You’uns Talk Funny:

The Joys and Misunderstandings of Regional Dialect

By Steve Kennedy
for Central PA Magazine
March 2003

Bring up the subject of the way Central Pennsylvanians; talk, and you'll soon find yourself
in touchy emotional territory. You may encounter incomprehension ("A bedroom suit? What is
it — clothes, furniture?"), defensiveness ("I don't care about Hurt LANN-kast-er, the town is
called LANK-a-ster!") or even hostility ("When people say 'hain't,' it sounds like the movie,
Deliverance; I want to beat them with their own banjo.").

If you grew up here and have spent time in another part of the country, you were
probably shocked to find that some of the pronunciations and expressions you took for
granted are not quite standard American English. And if you moved into this area, you've
doubtless done a double take at more than one thing that has come out of a local's mouth.

Gene Rohrbaugh, associate professor of linguistics at Messiah College, knows the

phenomenon. A native of York, Rohrbaugh once taught in Texas. Wanting to give his classes
an example of regional speech without seeming to ridicule Texas dialect, he told them that,
where he grew up, people might say, "The window needs washed." The reaction was one of
shock. "One student looked at me and said, 'That can’t be understood!'" he recalls.

The way we speak is so important to us, says Rohrbaugh, because language is at the heart
of our identity. "It's true on a scale of our humanity — would we be humans if we didn't
have language? And as individuals, it has to do with the way we present ourselves. If you
criticize the way people speak, it's as if you're accusing them of faulty thought. Language is like
family. I can make fun of my dialect, but outsiders don't have the right to."
So how do we talk in Central PA, and why?

Because of its relatively long history of European settlement, the East Coast of the United
States is complicated linguistic territory. "Here, if you go 40 miles north or south, you're
going to see regional differences," Rohrbaugh notes. Within the WITF broadcast area, there
are as many as five recognized regional dialects — plus the distinct speech patterns of African
Americans (retaining much pronunciation and vocabulary originating in the South),
speakers of Pennsylvania "Dutch" (a German dialect with heavy borrowings from English)
and in some areas, a Hispanic population concentrated enough to warrant Spanish-
language signs and radio broadcasts.
 Most of the region's dialects belong to the Midland family, which extends from southern
New Jersey through Ohio, into Illinois and as far west as Kansas. There's a lot of variation
within the Midland area, because each of its major cities has its own distinct accent. In our area,
Eastern PA dialects, influenced by Philadelphia, meet Central PA speech, actually a Western
PA dialect related to Pittsburghese.

Possibly the most easily noticeable difference between Eastern and Western PA dialects is
how they deal with one of the English languages most glaring omissions — no distinct
standard way of saying "you," meaning more than one person. Various dialects across the
English-speaking world have come up with solutions, from the Southern "y'all" to "you
guys" to obscure attempts such as "mongst-ye," a term listed on some language websites as
still being used in parts of Delaware.

Our own Phantom Diner periodically castigates waitpersons for asking, "Yous want
anything else?" Philadelphians prefer this simple plural formation, which can be heard as far
west as Lancaster and York Counties. But in the more westerly parts of the region, it's
"you'uns." A contraction of "you ones," it is even more contracted by Pittsburghers, who are
known in some circles as "yinzers." The term also made its way down through the Southern
Appalachians. A few years ago a local newspaper columnist heard it in Cherokee, North
Carolina, and expressed astonishment at the prospect of "a Cherokee speaking Pennsylvania
Dutch."

"You'uns" is not Pennsylvania Dutch, but many words and sentence structures in our local
speech are. "From my own childhood I remember lots of German words," Rohrbaugh says.
"My mother used to say things like, 'Quit fressin' before dinner.' " In German, the verb fressen
means "eat," but is normally applied to animals. When used with humans, it implies a
somewhat uncouth eating style. Other Germanisms abound. Some older residents still refer to
cottage cheese as "smear case" (German, Schmierkäse). Many Central Pennsylvanians were
scolded as children for "rutching around," meaning "squirming." Rutschen means "slide" in
standard German (a sliding board is a Rutschbahn).

But German words are not always adopted wholesale into English. Sometimes they're
translated, so that English words are combined in nonstandard ways. "It wonders me" for "I
wonder," "what for" meaning "what kind of" and "outen the light" for "turn the light off" are all
attempts to translate German phrases word for word. Seemingly unnecessary uses of "once"
("Come here once") and "then" ("Will you be coming over then?") reflect the way the equivalent
German words, einmal and denn respectively, are inserted into sentences to add a particular
flavor, nuance or sense of expectation.
 One such word that seems to particularly annoy non-natives is the use of "all" in phrases
such as, "You can't have any more pie, it's all." Those who are tempted to respond, "It's all
gone!” You forgot die 'gone'!" may be further annoyed to learn that in this construction, "all"
actually means "gone." Occupation by the armies of Louis XIV in the 1600s introduced many
French terms into southwestern Germany, the region from which many of those who would
later be known as the Pennsylvania Dutch would emigrate to America. One of those French
words was alle, meaning "gone." The pronunciation of this word was almost identical to the
German word alle, meaning "all," with which it merged. Once the expression got to
Pennsylvania, the shift to the English word "all" was practically inevitable.

