Talk:Oklahoma dialect

Sources

Several sources have been added to assist in rescuing this article. Unfortunately all of these sources are problematic.

• The book Okie Dictionary, the web page of the same name, and the Wall Street Survivor chat post are all works of humor and come nowhere near being reliable sources.
• The Dialect Survey is a reliable source on dialect variation in the United States, but it does not discuss an "Okie Dialect" nor Oklahoma as a distinct dialect region. It does allow readers to break out its raw data by state, but these data merely show that Oklahoma speakers report usage seen in Midland American English and Southern American English.
• The Oklahoma Historical Society web page comes closest to being a reliable source, but it simply reviews work on American English accents that are seen in Oklahoma. Again, it does not suggest that anything called "Okie Dialect" exists, nor that Oklahoma comprises a distinct dialect region.

Furthermore, despite being listed as References, none of these works are cited in the article.

I would also point out that the word Okie is ambiguous. It refers to a person from Oklahoma, but is also used to refer to any migrant from the Midwest or South living in California or elsewhere in the West. Merle Haggard, listed here as a recorded Okie, is in fact from Bakersfield, California. Cnilep (talk) 16:45, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I get two academic resources specifically on the Oklahoma people[1] and dialect[2], though neither of them are word-scanned so I can't tell offhand if they actually call it the "Okie Dialect". There is a "Linguistic Atlas of Oklahoma" mentioned in the first one. However, there are innumerable sources[3] on The Grapes of Wrath, referring specifically to the Okie dialect therein - one interesting reference is on how one translates[4] such a dialect into other languages. A linguist specializing in American/European rural communities would probably be a good guy to ask about formal recognition of this as a distinct subdialect. SamuelRiv (talk) 22:28, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for finding these, SamuelRiv. I've skimmed Stein (1970), your first linked PDF. It describes the social and economic effects of New Deal work camps for "Okies" in the sense of migrants to California from the Midwest. It does not discuss an Okie dialect, but it does mention that Farm Security Administration workers regarded Okie culture as "quaint" and quotes this from an FSA manuscript:

"Hear? Well, if you have an ear for language, you would be interested in following dialects, in identifying Old English songs and phrases which have survived generations."

That's the only reference to dialects that I found in my quick skimming, and it doesn't seem to suggest that there was a single Okie dialect. I didn't find reference to Linguistic Atlas of Oklahoma - did I miss a footnote or something? I will check out the other PDF later if I have time. Cnilep (talk) 19:34, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Merge suggestions?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

After this discussion, content on Oklahoma dialect was merged to Southern American English. Content on Steinbeck's use of 'Okie' forms was not merged. Cnilep (talk) 19:00, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

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The admin who closed the AfD discussion for this article wrote, "The result was keep, with a merge discussion highly encouraged on the article's talk page."

Possible merge targets discussed at AfD include Southern American English, which was explicitly suggested by two discussants, and Midland American English, which was also mentioned but not really argued for.

Are there other possible targets for merger? Or on the other hand, are there strong arguments against merging? Cnilep (talk) 20:34, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

• My personal suggestion would be to merge to Southern American English, specifically the section "Midland and Highland". Oklahoma speech is frequently discussed as "South Midland", which is the name of a current sub-section ("South Midland or Highland Southern") where Oklahoma is mentioned. Cnilep (talk) 20:34, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
• I would favor a redirect to Southern American English. Since this article has no content supported by reliable, academic sources, however, there's nothing to merge there. +Angr 20:49, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Merge revisited

With reference to this discussion, the article has demonstrated that it has support for a stand-alone article. The merge suggestion above was not fully discussed. The merge and redirect has been reversed as it does not reflect the consensus of the AfD. Moorsmur (talk) 18:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

While it is unfortunate that not everyone involved in the AfD chose to discuss the merger here, the people who did discuss it clearly agreed it should be merged. Combining both the AfD discussion and the merge discussion, it's clear there is consensus that this should not be a stand-alone article. —Angr (talk) 20:39, 22 August 2010 (UTC)