Where Southern Culture Came From
What makes Southern culture distinctly Southern? Where did the Southern accent come from? Why do folks from the South often say “howdy” instead of hello, define courage as “grit,” call distilled liquor “moonshine,” or say “yonder” to refer to something distant? Where do terms come from like “young ‘uns” . . . or “fixing to” do something (meaning “about to” do something).
It all comes from Celtic culture. Large parts of the South were settled in waves by people from Northern Britain — mainly Scotland and Ireland — and these speech patterns originated there.
I didn’t know that until I saw this lecture from Liberty Classroom by Brion McClanahan:
Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston, and John C. Calhoun are examples of this culture.
As I mentioned earlier this week, Liberty Classroom is having a giant sale this coming weekend, from Black Friday, November 25, through and including Cyber Monday, November 28. I am also offering you the chance to write a guest post here, or commission a post from me — and enter a contest to win a year of Amazon Prime, paid by me. Details here.
Join during the Black Friday weekend through this link:
Jim Webb has written about this as well. It’s often argued that the origins of pejoratives like “cracker” and “redneck” have Scottish roots.
Apropos of Orange sentiments, Ulster Scots of the period may have taken issue with the idea of being likened to Celts (who were oft derided as heathens by Ulster’s broadly Calvinist set), much less Irish natives… But history and bloodlines change, and a fair number of these Scottish settlers would eventually go on to become Irish Catholics or, heaven forfend, Anglo-Irish Anglicans.
JP (f1742c) — 11/22/2016 @ 6:24 amThe bigger question is, where did the current British accent come from, and when it start to appear?
Probably well after 1776.
Nobody speaks it on this side of the Atlantic.
I think maybe most of America preserved the original English (of circa 1660? 1685? 1715? 1800?) better than England did. And the same thing is true for French in Canada.
Sammy Finkelman (07e67b) — 11/22/2016 @ 6:33 amThe current British accent is called “acquired pronunciation” and is imposed by the Universities along with the “King’s English”. Unlike American English, British English comes down from committees composed of professors and lexicographers and not up from the colloquial speech of the people. Its deeper origin is the Industrial Revolution and the ascendancy of the merchant class whose clipped accents replaced the aristocratic drawl.
nk (dbc370) — 11/22/2016 @ 6:49 amAnd, yes, it was standardized in the later 19th century.
nk (dbc370) — 11/22/2016 @ 6:51 amThis preempted my nascent reply to Sammy, to wit: “which British accent?” It’s a good thing that most Englishmen (to say nothing of Britons generally) don’t sound as snotty and pious as John Oliver.
E.g. a Bristolian newsagent will, in all likelihood, sound very different from someone who grew up in the Brick Lane area of London.
JP (f1742c) — 11/22/2016 @ 7:10 amW R Mead writ’s about the geo-political aspect of Scots-Irish influence when he uses the term Jacksonian.
DRJ (15874d) — 11/22/2016 @ 7:12 amFixin* to
We don’t use the ‘g’, takes too long.
sean (41ed1e) — 11/22/2016 @ 7:15 amI think the existence of both Jacksonianism and conservatism in the GOP explain why sometimes Republicans don’t show up to vote for the Presidential nominees.
It’s similar to the divide between the Clintonian and progressive wings of the Democratic Party, but unlike the Democrats, when the Jacksonians get turned off by the GOP nominee, they stay home. And given Trump’s win, apparently the conservatives don’t stay home – despite the NeverTrump movement. But the Jacksonians stayed home for Romney and McCain.
DRJ (15874d) — 11/22/2016 @ 7:26 am@nk: “acquired pronunciation”
Are you talking about Received Pronunciation? Haven’t found anything called “acquired pronunciation”, if you can find me a link that would be great.
But I think the committees and whatnot you mention are not real (are you thinking of French?). It’s the accent of southeast England and the Midlands, because historically that has been the cultural and economic center of England, and people who went to schools like Oxford learned to speak that way because that’s how people spoke in that area.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 11/22/2016 @ 8:05 amI’m Irish, but more from the South of Ireland, so our ancestors were not in the fighting Celt mix. I do wonder what the Black Irish are? I hear the term but don’t know anything about who they are.
