MOUNTAIN TALK (full documentary, official video) 

Riddle me this. I am from Russia, and we also have mountain talk and people just like this. Here is the weird part. Even though I grew up with this type of talk, the words were in Russian, moved to the states and have been here since I was 5, but the thing is even though this is American, I can understand them perfectly fine. Its more than just words and language, its just a connection, and a simple understanding. One word explains a whole sentence. I found this very odd. Different countries, same lifestyle, different language.....but same understanding and feeling. My 2 cents.

"We didn't know we were poor till the government came and told us." What society could learn from these people...

My dad was from Mississippi, poor as a shoelace. Biggest heart in the world. It showed, when he got cancer everyone from the our street in SE Portland came to fix up is home, mow his lawn. Anything we needed to make his last years more comfortable. When he retired from the railroad he collected and turn in over $10,000 in bottles an cans and donated every penny to charity. None of us knew till he passed and found his receipts. Smartest man I've ever known. Miss him lots 💜

I'm from Dublin Ireland. I don't know where my love for the Appalachian trail documentaries came from but I find so much peace watching them. I've lived in Paris France for one year now and I've realized how kind and helpful Irish people are compared to everyone in France. Just like the folk In this documentary they go out of their way to help each other Just like the Irish at home in Dublin. Lots of the beautiful side of humanity still exists. Thanks for the documentary I absolutely love it and I'm watching it in bed with a cup of tea feeling at ease and at peace 😀. Love from Ireland ☘️☘️

My grandma was born in 1924 in the hills of WV, she told me she never seen or even knew what a car was until she was about 10 years old. I once asked her what was it like growing up through the great depression? She said "We never knew of things outside our small farm town. The concept of a nation wide economy never entered our minds. Our farm through the grace of god and a little hard work, gave us everything we ever needed. The world may have ben depressed, but we never were". RIP Grandma.

"We didn't know we was poor until the government come along and told us we were." These words are powerful and yet so dissonant from mainstream culture. Pure wisdom.

Rest in Peace, Popcorn Sutton. You were a true master of your craft, and an American legend.

African /American here love love love this . Thank you hugs, compassion. Join my collective.

Poverty?! These people are blessed in a way that the rest of the world can’t understand!

I’m Algerian and worked in the oil field with people from the mountain who were the best people I’ve met in my whole life. Love from Algeria to the mountain people and the American people 🇺🇸

My God…..the beauty of the Appalachians, and the blue ridge mountains. You just can’t describe that, you have to see it. And, the people are amazing.

This is so interesting! In Scotland we still say "a poke of chips" meaning a bag of chips (french fries).

Nothing wrong with 'mountain talk'. I hope we never lose it.

“Just as soon be in Hell with my back broke as to live in Washington DC“ “We didn’t know we was poor till the government came along and told us we were” These are people I could hang out with.

I started dating a girl from the mountains of North Georgia and this is exactly how she talks. I joke about how she talks but honestly i love it. Something simple and honest about it. Low maintenance, honest and appreciative of what she has.

My dad used to play what the old folks of Campbell County, Tennessee called "Mountain Banjo", like the gentleman in this video. "Cripple Creek" was one of his favorites to play as well as "Cumberland Gap" and "Lonesome Reuben". We kids would sit for hours, listening to him play. We had a cow, a pony and a Mexican Burro as well as pigs, chickens, ducks and sometimes geese on the farm. Dad would plow the half acre garden and all of us would work in it, raising potatoes, corn, beans, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, cabbages, cucumbers, pumpkins, beets, turnips and radishes. We canned many, many half gallons of tomatoes, green beans, and pickles every summer to last us through the winter. We had a "cold" room at the back of the house where we stored lots of bushels of potatoes as well as all the jars of canned food. Mom and dad would buy flour, meal, sugar, salt, black pepper and other staples. The rest we grew ourselves. I miss my parents and the old home where life was hard, but so real and sweet.

Appalachia, one of the MOST breathtakingly beautiful parts of the USA.

I am a black woman that visit mountain people years ago and they treated me so well. I love them.

