Dying Beers and Languages: 'Piking for the Dusties' in Anderson Valley

Deep in the heart of Anderson Valley’s wine country, I sat down for a beer. I’m not much of a drinker, but I make an exception for oatmeal stout. As a university student, I had a roommate from Yorkshire who swore by this beer, “so thick you can stand up a spoon in it”. In the years since, I’ve probably consumed less beer than I once drank in a week, but I still have yearnings for the occasional stout.

Sadly, oatmeal stout is a dying breed, rather like the local language here in Boonville, California. Both Boontling and good stouts are becoming extinct. The “beer that eats like a meal” is exactly the kind of drink to become endangered in this era of yuppified IPAs. And as for Boontling “piking for the dusties” (dying), well, I’ll get to that soon.

One of the only breweries that knows its oats is here in Boonville, California, in the beautiful Anderson Valley about two hours north of San Francisco. It’s just the kind of place I like to visit when I’m done with a grueling work conference. Telling my wife I needed a three-day trip seemed a little dishonest, but I wasn’t padding it. I was skipping a conference day to drive out here and enjoy the Mendocino coast, along with a stop at the Anderson Valley Brewing Company on my way back.

Boonville, California is home to two dying breeds. Aside from oatmeal stout, the other endangered fixture is its home-brewed local dialect called Boontling, one of the world’s most unique languages.

My stout arrived.

Never have I seen another drink that’s so pitch black, yet has the creamy white head of a stout. It’s like an espresso with steamed milk on top. This selection was frothy, nutty, and tasted like toasted coffee. Perfect. A few sips made the whole trip worthwhile.

I knew I wouldn’t finish my beer because I had to drive out later. But I nursed it and enjoyed the aromas and ambiance of this bar. It had a sign saying that it was solar-powered.

I began to ask the bartender about Boontling, that local language for which Boonville, California is so famous. He didn’t roll his eyes, but I could see that I must be the latest in a long line of visitors who have asked about it. I’m pretty sure that linguistics graduate students have formed a well-trodden path to Boonville, because Boontling is a created language unlike anything else that exists. For decades, the Anderson Valley has been a linguistic petri dish. But now Boontling is dying.

The bartender actually smiled as he looked over my shoulder. Today was my lucky day, because a true old-timer had just walked in. I turned around to see a gray-moustached man, who had entered the brewery in a flannel shirt and John Deere hat. He would have fit in any old ranch town in the western United States.

And he was one of the last surviving speakers of Boontling. Fewer than one hundred remain today.

Over the next half hour, I sat and listened to his conversation with the bartender, which included frequent passages in Boontling. The bartender was a Boontling novice, clearly not fluent, but he knew enough to speak a few lines. I squeezed in a few words and asked a couple of questions, but mostly I listened to them Jabberwock. Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear would have loved this place.

I finished my stout and ordered another.

References below (1)

Unfortunately, the younger generation of Boonville residents have shown little interest in learning the dying tongue, so the mustachioed man will probably be one of the last of his kind. He told me how he had learned it from his father and how at one time, Boontling was so much more widely spoken. It was particularly popular among the men of Boonville.

Supposedly, the language was started by older guys trying to discuss their secrets in front of women and children, but some say it was started by younger residents trying to keep secrets from the old. No one really knows. It’s similar to a created language from Appalachia (on the other side of the United States), but Boontling contains unique doses of slang, English, Scottish, Pomo (Native American), and completely made-up gibberish. It relies heavily on metaphors, which are substituted as nouns.

Ready to hear some Boontling?

Here is the original text of the Old Mother Hubbard nursery rhyme (in English):
“Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to give her poor dog a bone. But when she came there, the cupboard was bare, and so the poor dog had none.”

And now a similar version of this rhyme using Boontling:
“The old dame piked for the chigrel nook for gorms for her bahl belljeemer. The gorms had shied, the nook was strung, and the bahl belljeemer had neemer.”
(2)

Full of slang and metaphors, it is one of the craziest languages you will ever hear. Here is a short video showing a Boontling speaker strutting his stuff at the Anderson Valley Brewing Company, which certainly seems to be the town’s unofficial meeting place.

