David Carkeet The Dialects in Huckleberry Finn

The Dialects in Huckleberry Finn
Author(s): David Carkeet

Source: American Literature, Vol. 51, No. 3 (Nov., 1979), pp. 315-332
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2925388
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Finn
The Dialects in Huckleberry
DAVID CARKEET
Universityof Missouri-St. Louis
of Huckleprefaceto Adventures
ARK TWAIN'S "Explanatory"
IYI berry
enough:
Finnis straightforward
negro
areused,towit:theMissouri
ofdialects
In thisbooka number
the
dialect;
South-Western
ofthebackwoods
form
theextremest
dialect;
ofthislast.
varieties
andfourmodified
dialect;
"Pike-County"
ordinary
orbyguessfashion,
Theshadings
havenotbeendonein a hap-hazard
andsupport
guidance
andwiththetrustworthy
work;butpains-takingly,
ofspeech.
forms
several
withthese
familiarity
ofpersonal
it manyreaders
forthereasonthatwithout
I makethisexplanation
totalkalikeandnot
weretrying
thatall thesecharacters
wouldsuppose
succeeding.'
and the
Yet an apparentlack of fitbetweenthisannouncement
tryinvestigators
factsof thenovelhas longconfounded
linguistic
ingtodecidejustwhospeakswhatdialect.Somehavegivenup the
is a joke. Othershavetakenthe
thatthepreface
andconcluded
fight
to decodeit.2The questionof
still
failed
buthave
seriously
preface
into
onedivisible
is a complex
meantwiththepreface
whatClemens
analysisof thespeechof
severalparts:(i) Does a closelinguistic
dialectaldifferentiain thenovelshowtheseven-way
thecharacters
meanto
tionofwhichClemensspeaks?(2) Whatdid thepreface
Finn,ed. HenryNash Smith(Boston,I958),
of Huckleberry
1 MarkTwain, Adventures
are to thisedition.I am gratefulto the NationalEndowment
p. 2. All subsequentreferences
Clemens'sliteraryuse
fortheHumanitiesfora SummerStipendenablingme to investigate
ofdialect.
2 In the firstgroup are William Clark Breckenridge,
"Missouri,"in Books Containing
p. 9; Vance Randolph
AmericanLocal Dialects,ed. ArthurE. Bostwick(St. Louis, I914),
and GeorgeP. Wilson,Down in the Holler: A Galleryof Ozark Folk Speech (Norman,
Okla., I953), p. 7; and Curt Rulon, "GeographicalDelimitationof the Dialect Areas in
Finn," Mark Twain Journal,XIV (Winter,I967), 9-I2.
The Adventuresof Huckleberry
In thesecondgroupare KatherineBuxbaum,"MarkTwain and AmericanDialect,"American
Speech,II (Feb., I927), 233-236, whose sensible(thoughsomewhatcasual) analysissuffers
of the dates of the compositionof
because it antedatesWalter Blair's determination
which,as will be shownbelow,is essential
determination
Finn (see noteI7)-a
Huckleberry
Sally Boland, "The Seven Dialects
of the preface-and,morerecently,
to an understanding
XXXVI (Summer,I968), 30-40, a study
in Huckleberry
Finn," NorthDakota Quarterly,
riddledwitherrorsofobservation.
3I6
American Literature
Clemens?That is,in his lexiconwhatwas themeaningof "dialect,"

