New York City and Los Angeles may claim to have speakers of more different languages today, but historically no section of the country has been more linguistically diverse than the American South. No other region can—or ever could—rival its many recognizable varieties of English, and English is only one part of the region’s linguistic fabric, as this volume seeks to show. Few volumes of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture will be newer in more ways than this one. It has grown from the 26 entries of the “Language” section of the first Encyclopedia of Southern Culture to 67 entries here. In reviewing the earlier edition, the editors soon realized how much additional material could be—indeed, must be—tapped if the region’s linguistic richness was to be reflected adequately. Thus, coverage of language topics and themes now takes a much more inclusive and wide-ranging view of the South and its many languages and language varieties. In addition to all the new entries, earlier ones have been updated, with only two or three exceptions.
The overview takes a broad, chronological look at the many languages and varieties that have been spoken in the southern states, beginning with the indigenous languages (e.g., Natchez and Yuchi) or language families (e.g., Muskogean, Algonquian, and Iroquoian) that were here when Europeans arrived. Some of these languages are still spoken today, but many are not. The overview then surveys the languages brought by Europeans and discusses the input of African cultures into southern ways of speaking.
In addition to entries on indigenous language families and individual languages, this volume includes an essay on the phenomenon of trade languages, which were used to communicate widely in multilingual areas and settings. From one entry on native languages in the first edition, coverage has grown to 11. Entries about other non-English languages (e.g., French and Spanish) have been expanded to reflect up-to-date research, and new entries show the cultural impact of recent immigration (e.g., Immigrant Languages, Recent, and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). Language contact and borrowing are themes encountered in many entries, evidence that the multilingualism of the South has been both a historical and a modern-day reality. An important innovation has been to recognize emigration out of as well as immigration into the South and the linguistic consequences of such movement. Expatriate varieties are discussed in the Liberian Settler English, Confederate English in Brazil, and Bahamian English entries.
Besides containing a variety of languages, the southern landscape is a patchwork of English dialects. This volume naturally features entries on varieties that millions of people speak, such as African American English and Appalachian English. It also covers distinctive speech patterns used in particular cities (e.g., Charleston English and New Orleans English), in specific geographical areas (e.g., Chesapeake Bay English, Gullah, Ozark English, and Conch), and by certain ethnic groups (e.g., Lumbee English and Afro-Seminole Creole). While entries often identify usages inherited from older forms of the language, many emphasize the changing nature of the pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary of the dialect at hand, and there are separate entries on these topics. Nowhere, however, will the reader find the simplistic and familiar lament that southern varieties of English are being completely homogenized into a national whole. Change is inherent to all languages and varieties, and not necessarily toward the mainstream even in the increasingly mobile South.
Much of the scholarly research on southern types of English has made use of information from linguistic atlas research (see the entries on the two large-scale projects of this kind, the Linguistic Atlas of the Gulf States and the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States). For a long time research on the region’s English was produced by linguists who were southerners themselves (see, e.g., entries on Raven I. McDavid Jr., Lorenzo Dow Turner, and Linguists and Linguistics), including that on specific features (see, e.g., entries on Southern Drawl, Y’all, and Fixin’ to). The last two decades have seen the blossoming of sociolinguistic research in the South, and many entries reflect this. In addition to language varieties and features, sociolinguists often study how language is used in cultural contexts. Topics such as politeness, discourse (see, e.g., entries on African American Discourse Features, Narrative, and Storytelling), and special language uses like preaching and naming (e.g., Place-Names and African American Naming Patterns) all describe ways language is woven into southern culture. Outsiders as well as southerners have recognized diverse characteristics and uses of language in the South, so this volume also considers how southern dialects are portrayed in popular culture (see, e.g., Southern English in Television and Film, Perceptions of Southern English, and Literary Dialect).
Language is a subject that has long captivated natives and visitors to the South alike. The editors of this volume, as well as its gracious contributors, hope that some of our own sense of fascination with language, linguistics, and southern culture will be conveyed to our readers.