Thought this exchange might benefit all ".......We have a group here in Virginia that until recently spoke an Elizabethan English with the mixture of Portuguese they retained. Another group quite close to where I live are also celebrating their differences and resenting outsiders. They were established in 1600's from English settlers and those sailors from various nations, mainly Portuguese, who decided to stay. We've barely touched the diversity of our American cultures. Shirley Maynard ----- Original Message ----- From: paul drake How true, Shirley, and the vowel sounds in Tidewater Southern VA and northern NC yet bear many of the tones of the west and south of England from whence our very early VA/NC/SC ancestors came. Notice that in most of our nation the vowels are pronounced a, ee, eye, oh, you. However if you listen carefully to our folks from the Southside areas mentioned you usually will hear each vowel carefully prounouced as ahh, a, ee, oh, oo, those sounds typical of ancient Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, etc. So it is that you yet will hear "ah-bow-ooht" for "about", "hoe-oose" for "house", "they-urr" for "there", on and on. Indeed, the very fine VA jurist/educator, Rowan Greer, Esq. (now dead these many years) pronounced his name, "Gray-ayr", again reflecting those early renderings of our vowels. It is always a pleasure for me to visit with the ladies employed at /Tidewater libraries, since if they are over 40 and southern Virginian or Tidewater North or South Carolinian by birth, they yet have many of the very pleasant and gentle sounds of the west of England in Elizabethan times. I am sorry that this group of dialects is rapidly passing and will be gone in but a couple more decades. They tell me that such sounds are no longer thought appropriate in our "modern" manner of speaking and should be "taught out" of the language. Hhhhmmmmmmmm; what a terrible loss it will be for our posterity. Paul