The Old Mill

"The Old Mill"

(with apologies to 10 Nights in a Barroom)

Susquehanna valley dialect being studied


Speech is telling and Jennifer Bloomquist can tell if people if they are from southcentral Pennsylvania by the words, phrases and idioms they use. She is collecting this linguistic harvest from the area under the auspices of a National Science Foundation , (NSF).
Bloomquist, an assistant professor of linguistics and African-American studies, and her student assistants at Gettysburg College are beginning their final year of the two-year $40,000 NSF grant to investigate if the language of rural and urban African-Americans in Adams, York. Lancaster and Dauphin counties, (primarily), have added to and/or have been influenced by the dialect peculiar to this area, she said. That includes Pennsylvania Dutch's influence on blacks and vice versa.
They are gathering these verbal peccadilloes during structured interviews with residents of the area. The team is now focusing its investigations in York and its surrounding environs collecting the data from volunteer residents, 18-years-old and up, she said.*
Many of these interviews are being conducted with the oldest residents of the area, who not only volunteer to participate in the structured interview process, but who also share their personal stories about growing up in this area. The information, in addition to being published in academic journals, will be posted on a website designed as a database for Susquehannavalleyisms and as a virtual data collector and repository for online virtual interviews, she said.
During a recent interview at Hanover Hall Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Alicia Turner of several Gettysburg College undergraduates assisting Bloomquist with the research, 10 resident were interviewed. Two of those sessions were with Bernadine Rickrode, 103, formerly of Littlestown, and Margaret Bair, 87, formerly of Edgegrove.
Both women, whose ancestry was German American, were asked if they used or heard any of the words or phrases, such as, creek or “crik.” Both Rickrode and Bair said they were had used many of the Pennsylvania words and phrases. They both said they had eaten hog mawl or pig stomach, as it is commonly referred to in the area.
“The reason we are doing this is that in the past when linguists studied the lower Susquehanna Valley they concentrated on white rural speakers,” Bloomquist said. “There are no data from black speakers in the area at all and very little data from city speakers. When I first looked into local dialect, I thought I would find some differences among black speakers. I am not totally convinced that Pennsylvania Dutch which characterized this area is as alive and well as people are led to believe.”
Bloomquist’s assistants have collected more than 175 hours of tape from 140 interviews, 20 of which were African Americans. While they will continue to interview residents regardless of ethnic background, they are attempting to focus on African American speakers as they can find, she said.
She has presented preliminary findings at the American Dialect Society meeting in January ‘04 and at the Southeastern Conference on Linguistics this past April. She is to go back to the American Dialect Society in January ‘06.
“The first part of the interview is collecting natural speech and we have them to talk about what it was like to grow up in the lower Susquehanna Valley, what the economy is like, what kind of changes have taken place and we ask them to look at some words that are specific to this area and ask if they know any of them,” she said. “The next part is a having them read a sort of non-sense story which is designed to get phonological features. The last thing they do is read a list of words that are minimal pairs that differ only by a sound unit.”
Some of the words, people are asked to read are “bad and bat, tight and tide, out and ought,” etc. The way people pronounce these words allows Bloomquist to get enough sample data to determine how dialect affects local language. Many of the same words are used in the nonsense story.
Turner of Norristown, a sociology major, and Eric Malave of North Philadelphia, anthropology major, which are field research assistants, working on the study has helped them to develop a greater appreciation of the people in the area. The people they have interviewed, especially older residents, enjoy the interaction.
“A lot of the older residents are very excited to see us,” Malave said. “They enjoy telling us stories about their youth.”
Turner said some of them have lived through many historical events that have changed the area. They have many interesting reflections to share she said.
“A lot of the older residents told us about living through the depression and World War II,” she said.
Anyone interested in volunteering to participate in the study should contact Bloomquist at 337-6801.