ATD question about Lake's speech (217)

[Bekah]

Appalachia is a huge area and the language really can't be easily categorized for origin.  Appalachia stretches through the mountainous areas from Pennsylvania to Mississippi.  The people who settled there  came from Victorian England,  Scotland,  France,  and elsewhere.   They have developed many variants of English.   Many studies on the origin of the "dialect"  have been done re the linkage to Victorian English and Scottish and their own evolution / mutation of the mother tongues.  It could be from Elizabethan days or it could be a "frontier original."   

Appalachian English 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_English

The Dialect of The Appalachian People
http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh30-2.html

During the Western Expansion of the 19th century folks who lived in the Appalachians tended to move straight West from where they were.   Folks from the Carolinas tended to go to the Ozarks of Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma (and later to Southern California).   People from Georgia went to Louisiana and Texas (and then California).  And when travelers from Pennsylvania went West they went to the Northern but populated areas of the West.  

So  IF the fictional Traverses were from the northern parts of Appalachia they  could easily (and normally) have gone west from Pennsylvania Appalachian country to the Pacific Northwest -  first down the Allegheny River to somewhere near the Mason Dixon Line.   Then they would likely have gone south a bit to St. Louis and maybe then over to Oregon via the Oregon Trail.   Lots of Pennsylvania folks went to the Pacific Northwest.  

The central parts of the northern areas,  around where the states between North Dakota and Idaho are now,  weren't populated until the 1870s and later.  The Northwest was settled earlier because of the port access for transportation (no railroad until .  Also because of the fear the English or Russians might take it. 

Bekah



On Apr 30, 2012, at 7:23 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> Matthew Cissell writes:
> Many of the first people to pass through the Cumberland gap, which allowed passage through the mountians, were catholics from Maryland who wanted to escape the increasing intolerance towards catholics there.
> Could the Traverses have crossed the same mountains, albeit further south and a bit later, as Mason and Dixon?
> 
> Oh, check out those piled up prepositions. Somebody mentioned that in Munich and I think also in Lublin conferences (same person I believe); he argued it was a way to create disjointed syntax, or something like that. I just recall a british friend teasing me about american phrasal verbs with 3 prepostions. For example. "Y'all betta get on off down the road." People in Chicago do not speak like that.
> 
> ciao
> mc otis
> 
> 
> Paul and Matthew,
> I am intrigued by the Appalachia remark, since I grew up and have returned to a periphery area of Appalachia---Pittsburgh, PA. (NEVER heard or at least never remembered the area being called Appalachian when I grew up----since it wanted to be Other, I'm sure. )
> 
> I also think Pynchon is so good with language even in dialogue characterization---even if we think characterization is not a strength nor a major interest in some of the works. Look at the "what it is, is..." and that he has 7 (seven) OED entries for first print usage of certain words...[incl. "shrink"!]
> 
> We also know Pynchon uses certain older meanings of words from the beginning---they are there in V. (see wiki, early pages even)
> 
> Paul speculates so interestingly: "The Traverses must have arrived early in the New World, remained isolated in
> Appalachia, until moving west in the 19th Century."
> According to Vineland, the Traverse clan began (in the fictions) as loggers in the Pacific Northwest. Did they get there from appalachia
> in the 19th Century?  The family heads WERE adventurous, courageous for survival at least, so very maybe. I love the possibility that TRP
> might show this in what the dictionaries call "archaic' language, embedding the Traverses deep into early American history silently. 
> 
> The only other writer I have read who does capture some of the historic speech of largely Scottish-Irish--English immigrants to the Appalachian area, some of whose speech patterns/usages survive, is Cormac McCarthy, although
> I am sure there are others (and there are some good local-area writers who seem realistically accurate, but they mostly capture contemporary talk). 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Cc: 
> Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2012 3:30 PM
> Subject: Re: ATD question about Lake's speech (217)
> 
> What other examples of Appalachian speech by characters can we
> identify? And, is the use of "behind" to mean "in the future" or "yet
> to come" Appalachian? Maybe it's a mistake.
> 
>> The Traverses must have arrived early in the New World, remained isolated in
>> Appalachia, until moving west in the 19th Century.
>> 
>> Maybe.
> 
>