> [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Poxon
> Just after I replied to this post, I reminded myself of an
> occasion in
> April. I was sitting in LA airport (the flight to Honolulu having
been
> massively delayed) and could hear two people talking behind
> me. This was an
> American dialect/accent, and one I have never ever
> heard. I say "accent/dialect" because it was only by the
occasional,
> obviously-English word that I could determine that it was actually
> English at all! It sounded terrific.
> I know very little about American dialects, but at a rough guess
(and
> probably from watching too many films like "Deliverance")
> I'd say it was from one of those Eastern mountain areas. It
> would not have
> been surprising if a couple of banjos had been brought out.
> Do any US people have a dialect that is traditionally "weird"
> and hard to
> understand - coz if they do, this was it!
It would be hard to tell what dialect you are referring to here.
I'm a native of the LA area but now live in East Tennessee (not far
from the Appalachians, that's pronounced /{p@l{t_S@nz/ locally).
I've never found the dialect difficult to understand, even when I
was new to the area. There was a good joke going around the office
where I used to work where someone called in and asked the
receptionist "Yunz harn?" (Are you hiring?). She had no clue what
he was saying.