Deciphering Dialects in Huckleberry Finn
Henderson
A dialect is a provincial, rural, or socially distinct variety of a language that deviates from “standard” or “acceptable” use. Dialect is often dictated by geography or social class, and is often considered substandard.
Part I: Dialect exercise
This should help you get better acquainted with the antebellum Missouri dialects featured in the novel. Attempt to “translate” each quote from (nonstandard) English to (standard) English. Use context clues to translate words that are unfamiliar to you. [Tip: reading the quotes aloud helps!]
1. Huck: “Pap he hadn’t been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me; I didn’t want to see him no more. He used to always whale me when he was sober and could get his hands on me…”
2. Jim: “A body can’t tell, yit, which one gwyne to fetch him at de las’. But you is all right. You gwyne have considable trouble in yo’ life, and considable joy.”
3. Huck: “Every little while he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky and fetched it home and got drunk and had a good time, and licked me.”
4. Huck: “I never see a man look so wild in the eyes. Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell down panting…”
5. Pap: “They call that govment! A man can’t get his rights in a govment like this.”
6. The Dauphin: “Well, I’d ben a-runnin’ a little temperance revival thar, ‘bout a week, and was the pet of the women-folks, big and little, for I was makin’ it mighty warm for the rummies, I tell you, and takin’ as much as five or six dollars a night…”
7. Townsperson: “Gimme a chaw ‘v tobacker, Hank.”
8. Jim: “Doan’ hurt me – don’t! I hain’t ever done no harm to a ghos’. I awluz liked dead people, en done all I could for ‘em. You go en git in de river agin, whah you b’longs, en doan’ do nuffin to Ole Jim, ‘at ‘uz awluz yo’ fren.”
9. Miss Hotchkiss: “Here sich n’ sich a person busted his heart; n’ here so n’ so pegged along for thirty-seven year, n’ all that – natcherl son o’Louis somebody, n’ sich everlast’n rubbage.”
10. Jim: “You take a man dat’s got on’y one er two chillen; is dat man gwyne be waseful o’chillen? No, he aint; he can’t ‘ford it.”
Part II: Malapropism
A malapropism is a ridiculous misuse of words. In literature, it can be used to characterize somebody as foolish, uneducated, or fraudulent.
Exercise:
For each quote, define the underlined portion (the malapropism). Then decide what you think the speaker MEANT to say!
11. The Dauphin: “That’s why they’re invited here this evenin’; but to-morrow we want all to come – everybody; for he respected everybody, he liked everybody, and so it’s fitten that his funeral orgies sh’d be public.”
12. Huck: “The river was a mile wide, there, and it always looks pretty on a summer morning – so I was having a good enough time seeing them hunt for my remainders, if I only had a bite to eat.”
13. Huck [describing the Duke and Dauphin at a funeral]: Well, by-and-by the king he gets up and comes forward a little, and works himself up and slobbers out a speech, all full of tears and flapdoodle about its being a sore trial for him and his poor brother to lose the diseased, and to miss seeing diseased alive…”
14. Aunt Sally: “I was most putrified with astonishment.”
15. Huck: “The duke never let on he suspicioned what was up, but just went a goo-gooing around…”