Priceless! I am a proud Appalachian. I love my people and beautiful mountains. Thank you for this amazing video.

I grew up with most of my family in being in Southern Louisiana. Many parts of South Louisiana are also isolated. They have their own style of music, cooking & dialect. It's called Cajun. I miss swimming in the fish hatcheries, crawfish/shrimp boils, big family gatherings, & the loud talking & laughter. Some of my relative's homes were only accessable by boat on the bayous.❤️😊

Native South Carolinian here! I have people all the time say “I love your accent “. I say “honey, you’re in the south. YOU have the accent!” Lol

I'm a 55yr old Scot and I still put my stuff in a poke..

I have never had any wanting to go to, or even see America. Yet when I see the people of Appalachia, these are the places I would love to visit. To me these people are the real Americans. Real down to earth very unpretentious people👍🏼

Best Statement in the whole vidya - "it was a good life and I'd like to live that again" I love these people and thank God I was able to be raised not too far from them.

Can we take a second to appreciate how well done this doc is?

In spite of society's efforts to rid me of it, I refuse to feel ashamed of my southern accent and I won't water it down to make anyone else feel comfortable. Outchonder, in yonder, over yonder, okrey, taters, might could, ain't got no, yep, I could go on. Not getting rid of that to suit a single soul.

I'm from Ireland myself, you can see the similarities with the singing and dancing & language, it's beautiful to watch, I must visit someday 🇮🇪 ❤ 🇺🇲 ☘

I've watched this probably 5 times. I love America Soo much!!! The diversity, the grit, the pride. Hardworking great people. Not only in the mountains but nation wide, we all have a story. ♥️🇺🇸🇺🇸

Mountain "hillbillies" are some of the nicest, and most humble people on this earth. And their culture is richer than outsiders can comprehend. Thank God I live in these Appalachian hills!

I drove through the Appalachian mountains in the 1980's. When people heard a motor they came out on the porch. I talked with them. If I wasn't in the Navy I would have stayed. I married one of them. Amazing woman, I wish she still lived. I have children but no woman like her.

I grew up in Eastern Kentucky right across the river from Kermit West Virginia. Moved to Illinois the Chicagoland area at 9 years old. I went back a lot as a kid and all my family sounded way different than me and they kept telling me I had the accent but in my head they had the accent. But this whole documentary made me smile and think of my grandparents that are now gone my great aunts and uncles that are now gone all my cousins that no longer live there... I couldn't help but refill the way I felt being in those mountains when I was a kid. It's just something about the Big Green mountains and the valleys all the rivers every time it rains there's waterfalls and people that have more love for you than anybody ever really met in Chicago for the last 30 years. I moved to Tennessee in 2020 but since I married and raised city folk we live around the Nashville area, by my eyes and my heart still belong to these mountains. At around the 8 minute Mark when he said flower the way my mom said it when I was a kid my heart melted with so much happiness and memories. She tried so hard to get rid of her accent but that was the one word she could never get rid of. She's gotten better but from time to time she slips even nowadays. And she grew up most of her life in those mountains.

I loved it people so beautiful. I live in New Zealand and have visited that part of your country. I even walked up that lookout in the Smokey mountains. Live free and be blessed.

I live in Ireland I love watching documentaries about Appalachian people id love to hang out with them

My husband had never been on an escalator when he moved to be with me. . He called the high rise buildings in Denver “cement buildings”. I still laugh,but he’d help ANYONE out who needed it!

I am from Southern Indiana.The Ohio River divides Indiana from Kentucky. The farther south that you go in Indiana you frequently hear mountain talk. And it gets more prevalent the farther south you travel excluding the Louisville area. A song that always reminded me of how rough and tough living in Appalachia was is a Coat of many Colors by Miss Dolly Parton.

Sadly, most of the people in this documentary have passed on now, including my wife's uncle and grandma Henry and Mary Jane Queen. I was born and raised here and my younger years were like living inside this documentary. But this culture is disappearing fast. I'm proud of my mountain heritage and I will hold on to everything my parents and grandparents and neighbors taught me because I'm afraid I'll see our culture disappear in my lifetime. Thank you Neal for making this documentary so when it is gone, we'll still get to look back at how it once was.