"extremest,"
"backwoods South-Western,"
and "ordinary'PikeCounty"'? (3) When Clemenswrotethe preface,what could he
have thoughthe had done in the way of differentiating
dialects?
This questionis distinctfrom(i) above,forClemens'ssenseof the
languageof the novel may have been different
fromthe linguistic
factsof the novel. (4) Finally,what is the relationbetweenthe
dialectsin the novel and linguisticrealityof the MississippiValley
in themid-nineteenth
The firstthreeofthesequestionswill
centuiry?
be takenup below.The lastquestion,becauseit has beendealtwith
elsewhere
and becauseansweringit shedslittlelighton themeaning
ofthepreface,
willnotbe treated.3
flawof publishedresearchin dialectologyto
It is a characteristic
dwell ponderouslyon methodologicalpreliminaries.Eschewing
thispractice-whichexists,I think,to disguiseleannessin thebody
of manystudiesof dialects-I will not discusshere the notionof
dialect."4I will sayonlythatdialects-in literature
"literary
and out
in the field-can differfrom each other in theirpronunciation
(Huck says get, Pap says git), grammar(Huck says you want,
Jimsaysyou wants),and vocabularyor lexicon(Huck sayssmouch
for'steal,'theKing sayshook).
As to the firstquestionraisedabove,a detailedexaminationof
Finn showsthatthereare differences
in thewaypeople
Huckleberry
speakthatare too systematic
to be accidental.For purposesof discussion,Huck's dialectcan be takenas thenormfromwhichother
dialects,to varyingdegrees,depart. This approach,besidesbeing
convenient,
makessensepreciselybecauseour goal is to understand
3 For treatments
of thisquestionsee JamesNathan Tidwell, "Mark Twain's Representationof Negro Speech,"AmericanSpeech,XVII (Oct., I942),
Curt Rulon, "The
174-I76;
Dialects in HuckleberryFinn," (Ph.D. diss., Universityof Iowa, I967);
and Lee A.
Pederson,"Negro Speech in The Adventuresof Huckleberry
Finn," Mark Twain Journal,
XIII (Winter,I965), I-4. Pederson,in "Mark Twain's MissouriDialects: Marion County
Phonemics,"
AmericanSpeech,XLII (Dec., I967), 26I-278, reportson a I964 dialectsurvey
of northeastern
Missouri.Four of his twelve informants
were seventy-nine
years old or
older,and theyin turnreportedon remembered
archaisms;thusthereis some raw material
herefora comparisonof the dialectsin Huckleberry
Finn with actual nineteenth-century
speech.Finally,Walt Wolframand Donna Christian'sAppalachianSpeech (Arlington,Va.,
of two West Virginiancountieswhich lie in the larger
I976) is a linguisticdescription
South Midland area, whence came the bulk of the antebellumsettlementof Missouri;
despitethe yearsseparatingthe two,AppalachianSpeech comes remarkably
close to being
a grammarofHuckleberry
Finn.
4 See SumnerIves's classicarticleon the subject,"A Theoryof Literary
Dialect,"Tulane
StudiesittEnglish,II (I950), I 37-I 82.
Dialectsin Huckleberry
Finn
317
theauthor's
intention.
SinceClemenswrotethenovelin Huck's
dialect,thatdialectmusthavebeenuppermost
in his mind.In a
senseitis the"standard"
dialectofthenovel.Systematic
departures
fromthatdialectmust,then,reflect
conscious
choicesbytheauthor.
Giventhisapproach,
it is notnecessary
to listthehundreds
of featuresdistinguishing
Huck'sdialectfromStandard
English.5
Instead,
I willfocuson thedepartures
fromHuck'sdialectin thespeechof
theother
characters.
First,thereis an obviousdifference
betweenthespeechof Jim
(and thefourotherblackspeakers
in thenovel,whosedialectsare
withJim's)and thatof Huck.Phonologically,
identical
Jimshows
widespread
lossofr (do' 'door,'heah'here,'thoo'through'),
palatalization
of a palatalglide-theinitialsoundof
(i.e.,theinsertion
yes-incertain
environments:
k'yer'care,'dish-yer
'thishere'),(a)
gwyneas thepresent
participle
ofgo, and substitution
of voiceless
thwithf (mouf'mouth'),ofvoicedthwithd (dese'these'),andof
thenegative
prefix
tn- withon- (oneasy).Huckhasnoneofthese
features.
where
Huck and Jimsharea ruleproducing
Also,
nonstandard
forms,
Jim'suseof theruleis muchhigherin frequency.
Thisholdsforfinalconsonant
cluster
reduction
(ole 'old'), deletion
of initialunstressed
syllables('crease'increase'),and epithetic
t
(wunst'once').Jimalsoshowsmuchmoreeyedialect(nonstandard
spellings
forstandard
pronunciations,
like uv 'of' and wuz 'was')
thanHuck. Grammatically,
Huck's and Jim'sdialectsare very
similar.
Jim'sdialectadditionally
However,
showsthedone-perfect
construction
(shedonebrokeloose),deletion
ofthecopula,and an
-s suffix
onsecond-person
present-tense
verbs.
Lexically,
Jim'sdialect
differs
fromHuck's onlyin a few exclamations:
Jimsaysdaddad fetchhim,and ding-busted,
blamedest,
and Huck doesnot.
The differences
betweenHuck's dialectand thedialectsof the
otherwhitecharacters
in thenovelarelessstriking
butstillsignificant.As in thetreatment
ofJim'sdialect,
thesedifferences
willbe
in terms
presented
ofnonstandard
features
exhibited
in thespeechof
others(Pap,theKing,etc.)thatarenotexhibited
in Huck'sdialect.
5 This has alreadybeen done. For a partiallist see Buxbaum,and fora nearlycomplete
listsee Rulon,"The Dialectsin Huckleberry
Finn," 59-95. It shouldbe notedherethatthe
nonstandard
featurescharacterizing
Huck's dialectappear in both his speechand narration,
althoughas RobertJ. Lowenherz,"The Beginningof Huckleberry
Finn," AmericanSpeech,
XXXVIII (Oct., i963), I96-20I, pointsout, dialectspellingsare somewhatmore dense in
Huck's speechthanin his narration.
Below, "Huck's dialect"refersto the languageof both.
3I8
American Literature
Thisapproach
rather
thanthereverse
is takenbecauseHuck'scorpus
is muchlargerthanthecorporaof theothercharacters,
and nonoccurrence
of a formin a largebodyof data is moresignificant
thannonoccurrence
in a smallbodyof data. Thatis,it cannotbe
maintained
thatthefeatures
belowfailto appearin Huck'sdialect
because
thereis insufficient
occasion
forthemtoappear.Rather,
they
failtoappearbecauseClemensmorethanlikelychosenotto make
thema characteristic
ofHuck'sdialect.
The listsbelowarearranged
as follows.Characters
are givenin
orderof appearance
in thenovel.Undereachcharacter's
nameare
giventhefeatures
ofphonology,
grammar,
and lexiconthatdistinguishthatdialectfromHuck's,i.e.,features
of whichthereis no
evidence
in Huck'scorpus.6
The threecategories
are separated
by
linesofellipses;ifno grammatical
orlexicalfeatures
distinguish
the
dialectfromHuck's,a dashis entered.
In thephonology
sectionof
eachdialectI havelistedthefeatures
in descending
orderofimportance(by frequency
and salience,
thelatterbeinga subjective
impression).Itemssubjectto the samephonological
rule (e.g., the
King'spalatalization)
are listedacrossthesameline.Itemssubject
toa ruleevidenced
in Huck'sdialectarenotgiven,eventhoughthe
particular
wordin question
maynotappearin thedatafromHuck;
forexample,Pap says'lection'election,'
showinga ruledeleting
initialunstressed
syllables,
and althoughHuck neversays'lection,
itis clearfromspellings
like'low'allow'and 'deed'indeed'thathe
hasthesamerule.Consequently,
'lection
is notgivenas a distinguishingfeature
of Pap'sdialect.7
An asterisk
meansthattheformfails
toappearinanyother
whitedialectinthenovel,thatis,thattheform
isuniquetothedialectunderwhosenameitis entered.
The number
inparentheses
indicates
thenumber
ofinstances
ofa form.The few
examples
ofeyedialectandidiomsin thesedialects
arenotgiven.
Someoftheidentifying
namesbelowneedan explanation.
Judith
Loftus
is theIllinoiswomanwhomHucktriestofoolwithhisgirl's
6 The lexical itemsare minimallyglossed.For fullertreatment
see RobertL. Ramsay
and FrancesGuthrieEmberson,
A MarkTwainLexicon(1938; rpt.New York,1963).
7 I departfromthisprocedure
in two instances.
First,I give spellingsshowingneutralizationof the contrastbetweenthe vowelsof standardEnglishpit (/I/) and pet (/E/); such
neutralization
is indicatedeitherwitha nonstandard
use of thei graphfor/e/ (git 'get') or
a nonstandard
use of e for /I/ (sence 'since'). Huck has just one exampleof this-resk
'risk'-and so in some sense has the rule of neutralization,
but it is a strikingfeatureof
severalotherdialectsand worthyof attention.
Second,I give spellingsshowing/e/ or /I/
for/A/ in just,such,touch,etc. Again Huck has just one example (jest), whereasother
characters
havemanymore.
Dialects in HuckleberryFinn
3I9
disguise;"Sir WalterScott"refersto thedialectspokenby thethree

