[MR] BBC: How Americans Preserved British English

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends,

Today BBC Culture is offering a feature entitled "How Americans Preserved
British English". While this isn't strictly an article about language in
our period of interest, it does make some comments about Shakespeare and on
Queen Elizabeth I's possible pronunciations. The article might give us some
things to ponder about how we present our characters in the SCA:
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180207-how-americans-preserved-british-english

The author of this piece says that there are hold-outs in modern American
English that do harken back to 16th and 17th century England, but the
purity of local accents is overrated. I agree. Language is always evolving.
Sadly, even the "Southern drawl", has been "yanky-fied" by incomers and
television here in central Virginia, and this influence is probably
spreading across the entire South. It will be a sad day when everyone talks
like the characters on Baywatch.

I once met an older lady at a church I attended who had what I thought was
the most charming English accent. When I asked from where in England she
came, with considerable amusement she replied that she was from
Gordonsville (for those of you not from Virginia, that is a small town more
or less midway between Richmond and Charlottesville). She continued, "This
is is the true Tidewater accent. All my relatives speak this way, though
our accent is nearly extinct." And sadly, she was correct.

Along those lines, a related BBC article on Tangier Island further carries
this theme:
http://www.bbc.com/travel/gallery/20180206-the-tiny-us-island-with-a-british-accent
. While there may be some accent survival, certain idioms the speakers use
in this piece are based on local tradition. An example given in the video
on slide 6 is "dry as Peckard's cow" for "thirsty". This is also reflected
in a similar survival jargon from coastal Northern California known as
"Boontling", where many local terms are linked to specific people or events
such as calling a telephone a "Joe" after the first man to have one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boontling

In the SCA, most of us make no attempt at a character-specific accent and
rarely use (or even understand) period idioms. At renfaires, however, this
is often part of the schtick and adds to the fun. It would be wonderful if
more of us at least tried to develop a character-specific accent. I would
love to learn a Scottish accent for my persona, even if based on modern
Scots regional pronunciations (for example, a traditional accent from
Glasgow or Edinburgh, both of which are quite accessable).

Some things to think about.

Yours Aye,

Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