God this is so nostalgic. I moved from Appalachia when I was a kid, I miss the culture so much. I wish other Americans understood and appreciated it more

I live in Scotland (God's country). and i speak fairly broad scots. I am 61 years old and even in my lifetime i see a lot of the old words and sayings dissapearing, however when i listen to you folks i can hear a lot of the words my Nana used thank heavens for you folks and isolation don't let the bastards make you speak PROPER thanks for the film

I'm so happy I growed up with folks like this I couldn't imagine living anywhere else

My grandparents were from the mountains and hills of Kentucky. I understood every single person in this video because I grew up with these ways and this kind of talk. I'm proud of that, proud of my ancestry and where my kinfolk come from. 🥰❤️❤️

I miss my grandma soon much. If you asked her how she was, she said fair to midlan.cooked everything in lard and made cornbread in a cast iron skillet. She called us youngish. If we wanted candy, she said go outside and eat ya some of those apples or sugar pears off the tree. I always to eat the grapes off the vine. Wish times were still like that today. She would sing ol dan tucker for us kids. LOVE AND MISS YOU GRANDMA!!

Im from England and my dad is full Irish and i dont have a problem understanding them at all so it makes sence that it sounds Irish, even there dancing is like Irish dancing

As someone who suffers from depression occasionally, holy WOW am I happy to have stumbled across this video. Not only am I in love with seeing the appalachian way of life, theres a lot of paralels I can draw from being an "acadian mountain boy" myself. But yeah point being, it warms my heart to see so much love and positivity on this page, to each and everyone one of you, I love you and bless you all :)

I was born in ‘63 in Atlanta and my family moved every couple years all over the country and the thing that grounded me was coming back home and seeing my grandparents and great aunts and uncles and they told me the stories about where we came from and what life was like back in their day. This documentary encompasses half of every story I ever heard as a kid! After spending half my life in Los Angeles I moved to Southern Appalachia to live out the stories myself in my old age!

I got a new boss and he was from the Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee. We all rolled our eyes when we first heard him talk. "Who's this country bumpkin?" we all said. I looked down to see if he was wearing shoes. I wrote him off and told everyone that he's never going to make it in this business. I judged the book by it's cover. Turns out he had a Masters from the University of Tennessee in mathematics. He is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful, insightful and genuine people I have ever met. He is self aware. He is always making fun of himself, saying his eyes are too close together, the large sloping forehead, his speech could qualify as it's own language. A great guy and a friend. I ate crow for sure. And he knows it. I see him in bars doing that Good Will Hunting thing with strangers who automatically try and talk him down. They all walk away shaking their heads.

Released in 2003, before the meth plague hit the rural areas. Wish things could return to more wholesome times.

My whole family is from this area. We have been there for generations. This documentary made me proud of my heritage. Mountain life is full of hard work, and it's less complex than the world around us. I wouldn't change my heritage for anything in this world. I have lived in major cities like Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Baltimore, but my real home is in those mountains. As an English teacher, I was curious about Mountain language. In college I studied language like old and middle English which is where those words originated. Suddenly it made it all seem to me that these crazy words weren't just "hillbilly" nonsense. When I was a kid, I couldn't understand why my family spoke differently than everyone else's. Learning to read was confusing with their accents. I would be in Northern school having teachers yell at me because I didn't pronounce words the same way others did. It wasn't the way that I heard it at home. Growing up and still to this day my friends will say, "I love your parents' accents". My brother and I never noticed until someone pointed it out. We learned to be one way at home and another way at school and with our friends. My dad was an executive for a major cooperation and a very intelligent man, but people thought he was a hillbilly just because he had an accent. His response was the best. He said, "It took me 40 some odd years to get this accent. It isn't going anywhere now" To this day he believes that if he hadn't had that accent he could have gone even further in the company. Having a accent in Trenton, NJ was something they just didn't understand. Even though I grew up in the North, I still consider myself a Southern girl. By the way, my Dad grew up near the Sutton family. My grandpa told my Dad and his brothers to stay away from the whole Sutton family. They were bad news. They were drunks and got into trouble with the law often. I guess he just didn't want them drinking moonshine. lol Evidently, their trouble-making went back several generations. lol Yes, in my life, I have seen the area down there change. It makes me sad that it isn't the place it was when I was a child. I miss my Grandma and Grandpa and all the old folks that have passed on. A lot of our culture died with them. Many of the words they used aren't spoken much and more. It was amazing to hear many of them again in this documentary. The sickest part of it all is that Florida people have moved in all over those mountains and built summer homes. These homes have destroyed the view of the mountains. It disgusts me. I mean generations of my family farmed and ranged cattle in those hills. My Cherokee ancestors hunted, fought and died there. But it's okay because they need to have a pretty view. Ugh! I am sorry this comment was so long. I just wanted folks to know my connections to this area. Mountain lives matter!

