" Native speaker "

I was just reading about an effort to preserve a language. More correctly ,a dialect. This dialect was and still is spoken by my relatives,friends and classmates. We were never aware of it in that sense. It was just the way we spoke. An occasional teacher in school would attempt to correct our grammar and usage.

As a young man some of my fathers associates spoke this dialect. Being from an older generation and having had less influence from radio and television their " accent " was quite noticeable. Some of the more die hard characters were difficult to understand. They spoke very rapidly and with terms you weren't used too. A few phrases are still in common usage around home and one in particular has reached iconic status. The response, " yes,yes,Bub " is well known and spoken by almost everyone in the area.

There are many colorful expressions and descriptions used. Some have lost their meaning to all but a very few. An example of this is, three times round.

If you asked one of these people how thick the ice on the harbor was the answer very well may have been, " three times round." Meaning; one would have to chop three times around in a circle with an ax to cut a hole through the ice. Needed that hole to catch some, " skinnables " known to other folks as eels.

The original people that spoke this dialect where often considered uneducated,working class people. Hard working and hard drinking,a real bunch of roughnecks. Tough people, earning a tough living working the water. Their families were large and they were a clannish lot. Foreigners were tolerated, but not exactly welcomed. And a foreigner was anyone not born there. Everyone else was " from away." And that expression said it all.

In recent years these people have risen a great deal in status. Everyone is scrambling to identify themselves with this group. It is truly one of those unexplainable phenomena.What was once somewhat of a handicap in society is now a asset. And now the effort to record the " native speakers ".

An admirable task, but the dialect will never be truly captured. The true speakers have long since passed. In my opinion, the last of the true speakers left us in the 60's.

What exactly is being recorded I do not know. I am not qualified to judge,either. I have heard this dialect spoken all my life but never took any notes. It never sounded like anything unique to me. I am interested to find out. Unfortunately I do not live in the area anymore and am unlikely to go there anytime soon.

I have had others tell me I speak this dialect. I don't know about that. LOL I just talk the way I have always talked. Except for the fact that I have moved around the country and adopted certain phrases, I expect I sound pretty much the same. I expect it is the same with any language. Put me in a room with a " native speaker " and I will soon speak the same way. We all adapt that way in an attempt to fit in. Yes Sir, and I'm down with that ,mean the same thing but used in different situations and with different social groups.

I am amazed and amused by this information. Recording the way my Dad and his contemporaries spoke. Who would have thought ? Well his generation and those before him were , " the finest kind." Yes,Yes, Bub ! I never realized I was speaking a foreign language.

A more sobering thought is; their is an effort to record this dialect because all those who speak it are quickly leaving us and according to some I fit in this group ! Well.all I can say is, I ain't going nowhere,not hardly Bub !