German accents to their English. In the South there are several accents and dialects from the unreproducible accent of deep Alabama to the mellifluous drawl of Mississippi and the more nasal Scots-Irish of Appalachia. The Brown County accent and dialect has a lot of Scots- Irish influence leavened with the English spoken by settlers from New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
One of the reasons for the homogeneity of our dialect is that for seventy years or more Brown County was left to its own devices with interference from few outsiders. So its culture and language was a little more immune to the forces of modernization. On the topic of modernization and Brown County it seems that there were two things happening in Indiana around the turn of the twentieth century.
One was the discovery of Brown County by artists from the outside and the other was a movement of writers in Indiana to take up writing in dialect.
I think everybody knows about James Whitcomb Riley who wrote poetry about rural life. And there was Frank Hohenberger. Brown County knows him primarily as a photographer but Hohenberger also wrote a column for the Indianapolis Star entitled“ From Down in the Hills O’
Brown County” in which he would often quote the natives in the dialect they spoke. One feller who picked up on and cashed in on the Brown county dialect was Frank McKinney Hubbard, better known as Kin Hubbard.
Kin was a newspaper cartoonist for the Indianapolis News and syndicated in newspapers across the country. In 1904 Kin introduced the world to the quintessential Brown Countian, a feller named Abe Martin. Abe didn’ t have any fixed address at first, but in February of 1905 he up and announced,“ I’ m goin’ ter move ter Brown County tewmorrow.” So he did and as far as I know he is still lurkin’ in the hills somewhere.
The thing about Abe is that he was born with a native genius for wisecracks but he delivered them not in an urbane, city-slicker parlance, but in the dialect of the folks who lived in the hills. Abe once opined,“ I don’ t think much of a dance where th’ girl looks like she wuz bein’ carried out of a burnin’ buildin’.”
Abe was a first-rate fencepost philosopher and if you happen to strike up a conversation with a Brown Countian you can still hear echoes of Abe in their dialect and their native wisdom. •
Food F d served d until 9 pm every night Late night menu on Fri. & Sat. 9-11 Kids welcome until 9 pm
Outdoor O patio area with stunning view
Located at Salt Creek Golf Course lower level • 2359 State Road 46 East, Nashville, IN Open 7 days a week • 812-988-4323 • www. saltcreekgolf. com
May / June 2019 • Our Brown County 61