North Carolina Sixteen - Text
This Caucasian male, a youthful-looking 81 year old, was born in Rocky Mount, N.C.,
Edgecomb County, in the eastern part of the state. Following his mother's death, when he
was six weeks old, he was placed with his grandparents in Mt. Airy in the west, where he
lived until age seven. At that time he rejoined his now remarried father in Edgecomb and
Nash counties (eastern N.C.), and entered school. Here he remained until leaving for military
service and college. He spent more than a year in Dolthan, Alabama during the service, and from
1946 onward, has lived in Winston Salem, an urban area in the western part of the state. Despite
his long sojourn outside eastern N.C., he has retained his distinctive eastern N.C. accent.
He was a professional engineer, now retired, and a musician with the local symphony orchestra.
The most distinctive features of his Eastern N.C. dialect are the elimination of the "r"
except at the beginning of words or when used to link two vowels or vowel sounds. Another
distinctive feature is the lip rounded vowel heard in words like "cloth", "strong", "thought",
"because" and force".
The subject drops the second element of the diphthong in "time", implied"and "I'm" although
the same sound in "white" is a diphthong. Note that "there" and "rare" become two syllables as
does "years" and "hell".
A word like "mess' is elongated through the addition of a schwa and inflection, as are "came"
and "name". And "square". "You" and "to" use a diphthong with a short front vowel in the primary position.
Words ending in "y" like "sorry" and "gently" end in the same short vowel.
Note the retracted sound to the vowel in "club", and the pronunciations of "coops" and "aunt"
Recorded by Pat Toole, November 2000; edited by Paul Meier, March 2001. Running time: 00:06:12
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
When I was in the air force, uh, I was an instructor for cadets. And, uh, between classes, we were allowed to take trips in our plane. And so, one, uh, time I decided to come to this area. And, uh, I had always, in my, uh, early life at Mount Ariat looked out of my bedroom window and see on the horizon Palat Mountain. And, uh, Palat Mountain is one with a knob and then, uh, a dip that goes over into a pinnacle. And between it there’s a little valley on the top of the mountain. And since I was klying, flying my plane, I decided that I would fly through that notch between the knob and the pinnacle. So I put my plane in a dive and picked up speed and came down just over the trees in the valley between the pinnacle and the knob. And, um, then, I flew on to Greensboro and landed at that airport. From there, I went up to Mount Ariat to visit, uh, grandparents and they had a dinner served for me and invited all my uncles and aunts that were in Mount Ariat at the time and, while at dinner, I had two uncles that were, uh, always kidded me and uh, but anyhow, uh, during the meal, one of ‘em said to th’ other “you know, I was over there, uh, next to Palat Mountain, uh, this morning, and, uh, a plane came flying through the notch and it just made so much noise that it scared the pheasants in a pheasant ranch that was on the mountain and pheasants flew out of their coops and landed went all over the mountain and the owner of the, of the uh, pheasant ranch is mad as hell. And, uh, he is looking to find out who that was that flew through there,” and, uh, and my other uncle said “Is that so? That’s really very serious.” And, uh, as time went on, they looked over at me and I was probably turning green and he said, “Billy? Was that you?” And I said, “Yes, it was,” and I said, “Did they get the number of the plane?” And they said, “Well, we don’t know but, uh, the Major over at the airport is, uh, lookin’ for it,” and I said, “Oh my gosh.” And, uh, but when I went over to Greensboro there was nothing happening over there and I realized that my uncles had just played this trick on me and it so happened that the, that the one who saw me was actually there, and he saw me go through the, the notch, and so, uh, anyhow…
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY JESSICA TIDD 24 APRIL, 2008, UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF PROFESSOR SANDRA LINDBERG