An hour after my second pint, I bid goodbye and hit the streets of Boonville. I couldn’t drive now after two large beers, so I decided to walk it off and stay in town until dinner.

The brewery was on a side road. I found the main highway and walked back toward downtown, if you could call it that in a town of less than 1000 people. Soon, there were vineyards on both sides of the road and a place marked on the map as Sheep Dung Estates. Then I saw the senior center, wishing for an early bingo night.

But up ahead was something better: the dying echoes of a swap meet.

I could see pickup trucks parked out on a dry grassy field near the county fairgrounds. Some vendors were set up in booths while others just had tables covered with their wares. Ugly lamps, used clothing, belt buckles, old stereo parts, and fresh orchids in baskets all featured prominently. But most vendors were closing for the day, so I hurried through.

For a few minutes, I combed through some old glass at one of the stalls. Those medicine bottles are worth good money now, but I figured the lady at the stall knew a lot more about them than I do, so I wasn’t getting any bargains. I kept walking until I found a place that sold used vinyl. Picking through their stock, I found an old copy of Thriller, a Jazz retrospective, and a Miriam Makeba record.

I stopped thumbing through the records when I found a near-mint copy of the first Counting Crows album. It was still in protective plastic. This was a limited run and I wondered if the guy knew what he had. But when I checked the price, it was clear that he did know its value. Too well, since I’d seen these on eBay for less. Briefly, I thought about haggling a lower price with him, but I didn’t really want the album anyway. I had the CD and MP3s at home.

Counting Crows? Man, I came of age listening to those guys play in small venues. When they hit the big time, I tried to tell people I knew them, but that rarely works very well. I’d stopped listening to Counting Crows after a couple of albums because I got sick of the guy’s whiny voice and dead-end lyrics. But there was a time that kind of music meant something to me. And now it was classic enough that it was being sold with old vinyl at a swap meet in the Anderson Valley. I felt old.

Taking my bounty of old albums, I set out to find some food. I was reminded of Boontling’s influence in the town when I saw an old public phone sign. “Buckey Walter” means “public phone” in Boontling. Supposedly, it contains a reference to the Boonville resident who had the town’s first phone. Clearly, this town continues to trade on its identity as the home of this unique language. Good for them.

(3)

Reflections

Dinner was unremarkable. Afterwards, on the long walk back to my car, I pondered on what I had learned. Boontling was dying. Oatmeal stout was disappearing. My musical preferences were yesterday’s news. Old vinyl records were long since dead.

And yet, there was life here. People keep coming for the oatmeal stout and other great beers. Someone put a high- priced sticker on an album of music I used to like, so there must be some demand for it. Despite the death of vinyl, people seek sought out old albums for that fleeting, original sound.

Only a few old farts still speak Boontling, but it always will be this town’s claim to fame. They celebrate this language. Maybe before it’s gone, someone will realize how important it is for the identity of this place to keep Boontling going, not to mention the tax revenue from linguistics grad students who come here to study it. There are enough audio recordings and dictionaries around that someone could pick it up and revive the language in the future.

The light was on.

Before reaching the vineyards along the highway, I passed by a ramshackle old building. The sign out front said it was a wine tasting room. It was still open. I headed inside to see what they had.

When I asked for the lineup, the first thing they told me about was their White Zinfandel. You have got to be kidding! That’s box wine stuff. No one has made a good White Zin since the Counting Crows singer was in diapers. Was this for real? They assured me that it was. Short season, cool coastal influence, dry farming, etc., and all these reasons why their White Zin was good enough that I should take a nap in my car.

All right, I said. Hit me up. The past was coming alive again. I pulled up a chair.

(4)

References/credits:
Thumbnail: Public Domain via Wikimedia
(1) Creative Commons via Flickr.com, Ken Yae Wong
(2) http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Hamlet-s-Dying-Lingo-Boonville-s-homegrown-2955860.php
(3) Ukiah Daily Journal
(4) Creative Commons via Flickr.com, T Chu
Boontling Wikipedia page and dictionary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boontling