Smith Island Accent: Irony with an Elizabethan Twist

by Jenny Kay Paulson
Islanders in Maryland passed on their unique dialect for generations.

[Elderofwaukeen]

Yeah would've been great to hear more of the actual islanders, rather than ppl talking about them.

[thomp]

A word of advice: If you're going to do a piece on an accent, maybe give more examples of it. The Smith Islander woman you featured did not represent a particularly strong example of the dialect. Lazy journalism.

[kingofallwhites]

The reported should have shut her hole and let us hear the accent. And then half the interviews were with a guy who just moved there.

[Derek]

I grew up in crisfield. I have a lot of islander friends. The accent is quite amazing

[TheAlfredENeumann]

This accent is still heard in Appledore, North Devon on the West coast of the United Kingdom, from which area the original Grenville and John Smith settlers sailed, over 30 years before the 'Founding Fathers' set foot on American soil.

[russbeardsley]

im english. sounds like devon/ cornwall. the crew of the mayflower, (who weren't god fearing puritans!!) were from the (original english) plymouth area of devon\cornwall. so one time, most early "americans" would have spoke like this and gradually picked this accent up.

[Ridley]

I grew up in Charles County, along the Potomac and Patuxent, my family's been on this side of the bay for the last 3 generations, before that we were on the Somerset mainland, and Smith Island, where we lived since the mid 1600s. It's a gorgeous place, and having Smith Island heritage makes me extremely proud.

[danieljackson]

I agree with T Parks, the Smith Islander woman also sounded very... congested and stuffy. No way to really hear the accent well.

[Kayaz]

Why are there so few samples!!! We don’t need a history lesson. We came here for examples!!!!

[menacinghat]

before the late 18th century most brits spokr rhoticaly with strong rs. we know this from books and a proffessor thinks shakespeare spoke like it. rhotic rs are still found in parts of england like the west country so its likely brits and americans sounded like hagrid

sorry for grammar on phone

[benw]

This showed something I've always wondered about. They say "lănch" a boat or "căm" waters. In the South, people usually pronounce "aunt" to rhyme with "ant, " not "not, " and we all say "gaige" when it's spelled "gauge." In Appalachian mountain country, people say "haint" instead of "haunt, " and that can mean a ghost as well as a haunted place or to haunt. All those have short A like in cat, apple, ash, or long A/AI/AY, but they're all spelled AU/AW, except for calm, AL. -- So this means there was a more widespread dialectal trend back in history, on both sides of the Atlantic, to say Ă or Ā, short or long A, for AU/AW, and sometimes even AL. Really interesting, and I wonder why or how that got started.

[sambac]

This report would be informative if it had more examples of natives speaking their dialects, rather than 99% framing.

[PeterGraczer]

she says “own” exactly like we do in new zealand :)

[MissAelisc]

so im french canadian and i live close to Crisfield Md and I was asked once by an old man if I was from Smith Island lol

[Wiz]

Sounds like a mix of a southern accent and a Scottish accent

[queenmegalo]

0:44 born in 1895…is Essie still alive?

[katherinetutschek]

Actually, I rmb reading somewhere that the meaning of "ugly" changed from meaning "pretty" to "not pretty". It's cool this dialect's retained that!

[maril]

If we all sounded the same it would be boring

[MrNateenochs]

So are we to believe that Essie Evans @ 0:44 was still alive circa 2012-13?

[williamhampton]

Before Maryland was overrun with the hordes of government workers squatting around DC, Marylanders had a very distinctive Southern accent.