Appalachia Mountain People Talking and their way of life #Appalachia

[Music] these old Appalachians are so rugged yet so beautiful but they're home to a unique set of people he told mountains some places the sun don't even reach down in these hollers until midday and go by the late afternoon [Music] and these people thrived in these mountains and these Bridges and hollers all up and down Appalachia and their unique way of life and their accent now we're talking about the southeastern United States here's the state [Music] now there's all kinds of different Southern Accents in the southeast you've got all kinds you've got the coastal North Carolina accent you got down here into Cajun and the bay Southern the United States and then you got to Central and Georgia and Alabama but what we'd be talking about is a southern Appalachian here's what it is from West Virginia all the way down to Alabama these old mountain tall and everybody talked normal thought it was just fine until you leave the South and these mountains and you go to these big cities then that's when you realize it wait a minute I'm not home anymore and these people sure let you know about it call us all kinds of names them all Hillbillies and everything else but I'm proud to be an old hillbilly if that's what it is our way of life is slowly going away in another generation or two it'll all be gone and these old people they're leaving us day by day and this talk is too this is a unique accent unique to these mountains in southern Appalachia so I'm going to share with you some of the reasons why these people talk this way how they've always talked this way since they come in these mountains and even listen to the voices of some of our elders and some of their secrets if these mountain people they come into the East Coast from the old countries of Europe mostly in this mountains Scotch Irish Scottish English to sing it they come into these mountains looking to live on their own their own way of life that they've been denied back in the old country and they come into these mountains just before the Revolutionary War or just after or just during and they had a rough time coming in here unmarked territory a lot of them come in a little wagon little single bands some come in big group but they had a rough time coming in these old mountains and they brought their way of life in here their culture their traditions and especially their way of talking their languages and they set up a little home out of the Wilderness hacked their way in and made them Little Farms a little cabin like this and this went on for generation and a generation in these mountains they were isolated from the outside world except for their communities maybe a small town down the mountain rain and some of them really had a hard time too this is pictures from Union County back in the early 1900s these people lived hard this is before they had any kind of social programs or anything but they lived off the land they made it work for them like I said this is what they know and they hand it down generation after generation in the old mountains and their way of talking is the same way a lot of them didn't have land there's a new end of the country they got into these coal fields and the Appalachians was full of coal backing them days and it still is today and these were tight-knit communities these all worked his brother and it didn't matter what what race she was what nationality what color you was they all worked together as a team and a lot of them never come home but these old mountain people they could make anything they needed they either made it traded for it martyred whatever are they done without they were self-reliant people and their way of living and their way of talking in a unique way in new America [Music] now I'm going to share with you some old voices in the past this is cage Cove before it becoming National Park and this comes from an old guy family of cage Cove John McCauley he's born in 1880 and died in 1961. but in 1960 he gave an interview before he died a year before of how life was in the cage Cove and I'm going to share with you some of his memories of how it used to be in these old mountains McCauley where were you born I was born in cage School in 18 need born in cage Cove in 1880. did you grow up in the Cove right there lived there all my life never lived nowhere else but they're into like Park home and took our possessions over there and then I moved out here then you're 23 years well let's see now this is 1960 that means you moved out in 50 40 37 1937. yes that's about right I guess that's right 37 I guess uh what how did you live back in the cold Mr McCauley what what did you eat for instance well we had most everything to eat we had lots of wild meat and uh we made vegetation of river kind it's a fine country there for vegetation and I had the big bee yard we had lots of honey I sold lots of Honey there the two last years that are sold honey there are sold 356 pounds right at my door for twenty dollars a hundred you couldn't feel the orders he had plenty to eat ready to eat plenty of fruit plenty of fruit we had lots of fruit apples things like that we we lived like kings back to our first Outdoors my daddy was a great Mountain Man when we got to crop in in the spring of the Year we'd take the calves and the Hogs and everything and take them to the mountain and stay a week with him because if he'd get settled down get stationary there and we'd squirrel hunt and things like that have a big time catch groundhogs and Coons things like that I've spent half of my life in Smoky Mountain well that's part of the interview of John McCauley yourself of how it was in the Great Smoky Mountains of cage Cove before the national park took and here's another part of the interview of how they took care of each other in these mountains and how the way a life was John McCauley that life was easy in case Cove how do you figure that things were easy in there to make a living and keep your family going well sure I'll tell you how that I figure that we looked after one another if a family got sick and they had to crop out and that crop needed work on Monday morning we had no there'd be ought to be notified this Sunday that Sunday school at church let's go in down here Monday morning and work that crop out well we go out down there on Monday morning and work that crop out 50 people down there helping clean that crop out and take care of it and if them folks died I can mind in my time when the age person died that they wasn't a man worked in the bottoms in cage Cove until after that funeral was over with right there they just walk right out and come go home go to the graveyards go to help make the casket and then they'd go help the people get to the bearing