thieveson thewreckof thatname; "Raftsmen"refersto the dialect
ofthesixspeakersin the"RaftPassage,"whichwas firstpublishedin
Finn
Lifeon theMississippi(chapter3) and was partofHuckleberry
(in chapteri6) when Clemens sent the manuscriptto his publisher;8 the BricksvilleLoafersare the tobacco-chewing
sluggards
(nine or tendifferent
speakers)in thetownwhereColonelSherburn
shootsBoggs; and the ArkansasGossipsare SisterHotchkisset al.
(fiveidentifiable
speakers),who discussJim'sstrangehousekeeping
on thePhelpsplantation.9
Pap
*p'fessor
(i)
*suthin'
(something,
I)
agin(2), git(3)
o' (of,5)
JudithLoftus
*sence (since,
3)
*cheer(chair,i)
ben(been,i)
fitten
(fitting,
i)
wust(worst,
i)
Sir WalterScott'"
*big-bug(big shot,i)
*hifalutin'
(I)
*palaver
(talk,i)
*pungle(pay,i)
*orter
(oughtto,i)
forgit(i), git (2), yit (2)
jest(I), jist(4)
befo'(i), yo' (I)
shore(sure,I)
8 It is highlydebatablethat Clemenscould have been referring

to this passage in the
preface,and my finalconclusionbelow is that he was not. However,it is listedhere for
thesakeof thoroughness.
9 Excludedfromthelistare minorcharacters
of varioustypes:speakersof dialectsdiffering veryslightlyfromHuck's (the watchmanwhom Huck sends to the Sir WalterScott,
Buck Grangerford,
and the Duke), speakerswhose dialectsare virtuallyidenticalwith
Huck's (Tom Sawyer,Ben Rogers,Aunt Polly, and the Wilks daughters),and speakers
who can be groupedin one of the categoriesbelow,e.g., Tim Collins (the "youngcountry
jake" fromwhomthe King learnsabout the Wilkses),who can be groupedwith the King
of g'yirls'girls,'and the Pikesvilleboy who tellsHuck
by virtueof his two pronunciations
about Jim'scapture,who with his hunderdand Newrleansbelongswith Aunt Sally and
Unde Silas Phelps.
10Two important
appearin the partial
dialectspellingsin the speechof thesecharacters
holographmanuscript
but do not appear in the firstedition:weepon 'weapon' (p. 8I-9 in
the manuscript)and thish-yer'this here' (p. 81-15). The first,which is unique to the
thieves,fails to appear in the publishedversionof the novel only because the passage
containingit was deletedin revision.Clemensrevisedthe second to this,perhapsbecause
the charactersare too far northto show palatalization,a featurehe associatedwith the
chap. 44). Thus Clemensoriginallyintendedto distinSouth (see Life on the Mississippi,
fromHuck's speecheven more than is evidentin the
guishthe speechof thesecharacters
publishedversion.I am gratefulto the Buffaloand Erie CountyPublic Libraryfor permissionto examinethismanuscript.
American Literature
320
out'n(out of,2)
pore(poor,2)
wisht(wish,2)
hunderd(i)
(Sir WalterScott)
't (that:conj., i)
vrack(wreck,i)
ye (I)
i)
*pickins(transportables,
to (opposedto,i)
*unfavorable
Raftsmen
i)
*furder(further,
*SentLouis (I)
*yander(yonder,i)
bar'l (barrel,4), thar (there,2),
whar(where,i)
(i), oneasy(i)
oncomfortable
tech(I)
jigger (jerk,i)
*squench(suppress,i)
*whoooop (exclamation,7)
King
*awready (i)
*cain't(i)
*wunst(once,i)
thar(2), whar(i)
ben (been,i)
jedge (i)
off'n(offof,i)
waw-path(warpath,i)
wisht(wish,i)
.
*h-yer(here, 2), k'yer (care, 2),

these-'yer
(thesehere,2), thishyer(thishere,i)
*considable(i), misable(i)
*he'p (2)
*aluz (always,i)
*drot(drat,i)
(i)
partickler
(2),
forgit(I),
git (4),
(i), yit(i)
yisterday
jest (4), jist (2), sech (3), sich
(i),
*hook(steal,i)
Loafers
Bricksville
*(a) gwyne(going,5)
*borry(borrow,2)
f'm (from, i)
ye (i)
agin
i)
*holt(specialty,
shet(i)
oncomfortable(i),
(i), oneasy(i)
thar(i), whar(2)
oncommon
'at(that:conj.,i; rel.pro.,2)
ben (been,2)
fitten(fitting,
2)
o' (of,2)
. .
Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas

Phelps
*owdacious(audacious,2)
*clo'es (clothes,i)
*Newrleans(i)
*kreely
(I)
't (that:coni.,3)
childern(i), hunderd(i)
Babtist
(i)
shet(i)
shore(sure,i)
ye(3)
*bang (surpass,i)
3)
*beat(thatwhichsurpasses,
a.
Dialects in
Finn
Huckleberry
*OldHarry(devil,i)
*pass(point,
juncture,
i)
Sister,
Brother
(formsofaddress,
2)
ArkansasGossips
*s'I (saysI, 26), sh-she(saysshe,

4), s'e (sayshe,3)
*that-air
(thatthere,
6)
*Brer(brother,
4)
*amost(almost,
i)
*kiver
(cover,
i)
*natcherl
(natural,
i)
*sasser
(saucer,
i)
jist(2), sich(2)
321
ben(been,2)
out'n(outof,2)
't (that:conj.,I; rel.pro.,i)
i)
fust(first,
git (I)
thar(i)
they(there:expletive,i)
.
h n e
.reterit.,)
hearn
I)
preten'te,
(heard:
ye(I)
Sister,
B
(
o address,
Brother
Sister,
(formsofaddress,
I4)
This listshowsreal dialectaldifferences.

