Mountain Talk

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Mountain Talk

From the Ridges to the Hollers
New Documentary Explores Appalachian Language

Most folks who were not born and raised in the Appalachians remember the first time that they found themselves talking to some of the older and more colorful residents of the mountains. They remember it because for a brief period of time they couldn’t understand a word those old hillbillies said.

“You’uns?” “Yander?” “Airish?” What language are these people speaking?

It turns out that the various dialects and unique words of the Southern Appalachians have a long and storied history that goes back to Scotland, Ireland and England around the time of Chaucer. The way people speak and live in the mountains of western North Carolina is captured in a new film called Mountain Talk.

Mountain Talk is an eye-opening documentary created by the North Carolina Language and Life Project under the auspices of the North Carolina State University Humanities Extension Department in Raleigh. Neal Hutcheson directed and produced the hour-long film and it was released this year with a companion CD titled An Unclouded Day: Stories and Songs of the Southern Appalachian Mountains.

Through stories, songs and interviews, the residents of western North Carolina talk of the old days, before MTV polluted the language of their “young ‘uns.” While most are earnest and eager to share their ways in front of the camera, some are more than a little bit arrogant and forthright about feeling superior to their city-dwelling cousins. Some of the most enlightening bits are the stories of old men who rarely ventured out of the “holler” until military conscription for WWII or the Korean War. It was only then that they had to meet, converse with, and depend on foreigners from strange lands like New Jersey and Florida.

Watauga County’s Orville Hicks is one of the interviewees and he makes the most of his camera time telling wonderful stories of his life in the mountains before his family had electricity. Hicks is also featured on the Unclouded Day CD.

Mountain Talk is an enlightening way to spend an hour with some of the true mountain folk of our region. Many have language traditions hundreds of years old, incubated in the relative cultural isolation of our ridges and valleys. Like it or not, we stand at the end of an era in this regard. Satellites, telephones and interstate highways are making our world a whole lot smaller. These days, the latest urban rap music slang makes it to the high schools and malls of western North Carolina quicker than you can say something ending in “izzle.” It’s as if our unique cultural landscape has gone all “si-goggly” (mountain-speak for crooked or out of plumb).

Both the Mountain Talk video and An Unclouded Day CD are available through the NC State Humanities Extension Department. To order a copy, call (919) 515-3866, or visit the web site www.talkingnc.com.

The Queen Family

Scholars have long pointed to the connection between old ballads sung in the British Isles and those sung in the mountains of western North Carolina. But it’s getting harder to find those who carry on the tradition. 91-year-old Mary Jane Queen is one such balladeer. She and her family are the subjects of a new documentary, “The Queen Family.” Host Frank Stasio speaks with Mary Jane Queen, director Neal Hutcheson and executive producer Walt Wolfram. They discuss ballads, the mountains and North Carolina dialects. (59:00) APR radio