A Word-List from South Carolina

Abstract

Dialect is generally understood to be at variance with standard English, and therefore to be avoided. This natural attitude on the part of the public needs to be tempered with some understand­ ing of the fact that standard usage today is not what it was fifty years ago, nor what it will be fifty years hence, and that what was and what will be ib represented in large part by dialect. Public interest can therefore be evoked by an explanation of some of the changes that language has undergone. The excellent article of Professor George P. Wilson, “The Value of Dialect,” PADS, No. 11, pp. 38-59, carries the message which should be made known as widely as possible to the public. There is our raison d’etre, the justification of our labors, well suited to overcome any prejudice against dialect on the part of the public. However, as we cannot assume that the general public is familiar with this article, we must in a newspaper campaign bring that message and disarm a very real prejudice against words and ex­ pressions that are not standard. Shakespeare is a name to conjure with in this connection. Many South Carolinians pronounce the word character with the accent on the second syllable. Learned people smile at that. But the smile is at least more tolerant and less scornful when one remembers that the Bard of Avon did so too. We can explain certain observable peculiarities in our speech out of the early history of our language. The well known change from the Germanic au to the Anglo-Saxon ea seems still to be in the bloodstream of the latter day Anglo-Saxons. You hear them say today: “I ’m going de-an te-an [down town].” In a similar way we can throw light upon the persistent use of ah for I, the backward shift of the accent as in invite, entire, etc., the pronouns hit, ’em, etc. Scores of similar illustrations can be used to bring the public to realize that dialect is a part of our heritage as well as is standard usage. Wide public interest is necessary if collection is to be approxi­