It is surelyno accident
thatin the entirenovel only one group of white speakers(the
Bricksville
Loafers) uses the typicallyblack (a) gwyne participle,
or thatthe King shows palatalizationseven times,or that Sister
Hotchkissuttersa reducedformofsays thirty-three
timesin herbrief
appearance.In thelightof factslike these,Rulon'sclaim in his dissertation(p. 50) and again in "GeographicalDelimitation"(p. 12)
thatthereare onlytwo dialectsin thenovel,one spokenby blacks
and theotherbywhites,is quiteremarkable.
When we add Huck's dialect to the above list,we have nine
distinct
dialectsspokenbywhitecharacters,
whereasClemensnames
onlysixin thepreface.How can we identify
thesixdialectsClemens
had in mind? The degreeof divergencefromHuck's dialectwill
certainly
play somerole,howeverelusivetheprinciplesinvolvedin
assessingthis may be. One such principleis that asterisked(i.e.,
unique) formsmustweighheavilyin markinga dialectas divergent.
A secondprincipleis thatphonologicalfeaturesmustweigh more
becausea lexical omissionin Huck's
heavilythan lexicalfeatures,
dialectis morelikelyto be accidentalthanthe absenceof a phonoa personality
and becauselexicalchoicesoftenreflect
logicalfeature,
more than a dialect-Pap says "hifalutin'"not only because of
wherehe was bornbutalso becauseofwho he is. Third,phonological
a class weigh more heavilythan phonologicalrules
rulesaffecting
or of words
affecting
justone word.The sheernumberofdifferences
exhibitinga difference
is a fourthconsideration.
Finally,some of
322
American Literature
thesecharacters
speakmorethanothers
and thushavegreater
occasiontoexhibit
fromHuck's;themorea
dialectalfeatures
different
character
speaks,themorefeatures
distinct
fromHuck'she must
showinorderforus toconsider
from
hisdialectmarkedly
different
Huck's.A preciseformulaexpressing
"density"
of features
could
easilybeworkedout,butsuchrigorwouldbe foolish
in thelightof
thesubjective
nature
ofourother
considerations.
the
basis
ofthesecriteria,
On
then,I wouldranktheeightdialects
roughly
in thefollowing
order,thedialectof theArkansas
Gossips
beingleastlikeHuck's,and Judith
Loftus's
dialectbeingmostlike
Huck's:Arkansas
AuntSallyand
Gossips,
King,Bricksville
Loafers,
UncleSilas,Raftsmen,
Sir WalterScott,Pap, and Judith
Loftus.
Whatwe havehereis thebeginning
ofa conclusion.
Butournotion
fromHuck'sdialect"is notsufficiently
"degreeofdivergence
exact
toallowus simply
to subtract
thelastthreedialects(or to saythey
aresubspecies
ofHuck'sdialect)and todeclaretheproblem
solved.
Straight
linguistic
analysis
ofthenoveltakesus onlyso far.We now
mustturnourattention
totheotherquestions
raisedin theopening
paragraph.
WhatcouldClemenshavemeantby"theextremest
formof the
backwoods
South-Western
dialect"?The Old Southwest
is ofcourse
a geographical
regionintowhichHuckand Jimmovemoredeeply
as thenovelprogresses.
In thisrespect,
characters
appearingfar
downtheriverare morelikelyto be speakers
of thisdialectthan,
say,PaporJudith
Loftus,
residents
ofSt.Petersburg.
"Southwestern"
alsohasa literary
meaning
whichis equallyimportant
toourquestion.Clemenswascloselyfamiliar
withtheantebellum
literature
of
Southwestern
humorists
like GeorgeWashington
Harris,Johnson
J.Hooper,andWilliamTappanThompson,
bothfromhisgeneral
readingandfromhiseditingofMarkTwain'sLibraryofHumor,
whichheworkedonforseveral
yearsbefore
itspublication
in i888.11
Clemensdrewfromthistradition
in his portrayal
of theKing,a
typicalSouthwestern
confidence
man whose"conversion"
at the
campmeeting
in chapter
20 recalls
thatofHooper'sroguishSimon
Suggsin "The CaptainAttends
a Camp-Meeting."
The "RaftPassage"showsa similarindebtedness,
withitsboasting
and brawling
Humor (I959; rpt. Westport,
"See KennethS. Lynn,Mark Twain and Southwestern
Conn., I972), and Walter Blair, Mark Twain and Huck Finn (Berkeley,Calif., I960),
243-244.
323
raftsmen,
amongthemone "fromthewilds of Arkansaw,"and its
and
reminiscent
spinners
oftalltales-characters
of A. B. Longstreet
Thomas Bangs Thorpe. On these grounds,then,one might be
temptedto identifythe King or the Raftsmenas speakersof the
humoristsalso provide
Southwestern
dialect.But the Southwestern
us withorthographic
criteriawithwhichto makethisjudgment,for
manyof themwrotein heavydialectwhose featuresno doubtimpressedClemens.These criteriapointclearlyto SisterHotchkissand
the otherArkansasGossips as the Southwestern
dialect speakers.
SisterHotchkiss'sand Mrs. Damrell's unique that-air'that there'
appears,spelledthatair,thatere,or thatar,in thesketchesof Harris,
Hooper,and Thorpe,the last also givinghis charactersthe plural
counterpart,
themar 'themthere.'BrotherMarples'skiver'cover is
also usedby SimonSuggs,and SisterHotchkiss'snatcherl,
whatever
pronunciation
it is meantto indicate,bringsto mind the reduced
formin Sut Lovingood'srecurringepithet,"a nat'ralborn durn'd
fool." The ArkansasGossips also show loweringand backing of
/Er/ to /ar/ (thar), neutralizationof /I/ and /E/ (git), and
selectiveloss of /r/ with schwa (fust'first');all of thesefeatures
areeasilyfoundin Southwestern
tales.
Finally,when SisterHotchkisssayss'I 'says I,' s'e 'says he,' and
sh-she'saysshe,'she uses a formthathas some precedent,
particuin storiesbysomeof thewritersmenlarlyin itsrhythmic
repetition,
tionedabove (compareher "s'I, he's crazy,s'I" with "saysI, 'Bill,'
saysI, 'you'rean ass,'" fromThorpe's"The Big Bearof Arkansas").
A more directinspiration,
however,appears to be Joel Chandler
Harris's "At Teague Poteet's: A Sketch of the Hog Mountain
ofs'I 'saysI' and se' she
Range,"wherewe finddozensofoccurrences
saysshe,'along withSisteras a formof addressand thatair 'that
there."2Modernliterary
historians
view the Southwestern
schoolas
an antebellumphenomenon,
but thereis no reasonto believethat
Clemensdid. Linguistically
and artistically
manyof Harris'scharacterscan be seen as "Southwestern."
In borrowingtheselinguistic
formsforthisscene,as well as theBrerof theearlierUncle Remus
stories,Clemens shows his respectfor Harris,whom he rightly
considereda masterof dialectwriting.Clemens apparentlydrew
and XXVI (June, I883), I85The CenturyMagazine,XXVI (May, I883), I37-I50
The story also appears in Harris's Mingo and OtherSketchesin Black and White
(Boston,I884). ClemenswrotetheArkansasGossipsscenein thesummerof I883.
12
I94.
American Literature
324
more thandialectfromHarris'sstory.A workingnote writtenby

