Dear Sandy and Joe,

Yes, I am interested in the Jack Tales and Grandfather Tales, which I intend to look into presently. Thank you both for reccommending them. ( And thanks for the [faint] praise, Joe, regarding Uncle Remus; I'll try to be better prepared when next we meet.) The thing of it is, however, that the dialects in these works are akin, but not identical to, the one with which I am familiar from childhood.

It is a common perception by those outside an area to hear the similarities rather than the differences in various accents from that area. For example, I can differentiate a Boston accent from a Maine accent, but beyond that, I would have to defer to a student of New England regional dialects.

However, I can tell a great deal more about the subtle differences between dialects from my own region. (My mother once boasted to a "Yankee" acquaintance who claimed that "all Southern accents sound alike," that she could tell by a Virginian's speech, not only whether he had been reared in town or country, tidewater or piedmont, but his locale and level of education, how long his family had resided in the state, and their approximate income back three generations.)

I keep hoping to turn up source material specific to the dialect of the long-time denizens of the Virginia Blue Ridge, even though I know this is a very narrow search, and the prospects rather dim. But many thanks for trying.

Sincerely,

Shula