NEW PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE VARIETY IN THE SOUTH NEW PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE VARIETY IN THE SOUTH HIS TORI CAL AND CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES Edited by MICHAEL D. PICONE and CATHERINE EVANS DAVIES THE UNIVERSITY OF ALA BAMA PRESS Tuscaloosa The University of Ala bama Press Tuscaloosa, Ala bama 35487- 0380 uapress.ua.edu Copyright © 2015 by the University of Alab ama Press All rights reserved. Inquiries about reproducing material from this work should be addressed to the University of Ala bama Press. Typeface: Minion and Triplex Manufactured in the United States of America Cover image and design: Gary Gore ∞ The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48- 1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data New perspectives on language variety in the South : historical and contemporary approaches / edited by Michael D. Picone and Catherine Evans Davies. pages ; cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8173-1815-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8173-8736-5 (e book) 1.English language—Variation—Southern States. 2. English language—Dialects—Southern States. 3. English language—Southern States—Pronunciation. 4. Language and languages— Variation—Southern States. 5. Language and languages—Dialects—Southern States. 6.Language and languages—Southern States—Pronunciation. 7. Language and culture— Southern States. 8. Americanisms—Southern States. 9. Southern States—Languages. I. Picone, Michael D., editor. II. Davies, Catherine Evans, editor. PE2923.N49 2014 427'.975—dc23 2014016040 Contents Acknowledgments ix 1. Introduction Michael D. Picone and Catherine Evans Davies 1 PART I. HIS TORI CAL APPROACHES Indigenous Languages 2. Americ an Indian Languages of the Southeast: An Introduction Pamela Munro 21 3. A Profile of the Caddo Language Wallace Chafe 43 4. The Ofo Language of Louisiana: Recovery of Grammar and Typology Robert L. Rankin 52 5. Timucua - ta: Muskogean Parallels George Aaron Broadwell 72 6. Pre-C olumbian Links to the Caribbean: Evidence Connecting Cusabo to Taíno Blair A. Rudes 82 Earlier Englishes of the South 7. The Crucial Century for English in the Americ an South Michael B. Montgomery 97 8. South ern Ameri can English in Perspective: A Quantitative Comparison with Other English and Americ an Dialects Robert Shackleton 118 9. Some Developments in South ern Americ an English Grammar Jan Tillery 149 vi / Contents 10. Francis Lieber’s Americ anisms as an Early Source on South ern Speech Stuart Davis 166 11. Earlier South ern Englishes in Black and White: Corpus- Based Approaches Edgar W. Schneider 182 The Af ri can Diaspora 12. Some Early Creole- Like Data from Slave Speakers: The Island of St. Helena, 1695–1711 Laura Wright 203 13. Regional Variation in Nineteenth- Century Af ri can Ameri can English Gerard Van Herk 219 14. Prima Facie Evidence for the Persistence of Creole Features in Af ri can Ameri- can English and Evidence for Residual Creole David Sutcliffe 233 15. The Linguistic Status of Gullah- Geechee: Divergent Phonological Processes Thomas B. Klein 254 Earlier French of the Gulf South 16. French Dialects of Louisiana: A Revised Typology Michael D. Picone 267 17. From French to English in Louisiana: The Prudhomme Family’s Story Connie C. Eble 288 PART II. CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES Across the South 18. The South in DARE Revisited Joan Houston Hall and Luanne von Schneidemesser 301 19. The South: Still Different Dennis R. Preston 311 20. Demography as Destiny? Population Change and the Future of Southe rn Ameri can English Guy Bailey 327 English in the Contemporary South: Persistence and Change 21. A Century of Sound Change in Ala bama Crawford Feagin 353 22. Various Variation Aggregates in the LAMSAS South John Nerbonne 369 23. The Persistence of Dialect Features Sylvie Dubois and Barbara Horvath 383 Contents / vii English in the Contemporary South: Discourse Approaches 24. South ern Storytelling: His tori cal and Contemporary Perspectives Catherine Evans Davies 399 25. The South ern and Southwest ern Discourse Styles of Two Texas Women Judith M. Bean 422 26. We Ain’t Done Yet: Dialect Depiction and Language Ideology Rachel Shuttlesworth Thompson 433 English in the Contemporary South: Afr i can Ameri can Language Issues 27. Race, Racialism, and the Study of Language Evolution in America Salikoko Mufwene 449 28. The Language of Black Women in the Smoky Mountain Region of Appalachia Christine Mallinson and Becky Childs 475 29. The Sound