him in the summerof I883 says,"He [Huck] must hear some
Arkansaswomen,overtheirpipes& knitting(spittingfrombetween
of Sisterthis& Brotherthat. . ." At the
teeth),swap reminiscences
end of thisnote,added laterwithoutcomment,is "s'I, sh-she,s'ze."
A groupofgossipsverysimilarto thatdescribedhereappearsin "At
forClemens's
TeaguePoteet's,"and theyappearto be theinspiration
ArkansasGossips.'3
Finn shows
No otherspeakeror groupof speakersin Huckleberry
so manyfeaturesthatalso appearin theworksof theSouthwestern
humorists.
The ArkansasGossipsresideat the southernextremity
ofthenovel,so theymeetthegeographicaltestas well. Theirspeech
is moredensein dialectthanthatof theotherwhitespeakersin the
novel,and it is probablyfor thisreasonthatClemenscalls it the
dialect.In thissceneas in no
"extremest"
formof theSouthwestern
otherClemenshas Huck step aside and for eight paragraphsof
color.
speechshowsus richlocallinguistic
If thismuchis correctwe are leftwitheightwhitedialectsin the
King,
novel:Huck, Pap, JudithLoftus,Sir WalterScott,Raftsmen,
Bricksville
Loafers,and Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas. However,"the
ordinary'Pike-County'dialect"and "fourmodifiedvarieties"of it
or subsumed
meansthatthreeof thesedialectsmustbe disregarded
underanotherdialect.Whichthree?
We mustfirstdetermine
what "Pike County"meantto Clemens.
In his fictionit is the Missouricountyin which St. Petersburgis
located,named aftera Missouricountyto the southof Hannibal.
acrossthe river,the home
It is also an Illinoiscountyimmediately
Finn and thelocale of JohnHay's
of JudithLoftusin Huckleberry
Pike CountyBallads. If we look hard enough we can find five
speakersin the novel,all clearlyfromPike County,Missouri,or
from
Pike County,Illinois,and all speakingsomewhatdifferently
eachother:Huck, Pap, JudithLoftus,JudgeThatcher,and-stretching it-Aunt Polly or Tom Sawyer.But thereare severalthings
wrongwiththisapproach.First,JudgeThatcherspeaksa standard
varietyof English, and Clemens,not being a twentieth-century
and used theword"dialect"to referto
linguist,
probablyunderstood
13
I942),
Clemens's note appears in Bernard DeVoto, Mark Twain at Work (Cambridge, Mass.,
p. 76.
325
nonstandardsystemsonly. Second, Aunt Polly and Tom Sawyer

bothspeakdialectsidenticalwithHuck's exceptfora veryfewfeatures(AuntPollysaysy'r once and Tom saysgit once and per'aps
once; Huck says none of these). Third and more important,if
Clemensmeantby"Pike County"thissmallgeographicarea,thenin
thepreface
he perversely
calledourattention
to almostimperceptible
dialectaldifferences
(in the case of Aunt Polly or Tom) while
ignoringmajordifferences
in thespeechof characters
like theKing
and the BricksvilleLoafers.Such a readingin fact must ignore
thespeechoccurring
in three-fourths
ofthenovel.
Thereis stillanotherreasonto look beyondthegeographicalPike
Countiesfor the speakersof "Pike County"dialect.Like "Southwestern,""Pike County"is the name of a literarytraditionwell
established
by thetimeClemensbegan workon Huckleberry
Finn.
During the I850's in Californiathereemergeda stockimmigrant
characterknown as "the Pike." He figuredin early ballads like
"JoeBowers,""CaliforniaBank Robbers,"and "Sweet Betseyfrom
Pike,"and also in playsand sketchesof theperiod.As to his roots,
thePike "was namedforPike County,Missouri,but he came from
Illinois,Arkansas,or NorthTexas quite as frequently."'4
He spoke
a dialect variouslyrepresentedby different
writers,part literary
artifact
and part reflective
of actual linguisticfeaturesof the Pike
Countyarea in Missouriand Illinois.Well beforeClemenswrote
Huckleberry
Finn, "Pike County"had come to referto a literary
representation
of thespeechof Missouriand pointssouth.Clemens,
fullyawareof this,punctuatedthetermwithquotationmarksin his
preface.'5Huck participates
activelyin thistraditionwhen he tells
theKing thathe is fromPike County,Missouri,and thathis family
"all died offbutme and pa and mybrother
Ike" (chapter20); "Ike"
is the name of a foreverundevelopedcharacterin Pike County
balladry,his sole claim to fame being his abilityto rhymewith
LiteraryHistoryof the UnitedStates,4th ed., ed. RobertE. Spilleret al. (New York,
I, 864. "The Pike" is fullydescribedin Fred Lewis Pattee,A Historyof American
Literature
Since I870 (New York,I915), 83-98, and in G. R. MacMinn,"'The Gentleman
fromPike' in EarlyCalifornia,"
AmericanLiterature,
VIII (May, I936), I60-I69.
15 The onlyotherreference
by Clemensto Pike CountydialectthatI know of is to be
foundamong his marginaliato Bret Harte's The Luck of RoaringCamp, where he also
uses quotationmarks.CriticizingHarte's dialect,as he oftendid, Clemens writesof one
passage,"This is much more suggestiveof Dickens & an English atmospherethan 'Pike
County'" (BradfordA. Booth,"MarkTwain's Commentson BretHarte'sStories,"American
Literature,
XXV [Jan.,I954], p. 494).
14
I974),
326
American Literature
"Pike." Clemensfurtherhighlightsthe geographicalindefiniteness