ground carry that funeral in there nobody worked till that funeral was over with therefore that's why I think it was a happy place and a good place we loved one another and work for one another and you would see them coming in with a handful of flowers they'd gather along the roadside and we could have a nicer funeral right there for two dollars as I can have today for two hundred dollars never cost nobody nothing if it was warming the bearing clothes was made their childhood burning clothes was made and there wasn't too much on age people because there's all buried nice but the casket never cost nothing never costs nothing to dig the grave and I I think it was a nice place to live an enjoyable place to live and then we looked after them folks if it was a widow woman she was took care of them said that she was took care of I had a family of little children we took care of them nobody wanted no sir nobody wanted needed for nothing but one didn't have another did and he divided it too yes sir me that's the truth I think it's the greatest place in the world it's a paradise to what I'm living in now well there you go that's just how they took care of each other in these old mountains and not just in this area but all of them down these old appalaches that was a way of life for mountain people they took care of their own and they seen after each other but them days are slowly surely going away now here's another Little voices of the past let's go a hundred miles or so North into the coal fields of Southeast Kentucky this is a rare only recording I have of my grandmother this is back in the late 70s and here's a talking to my uncles about saying hunting and just hunting in general [Music] [Music] um foreign [Music] now that's the only recording I have of my grandmother I wished I had so much more I'd sit around talk to her all day long of all her little stories she told me and I miss him so bad she could really control a house full of Rowdy children with their little stories of all kinds to keep us in play but that was my grandmother talk [Music] these little communities all up and down these Appalachians just a little small town growing up and they were isolated but it's not that way anymore radio telephone internet Everything Has Changed the old house is up a country holler they're still there but nothing like it used to be our way of talking and our way of living is slowly changing like this old car it's still there but you think it's past and I'm just trying to remember how things used to be and how I want to continue our way of talk I'm going to share with you some old sayings it's old words of these country people how it does and how it still is in a lot of places like we used to go to the Old Country Store we didn't call it shopping them days we called it trade I'm going down to the store to do some Trading that means going shop that was a country word for and an old pop or a soda we call them pops here in the mountains and an Old Polk people well especially when I had to go up North for a little while they'd make fun of you what in the world's a pope son it's a paper bag that's what an old poke is that was the old country Dame Port an old Pope and we didn't call them potatoes count them taters didn't call a tomato we call them maters an old Mater an old bag of soup beans that was pinto bean but we call them soup beans and when things stink we didn't say the stink they stank so instead of stinks it stinks that stinks and an old banana we call them nanners that's just the way it was and we listened to all these old ghost stories around in these mountains and all these Mysteries they didn't call them uh ghost our elders taught us to call them Hanks or spokes just an old Hank story like an old raccoon animals we called them Coons a bar a bar and an old house of winter window we call them winders in column window didn't call a child a child or called him a youngin and around the house when they come you didn't have a washing machine you had a washer machine not a washer but a washer and the shingles on the house we called them shingles got some bad shingles on your house don't you and just talking in general like over there it's over Yonder or down yonder and not a hollow is a holler up a holler and some called it a creek some called it a creek it just depends and like an old tire on a car we caught him a tar [Music] or a car could stand for something else like a a cell cell phone Tire it's not a tower it's a tar that's just the way they're talking these old mountain language and you didn't wash clothes you wash clothes we washed them worth not wash and back in them days but we still say the same thing you didn't get a Spanky you got a whooping or switch had to go break off a switch get a whooping with that's just the way it was and didn't call a chair a chair carried a char go get me a chair ashes and here's your fire is far and stuff like that and when you want to holler at somebody we they it's supposed to be yell at somebody we call it holler go holler so and so you all just the old sayings and we didn't throw things we slang it throw it across the room sling it across the room that's what it is old slang just just some of the old country words there's so many of them it's just it's just a dialect long ago that was just mixed with the English language from back in the old country Scottish Irish it just slangs and stuck here in these mountains and it stayed that way for Generations at a generation and there's just so much on this history foreign and like I said everybody's connected with the outside world so much and our scope than our way of language and our slang is slowly going away so I give it another generation maybe two it'll just about be gone but the southern language will always be here just this dialect is not as strong as it used to be and these old people they were firm God-fearing people hard-working people in these mountains and Norway living and way in life so I just thought I'd share it with you so please if you can if you have any of your elders left record them get their stories I sit on down through the generations there'll come a time that this will all be forgotten so I want to thank you all for watching hope you enjoyed so God bless and I see you next time [Music]

Channel: DONNIE LAWS

Views: 342,310

Keywords: Appalachia Mountain Talking and their way of life, Southern talk, Mountain Talk, Southern ways, Appalachian History, Mountain people, Mountain slang, Country People, Sothern people, Appalachian culture, Hillbilly talk, Appalachian Coal fields, Mining Camps, DONNIE LAWS, Country Story Tellers, People of Appalachia, Mountain Folk, Memories of Appalachia

Id: vfqzaIH6z14

Length: 20min 31sec (1231 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 14 2023