Percy Carawan carves decoys with a hatchet — just as his father taught him. 



Listen Up, 

 Hyde M 

 County 



F 



I or a decade, North Carolina State 

 University sociolinguist Walt Wolfram has been 

 studying an important aspect of Hyde County 

 culture — its distinctive "hoi toide" dialect. 



In a book released recendy, Wolfram and 

 co-author Erik Thomas show that African 

 American speech is derived from British-based 

 dialects and an African American Creole 

 language. They base their findings on studies of 

 150 taped interviews with African American and 

 white residents of the coastal county. 



"Limited in-migration and population 

 growth, along with the relatively stable co- 

 existence of white and black families, make 

 Hyde County an ideal laboratory," Wolfram 

 says. 



"Listening to older African Americans in 

 Hyde County can tell you what black speech 

 was like; listening to young African Americans 

 can tell you where it is going," he asserts. 



Wolfram explains that one African 

 American octogenarian's speech is much like 

 that of an older white "hoi toider." However, the 

 linguist discerns the vestiges of Creole African 

 patterns not used in white speech. 



"Young African Americans from Hyde 

 County no longer sound like 'Hoide' folks. 

 Instead, they have adopted the national norm of 

 African American speech," Wolfram says. 



Today, 97-year-old Muzel Bryant is the 

 only African American resident of Ocracoke 

 Island. For generations her family lived in an 

 otherwise all-white culture. Yet, Wolfram says, 

 her dialect is not purely "O'coker." 



"The answer must be that the Bryant 

 family arrived on the island with black speech. 

 In its isolation, the Bryant family became its 

 own speech community. The nine children in the 

 Bryant family perpetuated African vestiges of 

 speech," Wolfram concludes. 



Wolfram and Thomas' research was 

 supported by the National Science Founda- 

 tion and the William C. Friday Endowment. 

 The book, The Development of African- 

 American English, is published by Blackwell 

 Publishing Co. □ 



Walt Wolfram is William C. Friday 

 Distinguished Professor of English, and Erik 

 Thomas is an associate professor of English, 

 both at NC State. 



ABOVE: Today, 97-year-old Muzel Bryant is 

 the only African American resident of Ocracoke 

 Island. 



16 SPRING 2002 