of "Pike" by givingthe townsalong the rivernames thatcan be
seenas variants:thecamp meetingis in Pokeville,thePhelpsfarm
is in Pikesville,and "Bricksville"translatesthe Greco-Germanic
"(St.) Petersburg,"
thetownin theheartof Pike County.
Thus we are freeto rangedown theriverin our searchfor"Pike
County"speakersin HuckleberryFinn. But what could Clemens
have meantby "ordinary"and "modified"?A reasonableguess is
thatHuck is thespeakerof theordinaryPike Countydialect,on the
basisof thesheerbulk of his words-thatwhichdominatesnumerically is "ordinary"-and also consideringhis geographicalroots:
of thisguessif
Pike County,Missouri.We findsomecorroboration
we followthe procedureused above to identifythe Southwestern
dialectspeakersin thenovel,thatis,if we examinethePike County
literature
Finn forrecurring
dialectfeatures.
antedating
Huckleberry
In an earlyversionof "JoeBowers"we findmuch thatanticipates
r pronunciations
Huck's dialect-intrusive
(orful'awful'), deletion
of initial unstressedsyllables('most 'almost'), preteritecotched
'caught,'
andinfinitival
forto.6 We findmostofthesesamefeatures,
alongwithmanyotherssharedbyHuck,in JohnHay's Pike County
Ballads and BretHarte'sEast and WestPoems,bothpublishedin
appear sporadicallyin some of Clemens's
I87I. Huck-likefeatures
early California newspaper sketches,such as "Those Blasted
Children"(I864), but it is in "The CelebratedJumpingFrog of
CalaverasCounty"(I865) that the dialectappearsin full bloom.
Simon Wheelerand Huck Finn would have littletroubleunderstandingeach other. They sharenonstandardpronunciations
like
jest'just,'terbacker
'tobacco,'jint 'joint,'fur'for,''low 'allow,' and
ca'mly'calmly';theysharegrammaticalformslike preterite
warn't
come
'came,' ketched'caught,'see 'saw,' and throwed
'wasn't,'
'threw,'possessivehis'n,unmarkedplurals (five pound), and unmarkedadverbs(monstrousproud); theyeven sharelexical items
likebully-rag
'abuse'and snake'take.'
can be defined,
Insofaras' the "Pike County"dialectin literature
Huck appearsto be a speakerof it. But so do the speakersof the
Finn. In factsomeofthem
sevenotherwhitedialectsin Huckleberry
showpronunciations
(like thar,git,and thi.sh-yer)thatHuck does
16
Johnson'sOriginal Comic Songs (San Francisco,

I86o).
Finn
Dialects in Huckleberry
327
not show and thatcan occasionallybe foundin earlyPike County

works.This procedure,then,cannottell us which threedialectsto
Let us assumethatour earlierguessthatHuck speaksthe
disregard.
"ordinary"Pike Countydialectis correct.We are leftwith seven
At thispointwe musttakeup
forfourpositions.
dialectscompeting
thethirdquestionraisedin the openingparagraph:when Clemens
whatcouldhe havethoughthe had donein
wrotethe"Explanatory"
-thedialectsof HuckleberryFinn? A
the way of differentiating
glanceat the historyof the compositionof the novel will help us
answerthisquestionand also tellus whichthreeof thesevendialects
in contention
can be eliminated.
Accordingto Walter Blair, HuckleberryFinn was writtenas
describedbelow.'7 Dates separatedby one dash indicateknown
workon thenovel;datesseparated
limitsofa periodofconcentrated
of
by threedashes mark limits a period duringwhich Clemens
Finn in additionto otherprojects:
probablyworkedon Huckleberry
I876: chap. i-middle chap. I2; chaps. I5 and i6
July-August,
struckbysteamboat;includes
(beginning-raft
"RaftPassage")
i88o: chaps.17 and i8 (Grangerfords)
October,
I879 - - - June,
June,i88o - - - - June,I883: chaps.19-21 (KingandDuke appear;Boggsshotin Bricksville)
I883: middleofchap.I2-chap. I4 (Sir WalterScott;
June-August,
King Solomon discussion);chaps. 22-43
(Colonel Sherburn'sspeech in Bricksvilleend)
Finn afteran interrupWhen Clemensreturnedto Huckleberry

Some of theseare conmade notesto himself.'8
tionhe frequently
while otherscontainsugcernedwithwhathe had alreadywritten,
and
gestionsforfuturescenes.Some are concernedwithcharacters
events:one says,"Widow Douglas-then who is 'Miss Watson?'
Ah, she'sW D's sister" (DeVoto, p. 7I). A line crossesout thefirst
drawnby Clemenswhenhe found(or rememapparently
sentence,
bered) theanswer.Othernotesare concernedwithdialect.One ap17 "When Was Huckleberry
Finn Written?,"AmericanLiterature,
XXX (March,1958),
I-25.
18 The notesare given in DeVoto, 63-78, and are discussedthereand in Blair, "When
Finn Written?"
Was Huckleberry
328
American Literature
writtenin the summerof I883 says,"Huck saysNuther,"

