Editing Harkers Island, North Carolina (section)

==Local dialect==
With a long history of physical and economic isolation from mainland North Carolina, residents of Harkers Island and other Outer Banks islands, such as [[Ocracoke, North Carolina|Ocracoke]], have developed a distinct [[dialect]] of [[English language|English]], commonly referred to as [[High tider]], that can be traced back to that of the [[Early Modern English|Elizabethan period]]. The dialect of Harkers Island developed in almost complete isolation for over 250 years. Harkers Island English shares features with other regional dialects of the US Atlantic coast. [[Pronunciation]], [[vocabulary]], and [[English grammar|grammatical constructions]] can be traced to eastern and southwestern England.<ref name="prioli"/> The dialect has survived because the community continues to depend on traditional trades, like fishing, boat building, and decoy carving, and the coastal tourism trade developed on Harkers Island much later than islands like Ocracoke.<ref name="ncllp">North Carolina Life and Language Project (2006). ''Linguistics at North Carolina State: Harkers Island''. Retrieved July 28, 2006.</ref><ref name="ldsccpi">Linguistic Diversity in the South (2004). ''Linguistic Diversity in the South: Changing Codes, Practices and Ideology''. (University of Georgia Press: Bender, et al.)</ref>

Pronunciation in Harkers Island English can be different from the English spoken in the rest of the United States. "High tide" spoken in Harkers Island English might sound like "hoi toide", "time" sounds like "toime", "fish" is pronounced close to "feesh", "fire" sounds like "far", and "cape" is pronounced "ca'e". Words with "oi" substitute the pronunciation "er": "Toilet" sounds like "terlet". Words with a short "a" substitute [[schwa]]: "crabs" become "crebs". Words beginning with "i" frequently receive a prefix aspirated "h": "it" becomes "hit". Words ending in a vowel are frequently suffixed with an "r". The traditional word for a porch across the width of a building, "piazza", loses the "t" of the Italian pronunciation and becomes "poyzer".

Thus, "Hit's so hot the [[Callinectes sapidus|blue crebs]] hev come up on the poyzer to git in the shade," and "hit was so rough there were whiteceps in the terlet." Another phrase is "The [[oyster|ersters]] hev arroived;" the large fish with a prominent dorsal fin is a "sherk". The island dialect has also retained anachronistic vocabulary in regular usage. Some examples include "mommick", meaning to frustrate or bother, "yethy", describing stale or unpleasant odor, and "nicket", meaning a pinch of something used as in cooking. The islanders have also developed unique local words used in regular conversation, including "dingbatter" to refer to a visitor or recent arrival to the island, and "dit-dot," a term developed from a joke about [[Morse code]], and used to describe any visitor to the island who has difficulty understanding the local dialect.<ref name="prioli"/>

As many as 500 islanders on Harkers Island are directly descended from the Harkers Island and Outer Banks settlers that developed this distinct dialect. [[Linguistics|Linguists]] from [[North Carolina State University]], [[East Carolina University]], and other academic institutions continue to conduct research on the island dialect.<ref name="ncllp"/>