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Huntington and Northeastern Kentucky are Southern Appalachia, culturally, linguistically, religiously, ancestrally. Heavy Scots-Irish areas that saw very little to no continental European immigration, within and economically linked to the rest of Eastern Kentucky and Southern West Virginia Coalfields, made up of the descendants of people from the rest of Eastern Kentucky and Southern West Virginia that moved there when the towns were built in the late 1800s to transport coal out of the region. They are Southern Appalachia and under no circumstances "Midwestern Appalachia", at all, in any real sense.
If such a category as "Midwestern Appalachia" exists I suppose you could say parts of northeastern Ohio, Pittsburgh and some of the panhandle of West Virginia are within it, but that's all, I wouldn't put any of the rest of West Virginia in it, even the parts that border Pennsylvania or Maryland or any of that. Seems that people tend to exaggerate the differences between Eastern KY-TN-Southern WV and northern WV. Much of northern WV has the same cultural, linguistic and even religious makeup of EKY-ETN-SoWV, though it did get slightly more mid to late 1800s immigration it, unlike Pittsburgh or Eastern Ohio, did not fundamentally alter or replace the Scots-Irish Appalachian culture of the area, this documentary ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUvdWwbQOzI) on farmers takes place in Monongalia County, West Virginia, literally on the Pennsylvania border and these people seem indiscernable from folks from Southern West Virginia or Eastern Kentucky to me. They speak with Appalachian accents, though a little less twangy than what you'd hear in Eastern Kentucky or Southern West Virginia, high frequency of red-hair, hell they even call their grandfather "pap" which I've only ever heard in Eastern Kentucky/Southern West Virginia/Eastern Tennessee before.
So Southern WV and Northern WV, with the exception of the Wheeling panhandle, are obviously in the same cultural area, along with Eastern Kentucky, Southwest Virginia and Eastern Tennessee, I wouldn't call any of those areas Midwestern or Northern Appalachian, they're all just Southern Appalachian with the main differences between them being whether its a coal mining area or a non-coal mining area, otherwise its all one cultural unit up and down the mountains.
I get part of what you are saying, but the small industrial cities of WV produced such non-Scots-Irish things as the Pepperoni roll, Nick Saban, and Rich Rodriguez. Everyone is free to have an opinion, but the guy I know from Huntington makes is abundantly clear he is an Ohio River valley person, from a small city. He is not a "mountaineer" and makes it a point to let people know. I read the same in "The Mothman Prophecies," that the culture changes quickly when you get out of the hills and into that more densely settled and industrialized valley.
What about Western Maryland? If your definition of "Southern Appalachia" includes all of the Eastern Panhandle of WV, we should make the cut too, right?
Huntington and Northeastern Kentucky are Southern Appalachia, culturally, linguistically, religiously, ancestrally. Heavy Scots-Irish areas that saw very little to no continental European immigration, within and economically linked to the rest of Eastern Kentucky and Southern West Virginia Coalfields, made up of the descendants of people from the rest of Eastern Kentucky and Southern West Virginia that moved there when the towns were built in the late 1800s to transport coal out of the region. They are Southern Appalachia and under no circumstances "Midwestern Appalachia", at all, in any real sense.
If such a category as "Midwestern Appalachia" exists I suppose you could say parts of northeastern Ohio, Pittsburgh and some of the panhandle of West Virginia are within it, but that's all, I wouldn't put any of the rest of West Virginia in it, even the parts that border Pennsylvania or Maryland or any of that. Seems that people tend to exaggerate the differences between Eastern KY-TN-Southern WV and northern WV. Much of northern WV has the same cultural, linguistic and even religious makeup of EKY-ETN-SoWV, though it did get slightly more mid to late 1800s immigration it, unlike Pittsburgh or Eastern Ohio, did not fundamentally alter or replace the Scots-Irish Appalachian culture of the area, this documentary ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUvdWwbQOzI) on farmers takes place in Monongalia County, West Virginia, literally on the Pennsylvania border and these people seem indiscernable from folks from Southern West Virginia or Eastern Kentucky to me. They speak with Appalachian accents, though a little less twangy than what you'd hear in Eastern Kentucky or Southern West Virginia, high frequency of red-hair, hell they even call their grandfather "pap" which I've only ever heard in Eastern Kentucky/Southern West Virginia/Eastern Tennessee before.
