Attitude

[Nathan Dodds]

Re: Attitude

You all bring up an interesting point concerning drift. However, I think it is still possible to develop an accent that would have passed back then--especially for the lower classes (granted that there is probably very little to go on with the higher classes).

I have in my possession interview recordings of old men from my rural area born in the 1870's. Very little has changed in their accent from some of their WWII generation grandsons that I have actually met! Some of these WWII generation men's grandsons my age have changed very little from them. I think I can deduce that I have a fairly close idea of the accent people here might have had in the 1860's. After getting familiar with letters written by Arkansas soldiers for period accurate vocabulary, what could be closer?

Don't forget if someone was born in 1850 he could have lived into his 90's, putting his death in the 1940's. There must be recordings out there of men even older then the ones on the recordings I have.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Attitude

I'll just toss out an odd little data point, for what it's worth.

You know how men talk in 1940s movies? That flat, fast, almost-ironic-sounding speaking voice, that's very distinctive to the period?

My wife has a recording of her father made in the 1940s, as an announcer for an army band. On the recording, he sounds just like that.

In real life when she remembered him, starting around 1970ish, he no longer sounded like that, either in private or when public speaking. But then, the average middle-aged person in the 1970s didn't sound like that either.

So do people change their voices with the times? I've wondered if ways of speaking, that go in and out of fashion nationwide, are purely a 20th/21st century phenomenon based on radio and TV, or if such a thing occurred in the period, spread by plays and/or famous actors.

We can recognize a 1940s young adult's voice, or a slower pseudo-stoned 1960s young adult's voice, based on the time period apart from any region. Could someone in the 19th century recognize a characteristic cocky "Young America" voice from the late 1850s? An idealistic reformer's voice from the 1840s? Were trend-seeking young adults copying a specific speech pattern spread by "Mose the fireman" along with his clothes and attitude? I don't know.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Curt Schmidt]

Is the message the medium?

Hallo!

"However, I think it is still possible to develop an accent that would have passed back then--especially for the lower classes (granted that there is probably very little to go on with the higher classes)."

Not to be silly but... but if someone speaks in 1861, what does it sound like?

IMHO... I would reword that as:

"However, I think it is still possible to develop an accent that can pass now... "

So, what should a Texas Brigade soldier sound like? The modern Texan version of Southern or South Midland or like some ancestral form found in the pockets of immigrants to Texas coming from say 1830's or 1840's Virginia?

But I would agree that the exposure to outside "language forces" is greater in the Modern World with immigrations and mobile populations and most importantly the effects of public education and radio/TV/Hollywood I accelerating the process.

And I look at my wife's family. Her grandfather, who in his first 70 years had never been more than 25 miles from home near Marietta (OH) except for his honeymoon in Pittsburgh- had a "classic" South Midland "Appalachia" accent. And still used the "a" prefix in front of verbs- such as "a-huntin'"
Her mother moved to Cleveland at the age of 17 and when I first met her in her mid 30's had "lost" 95% of her "accent" save for the pronunciation of a few words like meelk, feesh, beels, and spaycial.
My wife speaks "unaccented" Inland Northern due to environment and school.
However, as shared, her youngest brother spoke "unaccented" Inland Northern due to environment and school, until he moved to Columbus afer high school to work with South Midland speakers and now has a strong "Appalachian" accent.

At any rate, the rate of evolution or "drift," is slower in isolation and isolated communities and regions. The more input and exposure to "different," the faster it occurs- especially with the modernization of radio/TV/movies and a mobile population.

On the other hand, cynically, perhaps this is too "linquistically academic." If one's pards and the spectating Public EXPECT a Texas Brigade lad to sound like a modern Texan rather than a Period Texian- what if he does not?

Again, I recommend reading and watching "The Story of English."

Others' mileage will vary...

Curt

(Side note... The five "Regions" of American English are a linguisitc tool. Obviously, there are variations with the regional bands such as say North Midland which does not sound the same in New Jersey as it does in western PA as it does in central Ohio as it does in central Indiana or... California.

And Ohio and Indiana are unique in that they contain three regional affectations where most states have one or at best two.)

[Nathan Dodds]

Re: Is the message the medium?

Again, I recommend reading and watching "The Story of English."

Mr. Schmidt,
I may take your recommendation. Of course my highest goal should be authenticity and deeper understanding.

That said, thus far I still have a lot of confidence in my sources as being the closest humanly possible to what soldiers from my area would have sounded like during the Civil War.

To tell a little more about my sources and there background: some of the recordings I have were made in the 50's and 60's of men born in the 1870's. Most of these men wouldn't even have had electricity until the 50's or 60's if even then. They spent (about) the first seventy years of their life with no radio or TV, and little or no communications with the outside world (I have heard of men that never left their hollow until they were about 15years old) . Skills such as how to play the fiddle could be passed through up to four generations. One example I have is of Apsie Morrison. His ancestors came over from Scotland before the Revolutionary War--I have an interview of Apsie made in the 1960's, and you can still hear some Scottish brogue in his accent. Apsie played tunes like The World Turned Upside-down and Lee's retreat passed down in his family from the Rev. war and CW. That's how clannish some people up hear were.

To conclude: I still think it's possible to have an accent that would have passed back then;)

[Matt67thNY]

Re: Attitude

It does make sense that all "accents" are formed from Isolated communities. Even though a generalized common accent can be heard(knowing what state ur from) there are variations of that accent within a certain radius. For instance, I live on long island, NY(ok make fun of my accent, I know lol).............and everyone thinks that NYC, Brooklyn, Queens and Long island all have the same accent(just like us Yanks believe that all southerners talk the same) but we all have very noticeable differences in our accents.

My question is whether the differences in these southeastern NY accents were as diverse, or if there was more of a unified accent during the mid to late 19th century. A large Part of Long Island was a huge farming community during the war, so i assume that means they were somewhat more isolated from outside influence. I would imagine that due to the large amount of immigration that the southeastern NY area would have such a large array of accents that an accurate recreation of that speech cannot be recreated. The closest recreation would prob be someone who is actually an immigrant from Ireland.

What type of accent would a second generation New Yorker born in the 1940's have? Would it really sound close to "The Natives" accents in the film "Gangs of New York". I would like to believe so, but the movie was not really historically accurate, so maybe not.

-Matt