{"id":9626,"date":"2018-05-29T10:10:06","date_gmt":"2018-05-29T14:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/?page_id=9626"},"modified":"2018-08-02T14:30:12","modified_gmt":"2018-08-02T18:30:12","slug":"ocracokes-brogue-sounds-past-and-present","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/previous-issues\/2018-2\/winter-2018\/ocracokes-brogue-sounds-past-and-present\/","title":{"rendered":"OCRACOKE\u2019S BROGUE: Sounds Past and Present"},"content":{"rendered":"
Photo by Neal Hutcheson<\/p><\/div>\n
Note: The launch of the new Ocracoke Express Passenger Ferry has reportedly been delayed<\/a>. Visit the North Carolina Department of Transportation<\/a>\u00a0page and the state\u2019s Ferry Division Twitter page<\/a> for updates.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n For 10 generations, Chester Lynn\u2019s family has lived on Ocracoke Island, a small sliver of land along North Carolina’s Outer Banks. When he talks, a bit of that history streams out.<\/p>\n Lynn speaks with the Ocracoke brogue, an English dialect particular to the island. \u201cI know when people try to get me talking,\u201d he says. But he enjoys chatting about his background with curious visitors, and offers a go-to refrain: \u201cI\u2019ve been here long enough to catch fish in the front yard with a garden rake.\u201d<\/p>\n Chester Lynn currently owns Annabelle\u2019s Florist and Antiques on the island. Photo courtesy Walt Wolfram<\/p><\/div>\n The brogue spoken on Ocracoke has similarities to the dialect spoken elsewhere in the Outer Banks region. But certain features of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary are singular to its namesake island.<\/p>\n \u201cOcracoke\u2019s brogue may sound like other traditional dialects found on the Outer Banks to outsiders, but it is really unique,\u201dexplains sociolinguist Walt Wolfram, director of the Language and Life Project<\/a> at North Carolina State University<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cFor example, only on Ocracoke do they play \u2018meehonkey\u2019 [hide and seek] at night with a \u2018buck\u2019 [a good (male) friend], and go \u2018up the beach\u2019 [off the island] to shop, among many other sayings.\u201d<\/p>\n Twenty years ago, Wolfram and Natalie Shilling-Estes published Hoi Toide on the Outer Banks: The Story of the Ocracoke Brogue<\/em>. Still popular, the book features numerous interviews with native islanders who share stories of their childhood and relationship to their dialect, as well as accessible breakdowns of the more technical components of the dialect.<\/p>\n More recently, the brogue was among dialects highlighted in Talkin\u2019 Tar Heel: How Our Voices Tell the Story of North Carolina<\/em>, by Wolfram and Jeffrey Reaser.<\/p>\n Wolfram\u2019s initial interest in Ocracoke\u2019s brogue was academic, but his research drew wider public attention from people enthralled by its sounds. Rumors even swirled that the Ocracoke brogue was a derivative of Shakespearean English.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s romantic, but not quite right,\u201d Wolfram says.<\/p>\n Rather, this dialect has roots in numerous early modern English dialects from Ireland, eastern England and southwestern England \u2014 reflecting the origins of the island\u2019s 18th-century settlers. The legacy of these first families remains on the island, in surnames such as Bragg, Gaskins, Howard, Jackson, Stiron (modernly spelled Styron), Williams, O\u2019Neal and Scarborough.<\/p>\nBy MARISA INCREMONA<\/h3>\n