What's in a word?
A lot, says Michigan Tech grad and linguist
By John Gagnon
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stories Additional Work For more information,
e-mail: There is an old story about
two Finnish foot soldiers in a foxhole during the 1939 Winter War between
Finland and Russia.
“They say we’re outnumbered
forty to one,” one soldier says.
“Where we gonna bury ‘em
all?” asks the other.
That indomitable makeup is
said to be characteristic of Finns, and it is described by the word sisu,
which is untranslatable but suggests a dogged determination to prevail
over adversity.
Remlinger wants to document
that kind of language and, accordingly, has embarked on a study of UP
dialect, which is as valuable to her as an artifact is to an archeologist.
“No one here has ever
done a study like this,” she says. “Dialect disappears as minority
cultures assimilate to mainstream culture. Some of that’s happening
here. We can’t preserve the way people talk, but we can at least
get it on paper and make a record of what’s here before it’s
gone.”
What’s here is distinctive
and as varied as the Cornish pasty, the French chuke, the Swedish yah,
the Finnish sauna makkara (ring bologna).
All of it is a wonder to Remlinger.
A native of Ohio, she earned a PhD in rhetoric and technical communications
from Michigan Tech and teaches linguistics at Grand Valley State University.
She is on sabbatical to complete the dialect project, the seed of which
was planted a few years ago in Painesdale. She and some friends were involved
in “a talk about talk—the ehs, heys, you betchas, and holy whah’s—and
my friends said, ‘Why don’t you study this?’ ”
So she did, starting in 2000.
She has interviewed people of different ages, both genders, and representing
different religions, occupations, social classes, ethnic groups, and locations.
(People in Negaunee talk differently than people in Calumet, she says.).
So far she has interviewed 70 people, and she will add to that this summer.
The project has been word-of-mouth, a friend steering her to a friend.
She allows that she’s a little heavy on the Finnish flavor because
it is so pronounced in northern Michigan, but she is trying to balance
her inquiry with interviews of French-Canadians, Cornish, and other nationalities.
Amid all the varying influences,
there is a underlying pattern. “This dialect is based on rules,“
she says, “and it’s very systematic. Sounds aren’t willy-nilly.
Language is used in certain ways for a reason.”
She notes, for instance, a
recurring sentence structure, such as Let’s go mall, or, I’m
going post office. Both statements drop the preposition to and the article
the. Chalk that phrasing up to the Finnish influence because Finnish,
Remlinger says, has no preposition like the English to and there are no
articles at all.
She’s interested in more
than just language and speech patterns. “I’m interested in how
people’s backgrounds affect the language that they use,” she
says. “My work is not just linguistic. It has a strong social focus.”
She’s especially interested
in attitudes about dialect—whether negative or positive. She encounters
both, for instance, with the word Yooper. The term for a native of the
UP can come with baggage. Local to local, it’s an acceptable term,
often humorous. Outsider about local, it’s suspect, often derisive.
Another social trend is the
disappearance of bi-lingual people. Most immigrant languages lasted only
a generation or two on American soil, she says. The exception: Finnish,
which persists to this day.
The proliferation of foreign
influences on English is a product of the melting pot culture. In the
Copper Country alone in the late 1800s, Remlinger says, there were twelve
foreign-language newspapers being published. English proved adaptive.
“Two-thirds of our vocabulary is borrowed from other languages,”
Remlinger says. “English is a real mutt language.”
One local contribution to the
blend—pank—transcends ethnic influences. “You pank down
your laundry in the basket so you can put more in,” Remlinger says.
“You pank down your berries so you can fit more in the bucket. In
the mines, they panked the powder into the holes before they blasted.”
The word at once excites and befuddles her. “Where did that come
from?” she wonders. “Maybe it’s a word that’s just
here.” She has never come across it before, although she has studied
seven languages other than English: German, French, Ojibway, Hindi, Spanish,
Latin, and Finnish.
Language has been a passion
for Remlinger ever since she was a child of four studying German. Her
enthusiasm usually rubs off on the people she interviews. “Most people
are excited and helpful,” she says. A few, she adds, are “leery”
about her purpose. “They fear I’m going to make fun of them
or be critical.” Her intention is just the opposite. “This isn’t
bad English,” she says of UP dialect. “It’s just a different
kind of English.”
Her winning approach with all
the people she interviews is to show a sincere interest in their interests.
She likes to get people talking about their enthusiasms, whether ballet
or bird hunting. Personal topics elicit more natural speech, she’s
learned.
She hopes her work creates
an awareness and appreciation of language, social structure, and social
change. “If I can help maintain a sense of pride in the local culture—that
whole sisu thing—I think I’ll have done a good job,” she
says.
Whatever results, the work
remains a labor of love. Remlinger cherishes the area and the people.
“This is my second home,: she says. “I’m a wannabe Yooper.
My whole project is my love for the area.”
Photo: As part of
her research on U.P. dialect, Kate Remlinger (left), a linguist who graduated
from Michigan Tech, has interviewed 70 people, including three generations
of the Shirley (Ojala) Anderson family. Pictured above are Anderson (right),
her daughter Kathy Abbott (center), and three of Abbott’s children.
They are of Finnish origin and live in the Houghton area. (Photo previously
published on www.keweenawnow.com,
copyright Keweenaw Now, reprinted with permission)
B&W
photos courtesy of
Michigan Tech Archives/
Copper Country Historical Collection
Glossary
Linguist
revels in and
respects UP dialect
Beth
Simon of Indiana University-Purdue University has researched the historical
aspects of language use in the area--that is, how speakers of other
languages learned English, and how they learned reading and writing.
remlingk@gvsu.edu
vbergval@mtu.edu
simon@ipfw.edu
Sisu,
says linguist Kate Remlinger, is a telltale word. “The way people
talk is a reflection of their world view, their history, and their upbringing,”
she says, noting that the word sisu has been transported from Finland
to the UP and depicts “a strong sense of pride and hardiness”
that infuses local culture.
Gender
also matters in dialect. Females, she says, generally speak more mainstream
language than males. One reason: Females tend to work in a wider community
and interact more with the public. In contrast, men working on the farm
or in the bush have less need to accommodate to other speakers and less
need to be accepted by the public. Her efforts, then, are sandwiched between
two realities: mainstream pressure that dilutes dialect, and a persistence,
even growth, of dialect among young working class men tied to the area.
This dual influence dovetails with other linguistic studies around the
country, Remlinger says.
Meanwhile,
she has an alphabet soup of material to study and make sense of. She figures
it might be a lifelong project because of its scope (to name four possible
approaches: dialect description, dialect change, family history (she interviewed
three generations in several families, for instance); and everyday life.