Mann/English 11
Name __________________________________ Period __________
Dialect in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Dialect: a variety of language spoken by members of a geographical region or social class or group
Dialects may differ in pronunciation, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, idioms, and expressions.
People often confuse accent with dialect
 An accent is the phonetic habits of a speaker’s native language. It deals with vocal sounds.
 Dialects may exist among a group of people who are all native speakers of the same language.
Dialect deals with word choice.
 Only a couple of dialects are introduced in the beginning of the book. Look for others as you read
further.
1. Do you have a dialect or vary your speech patterns at times? If so, are there times when it is more
appropriate to use Standard English? Explain.
ACTIVITY #1
Directions: Read the passage below and underline the expressions that are not in use in Standard
English today. Translate the dialogue from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn into modern Standard
English dialogue.
Some thought it would be good to kill the families of the boys that told the secrets. Tom said it was a good
idea, so he took a pencil and wrote it in. Then Ben Rogers says:
“Here’s Huck Finn, he hain’t got no family; what you going to do ‘bout him?”
“Well, hain’t he got a father?” says Tom Sawyer.
“Yes, he’s got a father, but he hain’t been seen in these parts for a year or more.”
“They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they aid every boy must have a family or
somebody to kill… so I offered them Miss Watson—they could ill her. Everybody said:
“Oh, she’ll do. That’s all right. Huck can come in.”
Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with, and I made my mark on the paper.
“Now,” says Ben Rogers, “what’s the line of business of this Gang?”
“Nothing only robbery and murder,” Tom said.
“But who are we going to rob?—houses, or cattle, or—“
Mann/English 11
Name __________________________________ Period __________
“Stuff! Stealing cattle and such things ain’t robbery; it’s burglary,” says Tom Sawyer. “We ain’t burglars.
That ain’t no sort of style. We are highwayman. We stop stages and carriages on the road with masks on,
and kill the people and take their watches and money.”
“Must we always kill the people?”
“Oh, certainly. It’s best, except some that you bring to the cave here, and keep them till they’re ransomed.”
“Ransomed? What’s that?”
“Well, I don’t know. But that’s what they do. I’ve seen it in books; and so of course that’s what we’ve got to
do.”
“But how can we do it if we don’t know what it is?”
“Why blame it all, we’ve GOT to do it Don’t I tell you it’s in te books? Do you want to go to doing different
from what’s in the books, and get things all muddled up?”
ACTIVITY #2
Directions: Translate the three paragraphs below into dialogue (conversation) using the dialect the boys
were using in the book. You may decide who is speaking to whom and exactly what words they say to
each other, but you need to clearly convey the meaning of each of the three paragraphs.
Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him up he was scared and cried, and said he
wanted to go home to his ma, and didn’t want to be a robber any more.
So they all made fun of him, and called him crybaby, and that made him mad, and he said he would go
straight and tell all the secrets. But Tom give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all go home
and meet next week, and rob somebody and kill some people.
Ben Rogers said he couldn’t get out much, only Sundays, and so he wanted to begin next Sunday; but all
the boys said it would be wicked to do it on Sunday, and that settled the thing. They agreed to get
together and fix a day as soon as they could, and then we started home.
Mann/English 11
Name __________________________________ Period __________
After completing the dialogue for these paragraphs, answer the following questions:
2. What is the author’s purpose for including the dialects portrayed in the novel?
3. How is the use of dialect important to the overall understanding of the time period and the people
who lived in this part of the country during this time?
4. It is generally known that Twain included four distinct dialects in The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn. Why do you think he included all four different dialects, instead of having everyone sound
the same?
5. How does dialect contribute to characterization?
ACTIVITY #3
Directions: What are some specific speech patterns/dialects you find in the state of Utah? What words
do we say differently or what phrases do we use that aren’t used elsewhere?
Write the following paragraph into something that would resemble UTAH dialect. Note how Twain wrote
some of his words differently so you get the idea of how they would be spoken, you may need to do this.
Driving from Layton, you can look east toward the mountains and see their beauty. A hike up Farmington
canyon will yield a creek or two as well as give you a feeling of being in the great outdoors.
Mann/English 11
Name __________________________________ Period __________
ACTIVITY #4
Directions: Translate Jim’s dialect into Standard English.
6. Dey’s two gals flyin’ ‘bout you in yo’ life. One is rich en ‘tother is po’. You’s twine to marry de po’ on
fust en de rich one by-en-by. You wants to keep ‘way fum de water.
7. De bes’ way is to res’ easy and let de ole man take his own way…A body can’t tell, yit, which one
gwyne to fetch him at las’.
8. You gwyne to have considerable trouble in yo’ life, en considerable joy. Smetimes you gwyne to git
hurt, en sometimes you gyne to get sick…
ACTIVITY #5
Directions: Taking into consideration all of these activities, answer the questions below.
From The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
NOTICE
PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a
moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR
Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.
EXPLANATORY
In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the
backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary “Pike County” dialect; and four modified varieties of this
last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and
with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.
I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these
characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.
THE AUTHOR
Mann/English 11
Name __________________________________ Period __________
9. Read Twain’s “Explanatory” above and answer the following questions:
a. What does Twain mean by “The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by
guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal
familiarity with these several forms of speech”?
b. Based on Twain’s quote above, it is obvious that it was important to him to master the
various dialects. What do you suppose was his purpose in using different dialects?
c. Why would Twain not want readers to “suppose that all these characters were trying to
talk alike and not succeeding”?
10. Does Huck’s dialect suggest anything about him in terms of education or intelligence? Explain.
11. Could Huck’s dialect cause him to be viewed as an unreliable narrator?
12. What would be the effect if Huck, or all of the characters, spoke in Standard English throughout
the novel?