Hey ya’ll.  I just spent about a month on this almost deserted island.  This here island is just about the coolest place I ever been.  It ain’t got no roads on it so you cain’t get run over by a speeding motorist.  It does have a few pigs.  Some folks is calling them “wild boar” but they look mostly like regular pigs to me.

Well, I just about lost my voice while I was there.  Like it really was deserted.  I didn’t hardly have no one to talk to.  My assistant’s cousin came to visit for the month.  Now she is a southerner who has been living up North most of her adult life.  So she don’t talk like I do.  And the more I listened to her the more my voice started to leave me.

Now they is a lot of different voices out there.  These here different voices is called dialects.  You know you humans have lots of different dialects in all yer languages, including English. 

Now us dogs, we ain’t really got no different dialects.  A while back I wrote a long article on what the various doggie verbalizations mean.  We all pretty much mean the same thing.  Now you do find some individual differences and some sounds that are more likely to be made by certain breeds.  But that ain’t what this article is about so I ain’t goin there right this minute.

 The interesting thing about human languages is that whatever language or even dialect that you speak can result in some subtle and not too subtle differences in the way you think.  And I have observed that my assistant feels different depending on what voice she uses.

 First off I gotta say, there ain’t no right and wrong way to talk.  There’s only different dialects and they all got rules.  Like my language calls for double negatives.  Like I don’t hardly never, oops, aint’ that like three negatives?  Like another triple negative I just thought of is “ain’t never done none”.  Which sorta translates to  to “I have never done anything like that. ..” Hmm… seems like my dialect calls for triple negatives.  The stonger I mean “no”, the more negatives I uses.

So what people call “proper” speakin’ is what is called Standard American English.  It’s what’s taught in school and what you hear on the news on TV.  It grew out of the Midwestern dialect.  Now I certainly urge all you kids to learn how to speak it and write in it cause you is gonna be judged on the way you speak. 

Unfortunately you humans all judge one another by the way you speak. In fact, if you speakin  Standard American English and you’s talking to someone whose talkin something else,  you is probably gonna be judged cause you ain’t speakin the speak, talking the talk, or walkin the walk and I ain’t talking walkin the dog.

There’s this philosopher called Wittgenstein who said all you humans’ reality is shaped by your language.  And after listening to some of you, I think I know where he’s commin from wid that.  And my own experience of losing my voice made me wonder about why I didn’t have nothing to say for a few weeks.  But it is all comin back to me now.

Now the intonation of you humans’ voices plus your facial expressions add to your meaning.  Intonation is the ups and down in the tone and stress of your speech.  That’s one thing about you humans’ speech that we dogs can dig.  Scientists would say sumpin about it being some communication lower on the evolutionary ladder  than speakin words.  But being a dog, I say who cares.

Then you may want to think on the differences between acceptable behaviors between different cultures too.  Like who really gives real hugs and who talks in a crowded elevator and who doesn’t?  And that goes for us dogs too.  We behave differently depending on what pack we come from.  But talk on that ain't comin down today, or that is beyond the scope of this article, take your pick of expressions.

Hey you know my assistant – she has lots of voices.  But she cain’t just conjure em up anytime she wants.  She sorta needs to be livin in the culture which she be speakin in.  And if she is involved with more than one culture she gets pretty fluent in all of them.  But then lots of time it is hard to keep em from overflowing into one another.

Now the one thing I have noticed, is when she feels the need to talk Standard American English of the intellectual academic type, she feels all stiff and tightened up. 

When she speaks Appalachian American English, Southern Coastal American Caucasian English, or African American English or some combination she feels much looser.  I like her better like this. Now she don’t know too much hip hop or youth culture dialect cos she getting old. 

Take a minute and listen to yerselves.  It is a good idea to learn Standard American English in order to “get ahead”.  But unlessin you are livin in that particular culture it is right hard to speak it.  My assistant mostly learned it in college.  She was tired of being judged on her dialect.  Now she just don’t rightly care what folks thinks. Oops, there I go mixing up the tenses – Hmmm, or am I?  It depends on what dialect you are speaking, if you understand what I am attempting to convey.

I wish all them folks that thinks folks who don’t speak “correct English” are (is) stupid would lighten up a little and listen to my voice in a new light. 

Ya’ll try to be understandin and kind.  Don't let no one make you feel inferior cos you talking the correct language for where you be livin.  Noamsayin?  And the rest of you all stop feeling superior cuz you talk like Dan Rather! 

But now don’t done of ya come down too hard on yourselves cuz you know I’m just messin’ wid ya.  Don’t forget to smile.

Regards,

Elwood