Patricia (5fc097) — 11/22/2016 @ 8:09 amThat is where the term “finna” came from. Took too long to say “fixin’ to”.
John Hitchcock (b917c9) — 11/22/2016 @ 8:17 amWhere to southern cultures come from?
Scotland.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uht5e4_U5wQ
Ba
I say this as a proud Italian. You had best bow your heads when you pass Basilone road.
But I have a Skean Dubh and I know how to use it.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 11/22/2016 @ 8:34 amThe “Ba” was a Freudian slip.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 11/22/2016 @ 8:36 amGreetings:
The reason they’re called “Scot-Irish” is because they’re not really “Oyrish”. Hyphens are for phonies.
11B40 (6abb5c) — 11/22/2016 @ 8:38 amThe United Queendom hasn’t had a king for seventy years either, but this is also a good point.
Nk’s suggestion that there was a cultural pull (at least in England) towards an RP elocution has some merit, though, and perhaps the bias still lingers. I vaguely recall Michael Caine saying in an interview that as a young man he was consistently refused roles for upper- or middle-class characters; it just wasn’t done to cast a cockney as anything other than a subaltern. Oddly enough an American cast him as a British officer in ‘Zulu!’.
Which goes to show that some actors are actually good at acting. It’s hard to imagine Jean Luc-Picard by way of Huddersfield.
JP (f1742c) — 11/22/2016 @ 8:47 amTwo Irishmen walk out of a bar…
Hey, don’t laugh.. it could happen.
Colonel Haiku (0e0056) — 11/22/2016 @ 8:47 amI’m Irish, but more from the South of Ireland, so our ancestors were not in the fighting Celt mix. I do wonder what the Black Irish are? I hear the term but don’t know anything about who they are.
Patricia (5fc097) — 11/22/2016 @ 8:09 am
=====================================
What, colleen, ya never heard of O’bama!?!?
Colonel Haiku (0e0056) — 11/22/2016 @ 8:50 amOK, I’m only 3/4 Italian.
I’m part Irish.
An Irishman is someone no matter how drunk can hold on to the face of the Earth and not fall off.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 11/22/2016 @ 8:52 amIrish foreplay.
“Brace yourself, Bridgette!”
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 11/22/2016 @ 8:53 amhttp://ace.mu.nu/archives/Kennedy-Obama-Meme.jpg
Colonel Haiku (0e0056) — 11/22/2016 @ 9:04 am11. I thought Black Irish referred to darker skinned brown eye/brown haired Irish, which was thought to be the purer form of Celt (as in not mixed with Norsemen). George Clooney would be an example. Duke bball coach Mike Krzewseski and the late columnist Bob Novak would be examples of Black Polish.
urbanleftbehind (6c1033) — 11/22/2016 @ 9:26 am5. JP (f1742c) — 11/22/2016 @ 7:10 am
George Bernard Shaw write abouyt that, and it was the theme of his play “Pygmalion” circa 1911 made into the Broadway play and movie “My Fair Lady.”
So by 1911, there were all these localized accents. I said British accent because I think by now it’s pretty much ironed out, although there are still a few other accents.
3. nk (dbc370) — 11/22/2016 @ 6:49 am
This places it post 1750, but probably considerably later. Probably post 1815.
Somewhere in the mid-1800s but before Thomas Edison and the phonograph (1879 with no recordings common before 1890 if then)
Sammy Finkelman (643dcd) — 11/22/2016 @ 10:06 amAnd I thought the Black Irish had to do with what was left of of the Spanish fleet.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 11/22/2016 @ 10:28 amYes, I understood that the “rebel yell” was from Scotland, which is significantly Viking rather than “Celtic” like the rest of the British Isles.
And many “African American” mannerisms are simply southern.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 11/22/2016 @ 12:13 pmIt pains me to disagree with you, doc.
but yes the rebel yell was born in Scotland.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmjHK2ZBXAQ
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 11/22/2016 @ 2:10 pmhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ35SOU9HTM
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 11/22/2016 @ 2:25 pmI love you to death, il Dottore.
