watched the Beverly Hillbillies!!!

[gearhead1951]

My first duty station after boot camp was in New London Connecticut , at that time "The Beverly Hillbillys" and"The Dukes of Hazzard" were quite popular up there !

As soon as I spoke a few words any where I went there I could see one of 2 attitudes apear in everyone I saw that lived there , I was either this big dumb hick that would be easy to fool or this big violent redneck who should be left alone !

It didnt matter to me , If you know what cubbyhole folk got you down for you are already one step ahead of them !!

[skunkbait]

I had a friend from the South Bacific come visit me. AS soo as we got alone, he said, "I love your family, they sound like they're from a John Wayne movie.."

-Fortunately, He'd never seen He-Haw!

[ceiligirl]

 In Wisconsin, we have a different-but-similar accent among our people who live more off the land than average. It's farmers and hunters and fisherpeople, and I think it's got some thing to do with the German ancestry but I'm not sure. If money were no object, I'd probably put my linguistics classes to use and spend a few years reasearching that accent/dialect of ours... what a blast that would be! Think of the people I'd get to interview and take language samples from... I'd have the best stocked fridge in the state, I bet, by the time all was said and done. 

And yeah, I was raised with a wood burning stove in the living room and cut wood and stacked wood all damned summer and made homemade applesauce from apple trees we found in the woods out back and weeded the garden and probably whined about all of it, too, but the whining's not what I remember now. 

I live in town so I'm within walking distance of the store and my job in case my vehicle ever up and dies when i don't have the money to fix it, but have an old farmhouse on the river and my kids catch crawfish and frogs and fish all the time. If the river were cleaner, we'd be eating that stuff on a regular basis, I guarantee you that.

I wish I'd win a lotery so I could pay the bills and study the dialect... As it is, I'll have to wait till my kids are older so I'll have a little more free time to do it around working, lol. But that' been in the back of my mind for a long time. Reading these posts reminded me. I think these dialects/accents are a treasure. Who the heck needs everybody sounding like Jessica or Brian on the 5pm news? How incredibly boring!

Cajuns are another group that our country will be the poorer for if they end up giving up their patois.

[static]

I'm descendant of Ellis county KS German Russians, the ability to speak the odd German dialects will die out with my generation. How our English is tinge with an accent others do notice. I have cousins that grew up in the South. They picked up on their parent's German accent and the Southern accent, I doubt few in the world sound like them. In time all the accents will flatten out. I don't feel a loss about that, not like I do about the loss of the ability to speak the language of their grandparents. Then again I would had to learn 2 different dialects

[ilpug]

I come from an area that has a backwoods accent to it that many do not know of. Here in Mendocino county California, there are plenty of proud rednecks, and some "rippies"; people from hippie lineage who came up to the mountains to grow marijuana, and have now embraced the redneck lifestyle. We have our own words and accent too. Quirks include the word "hella", spelling "a lot" with out a space (alot), saying "all like" or "be like", or other contractions like "aight'" or "don."
(all right, and don't"

[gearhead1951]

Lord aint it th' truth , I live in Scotland now but I was born and raised in East Tennessee ! I have had lots of folks ( when I has up north while in th' navy ) not know where I wuz from ! All th' Scottish folk I know have no trouble understandin' me and recognize me for a southerner and a HILLBILLY !!!

[skunkbait]

Where were you raised in E. Tenn.? I was born in TN, but grew up in western NC. I was about 35 miles east of TN, and 30 miles south of VA.

[gearhead1951]

I was born at th' Baroness Erlangher hospital in Chattanooga in 1951 and raised in Monkeytown ( Dayton) about 40 mile east of chattanooga I was never more than a 5 minute walk from deep woods and I et so damn much squirrel meat as a child my momma had to call me down outta th' trees fer bed time ! If we had scraped all th' rust offa my dad's truck ( cut down 1950 ford wagon) they wouldn't of been anything left ! Hillbilly creed " Use it up, Wear it out, Make do or do without !!!

[skunkbait]

Cool. A lot of my family lived in Chattanooga for years. I think they were with TVA. My Mother in law lives there now. And I know all about the squirrels. Sadly, We're down to our last 6 or 7 in the fridge. But the kids have spent the better part of this week on the pond, so for now, we're back to catfish.

[skunkbait]

That makes perfect sense. Many of the hill folk are descended from Scots and "Scots-Irish" stock. I really suspect the roots of the Civil War date back to the scuffles in Scotland and Ireland. The desire to remain autonymous runs deep in a Scotsman's blood. Import them to the "new world" and then try to force them to submit to a distant, power hungry government, and PRESTO- the seeds of secession! And yeah, I often sound more at place in the Australian bush, than I do in the northern part of the US!

[gearhead1951]

Ever hear of Chief John Ross, penultimate chief of th' cherokee circa 1850 !! He was described as being "7/8ths scots and all cherokee" ! Th' scots who found their way into those "smoking mtns" in th' late 1700's found a people whose social and economic system was almost th' same as th' one they grew up in and took to them like long lost brothers! When Andrew jackson screwed over th' cherokee nation and tryed to stuff them all into a rathole reservation out west , th' forced exodus was known as "the trail of tears" ! Th' cherokee refused to let th' soldiers see how upset they were, but there "white" friends and neighbors could not hold back their sorrow !! Much to th' unions later dismay, they only managed to round up th' most trusting members of th' tribe, th' rest just faded away into th' woods and later made them EXTREMELY dangerous for any blue clad soldier during th' civil war

[skunkbait]

Yep, I heard about that. A lot of the Scots married into the Cherokee, Chikasaw, and Choctaw. It's funny, in my family tree you can trace most of the men way back to the 1500s-1600s in Scotland, Ireland and England. But when we try to trace the women, we dead end in the late 1700's-early 1800's. They were all Indian girls, with hard-to-trace families.

