Introduction
Greetings on this warm and mostly sunny day in early fall. Thank you for dropping by. As always, meteorological fall started on the first of this month. I ignore the astronomical beginning of fall, which can vary by three days. This year, it occurs next Saturday.
By the way, if you are from Singapore, please help me stop the Singapore “bots” (or web crawlers) from hitting this website! They inflate total views but are not legitimate. I'm trying to stomp those web spiders, but they keep crawling around.
Around these parts of northeast Tennessee, folks raised here know how to pronounce “Appalachian.” Interlopers, however, who come into the area legally or illegally, often mispronounce the word. This article, the 26th entry in the Appalachia-Northeast Tennessee topic section, will, once again, try to educate all interlopers.
After all, this website is titled the “Appalachian Irishman.” This article encourages all interlopers to pronounce “Appalachian” correctly, as we do around here. Listening to the embedded podcast below is crucial!
Important Note
This article explains the pronunciation of “Appalachian,” as folks in northeast Tennessee say it. I know that Appalachia is a huge region. See, for example, “About the Appalachian Region,” Appalachian Regional Commission (arc.gov). The first paragraph states:
Appalachia is made up of 423 counties across 13 states and spans 206,000 square miles, from southern New York to northern Mississippi. The Region’s 26.3 million residents live in parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, and all of West Virginia.
That document includes the following map, “Subregions in Appalachia,” which denotes the five subregions of Appalachia.
As you can see, northeast Tennessee is in the south-central subregion. Don't you just love how “guvrmint” bureaucrats like to divide us folks! Who decided to designate the five subsections? Inquiring minds want to know!
Folks from the northern Appalachian (Yankee) states of Maryland, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania often pronounce “Appalachian” with a soft sound. That is unlike how we pronounce it in northeast Tennessee. Up there, they have the right to pronounce it their way. It is still a fairly free country, at least for now. This article does not critique how northern Appalachians say the word. It does, however, critique Appalachian Yankees, when they try to impose their pronunciation on us here! Y'all up north, say it how you choose. Honor how we, down here, decide to say it, even if we visit or move up there!
Previous Articles
This website has made two previous attempts to educate on how to pronounce “Appalachian.” In fact, the very first article is titled “How to Pronounce 'Appalachian' (published 3/6/2006; inaugural article).” That article from over 17 years ago still draws views almost daily. It is still the most viewed article on this website, with over 12,540 views as of yesterday. That inaugural entry has garnered 35 comments so far. I wrote the article with my sarcastic tongue placed firmly in my cheek. Notably, the wiser Merriam-Webster Dictionary now defines “Appalachian” as “a native or resident of the Appalachian mountain area.” Seventeen years ago, the definition was “a white native or resident of the Appalachian mountain area.” Did my article motivate those folks to remove the word “white”? I hope so!
The other article, written about three years and nine months after the first one, revisited the inaugural article. It is titled “How to Pronounce 'Appalachian' - Revisited (published 12-12-2009; updated 11-20-2022).” That article was my reply to two comments on the first article. You would have to find and read those comments in the first article to understand the revisited article. As of yesterday, that article had over 1,755 views.
Those two previous entries included only my written comments. This article includes the embedded podcast of my verbal guidance.
Two Other Podcasts
Before getting to my episode, I have decided to present oral viewpoints from two other sources. My comments follow each episode.
Yesterday, I searched online for “How to Pronounce 'Appalachian'?” I saw thousands of results. The first that I saw was “How to Pronounce Appalachian (2 Correct Ways in American English),” SpeechModification (YouTube), by Christine Dunbar, 1/27/2022. The episode is two minutes and 36 seconds in length. Yesterday, it had over 14,480 views, with 35 comments. The speaker, in fairness, states that both the hard and soft pronunciations are correct. Her opinion is that the soft pronunciation is used most widely. (Of course, only the hard pronunciation is correct around here!) Interestingly, Christine Dunbar admits that she's from the Midwest! Early in the episode, she stated incorrectly that the Appalachian Mountains are only in the southeast. A comment from two months ago corrected her error. How could a Midwesterner speak with authority about how folks in these parts pronounce “Appalachia”? Despite appearing somewhat confused, at the end, Christine Dunbar did a good job explaining the hard and soft pronunciations.
The second result was “How To Pronounce Appalachian,” pronunciationbook (YouTube), 9/14/2011. It's only 10 seconds long. Yesterday, it had over 343,165 views and 279 comments. The male voice nails the way folks in these parts pronounce the word! It is short, to the point, and spot on! I like it. It presents only the hard pronunciation.
My Podcast
Drum roll, please! Are you, dear reader, ready to listen to my presentation of how folks in northeast Tennessee say “Appalachian”? I thought so.
Appalachian Irishman - Podcasts now presents How to Pronounce “Appalachian”? This Podcast Helps! (published 9-13-2023; episode 18).
The episode is five minutes and 22 seconds long. My Irish blarney got a bit long-winded as I spoke extemporaneously. If any of y'all know, please explain what a “far tar” is! Over the decades, I have climbed up several.
Conclusion
If you, dear reader, were raised around these parts of northeast Tennessee, you know how to pronounce “Appalachian.” If, however, you have moved away, especially to a Yankee state, don't let those folks make fun of how you pronounce the word! Let them pronounce it the way they do. Just keep saying it the way the word rolls off your tongue naturally!
To all interlopers, especially from northern Appalachia, who have moved into this area, pronounce “Appalachian” the way we do here! Don't try to chide us into saying it the way that you do!
Two previous articles, from 7/28/2022 about Cades Cove and 4/4/2023, highlight Donnie Laws. The 4/4/2023 article introduced and recommended him.
Donnie Laws: East Tennessee Outdoors (YouTube) is an Appalachian treasure trove of episodes. As of today, he has 705 episodes. Subscribers number 164,000. I highly recommend, as you finish reading this article, that you watch “Appalachia Mountain People Talking and Their Way of Life,” Donnie Laws: East Tennessee Outdoors (YouTube), by Donnie Laws, 2/14/2023. It is just over 20 minutes long. As of today, it has been viewed over 276 thousand times. The episode includes the audio recording of John McCaulley (1880-1961), who lived in Cades Cove. Mr. McCaulley and my paternal grandfather were born in the same year.
Well, now that I have finished peeling “them thar taters,” I reckon that Mrs. Appalachian Irishman is “fixin' ta mash 'em.”
Y'all keep turnin' right and goin' straight out there, ya hear?
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