If you think mountain talk is difficult to understand, try listening to someone from the bayou in Mississippi! When I was in the ARMY, one guy had a southern drawl that nobody could understand for about the first month we were there. I became good friends with him a few months in, but I still had to pay close attention when he was talking to me, because every sentence sounded like one word. It's ironic that most people think these people are uneducated, just because of the way they talk, when they wouldn't be able to survive if they were lost in the woods. These people have so much knowledge about how to live without going to Walmart, or Home Depot for everything. God bless y'all. 🙏

Thats jim tom! From moonshiners! That dude is a legend! This town has the best shiners! Popcorn Sutton too! God rest his soul.

I'm from Australia and was never exposed to banjo music but there is something about it that resonates with me, it's an uplifting sound

When I was 10 my grandmother passed away in west Virginia in 1965 her and friend lived 15 miles from the road and another 5to town they walked to town once a week,no electricity no gas no lights wood stove in a hunting cabin with dirt floor you drove 15 miles down a dried up creek bank they were both 89 yrs. Old .When we left WV for Ohio we crossed the Silver Bridge it collapsed 3 months later grand mother was born in1876 -1965 Emma Jane Bragg

My grandparents from West Virginia talked just like this. My grandfather became aeronautics engineer (worked on Apollo 11 launch - through Challenger Missions) / so it doesn't mean a person isn't intelligent! He only had a 5th grade education - but Aced any engineering requirements in order to do that type of work. He could fix anything / and was really loved by his co-workers @ AeroJet.

Reminds me of sitting at the thanksgiving table listening to grandma and papaw telling stories. Appalachian folks are some of the best people in this whole country. I’m so thankful for my roots

I love that grampa. "Yeah I like my moped." zoooooOOOOOOM

It's so nice to see something celebrating Southern, rural and Mountain culture instead of denigrating and running us down. This is worth a million bucks.

I remember seeing this on the Documentary Channel years ago. I know many of these people must gone by now, but they are so warm and wonderful I could listen to this all day! Awesome culture!

I just love how happy and proud everyone is to share their story. You can watch their face light up when they get asked to share their old mountain words

I live in Ireland and can see a lot of Irish great culture here.

Popcorn is riding in the truck he used to pass over with. I love his story. In a world where the government seems to be blatantly tightening the reigns it still warms my heart someone went on their own terms. Some will say they are sad he left, but when it’s either fight or flight... he fought back... his tombstone is a testament that Americans won’t back down.

I’m a Spence over 50 and was raised in rural Illinois in farm country, my Grandfather walked up here from Ky but before that we was from Spence field area. Our family still uses a LOT of these sayings and here i am 4 generations removed.

It’s crazy how these guys have held on to some Scots words longer than us Scots 🥰✌️

I find this so relaxing. I love hearing different English dialects - here in England you can travel 20 miles down the road and they'll talk noticeably different to at home. Plus the genuine pleasantness of these people is very comforting, people really are nicer out in the sticks than in towns.