But here’s where I suggest you do your Christmas shopping.
http://thepirateslair.com/
I hope I leave behind no hard feelings. I think you’re a prince.
But not necessarily right in all things.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 11/22/2016 @ 2:41 pm“Atten-hut, eyes right”
So he said leaving no lasting mark on his country.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 11/22/2016 @ 2:55 pm“Use the knife, Rocky!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=20&v=g1awwAgU_t8
And no you won’t find it there.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 11/22/2016 @ 3:03 pmAnd many “African American” mannerisms are simply southern.
According to my Mr. Perschbacher, my senior year high school English teacher, many Southern mannerisms are African, Southern children having picked them up from their black nannies.
nk (dbc370) — 11/22/2016 @ 3:08 pm(Blank) you.
Sez the Canadians.
https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/canada/2016/05/16/how-canadian-special-forces-helped-stop-a-massive-daesh-offensive/soldier-phots.jpg.size.custom.crop.1086×719.jpg
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 11/22/2016 @ 3:32 pmCheck out Thomas Sowell’s “Black Rednecks” thesis, which argues that low-class Scots-Irish culture = hillbilly = urban black subculture. Promiscuity, violence, drunkenness, indolence, a disdain for schooling–all the same.
http://capitalismmagazine.com/2005/07/black-rednecks-and-white-liberals-whos-a-redneck/
In reality, antebellum Southern whites likewise lagged behind Northern whites in intellectual or educational achievement, though this could not be explained by race or racism or other factors used to explain similarly lagging intellectual and educational performances among blacks today.
As late as the First World War, whites from a number of Southern states scored lower on mental tests than blacks from some Northern states.
Tom Van Dyke (b42fe6) — 11/22/2016 @ 6:53 pmHorace Kephart, one of our finest naturalists of the early 20th century, wrote a fine book on the people of Appalachia, called Our Southern Highlanders. It’s available free at Amazon.
Robert Evans (16c407) — 11/23/2016 @ 2:55 amCamping and Woodcraft!
I thought I was the only one.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 11/23/2016 @ 3:08 amEngland alone probably has more regional [English] accents than the continental US. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are a whole other set of work.
JP (f1742c) — 11/23/2016 @ 7:42 amI love history. Cannot get enough of it.
I also hope people do take the time to read Walter Russell Mead’s article linked by DRJ above @8. That the article was written in Jan. 2016 and was therefore NOT informed by the hard facts of recent election results shows that there was the possibility for candidates, parties and media to pick up the trail on this but only a few did.
The modern “Jacksonian” rebellion and populist ideas are no longer primarily a Southern thing, as the recent election results in Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania seem to prove pretty convincingly.
As does Prof. McClanahan through his history lesson, Mead provided a great service by trying to explain why modern Jacksonians and true Conservatives may have a differing view of some issues with respect to integrating/applying principles of individual liberty and the role of government, but are more alike than different in some of the most important issues facing our country.
elissa (c1cac5) — 11/23/2016 @ 8:23 amAlso, didnt Mormons have their biggest struggles in the upper half of the Mississippi Valley, resulting in their exodus to Utah? That explains 2012 moreso than 2016. The Driftless carries less EVs in play (6 IA, 10 WI and parts of MN and IL which reddened significantly) than the upper Ohio Valley + MI, but still a noticeable pattern.
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 11/23/2016 @ 8:28 amThis thread appears to be dead-ish. But the following article by Mike Lee that appears in the current National Review seems to nicely augment the idea that right leaning populists and conservatives actually have a great deal to offer to each other in terms of honestly identifying, and then looking for practical solutions to some of our most pressing national problems– by governing together and tempering each faction’s weaknesses– rather than outright fighting each other. It’s a worthwhile read.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442450/donald-trump-conservatives-principled-populism-framework-working-together
elissa (6e7d61) — 11/24/2016 @ 7:40 amMead’s come a long way since mortal splendor, a left wing Jeremiah when he got out of Yale, that wouldn’t be out of place in the huffington post
narciso (d1f714) — 11/24/2016 @ 7:50 amExcellent link, elissa, but don’t you think it’s unlikely to happen? After all, it would require President Trump to accept principled conservative solutions when, so far, he hasn’t been interested in them except for immigration. Trump wants Trump solutions, which are the farthest thing from principles and conservatism as he can get.
