Southern Living magazine once described βyβallβ as βthe quintessential Southern pronoun.β Itβs as iconically Southern as sweet tea and grits.
While βyβallβ is considered slang, itβs a useful word nonetheless. The English language doesnβt have a good second person plural pronoun; βyouβ can be both singular and plural, but itβs sometimes awkward to use as a plural. Itβs almost like thereβs a pronoun missing. βYβallβ fills that second person plural slot β as does βyou guys,β βyouse,β βyou-unsβ and a few others.
Iβm interested in βyβallβ because I was born in North Carolina and grew up saying it. I still do, probably a couple dozen times a day, usually without intention or even awareness. As a historian who has researched the early history of the word, Iβm also interested in how the wordβs use has changed over the years.
A sign encourages people to vote in Charlotte, N.C., ahead of the 2022 U.S. midterm elections.Sean Rayford/Getty Images
Like something a βhillbilly redneckβ would say
βYβallβ might serve an important function, but it has acquired negative connotations.
Back in 1886, The New York Times ran a piece titled βOdd Southernismsβ that described βyβallβ as βone of the most ridiculous of all the Southernisms.β
That perception has persisted. Like the Southern dialect in general, the use of βyβallβ has often been seen as vulgar, low-class, uncultured and uneducated. As someone noted in Urban Dictionary, βWhoever uses [yβall] sounds like a hillbilly redneck.β
In a more recent New York Times essay, writer Maud Newton said that she associated the word with her father, who βdefended slavery, demanded the subservience of women and adhered to βspare the rod and spoil the child.ββ He also demanded that his children say βyβallβ rather than βyou guys.β She grew up hating the word.
At a time when many Americans are calling for the removal of Confederate monuments and opposing the Lost Cause mythology, βyβall,β with its Southern overtones, might make some people uncomfortable β a misguided reaction, perhaps, but one that has been felt by both those who hear it and those who say it.
Imagine βyβallβ with a British accent
The word has not always had such negative connotations.
The etymology of βyβallβ is murky. Some linguists trace it back to the Scots-Irish phrase βye awβ; others suggest an African American origin, perhaps from the Igbo word for βyouβ brought over by Nigerian-born slaves. According to the βOxford English Dictionary,β the word first appeared in print in 1856, and all of its examples are sources connected to the American South. Michael Montgomery, a noted linguist, said that early use of the word βis unknown in the British Isles.β
But recently I used some of the new digital literary databases to search for older uses of the word, and I found over a dozen examples. They were all in dramatic or poetic works dating back to the 17th century and published in London. The earliest βyβallβ that I uncovered was in William Lisleβs βThe Faire Γthiopian,β published in 1631 β βand this y'all know is true.β
My examples push βyβallβ back 225 years before the citation in the βOxford English Dictionary,β and they show that the word appeared first in England rather than the United States.
I think itβs important to point out that it originated in a more formal context than whatβs commonly assumed. There are none of the class or cultural connotations of the later American examples.
I should also note that there is almost a centurylong gap between the last known usage of this British version of βyβallβ and the first known usage of the American version. Scholars may well decide that these versions of βyβallβ are essentially two different words.
Still, there it is, in an English poem written in 1631.
βY'all means allβ
Ironically, at the same time that some people have shied away from using βyβall,β the word seems to have grown in popularity. An article on exactly this topic, published in the Journal of English Linguistics in 2000, was titled βThe Nationalization of a Southernismβ; based on scientific polling, the authors suggested that βyβallβ will soon be seen as an American, rather than Southern, word.
There might be several reasons for this. One is that African American use of the word in music and other forms of popular culture has made it more familiar β and, therefore, acceptable β to those who didnβt grow up with it.
Second, βyou guys,β another common alternative for the second-person plural pronoun, is losing support because of its sexist connotations. Are females included in you guys? How about those who identify as nonbinary?
Maud Newton eventually came to embrace βyβall.β When she moved to Tallahassee, Florida, after law school, she found that βin grocery stores and coffee shops, on the street and in the library, everyone β Black and white, queer and straight, working-class and wealthy β used yβall, and soon I did, too.β
βYβall means allβ β thatβs a wonderful phrase that seems to be popping up everywhere, from T-shirts and book titles to memes and music. A song written by Miranda Lambert for Netflixβs βQueer Eyeβ beautifully captures the spirit of the phrase:
You can be born in Tyler, Texas,
Raised with the Bible Belt;
If youβre torn between the Yβs and Xβs,
You ainβt gotta play with the hand youβre dealt ...
Honey, yβall means all.
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David B. Parker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.