Southern Illinois - Culture

Culture

Culturally, Southern Illinois draws influences from the rest of Illinois but also from neighboring Missouri and Upper Southern states like Kentucky and Tennessee. The immigration route from the east coast ran along the Ohio River, which joined settlements on both sides. In addition, the Cumberland River flowed northwest through Kentucky and Tennessee before joining the Ohio near Paducah, Kentucky, affording a migration route from the interior of those states. Thus, settlers who came to Southern Illinois were from Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, with most of these being of northern English and Scots-Irish descent, who formed the last major migration from the British Isles to the colonies before the Revolutionary War, and settled mostly in the backcountry. Some migrated further west into Missouri. A road between Golconda and Jonesboro carried settlers and commerce across Southern Illinois, as well as the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears.

Little Egypt exists at the confluence of the North Midland and South Midland dialects of American English. South Midland becomes more prominent as one approaches the Ohio River. The dialect change is not a continuum, but rather occurs in pockets, with certain towns and regions notably favoring one dialect over the other. This difference can be found between lifelong residents of the same town. No stigma is associated to either dialect within southern Illinois. According to David Hackett Fischer in his book Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways to America, the dialect of this region is Southern Highland. It was derived from the linguistics of the people of the Southern Appalachian region. This is consistent with the majority of the early settlers of this region migrating from the Upper South. The older term for this type of dialect was "Scotch-Irish" speech (the correct term today is Scots-Irish.)