Symbolism of Self in Innovative Naming Practices in an Af ri can Ameri can Community Janis B. Nuckolls and Linda Beito 492 English in the Contemporary South: Black and White Speech and the Complexities of Relationship 30. An Experiment on Cues Used for Identification of Voices as Af ri can Ameri can or European Ameri can Erik R. Thomas and Jeffrey Reaser 507 31. What We Hear and What It Expresses: The Perception and Meaning of Vowel Differences among Dialects Valerie Fridland and Kathryn Bartlett 523 32. A Quantitative Acoustic Approach to /ai/ Glide-W eakening among Detroit Af ri can Americ an and Appalachian White South ern Migrants Bridget L. Anderson 536 33. The Spread of the cot/caught Merger in the Speech of Memphians: An Ethnolinguistic Marker? Valerie Fridland 551 34. Phonological Variation in Louisiana ASL: An Exploratory Study Robert Bayley and Ceil Lucas 565 English in the Contemporary South: Language and Identity 35. Constructing Identity: The Use of a- Prefixing and Nonstandard Past Tense in Narration to Create a Community Voice Allison Burkette 583 36. Negotiating Linguistic Capital in Economic Decline: Dialect Change in Mill Villager and Farmer Speech Lisa D. McNair 591 viii / Contents 37. Lexical Features of Jewish English in the South ern United States Cynthia Bernstein 609 Louisiana French 38. Beyond Cajun: Toward an Expanded View of Regional French in Louisiana Thomas A. Klingler 627 39. Whither Cajun French: Language Persistence and Dialectal Upsurges Sylvie Dubois 641 Latino Language Issues 40. Is “Spanglish” the Third Language of the South? Truth and Fantasy about US Spanish John M. Lipski 657 41. Language Acquisition and Social Integration of Hispanics in North east Mississippi Patricia Manning Lestrade 678 42. Puerto Rican Spanish in South Texas: Variation in Subject Personal Pronouns Carlos Martin Vélez Salas, Belinda Treviño Schouten, Norma Cárdenas, and Robert Bayley 696 Language in the South and the Public Interest 43. Stylization, Aging, and Cultural Competence: Why Health Care in the South Needs Linguistics Boyd Davis and Dena Shenk 715 44. Sociolinguistic Engagement in Community Perspective Walt Wolfram 731 Conclusion: Perspectives, Achievements, and Remaining Challenges Walt Wolfram 748 Contributors 771 Index 773 Acknowledgments The coeditors of New Perspectives on Language Variety in the South: His tori cal and Contemporary Approaches gratefully acknowledge the many individuals, groups, and associations whose vari ous contributions made possible the publication of this vol- ume. It was an immense privilege to work with the 51 different authors, both veteran and emerging scholars, whose research is on display in this volume and who so pa- tiently awaited the appearance of the final product. We are especially indebted to our advisory panel of experts for their invaluable counsel and for vetting every contri- bution that appears in this volume prior to the submission of the manuscript to the University of Ala bama Press: Drs. Guy Bailey (University of Texas Rio Grande Val- ley), Cynthia Bern stein (University of Memphis), Barbara Johnstone (Carnegie Mellon University), Thomas Klingler (Tulane University), William Kretzschmar (University of Georgia), Sonja Lane hart (University of Texas at San Antonio), John Lipski (Penn- sylvania State Univer sity), Michael B. Montgomery (University of South Carolina), Sa- likoko Mufwene (University of Chicago), Pamela Munro (University of California, Los Angeles), and Walt Wolfram (North Carolina State University). We are also indebted to the anonymous reviewers selected by the University of Ala bama Press who took on the gargantuan task of evaluating the entire manuscript. Greatly appreciated was the willingness of the staff of the University of Ala bama Press to take on this large project and to facilitate its completion, demonstrating inexhaustible patience in the process. This volume would not have been possible without the benefit of an initial grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (grant no. RZ- 50220- 04). Contribu- tions toward a sizable publication subvention came from the College of Arts & Sci- ences of the University of Ala bama, the Department of Modern Languages and Clas- sics of the University of Ala bama, the Department of English of the University of Ala bama, the Southeast ern Conference on Linguistics, the Ameri can Dialect Society, Dr. Cynthia Bernstein, Dr. Connie C. Eble, Dr. Michael B. Montgomery, Dr. Patricia Nichols, and an anonymous donor. For this generous support, the coeditors express their deepest gratitude.