So Southern WV and Northern WV, with the exception of the Wheeling panhandle, are obviously in the same cultural area, along with Eastern Kentucky, Southwest Virginia and Eastern Tennessee, I wouldn't call any of those areas Midwestern or Northern Appalachian, they're all just Southern Appalachian with the main differences between them being whether its a coal mining area or a non-coal mining area, otherwise its all one cultural unit up and down the mountains.
As someone who grew up in northern WV, literally, the tip of the state, no. I don't think there is remotely any similarities between the the north and south, asides from sharing the same state abbreviation. Northern WV has always aligned with southwestern PA/Pittsburgh in most aspects.
I get part of what you are saying, but the small industrial cities of WV produced such non-Scots-Irish things as the Pepperoni roll, Nick Saban, and Rich Rodriguez. Everyone is free to have an opinion, but the guy I know from Huntington makes is abundantly clear he is an Ohio River valley person, from a small city. He is not a "mountaineer" and makes it a point to let people know. I read the same in "The Mothman Prophecies," that the culture changes quickly when you get out of the hills and into that more densely settled and industrialized valley.
What about Western Maryland? If your definition of "Southern Appalachia" includes all of the Eastern Panhandle of WV, we should make the cut too, right?
Having grown up around Huntington, though admittedly on the Kentucky side of the tristate area, I can assure that its an extremely Scots-Irish area dominated by Baptists with all the slang and histories of the greater EKY/SoWV area, my family were all coal miners for instance, except for a few farmers and men who worked on barges transporting the coal out of that region. Have never met anyone that didn't have a British surname whose a local of that area, Huntington is a relatively new town that only exists specifically to get coal out of that area, and it was peopled by residents of the surrounding hillsides rather than by immigrants and such. Had to leave the tristate area before I ever met anyone that didn't have last names that sounded like "Skaggs" and "Tackett" and to find out that Catholics were a real thing and not just something that The Exorcist movie made up for entertainment and story.
Have known many people from Huntington and they've all had Southern Appalachian accents and proudly identified as mountaineers and Appalachians, I've never met a single person who said they were from the "Ohio Valley" and having lived my whole life in that area never once heard that term until I saw it used on this forum, so color me very skeptical that you met a native who identifies that way. Huntington is actually one of the largest country music buying cities in America, far outpacing many cities to the south of it, there's nothing "Ohio" about that place, except insofar as some bits of Southern Appalachian culture go past the river to Ironton, Ohio and places like that. Huntington has actually been considered "core" (read: Southern) Appalachian since the publication of Our Southern Highlanders which was the first book to ever identify Appalachia as a unique cultural region. Huntington is definitely culturally within Southern Appalachia, historically, culturally, objectively, point blank, there is really no arguing otherwise on that.
That said, as was mentioned in my post, the far northern cities along the Ohio River in WV definitely are more Northern Appalachian than Southern Appalachian, with Parkersburg being about half and half, somewhat like Huntington and somewhat like Wheeling, a true transition town. Regarding the Eastern Panhandle, that's a very agricultural area and more in the Ridge and Valley region of the Appalachians, I think it has more in common with places like Roanoke, Virginia than it does Plateau Appalachia e.g Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia, which is usually not farming country due to the soil and rugged terrain with few areas suitable for moderate to large scale cultivation of the ground, the result of this is that the Eastern Panhandle traditionally has more in common with the non-Appalachian Upland South than any other area in West Virginia, though its still firmly within Appalachia regionally speaking. There is no such thing as "Midwestern Appalachian" as that other poster said though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bellic
As someone who grew up in northern WV, literally, the tip of the state, no. I don't think there is remotely any similarities between the the north and south, asides from sharing the same state abbreviation. Northern WV has always aligned with southwestern PA/Pittsburgh in most aspects.
Well, if you say so, I didn't grow up in far northern WV so obviously my knowledge would be less than yours so I won't argue with you about that but I can speak objectively on the Ohio River and Tug Fork towns of Southern West Virginia e.g Huntington and other places in Cabell, Wayne, that area, and it is very much culturally within Southern Appalachia and has always been considered as such, I've lived in Huntington and lived in Hazard, Kentucky deep in the hills and the only difference between them is one is larger and the other is smaller. The rest is all the same, ancestry, culture, music, religion.