I could listen to these people all day long! they are all So happy and friendly

I worked with a guy that lived in the mountains outside of Asheville North Carolina. Best man I ever met

I'm a Bondurant raised in Reidsville, NC. Watching this has brought back so many memories of my family long gone. My family moved from the mountains (shiners) to make a legal living. The movie "Lawless" was written by my 3rd cousin.

I grew up hearing people talk in this dialect,they sound like my elders.

i hope that guy singing with his momma treasures that moment

As a Mountain boy myself, I grew up in gainesboro Tennessee back woods and wish I could have those Days back.

REST IN PEACE AND FREEDOM POPCORN SUTTON.

20 years behind the rest of the country?! Sign me up! I want to live there. I currently live in California and can not wait to get out of state.

I've lived in southeast Tennessee my whole life but my maternal grandmother was born in Sand mountain Alabama. She said a lot of these words. I say plumb and over yonder and stuff like that. I have never heard of sigogglin'

Greetings from Santo Andre (metropolitan area of São Paulo city, Brazil). I appreciate this documentary. I love studying the culture of a country and its folks. Love the appalachian accent - reminds me those good times when I used to watch some Western movies with my grandpa. What a nice people! Best regards

I’m from the uk and I spent 4 years in Sylva NC. Wonderful folk and very welcoming. Great stories and memories. A different life that taught me so much.

"People had time for each other." Amen!

Family has lived in eastern Kentucky mountains for centuries this was a nice documentary. Listening to everybody talk was like I was back home. I live in western Kentucky now.

I am from n Ireland and I can relate to many of these words and sayings, it’s near the same lingo a wee used. Had to smile when I heard a wean of these words, enjoyed this program.

I was born and raised in Japan. Living on the east coast for 41 years. I understand every word they say. So proud of myself feeling like trilingual. 😄

I’m from Hawaii (a Hawaiian) & I love this. You folks are true roots of America. In Hawaii we too have our own language that we locals call pidgin. Its Hawaiian talk. Hang on to your mountain culture; so important. Even if your kids move away, teach them & emphasize to them the importance of their mountain culture. By the way, I’m Scots, Irish, Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese & more...but so proud of my Hawaiian background. We try hard to keep our culture especially with so much outside influence.

Thank you for this documentary! I’m from upstate SC which is the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We talk like them. Especially the older folk. I love our culture. I love my family’s old time ways. My 8 year old grandson already plays the banjo. My son plays the guitar. That music is in our soul.

You'll never find any better of people than what you're going to find in the Appalachian mountains. Regardless of the State they're from, they are the most genuine, good hearted people you'll ever come by. Many people, esp school kid's, used to make fun of the family that came and visited through the summer & even as an adult it bothers me the way people talk about my kin folk who'd give anything they had to another.

I’m in Australia and I understand perfectly what you’re saying.. I do understand the slower speakers to the faster ones or some of the nicknames you have for things but that’s in every land of the planet. I can’t understand my nieces and nephew here though.. Don’t pay any attention to the nasty spirited people. You’re all treasures for the natural way, that’s close to nature as a community can be. The mountains are beautiful and so too is your community. Live long in health.

Most of these wonderful folks have passed away. We'll never know how much knowledge and memory went with them.

I'm from east Texas and at 32 I moved to the mountains of northern New Mexico and I have a very deep southern drawl and here it's nothing but old Spanish talk and they love hearing me talk but I know they can't understand half of what I say. I speak a lot like these folks and I understand them just fine. I've always been a poor country boy and now I'm a poor mountain man lol. I'm telling you what ain't no one knows a hard life until you've had to cut out a living in the mountains. Thankfully I'm a blacksmith and custom knife maker and one hell of a farmer and a hard ass that won't give up. I'll die in these mountains and I love every single day of it.

North Carolinian here. Moved to New Hampshire. Ladies love me accent. Sometimes they don't understand what I mean. Asked a coworker once to carry me to the store. Look in his face was priceless.

