{"id":9626,"date":"2018-12-01T10:10:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-01T15:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/?page_id=9626"},"modified":"2024-08-15T13:50:51","modified_gmt":"2024-08-15T17:50:51","slug":"ocracokes-brogue-sounds-past-and-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/ocracokes-brogue-sounds-past-and-present\/","title":{"rendered":"Ocracoke’s Brogue: Sounds Past and Present"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
Note: The launch of the new Ocracoke Express Passenger Ferry has reportedly been delayed<\/a>. Visit the North Carolina Department of Transportation<\/a> page and the state\u2019s Ferry Division Twitter page<\/a> for updates. <\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\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\n\n\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\n\n\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\n\n\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\n\n\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\n\n\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\n\n\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\n\n\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\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s romantic, but not quite right,\u201d Wolfram says.<\/p>\n\n\n\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>\n\n\n\n There are no bridges to Ocracoke. To reach the island, a ferry from from Hatteras Island in Dare County takes about an hour. The ferries from mainland Hyde and Carteret counties take more than two hours. The remote location is one reason the dialect has persisted for so long. But with each generation, it becomes less distinctive, such that Wolfram considers Ocracoke English a \u201cdying dialect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The island\u2019s shift from a fisheries focus to a tourist-based economy has hastened the dialect\u2019s demise. Some visitors have become residents. Those growing up on the island more recently may not have interacted regularly with relatives, mentors and other native islanders who speak the brogue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cUnfortunately, the children of today\u2019s generation will no longer speak the brogue, and it is now largely confined to people over 50 years old,\u201d Wolfram says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, even as the dialect has been fading, people\u2019s interest has grown. Many recognize that Ocracoke\u2019s brogue embodies the island\u2019s history, offering a cultural touchstone valuable to heritage tourism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Wolfram first started studying the brogue in the 1990s, Chester Lynn was dubious of his intentions. But islanders now appreciate the professor\u2019s archival efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe tell him: We made him famous,\u201d Lynn says with a laugh. \u201cBut in the process of it, it helped us to see that we have a unique place and our heritage is unique. Now we\u2019re proud to share it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ocracoke\u2019s isolation may have appealed to European settlers. The island\u2019s pioneers developed a fishing economy that lasted through World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than an economic foundation, fishing was woven into the island\u2019s culture. \u201cWe ate fish three times a day. It was fried for breakfast, stewed for dinner, and baked for supper. Next day we turned it round the other way,\u201d shares Roy Parsons in the oral history, \u201cOcracoke Still Speaks.\u201d [Click on the audio file below to hear Parsons share this story, part of the oral history compilation \u201cOcracoke Still Speaks.\u201d<\/em>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
WINDS OF CHANGE<\/h2>\n\n\n\n