Though I will say the documentary I linked takes place in a West Virginia-Pennsylvania border county and many of the people in it wouldn't be out of place in Hazard either and most of the locals would have a hard time telling they aren't from Eastern Kentucky or nearby Southern West Virginia, the accents are less twangy admittedly but otherwise sound related and similar, and they behave and look very similarly too. There's even a scene where they're dancing to bluegrass music, really doesn't get much more stereotypical than that.
Last edited by HillToppingHaint; 12-19-2023 at 05:44 AM..
Having grown up around Huntington, though admittedly on the Kentucky side of the tristate area, I can assure that its an extremely Scots-Irish area dominated by Baptists with all the slang and histories of the greater EKY/SoWV area, my family were all coal miners for instance, except for a few farmers and men who worked on barges transporting the coal out of that region. Have never met anyone that didn't have a British surname whose a local of that area, Huntington is a relatively new town that only exists specifically to get coal out of that area, and it was peopled by residents of the surrounding hillsides rather than by immigrants and such. Had to leave the tristate area before I ever met anyone that didn't have last names that sounded like "Skaggs" and "Tackett" and to find out that Catholics were a real thing and not just something that The Exorcist movie made up for entertainment and story.
Have known many people from Huntington and they've all had Southern Appalachian accents and proudly identified as mountaineers and Appalachians, I've never met a single person who said they were from the "Ohio Valley" and having lived my whole life in that area never once heard that term until I saw it used on this forum, so color me very skeptical that you met a native who identifies that way. Huntington is actually one of the largest country music buying cities in America, far outpacing many cities to the south of it, there's nothing "Ohio" about that place, except insofar as some bits of Southern Appalachian culture go past the river to Ironton, Ohio and places like that. Huntington has actually been considered "core" (read: Southern) Appalachian since the publication of Our Southern Highlanders which was the first book to ever identify Appalachia as a unique cultural region. Huntington is definitely culturally within Southern Appalachia, historically, culturally, objectively, point blank, there is really no arguing otherwise on that.
That said, as was mentioned in my post, the far northern cities along the Ohio River in WV definitely are more Northern Appalachian than Southern Appalachian, with Parkersburg being about half and half, somewhat like Huntington and somewhat like Wheeling, a true transition town. Regarding the Eastern Panhandle, that's a very agricultural area and more in the Ridge and Valley region of the Appalachians, I think it has more in common with places like Roanoke, Virginia than it does Plateau Appalachia e.g Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia, which is usually not farming country due to the soil and rugged terrain with few areas suitable for moderate to large scale cultivation of the ground, the result of this is that the Eastern Panhandle traditionally has more in common with the non-Appalachian Upland South than any other area in West Virginia, though its still firmly within Appalachia regionally speaking. There is no such thing as "Midwestern Appalachian" as that other poster said though.
Well, if you say so, I didn't grow up in far northern WV so obviously my knowledge would be less than yours so I won't argue with you about that but I can speak objectively on the Ohio River and Tug Fork towns of Southern West Virginia e.g Huntington and other places in Cabell, Wayne, that area, and it is very much culturally within Southern Appalachia and has always been considered as such, I've lived in Huntington and lived in Hazard, Kentucky deep in the hills and the only difference between them is one is larger and the other is smaller. The rest is all the same, ancestry, culture, music, religion.
Though I will say the documentary I linked takes place in a West Virginia-Pennsylvania border county and many of the people in it wouldn't be out of place in Hazard either and most of the locals would have a hard time telling they aren't from Eastern Kentucky or nearby Southern West Virginia, the accents are less twangy admittedly but otherwise sound related and similar, and they behave and look very similarly too. There's even a scene where they're dancing to bluegrass music, really doesn't get much more stereotypical than that.
The Huntington native I know is a real person, he lives near Myrtle Beach, and being outside of WV, he does not choose to self-ID with the state. He is proud to say he is from Huntington, but explains that it is a small city, with a decent size college, in a flat river valley. He's not a Mountaineer, he is Thundering Herd 100%. His dialect is midlands, but NOT strong southern Appalachian by any stretch. TBH, I think you are agreeing with me. As I said, my understanding from my friend and what I have read is that the hills around Huntington....where you say you are from.....are different than that flat valley land where the city is located. The fact you ID so strongly with Appalachian culture and want to smack talk the guy I know from the city limits for being more "city" is sorta what I would expect.