parently
and it also containsnotes on Jim'sdialect-isolatedentrieslike
"hund'd,""kin,""Nuffn,""W'y,"and so on (DeVoto, p. 74). These
noteson dialectare apparently
reminders
of thefeaturesin Huck's
and Jim'sspeech.Huck doesindeedsay"nuther,"
bothearlyand late
in thenovel,and Jimshows the pronunciations
attributed
to him.
But Clemens'srecall was imperfect;his attemptat consistency,
at leastin Huck's dialect,fallsshort.In thepartsof thenovelwritten
in thesummerof I883 (the latterhalfof thenoveland thechapters
I2-14 interpolation),
Huck showsseveralnonstandard
features
which
do notappearin thepartsofthenovelwritten
earlier.Thesefeatures
are listedbelow, again with membersof a class listedacrossthe
samelineand thenumberof instancesof each givenin parentheses:
phonology:
fur'for'(g)
bile 'boil' (5), pison'poison'(3), pint'point'(I)

kinder'kindof' (9)
grammar: possessiveourn (5), his'n (4), hern (I), yourn(I),
their'n
(I)
theirselves
(2)
redundant
comparative
marking(e.g., moreeasier;4)
Some of thesefeaturesare quite striking.Exceptfor the summer,
I883, passages,
Huck has thestandarddiphthong,
spelledoi,in words
likeboil,poison,and point,in contrast
to Pap's jint 'joint'and Jim's
pint'point.'Then, writingin I883, ClemensgivesHuck Pap's and
Jim'snonstandard
nine times.To take another
/al/ pronunciation
example,priorto thesummerof I883 Huck has exclusively
standard
absolutepossessives:ours,yours,etc.In I883, however,Huck utters
twelveof thesewiththenonstandard
-n suffix.
Standardversionsof
all of theformslistedabove (for,kind of,themselves,
etc.) can be
foundin thosepartsof thenovelwrittenbeforeJune,I883.'9
in Huck's dialect-along with the working
This inconsistency
noteson dialect-is strongevidencethatin thesummerof I883, when
Clemenswrotethree-fifths
of the novel,he had imperfect
recollectionofall thedetailsof thedialectshe had writtenin theothertwo19Tom Sawyer,anothercharacterwho speaksearlyand late in the novel,is subjectto
the same winds of change.In chapter2 he says join, while in chapter42 he says spile
'spoil.'
Finn
329
In addition,
fifths.
he spentrevising
duringthemonths
thenovel
beforesending
it to his publisher
(August,i883-April,I884), he
didnotobserve
andcorrect
theseinconsistencies.
Thisis notparticularlysurprising.
After
all,in ordertomakethetwopartsofHuckleFinnharmonious-the
berry
ofI883
partwritten
before
thesummer
andthepartwritten
duringthatsummer-Clemens
wouldhavehad
to makethenonstandard
spellingsin the secondpartstandard
(changed
furtofor,say),orhewouldhavehadtomakethestandard
spellings
inthefirst
partnonstandard
(changedfortofur);thenonstandard
spellings,
havingjustissuedfromhispenin thepreceding
months,
wouldnotbe at all suspect,
and thestandard
spellings
in
thefirst
partwouldbe veryeasytooverlook:
whenonereadsdialect,
onenotices
whatis nonstandard
morethanwhatis standard.
Thereisnoevidence
as towhenClemens
wrotethe"Explanatory."
He ismostlikelytohavewritten
itshortly
before
orafter
completing
thenovel,
sinceitis improbable
thathewouldwritea preface
which
listssevendistinct
dialects
before
he had actually
written
thescenes
containing
thosedialects.
Now considering
whatClemensfailedto
recall(or notice)in I883 aboutHuck'sdialectearlyin thenovel,it
is reasonable
to suspectthathe failedto recallotherlinguistic
featureslongagowritten
intothenovel-features
suchas Pap'ssuthin'
'something,'
JudithLoftus'sthreepronunciations
of sence'since,'or
RaftsmanEd's furder'further.'Clemensmay once have carefully
chosenthesefeatures
and deliberately
used themto distinguish
these
characters'
dialectsfromHuck's; buthe is likelyto haveforgotten
in
I883 a choicemade in I876, and the features
are sufficiently
subtle
tohavegoneundetected
in revision.
When we leftthe questionof the four modifiedPike County
dialectswe were faced with sevendialectsfromwhich to choose.
Threeof thesewerewrittenin I876: Pap's, JudithLoftus's,and the
Raftsmen's.
Threeofthefourotherswereconstructed
in thesummer
of I883 (Sir WalterScott's,the King's-some of whose speechwas
also writtenearlier-and thePhelpses'),and thefourth(the Bricksville Loafers') was writtenno earlierthan Junei88o. It is reasonableto assumethatin reporting
on thedifferences
amongthedialects
in the novel Clemensremembered
he had drawn
the distinctions
mostrecently
at theexpenseof thosehe had drawnearlier.Also,the
dialectswrittenin I876 are not greatlydifferent
fromHuck's-note
American Literature
330
thedialects
in
thattheycluster
towardtheendofourscaleranking
Pap
fromHuck'sdialect.In addition,
decreasing
orderofdivergence
and,withHuck,Tom
andJudith
LoftusarebothfromPikeCounty,
AuntPolly,and BenRogers,
canbe seenas speakers
ofthe
Sawyer,
"ordinary"
or Ur-PikeCountydialect.Finally,theRaftPassageis
notonlybecauseitwaswritten
in I876 and showsrelatively
suspect
reasonas well.IfClemens
features
butforanother
fewdistinguishing
uniquelyone of theseven
had intended
thispassageto represent
to hispublisher
thenin theletter
dialects
referred
toin thepreface,
thatthe
he probably
wouldhaveindicated
authorizing
itsdeletion
accordingly;
but nowherein thisor any
prefaceneededrevising
to the
is therea reference
withhispublisher
othercorrespondence
preface.20
then,is thatwhileitis notthecasethatthereare

Ourconclusion,
Finn,itis the
sevenandonlysevendistinct
dialects
in Huckleberry
whichClemens
hadin mind
dialects
casethatthere
aresevendistinct
whenhewrotethe"Explanatory."
Theseareasfollows:
characters)
minor
Missouri
Negro:Jim(andfourother
etal.)
Gossips(SisterHotchkiss
Southwestern:
Arkansas
Ordinary"Pike County":Huck, Tom, Aunt Polly,Ben Rogers,

