NC & The Queen's English

[daveraleigh]

Same goes for Wanchese. When I lived on the Outer Banks...you could always tell somebody was a native of Wanchese due to their unique accent.

[lovebrentwood]

Not long ago, I learned that some of my ancestors came from the area of Norfolk, England (then went to Canada for almost a hundred years and then Rochester, NY). I found a website that had an audio file of an example of a Norfolk native's accent. The way he said things sounded an awful lot like the words in the list above. Click the Keith Skipper link on this page to hear it: Norfolk,England Dialect,wav file of Keith Skipper,Larn Yarself Norfolk.

Possibly early NC pioneers were from that part of England, too?

[cry884]

Originally Posted by PDXmom

bile= boil (a fav of my grandmother. She biled potatoes.)

Very cute.

My grandpa didn't bile potatoes... he burled them. Still cracks me up.

[MovinJim]

Originally Posted by PDXmom

ast = asked

Don't you mean "axed" not "asked"?

[Tiger Beer]

Originally Posted by steve54

Well I'm British and I havent heard any of these! If it's the Queen's English it's not the current queen, maybe Queen Elizabeth I .
It looks more like an NC dialect of English

Logically, it can't be the current one, as North Carolina has been around for a few centuries already.

It comes from the time the British settled into North Carolina area, etc. The way they spoke things THEN, is the way that NC still pronounces some of its words NOW.

[DGMayor]

just reading a few, it sounds more Irish to me.

[GarnerMama]

Originally Posted by Francois

None of those terms are "NC English"--they refer to Ocracoke, an isolated island that was known, for many years, for its bizarre dialect that, legend had it, was the closest surviving dialect to Elizebethan English still around (I believe that's been mostly debunked). And, in the past 20 years or so, Ocracoke has had a lot more access to the mainland and I doubt any but the oldest residents even talk like that. Still, there are some interesting terminologies and accents! There is a book Hoi Toide on the Outer Banks, written a few years ago, all about the Ocracoke dialect.

But again, ONLY on Ocracoke or the OuterBanks would you find people talking like that (and much less so now)--it is NOT a "general NC accent".

This is what I was referring to: UNC-TV ONLINE: Carolina Brogue

It was a pretty interesting show.

"The early residents of the North Carolina Outer Banks came south by boat from Tidewater Virginia and the eastern shores of Maryland, and many of them had originally come from Southwest England or the Ulster province of Ireland. Features of British and Scots-Irish English have been retained in the local dialect, though the dialect of the early English-speaking settlers evolved independently to take on the distinctive character and vocabulary of the ‘hoi toide brogue.’ Once derided as “bad English” outside of its native communities, the dialect has been elevated by the BBC’s assessment of Ocracoke as ‘the Galapagos of language,’ and books like Hoi Toide on the Outer Banks by Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes.

Though villages along the sounds remain relatively Isolated, the Outer Banks is now one of the most popular travel destinations in the world and it receives millions of visitors annually. Increased contact with outsiders has brought rapid change and today locals strive to hang on to their heritage, traditions and changing dialect.

Rooted in twenty years of fieldwork, research and community relations, Carolina Brogue is a fascinating and candid portrait of contemporary life on the Carolina Coast--containing one of the most unique dialects in the world. In this all-new documentary, North Carolina State University's Walt Wolfram and his team explore the rapid changes brought on by millions of tourists each year amid locals' efforts to keep their unique heritage and dialect alive."

[DownEastB]

Lovebrentwood, my father's side of the family were from Suffolk, then emigrated to Canada, then one branch went to upstate NY (Poughkeepsie), then to eastern NC, while another branch went from Canada to southern VA, and then to what would become Edgecombe county in NC.

My grandmother had a very interesting accent. It was southern, but very genteel, almost English. I found a link of an older woman from Norfolk speaking in what is considered "the received pronunciation" accent, and grandmother's voice was quite similar in a lot of ways:
Accents and dialects of the UK

[StoneOne]

From what I understand of English language history over the last several hundred years, the English spoken in most of Britain has changed much more than the English spoken in the U.S., especially the southern U.S.

I have a good friend from northern England (not far from Leeds), and the only word from that list that I recall him ever using is "reckon."

[Francois]

Originally Posted by Tiger Beer

It comes from the time the British settled into North Carolina area, etc. The way they spoke things THEN, is the way that NC still pronounces some of its words NOW.

Not "NC", just a very small part of NC on the Outer Banks.