And I get that completely. I grew up mostly in the city limits of Cumberland, a small city. I went to private school, I speak with a mild accent, and there is that same "city" vs. "country" rivalry here too, although these days our area is small enough we find more in common than we once did.
I don't agree with you on dialect. That Morgantown farm family had a nice Appalachian dialect, but I would have placed them in Northern Appalachia, somewhere in that quad state region of OH, PA, WV, and MD. I didn't hear any (h)aint's or a-prefixing that are the main tells, at least among older people of that deep southern WV dialect. Maybe among young people, it's all flattening out now.
How much time have you spent in the Potomac Highlands and the EP? Just wondering. The far EP has lots of AG, the ridge and valley is hit and miss, mostly miss on high quality soils outside the major valleys. My part of the world is a small city right at the point where the ridge and valley meet the high Alleghenies in Maryland.
West Virginia is West Virginia because it chose to be North rather than remain with Virginia. Learn some history!
Anyone who has actually examined the voting patterns of the western counties can not agree with your ill informed statement.
West Virginia was created to keep control of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in Federal hands so that troops from the West could quickly be moved to the Eastern theater of operations. Benjamin Franklin Kelley worked for the B&O. He was appointed commander of the 1st Virginia Infantry, a Federal volunteer three-months regiment composed manly of railroad workers from the mid-west. I have spoken with a descendant of one soldier who confirmed that there were no Virginians in his ancestor’s company.
The Huntington native I know is a real person, he lives near Myrtle Beach, and being outside of WV, he does not choose to self-ID with the state. He is proud to say he is from Huntington, but explains that it is a small city, with a decent size college, in a flat river valley. He's not a Mountaineer, he is Thundering Herd 100%. His dialect is midlands, but NOT strong southern Appalachian by any stretch. TBH, I think you are agreeing with me. As I said, my understanding from my friend and what I have read is that the hills around Huntington....where you say you are from.....are different than that flat valley land where the city is located. The fact you ID so strongly with Appalachian culture and want to smack talk the guy I know from the city limits for being more "city" is sorta what I would expect.
And I get that completely. I grew up mostly in the city limits of Cumberland, a small city. I went to private school, I speak with a mild accent, and there is that same "city" vs. "country" rivalry here too, although these days our area is small enough we find more in common than we once did.
I don't agree with you on dialect. That Morgantown farm family had a nice Appalachian dialect, but I would have placed them in Northern Appalachia, somewhere in that quad state region of OH, PA, WV, and MD. I didn't hear any (h)aint's or a-prefixing that are the main tells, at least among older people of that deep southern WV dialect. Maybe among young people, it's all flattening out now.
How much time have you spent in the Potomac Highlands and the EP? Just wondering. The far EP has lots of AG, the ridge and valley is hit and miss, mostly miss on high quality soils outside the major valleys. My part of the world is a small city right at the point where the ridge and valley meet the high Alleghenies in Maryland.
So basically what you're saying is that Huntington is southern Appalachian, that mightn't be what you meant to say but you all but admitted it when you said the guy is ashamed of his heritage and looks down on the Huntingtonians who don't live in the direct city-limits. Sorry, but linguistically, culturally and religiously Huntington is nothing like Weirton or Wheeling, its just a southern Appalachian river-town.
You musn't of listened very closely because the farmers in that video absolutely do put an "a-" prefix before their words from time to time. Something, by the way, you hear all the time from old timers in Huntington too.
My personal interpretation of WV. It doesn't exactly answer the North/South debate, but I would argue that it shows that WV is more evenly split. Northern Appalachian would be most of PA and the Southern tier of NY. So, the central part of WV has more in common with PA/NY then it does KY/VA.
If I could draw a circle around Clay County I would, because it's more like KY then Northern Appalachia. I just didn't go too crazy with my lines.
EDIT: I am sorry that I cannot get this map any bigger
Basically you have
1. More like Ohio > Kanawha Valley/Huntington/Parkersburg
2. More like PA/Pittsburgh > Northern Panhandle, plus Morgantown/Fairmont/Clarksburg
3. Northern App > Central WV
4. More like KY > Coalfields
5. More like VA > Majority of Eastern WV
6. More like MD > Eastern Panhandle
Northern panhandle: Northern
The rest of the state: Southern
Having settled in the northern panhandle from SC, I disagree. This area is very southern in attitude.
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