[Johenix]

The first case of settlers going Indian was Roanok, Virginia.

Read the chapter on Southren feudes in "Outliers" by Molcolm Gladwell.
He links the Southren feudes to the need to defend against livestock thieft.
I extend his theory to see the Westren gunfighters and "Range Wars" as arising from the same livestock thieft roots. Further I see the hardened fighters of Afghanistan not as a feature of Islam but as a result of their herding culture. They were too much for Alaxander (The Great) of Masadonia even when they were Budhists.

[skunkbait]

Interesting.....  I had always supected the Roanoke colony of mixing with the natives.  When I was a kid though, the history books suggested they were KILLED by the locals.  Didn't really make much sense, given the facts....  Have you ever read about the Mellungians (sp?).  I've often wondered if they were the offspring of the Roanoke settlers and the Indians.

And about Afghanistan, I definitely see your point.  Whether or not they were Muslim, outside forces of control would be quite unwelcome.  The question (and I don't have the answer), is whether or not we'd be there in the first place if Islam (and the 'radical' elements attached to it)  were not the prevailing religion.  There are always people willing to kill for their faith, and more people willing to kill for greed/control, but would we be there if they were absent of "radical" Islam?

[Johenix]

It was not outside forces of control that set these people off, they were and are on hair trigger because herders are far more vulnerable to raiders than farmers. A raider can drive off a herd of cows, sheep, goats, horses or camels in the night rather quickly, but it takes a lot of time and work to steal a field of wheat or barley and  you need a wagon to haul it away, while animals will walk.

Thus herders are natural warriors.

On range wars I was thinking of the famous "Lincoln County War" which was rancher against rancher.

Some say Elvis Presley was "Meloungeon".

[skunkbait]

Interesting.....  Actually, when I was teaching the book of  Genesis a couple of years ago, we had a lengthy discussion about shepherds and shepherd-culture.  Check out  Gen. 46:31-34.

I was interested in why the Egyptians despised shepherds.  Often, we think of shepherds as the "weak version of cowboys", but historically, that's just not so!

[gearhead1951]

Th' "Meloungeons" were proved to be descendants of th' survivors of a persian slaveship wreck of th' soutern atlantic coast ( about what is now Kings Bay Georgia) !

Th' very name means "accursed" in pharsee and those folk brave enough to claim thier heritage ( these folks were treated VERY badly in th' past) are proven to suffer from th' same version of sickle cell anemia as is present in th' middle east population !

One known family name in this population is "Goins" and I went to school with a girl of that name who had a very strikin' resemblance to Katherine Bell ,  who is quite proud to be of Iranian (persian) descent !

They are also credited for introducin' th' turban to th' Cherokee ,  look up th' portrait of "Seqouia" to see what I mean !

[skunkbait]

Interesting.  That makes sense too, as many of those folks have "middle eastern" features.  I can remember seeeing a few of those folks in western NC, and East Tenn.  It was strange because they  "looked like furreigners"  but had hillbilly accents and behaviors that even exceeded my own!

Also, I'd wondered about that picture of Sequoia.  I never really put the peices together, but that certainly explains it.

[gearhead1951]

Incidently ,  That shipwreck is tentativly dated at 1610 ,  th' survivin' "cargo" wuz pursued for months by th' crew till a band of choctaws interceded and made then ALL slaves !

A generation later most were tribe members and honorary choctaw ,  some escaped from th' choctaw and moved in with th' cherokee !

Don't we live in an amazin' world !!

[gearhead1951]

Th' main case of th' "range wars" and th' subsequent bad feelin's toward federal authority is well delineated in a book titled "The bandotti of the plains" 

To read more google "Nate Champion" !   

[gearhead1951]

I wuz told th' term "hillbilly "came from th' name given(and accepted with pride) to th' scots supporters of King William after th' fightin' was over in Ireland ! When "billies boys" or more often simply "billies" were given th' opportunity , as a reward, to take land in th' "new" world they were sent to th' carolinas or virginia. When th' english folk walked off th' ship they would say "Oh what beutiful place, this will be home". The scots would take look at th' same scenery and say " Ye can have this bloody swamp, Us billies for th' hills" !! And there have been hillbillies up there ever since !!!!

[skunkbait]

I suspect most of that would be true. But, the goings-on in Scotland and Ireland were a bit more complicated than that. It wasn't uncommon for the Scots to take sides against the Brits. The Brits were "Church of England", while the Scots were mostly "Protestant-Other". They would occasionally side with Irish Catholics against their common enemy. In fact, some "Scots-Irish" weren't actually Scots at all. They were actually religious dissenters from England, etc., displaced to Ireland. Basically, it is in the blood of Hillbillies to fight for the right to be just left alone.

[rofus]

larys funny

[Stanau]

I salute another proud member of the natural state

[skunkbait]

Wooooooo PIG! Sooooooeeeyyy!