The Dialect That Shaped My Sense of What’s Real
Built on Coal
Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA, if you’re from there) was built on coal. Literally. Not ideas. Not institutions. Coal.
First came the Welsh and English, who knew mining from home. Then the Irish and Germans. Then waves from Eastern and Southern Europe: Polish, Slovak, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Russian. By 1917, immigrants made up 61% of the mining workforce.
The work was dangerous. In 1870 alone, 211 miners were killed. These weren’t just jobs. They were lifelines – and sometimes death sentences.
Some people carved coal into objects. Most carved it into the way they spoke. A few did both.
My grandfather was one of a handful of artists in the region who carved coal into art: pen sets, sculptures, jewelry, even trophies. My uncles Frank and Tony carried it on after him, running Anthracite Coal Crafts near Wilkes-Barre until they retired – among the last coal artists in the region.
But underground, where danger didn’t care where you were born, language had to work harder than anything else. It had to cross borders fast. Say only what mattered. And keep people alive.
When a dozen nationalities work in the same dangerous space, communication has to cut through. You can’t rely on nuance. You can’t afford a misunderstanding. Language becomes functional. Direct. Stripped to purpose.
“Watch your step.”
“Don’t stand there.”
“That won’t hold.”
“Get out.”
No elaboration. No softening. Words either did the work, or they didn’t get said.
That way of speaking didn’t stay in the mines. It came home to kitchen tables, garages, wakes. People didn’t narrate their feelings. They stated situations. If something was wrong, they said it. If someone needed help, they helped.
And somewhere along the way, it became its own thing.
It wasn’t designed to be charming. It wasn’t meant to be funny. But time has a way of sanding the edges. If you listen now, some of what remains makes people laugh.
If You Know, You Know
It’s not quite its own language – but it’s more than an accent. Call it a dialect, if you need a word for it.
If you’re from there, you already know.
And if you’re not – buckle up.
“Jeet yet?” – Did you eat yet?
“No, djoo?” – No, did you?
That’s a full conversation. Two sentences. Done.
This is how it works: sounds collapse, meanings stay intact.
“Gimme a couple two tree of dem.”
Three becomes “tree.” The “th” never stood a chance.
“Nice day, heyna?”
Heyna (or hayna, or hainna – nobody agrees on the spelling, and that’s fine) means “right?” or “isn’t it?” Sometimes followed by “or no?” just to make sure you’re paying attention. Hayna or no?
“I’m going up the mall.”
“Up” means to. Don’t ask why. We don’t know either.
“Run upda Ack-a-me and get me some mangoes.”
A mango is a green pepper. Everywhere else, it’s a tropical fruit. In NEPA, it’s what your grandmother stuffed with meat and rice and put on the back of the coal stove.
“Go for a waaak.”
That’s “walk.” Don’t fight it.
“Close the light.”
You don’t turn off a light in NEPA. You close it. Just accept it.
Don’t Just Take My Word for It
There’s even a name for this way of communicating – heynabonics – and a CoalSpeak Dictionary at coalregion.com that’s been keeping it alive since 1995. The Scranton Times-Tribune once called the site “an entertaining trip down memory lane” for anyone old enough to remember going “up da Ack-a-mee to pick up some fill-um.”
And then there’s The Hayna Family.
In 1988, Rock 107 recorded a parody song to the tune of The Addams Family – and if you’re from NEPA, you already know the words:
They’re goin’ up da Eynon
They’re gonna get a coffee
And maybe eat a sangwich
The Hayna Family
Close da light – go fer a waaak – sore troat
Je’et yet? – No, djoo? – gimme a highball
Wot doin? – Nah muu’, choo? – er wot?
It’s all there. The fill-um. The pitchers. The punkin pie (I still can’t shake this one). The kuzzint down the courthouse who’s gonna get ’em good jobs. The dog that’s part Doverman. The neighbor who almost drounded.
If you grew up with this, you’re already smiling.
And if you didn’t – now you understand what we’ve been trying to explain for years.
People laugh about it. We laugh about it too. But underneath the humor, there’s something real – something worth being proud of.
This language wasn’t invented to be clever. It was shaped by necessity. By people who needed to understand each other fast, across a dozen mother tongues, in conditions where clarity could save your life.
And then it stuck. It became home. It became identity. It became ours.
There’s something else from that region that came up out of the same ground.
A quiet kindness.
If someone’s sick, food appears. If a car won’t start, someone’s already under the hood. No one calls it kindness. It’s just what you do.
The words may have been rough-cut, but the intention never was. People didn’t soften their words – they showed up instead. That was the kindness. Direct, but never cold. Maybe born in the mines.
Some people spend years trying to smooth out where they came from. I was one of them.
I left NEPA over twenty years ago. I learned to speak carefully and to “fit in”. Once, checking into a hotel with a colleague from Brooklyn, I gave it my best attempt – smooth, polished, not a trace of northeastern Pennsylvania. The clerk looked at me and said, “Brooklyn, right?” My colleague nearly fell over laughing.
Over the years, people have guessed Fargo, Chicago, Boston – never once correctly, unless they’re from NEPA or have relatives there. We know our own.
Because that’s the thing about NEPA: it stays with you. The language. The kindness that doesn’t announce itself, even when it’s paired with honesty.
In rooms where the language gets polished until the edges disappear, I can still hear the difference – between words that mean something and words that just sound good.
What I thought I needed to outgrow turned out to be the thing that taught me how to listen, how to show up, and how to tell the difference.
That’s not a dialect.
That’s a foundation.
I don’t try to hide it anymore. I let it be what it is.
On a cah-nah yuh wanna know why?
Because the best parts of who I am started there.
Hayna or no?
References
Pennsylvania Anthracite Coal Mining History — Wikipedia
Heynabonics: NEPA as a Second Language — YouTube
The Art of Anthracite Coal Carving — Journal of Antiques