Okefenokee Ancestors Kept Elizabethan English

The "Swampers" of the Okefenokee Swamp were longtime residents of overwhelmingly English ancestry who lived deep in the Georgia-Florida wetlands. Because their communities remained relatively isolated, they preserved Elizabethan phrases and syntax from the early colonial period long after that speech had faded elsewhere. This old-fashioned way of speaking survived well into the 20th century, thus turning the swamp into a linguistic time capsule shaped by the habits of their ancestors.

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