I'm Tennessean and the accent is different but the words are all the same. My Dad still says "Y'all come go with us" when we leave someplace and "Stay a while it's quite (quiet) and pacefull (peaceful)'' when someone is leaving the house. I believe when society collapses the Appalachian people will still be here 100 years after just like we were the three hundred years before. Nobody's going to drive us out. Nobody.

I'm from just outside Belfast, Northern Ireland and I can recognise some of the expression and rhythms used. I live on a peninsula were the accent and language changes from village to village. We use the words poke, yin and tatties, I loved the expression 'living above your raising' we still say 'never forget the bowl you were baked in' our way of speaking is described by the British government a dialect rather than language for political reasoning, Im not so sure. Beautiful documentary.

Hahahaha I always laugh when they show the guy holding the book and the wind blowing all the pages 😂😂😂 Awesome documentary 👌

Alot of us still talk just like this. Some people hear folks talkin like that and think "hillbilly ignorant inbred", stuff like that, but these people have more sense than most of them put together. I hope & pray it's never lost! ❤

Reminds me of my kin in the mountains and hollers of Panther, West Virginia. I am so proud of my people and so proud of my Scott Irish and Cherokee Indian heritage. God bless all mountain people.

My family was uprooted by the public works of Fontana dam. They moved to Maryville Tennessee and Union County only to be displaced by interstate highways and other TVA dams. When papaw made it all the way off the mountain he went to work at ALCOA making 1.27$ a day and farmed hogs and tobacco while raising 8 kids. My double great grandmother was the daughter of a freed slave and Cherokee. We still cling to our culture. It is a blend of faith, moral conviction, separatism and outlaw brought about by isolation. I was ashamed when I moved to Salt Lake then Atlanta in my twenties. Now I’m home and I’m proud. If it weren’t for the interstate we’d still have way more of our culture, but being the positive type, I’d be happy to thank you for all the tourist dollars y’all spend. Make friends with mountain people, you’ll have real friends. Make enmity with them and you’ll have to fight the whole mountain and the people in both hollers on either side. FYI being perceived as clannish is not a slight to us. We brought it across the ocean with us and just kept it in the holler. Using SIRI on our phones is a lost cause. Haha #hillbillyproud

I have a real affection for these folks. My parents emigrated from the Philippines and I was born and educated in sunny California. I've travelled through a good part of the world, and if there's one place I'd love to visit before I die, it's Appalachia. It seems magical, and quintessentially American.

"We didn't know we were poor 'til the government came around and told us."

Aawesome thx from Switzerland; we got our mountain talk too! I am from that mountains, so I really understand how it was in school for those hillbillies!! Awesome...

Henry Queen has a wonderful voice. I could listen to him sing all day.

I'm so thankful I found this. This is my heritage, my bloodlines. I take my children to the places my Parents were born and raised and sadly each trip more and more seems to be lost. I love having this to show my children. This is BEAUTIFUL to me. To my ears, and to my heart. It's who I am. Thank you for these videos. I hope and pray this beautiful culture survives. Yes, as many as there were that had moved from deep South when this was made, so much more has Been lost in 4 short years. May we all keep this beautiful heritage alive in our hearts and lives and pass this to the next generations. There was a time when you waved at every car you passed. It didn't matter if you know them or not. Try that today and it'll get ya shot. What a sad thing. It's my true prayer that somehow we can carry on the traditions and foundations that build this Country. (I play the piano and bass guitar, the first song I learned to play on a guitar was Cripple Creek! Going up Cripple creek going in a whirl .. my Mom's family was many born and raised on Cripple Creek. One of the most beautiful and pure places left on earth)

Thank you...great documentary. Im a Texas boy and God bless all our Southern States and Mountain folks. God bless USA.

This really blessed my soul. Much love from Papua New Guinea, a country with 800 different languages and cultures that is slowly dying out or adapting to modern times. I do hope you keep your core values, culture and language.

I’m ashamed of myself for being ashamed of being born in Western North Carolina…but now as I’ve grown older I can honestly say and know in my heart that I’m so grateful of my mountain heritage.

keep on shining !!! love from germany ! respect to all cultures !!!!

A very important part of American history. Long live America!