:: Linguistic Galapagos ::

Thursday, December 19, 2002

I took a few linguistics classes in college, and I distinctly remember watching a video about an island off the coast of Virginia where the comparative isolation had partially frozen the local vernacular for several hundred years. The residents spoke English, but in a dialect similar to that used in England’s western counties centuries ago. For some reason, it popped into my head, and I went searching for it.

It turns out that the extreme isolation (it’s still a 45 minute boat ride away from the mainland) of Tangier Island has some other side effects, namely a rabid fervor for the lord and its very own genetic disorder. This is what happens when 75% of the present population still descends from one of the original four founding families.

Negative traits aside, it’s sad to find out that the island is suffering socially, economically, and geographically. More and more of the high school seniors are heading off to college, creating rifts in the erstwhile tight social fabric fostered by the remote environment. Virginia recently tightened its policies for issuing fishing licenses, which, for a community where 98% of the residents earn their living in one way or another from the sea, is devastating. Add to this that the island is eroding at a frightening pace (the average shoreline contraction now stands at 25 feet per year, and the island wasn’t that large to begin with), and it looks like one of the stranger linguistic petri dishes in recent memory will soon vanish.

On the other hand, there’s a 15mph speed limit, and you can’t buy liquor anywhere on the island. Screw ‘em.

Posted by morland @ 01:45 PM

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