Vocabulary into IPA

 

1. Fetch - fɛtʃ 

2. Reckon -rɛkən

3. Skiff - skɪf

4. Onery - anɛnri

5. Palaver - pælevər

6. Yonder -jandər 

7. Loll - lal

8. Forlorn -fərlɔrn

9. Contrite -kəntrajt

10. Bodkin -badkɪn

11. Scoundrel -skawndrəl

12. Addle -ædəl

13. Mayn't -men't

14. Sich -sətʃ

15. K'n -kænn't

16. Warn't -wɔrn't

17. Fire-faced -fajər- fest

18. Sivilize -sɪvəlajz

19. Nobody -nobadi

20. A-going -e-goɪŋ

21. Injun -əndʒən

22. Monstrous -manstrəs

23. Nohow -nohaw

24. Hifalut'n -hajfalut'ən

25. T'other -tu'əðər

 

With modern day readers/critics there have been many complaints about Huck Finn's use of dialect; mostly because it inclued the N word.  The dialect is very strong in some places and can be difficult to understant. 

 

"Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n.  Well, I know what I's gwyne to do: I's gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears it agin." (Twain ch 2, pp8)

 

This dialect is used for a specific reason.  It was very important to Twain that he capture the way people actually talked within this type of scenario.  He wanted the slaves to sound like how the slaves talked, and the others to sound like whatever group they came from.  

 

It is actually explained in the beginning of the book by Twain, "Explanatory" that there are many different dialects, in case "without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding." (Twain ch 1 pp 5) As a consequence, the reader is thrown into the atmosphere of the story making it feel like they are really there.  

 

Through the differect dialects, Twain, tries to authentically capture what people would sound like.  With this it reinforces the setting of the book, in the pre-Civil War deep South.  The multiple dialects, and the unfamiliarity of them, forces the reader to slow down and become immersed in the story. Do to the stories popularity and the large amount of observations/critical analysis of the vernacular that is used within the story has made it into an unmistakable American idiom in literature.