The splendid new Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English (Bookshop|Amazon), edited by Michael Montgomery and Jennifer Heinmiller, is a greatly expanded version of the Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English (Amazon), edited by Montgomery and Joseph S. Hall. The newer dictionary covers a wider geographical range and includes a thorough discussion of the grammar and syntax of that region of the United States. Among the terms included: daybust, another word for “the break of day”; blue snow, a term for “fine, extremely cold, powdery snow”; and good dark, “the period of night following twilight.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette, and there is some exciting news in the world of language. That’s the publication of the Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English, edited by Michael Montgomery and Jennifer Heinemiller. It’s the successor to Montgomery’s 2004 volume, The Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English, which was focused on eastern Tennessee.
In western North Carolina, and he was the Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English and linguistics at the University of South Carolina. He died in 2019, but Hein Miller, his former assistant, carried on the project.
And one thing that’s really exciting about this is that it’s expanded to include parts of eight states from southern West Virginia to northeastern Alabama.
So this means there are thousands more entries and census and citations. There are even
Photos in this dictionary. It’s got this wonderfully expanded section on the grammar and syntax of Southern Appalachian and Smoky Mountain English, which Grant, as you know, is really wonderful.
Because there’s such a stereotype about speech in that area. Some people think of it as reflecting somebody who’s uneducated, but the truth is that there’s a system, there’s a grammar, there’s a structure and a beauty. It’s not arbitrary. There are historical reasons for these features.
And the volume itself, as you know, is glorious. It is a fantastic successor to the original volume, and it did merit, even though it is technically a second edition, it is so very different from the first. It has so much more material. It is worthy of the new title.
And I got to say, this is a fine work of lexicography. As a dictionary editor, I can appreciate all of the hard work. And it’s not just Michael Montgomery and Jennifer Heinemiller. This
Is based on the work of Joseph Hall, who in the 1930s as a doctoral student began doing linguistic research in the Smoky Mountains. And he went into people’s homes and communities and gathered immense amounts of information in print form and audio tapes over decades. And that formed the original core of what Dr. Montgomery had been working with, and that information is in here as well.
So this is a passion project for multiple people, and you can sense the care and even the affection for Appalachia and the people of Appalachia that is in this book. I think they’ve treated the language and the community with a lot of respect, and I think this is a work of lexicography that will be appreciated for centuries to come. This is a fantastic book.
Indeed. And it’s a book that you can just sit and browse and see the wonderful poetry of the vocabulary of Southern Appalachia. I was just looking at words for specific times of day, like day bust, which is another term for daybreak, or good dark, which is after twilight. It’s when it’s good and dark outside. Or blue snow is fine powdery snow that’s very cold.
There’s a lot of poetry there, but it’s really worth reading the part about the grammar and syntax of that area. I spent part of every summer in western North Carolina, and I heard this stuff all the time, and it’s so great to see it described in grammatical terms, like, for example, the postposed one.
In the Smokies, to identify alternatives, speakers will use the word one instead of not only or either. For example, they’ll say, this medicine will kill you or cure you one. They’ll end the sentence with that. Or settlers come here in the 1830s or the 1840s one. That is just a natural feature of the speech in that area. And I heard that growing up and it’s so great to see it detailed and explained in this volume.
Yeah, that’s one of many things. This book that we both recommend is The Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English, published by the University of North Carolina Press. It is edited by Michael Montgomery and Jennifer Heinemiller.
And we’d love to hear your questions and observations about any aspect of language whatsoever, so give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send your stories and email to words@waywordradio.org.
