The American Elizabethan Accent in the Ocracoke Brogue

Abstract

To some ears, the Ocracoke “Brogue,” an unusual accent of Ocracoke (North Carolina) sounds Shakespearean. Data from interviews with three Ocracoke Brogue speakers and Wolfram’s Ocracoke Brogue documentary informed this study. In the context of the Brogue’s background, key samples from Wolfram’s film revealed that though Ocracoke speakers tended towards centralization and backing of vowel realizations, monophthongization tended to be the chief remnant of Original Pronunciation of Shakespeare’s English. Influences on linguistic changes in the context of tourism and climate change were considered. Future study on the Croatoan language and comparison of Australian accents to the Ocracoke Brogue were inspired by this research.