I
From Proto Indo European ego, which is also the ancestor of Latin ego. The Latin ego simply meant “I”, but was picked up by psychoanalysts in the early 20th century to mean one part of the Self. Ego in Proto Indo European became ekan in Proto Germanic, and then ic in Old English (compare ich in German). Then, around 1100, dialects in the north of England began to shorten ic to i, for unknown reasons. This dialect change slowly spread southward. Ich and ek could still be found occasionally in the north, especially before vowels (e.g. I like apples vs. Ich/ek ate an apple), as late as 1400, and in the south as late as the 1700’s. I has been capitalized since about 1250 in order to distinguish it clearly in handwritten manuscripts.
The standard phonosemantic meaning of the long “i” is an expansive, roomy energy, particularly oriented toward mind and art. It may be that this reflects the usual British/American attitude that the self is something oriented toward reason and creativity. Emotions, after all, are things that the “I” has to deal with, control, or experience; they’re not really thought of as part of the “I” itself. Contrast that with the Old English conception of “I” — ic – a light, tense energy that is contained (presumably contained in your body), or the Latin conception of “I” — ego – which is a hard-working, grounded energy. Also, in our own time, there are the varying pronunciations found in dialects, such as the “I” of the Southeastern United States — pronounced more like ah – a balanced, flat energy. These pronunciations may reflect a great deal about self-image in these societies.
July 26th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Um… are we talkin low-country South Carolina / Georgia, because we’re quite a bit more nasal than that in hills of Tennessee. The last time I heard anyone say “ah” it was an eighty-year-old woman from Vidalia.
Now, I know you can’t be lumping the whole richly varied Southeastern US into some “Miss Scarlet goes to Hollywood” sound bite…
(just funnin’ with ya)
Fascinating and informative stuff about the literal connection to “ego.”
July 26th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Well, if you want to get technical…
You’re absolutely right — the Southeast has any number of dialects, ranging from the broad, low, slow, almost r-less Mississippian to the high, fast, clipped brogue of the Carolina Tidewater; and the range is spread socially as well as geographically. In one county in North Carolina that I studied in graduate school, there are three quite distinct dialects — one spoken by the whites, one by the blacks, and one by the Lumbee Indians.
Nevertheless — and you saw this coming — almost all of these dialects have certain features in common, due to their common shared history and extensive contact; and one of those features is the flattening of the dipthong in “I”. Standard English “I” is pronounced as two vowels in one: starting with “ah” and tightening and rising up to “ee” in one quick, fluid tongue movement. Southeastern US English has dropped the “ee”, leaving just the “ah”. They may pronounce it fast or slow, nasal or oral, maybe a little more like the “a” in bat, maybe a little more like the “au” in caught, but always as a single pure vowel sound, rather than a dipthong.
So yeah, I was simplifying — you caught me! But the essentials were correct.
July 26th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Thank you for that eloquent rebuttal!
I love the personal attention — but wouldn’t want to meet you on a YouTube debate!
PS - especially digging the illustration on this one!
July 26th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Well, this is linguistics. It’s what I do for a living…
Slade, this may sound like a stupid question: do you have a Southern accent? Is it strong?
Not everyone who grows up in the South has an accent.
I grew up in the South, just like you, and you’ve heard me speak: my accent is almost nonexistent. This wasn’t a conscious decision on my part; my accent has always been very weak. I never knew why until I took sociolinguistics in college.
(The reason is very long — I don’t have time to lay it out now…)
July 30th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
As someone who’s actually sat down and spoken with you, I can attest to the lack of southern accent on your part.
I look forward to the reasons you don’t have the accent. I know you explained it to me, but that was a million years ago. And I want to remember it.
July 31st, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Nio, I can lay it out pretty briefly: the accent you have is USUALLY associated with a group of people you aspire (consciously or subconsciously) to identify yourself with. So in my case, I knew I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in North Carolina; and I subconsciously modeled my speech on General American. My sister grew up in the same house, but has a very strong southern accent, and she lives within twenty miles of the apartment we grew up in.
Having said that: this is a statistical generalization, and won’t hold true for every word you say.
August 1st, 2007 at 11:14 am
I wonder…
Does your wife speak with an accent? How about your kids?
August 1st, 2007 at 4:50 pm
No, not really. Emily grew up in communities with no strong accent. The kids picked up nothing from their three years in the Buffalo area. Most of the people we’ve met in western Mass are not actually from here, so they have a wide mix of dialects, but mostly General American, so the kids won’t pick up much from them…
Although I have heard the children belt out something strongly Southern every once in a while. I can only assume that I slip back into Suthun when I get angry or something.
August 4th, 2007 at 7:31 am
The Exchange had a show, about a year ago, on how the New Hampshire accent is getting more regional, not less so. The reason is because so many people move here from elsewhere, I think. Pretty interesting listen. Here’s the link.
August 5th, 2007 at 12:32 am
In some parts of the Appalacian Mountains of North Carolina, back in the early 1970’s when I lived in Asheville, there were still small groups of mountain people that spoke Elizabethan English. I was priviledged once to meet a family that had come down out of the mountains to visit Asheville. I had heard about them but this was my only meeting with any of them. It was amazing hearing them speak with thee and thou, just like William Shakepeare.
My husband and I both grew up in northwest Louisiana. I have been told that I don’t have an accent. My husband passed himself off to college girls as Scandanavian back when we were young and in college. They believed him because of his accent. He is the only person in his family that sounds the way he does. I attribute it to a hearing loss that he got as a child.
When I hear myself talk on the answering machine, I think it is my sister talking. Odd, how we sound differently to ourselves. Have a glorious day.
August 6th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Nio: Thanks for the tip!
Patricia: Thanks for your comments. Accents are a fascinating topic, aren’t they? American English in general preserves some features of Shakespearian English that British English has lost — for example, Americans consistently pronounce their “r”’s, as Shakespeare did, while most other English dialects drop them in certain contexts. On the other hand, American English does some things that Shakespeare didn’t: we tend to pronounce “t” like “d” when it appears between vowels, e.g. “water”, while other English dialects do not.