Loftus
Pap, Judith
Modified"Pike County":Thieves on the Sir WalterScott
Modified"Pike County":King
Loafers
Modified"Pike County":Bricksville
Modified"Pike County":Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas Phelps
The factthatintelligent
sensecan be madeoutof theprefacefalsifies
theviewthatClemenswas jokingwhenhe wroteit.This viewnever
had much meritanyway.While the last sentenceof the "Explanaabout a list
tory"mightraisea smile,thereis nothingrib-splitting
of dialects.The existenceof a separatecomical preface (called
"Notice"and publishedon a separatepage in the firstEnglishand
Americaneditions)is irrelevant;
possibleforan author
it is certainly
to writetwo prefacesto a work, one comical and one serious.2'
20 Clemens's letter agreeing to the deletion of the passage, dated April 22, 1884, is in
Mark Twain, Business Man, ed. Samuel C. Webster (Boston, 1946), 249-250.
21 The "Notice" reads, "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be
prosecuted; persons attemptingto find a moral in it will be banished; persons attemptingto
find a plot in it will be shot. BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR PER G. G., CHIEF
OF ORDNANCE."
Finn
331
withHarte's
in folkspeech,hisimpatience
Clemens'sabidinginterest
use of dialect,and his workingnoteson thedialectsin Huckleberry
of dialectsin this
in therepresentation
Finn all pointto earnestness
revisionof dialectspellings.
novel-as does theevidenceof extensive
of dialectin the manuscript(or
There are hundredsof corrections
betweena dialect formin the manuscriptand the
discrepancies
finalformin thefirstedition).A just mightbe correctedto jest in
for example,and then end up as jist in the first
the manuscript,
edition.Such laboredrevisionmakesno senseif the "Explanatory"
is frivolous.
But
Thus Clemenswas seriouswhenhe wrotethe"Explanatory."
This
he was also partlymistakenabouttheworkhe was describing.
withchaoswhichhas eitherconfusedinmakesfora blendofsystem
or discouragedthemat the outset.Also, while thereis
vestigators
thanstatedin the "Explanatory"in termsof
greaterdifferentiation
dialects,thereis a somewhatsmaller
thenumberof distinguishable
of thedialectsthanone would expectfrom
degreeof differentiation
This is especiallytrueof thevarietiesof
sucha bold announcement.
is so finethatone
"Pike County"dialect,wherethe differentiation
mustwonderwhat the authorhoped the novelcould gain fromit.
In thisregardit is worthnotingthatthespeakersof threeofthefour
modifiedvarietiesof the "Pike County"dialect-the thieveson the
Loafers-are morally
Sir WalterScott,theKing, and theBricksville
fromHuck's
and,in addition,thattheirspeechdiffers
reprehensible,
normallyfoundin thespeechoftheblacksin the
byvirtueoffeatures
Loafers'gwyne,forexample,occurselsewhere
novel.The Bricksville
in thenovelonlyin thespeechofslaves.The samecan be said forthe
King's palatalization,whichin the manuscriptis also givento the
thieveson the Sir WalterScott (see note io). This last groupalso
similarto thosewherer is lostin
losesr in phoneticenvironments
Jim'sspeech(befo',yo'), whereasHuck veryrarelylosesr and never
losesitword-finally
whippowill).One's firstthought
(e.g.,stabboard,
is thatit is surprising
thatClemens,in a novel concernedwithexvalues of society,calls upon
posingweaknessesin the conventional
dialects-to"lower"
thosevaluesin thewayhe taintsthesecharacters'
ofblackspeech.But in doingthis
themhe drawsthemwithfeatures
linguisticrealityin his time and,
Clemenswas merelyreflecting
ruralwhites
indeed,in thepresentcentury:thespeechof lower-class
332
American Literature
In
in theSouthsharesa greatdeal withthe speechof blacks.22
andr-lessness
are-forboth
palatalization,
Finn,gwyne,
Huckleberry
signalsof low socialstatus,and-for
blacksand whites-physical
morals.Thesewhite
signalsof"substandard"
only-physical
whites
but
theydo notshare
dialect,
of
Jim's
something
mayshare
characters
inhisgoodness.
in this
to recognizethe showmanship
Finally,it is important
and in theattention
dialectaldifferentiation
seven-way
ambitious,
Finnin the
theauthorcallsto it. Clemenscomposed
Huckleberry
and no doubthe
literature,
dialectin American
of literary
heyday
with
wantedto showwhathe toowas capableof doing,especially
dialect
thathehelpedtocreate.
the"PikeCounty"
22 Walt Wolfram,"The Relationship

of White SouthernSpeech to VernacularBlack
English,"Language,L (Sept.,1974), 498-527.

David Carkeet The Dialects in Huckleberry Finn

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The Dialects in Huckleberry Finn

Author(s): David Carkeet

Clemens?That is,in his lexiconwhatwas themeaningof "dialect,"

disguise;"Sir WalterScott"refersto thedialectspokenby thethree

forgit(i), git (2), yit (2)

8 It is highlydebatablethat Clemenscould have been referring

*h-yer(here, 2), k'yer (care, 2),

Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas

*s'I (saysI, 26), sh-she(saysshe,

This listshowsreal dialectaldifferences.

more thandialectfromHarris'sstory.A workingnote writtenby

nonstandardsystemsonly. Second, Aunt Polly and Tom Sawyer

"Pike." Clemensfurtherhighlightsthe geographicalindefiniteness

Johnson'sOriginal Comic Songs (San Francisco,

not show and thatcan occasionallybe foundin earlyPike County

King Solomon discussion);chaps. 22-43

(Colonel Sherburn'sspeech in Bricksvilleend)

Finn afteran interrupWhen Clemensreturnedto Huckleberry

writtenin the summerof I883 says,"Huck saysNuther,"

bile 'boil' (5), pison'poison'(3), pint'point'(I)

then,is thatwhileitis notthecasethatthereare

Ordinary"Pike County":Huck, Tom, Aunt Polly,Ben Rogers,

22 Walt Wolfram,"The Relationship

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