DRJ (15874d) — 11/24/2016 @ 8:45 amWhere Southern Culture Came From
The Second Battle of Oxymoronburg, 1863
“There was a land of cavaliers and cotton fields called the old south. Here in this pretty world gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of knights and their ladies fair. Of master and of slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered. A civilization gone with the wind.” – ‘Gone With The Wind’ 1939
DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/24/2016 @ 8:48 amWe shall see rise, mattis is the closest thing to a Jackson figure from the long skirmish we have been a party to.
narciso (d1f714) — 11/24/2016 @ 8:59 amDCSCA,
Southern culture is about honor and character, which is in short supply but vital to the success of a nation of individuals. In a way, that is Mike Lee’s point, too. He wants Trump to be honorable and accept principled solutions. I don’t think it’s in Trump to be principled, conservative, or honorable. His shtick is being tough.
DRJ (15874d) — 11/24/2016 @ 8:59 amBut this is right up your alley, DCSCA. Could Trump have a Midas complex?
DRJ (15874d) — 11/24/2016 @ 9:02 amWell, no guarantees, but I guess I am much more hopeful about the Right as a practical team/coalition working together to achieve at least some common goals (both short and longer term) than DRJ is. I see some obvious overtures from both of the factions that were discussed above which encourages me greatly. We shall see. Even Mitch McConnell who is roundly disliked by many of us as a standard bearer of the elite faction of Republicanism deserves some props. He did his part by holding the Senate fast in refusing Obama’s Merrick Garland nomination. That was important.
Happy Thanksgiving.
elissa (6e7d61) — 11/24/2016 @ 9:08 amSouthern culture is about honor and character.
Except it’s not. It must be a pain being a slave to the truth. The Stars and Bars signal much different.
And although a scorned relative ran a Confederate hospital in Richmond we hold our Ohio volunteer relation in the highest esteem. And we never forget Texas waged war on the United States of America. Neither should you.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/24/2016 @ 10:15 am@44. “That’s it, baby, when you’ve got it, flaunt it, flaunt it!” – Max Bialystock [Zero Mostel] ‘The Producers’ 1967
DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/24/2016 @ 10:21 am@Having hitched his wagon to a falling star, a self-righteous Mike Lee has made himself piously irrelevant. But a GOP Senate needs his vote.
“When you’re slapped, you’ll take it and like it.” – Samuel Spade [Humphrey Bogart] ‘The Maltese Falcon’ 1941
DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/24/2016 @ 10:27 am46. So did the Mormons. 3M election, but not the way people thought it would end.
urbanleftbehind (55e7de) — 11/24/2016 @ 10:32 amOh, get over it already. It had nothing to do with us we weren’t even alive. That’s the kind of grudge-holding that keeps Black Lives Matter and the SPLC or the KKK relevant. None of you can know America then and that relative running a Confederate hospital was doing his patriotic duty….for Virginia. And he was as American as the Ohio volunteer. They BOTH fought for America as they saw it, 160 years ago. Not Today. And guess what? When Texas was waging war against the United States of America they were waging war against Texas. One more thing. Is America not a better, freer, greater nation for having fought these Good Fights? I think so.
Rev. Hoagie® (785e38) — 11/24/2016 @ 10:48 am2.The bigger question is, where did the current British accent come from, and when it start to appear?
Had an English teacher in HS who spent two classes speaking to the students in early, pre-Shakespeare-styled ‘English’ and it was virtually impossible to understand– like every fourth or fifth word was familiar. The tone of the language likely evolved with the expansion of vocabulary.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/24/2016 @ 11:04 amDCSCA,
When Southerners define honor as meaning “getting even” Instead of virtue, I agree that isn’t character or honor. Unfortunately that’s too often the case, especially in this election.
And you don’t like Texas? Ok. Fine with me.
DRJ (15874d) — 11/25/2016 @ 6:08 am