The German influence also explains peculiarities of word order (the stereotypical "Throw
the cow over the fence some hay") and sentence intonation ("I'm 20 years old" instead of "20
years old).

But not everything that sets our regions speech apart is German. Along with "you'uns,"
another expression that is often falsely labeled as Pennsylvania Dutch is the mysterious verb
"redd up," meaning to tidy up, to put things away or in order. If not German, many people's
theory is that it's really "rid up," because in the process you may get rid of things.

Actually, "redd up" is related to Central PA's other main early immigrant group, the
Scots-Irish. The online American Heritage Dictionary traces the term to the Old Norse rydhja;
in modern Norwegian, rydd op means to clear the table after eating. "Redd up" is still used in
Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as Pennsylvania. A Web search reveals an annual spring
cleanup in the Shetland Islands called The Redd Up, and a Scottish folk band named Redd
Up. The "windows need washed" construction that Rohrbaugh's Texas students found so
incomprehensible is also standard Scottish. Tacking "ain't?" onto the end of a sentence
("hain't?" or "hainah?" in Anthracite dialect) is not only the equivalent of the German nicht
wahr? but also the French n'est-ce pas? and the Canadian "eh?" Rohrbaugh notes that die
practice, adding a "tag question" to a statement to make it interrogative, is a common
strategy in languages across the globe.

Non-natives also puzzle over what to them are strange meanings of common English words.
" 'Anymore' is at home in negative sentences for most people," Rohrbaugh observes. But many
Central Pennsylvanians use it in positive statements to mean "nowadays" ("Gas is so expensive
anymore"). The use of "awhile" to mean "in the meantime" or "while you're waiting"
("Would you like some coffee awhile?") is common to many Midland dialects and is heard as
far away as Ohio and Kentucky. "Yet" is also used in positive contexts where other English-
speakers would say "still" ("He went to die store an hour ago and he's gone yet").
 In Central PA, a friend may leave you use her phone so you can let a message on someone's
answering machine. Rohrbaugh speculates that die confusion stems from indistinct verb
forms. "The past tense of 'let' is 'let,'" he says. "People don't like not making a distinction
between present and past, so they say 'left' — which is die past tense of 'leave.' Once die
confusion arises in the past tense, the present also becomes fuzzy and mushy."

Even the names of objects are part of what makes the region's speech distinct. Many
people use the verb "sweep" when they mean they are running a vacuum cleaner, for
instance. "In a lot of other areas, 'sweep' is only with a broom," Rohrbaugh points out.

An ongoing Harvard University survey of American vocabulary places us in a transition

area between those who refer to soft drinks as "soda" (mainly to the east) and those who call it
"pop" (mainly west). The results so far show we are in die part of the country where the
word "hoagie" is most likely to be heard, yet a significant number of us also use "sub" for the
same sandwich. We're almost unanimous in our choice of "crayfish" to refer to die freshwater
crustacean, but close to areas that prefer "crawfish" (just south of us) or "crawdad" (just
southwest).

Regional characteristics can be subtle and difficult for natives to hear. Rohrbaugh first
became aware of what he calls a "falling into nation contour" when, as an adolescent, he met
a girl from the Midwest at a national church conference. "I looked out the window and saw
white, and I said, 'Is it snowing?' She said, 'Is that a question?'" She did not recognize a tone
of inquiry, because Rohrbaugh's voice fell where she would have expected it to rise.

"Everybody has a falling intonation on content questions. Most have a rising intonation on
yes/no questions, but Pennsylvania has falling." It's the opposite, he says, of Valley Girl
"uptalk," in which nonquestions get a rising intonation ("Like, I went to the mall? And I hung
out with my friends?").

Linguists note many other distinctions that natives and even non-natives may find hard to
hear. There's the "fronted o," a characteristic Midland way of pronouncing the long "o" as an
"o-ooh" sound Instead of a pure vowel. The distinction between the words "cot" and “caught"
or the lack thereof is a kind of litmus test for linguistic change. No one familiar with the
social landscape of Central PA will be surprised that this area falls on the conservative side of
the language divide, maintaining a pure "ah" vowel in "cot" and a blended "au-u" sound in
"caught."

From there, it's a short jump to monophthongization, isoglosses and the centralization of
/ay/ before voiceless obstruents — esoteric territory best left to professionals. But for the rest
of us, the question remains: How should we talk? Is there a pure American speech for which
we should strive, or is regional dialect OK? If so, how local can you talk before the banjo comes
crashing down on your head?

"Most people become multi-dialectical," Rohrbaugh observes. "You choose your language
forms appropriate to the group that you want to affiliate yourself with." Sometimes
consciously, sometimes unconsciously, we adjust our language to be appropriate to the
situation. One way of speaking might be fine for joking with family and friends, another for
giving a college graduation speech.

"People use nonstandard speech almost as a way to express tenderness with the people
they're closest to," Rohrbaugh says. "You let down your guard and are more vulnerable
than you'd be with strangers."

Regional speech, used inappropriately, can invite ridicule and a perceived lack of
sophistication. Used appropriately, it elicits feelings of home, of belonging, of "us." "It all
comes down to context," Rohrbaugh says. "It's something we're in control of."

Visit www.centralpa.org:

• for more examples of local speech

• to add your examples to the list
• for links to local-dialect sites
• to take the Harvard Dialect Survey