Boontling- A Dying American Dialect

By Ben • culture • 2 Mar 2013

In the village of Boonville, CA, an original American dialect is down to 12 speakers and is in danger of dying out.

Buckey Walter- the Boontling term for a telephone, named after the first resident in the town who owned a phone.

"TIME’s Timothy Tyler provides some examples of how local people inspired words: 'It was more fun to call coffee zeese, because it recalled old Z.C., a cook who made coffee so strong you could float an egg on it,' he writes. 'Or to call working ottin’, after an industrious logger named Otto.' Legend has it that the verb for taking a woman to bed became burlap because one day someone walked into the general store and found the clerk getting down with a young lady on a pile of sacks."

Boontling from San Francisco Chronicle on Vimeo.

I found another video of some native speakers on YouTube:

from Kimmies Harpin' Boontling: A Dying American Dialect?
via Mental Floss

video: Boontling in Boonville

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