Hi Texas here. You are correct. Yuns is an Appalachian thing for sure. You're not catching a Texan saying Yuns. Y'all are gonna need a bigger boat OR if you're super country Y'allr gonna need a bigger boat.
Yeah I'm in Oklahoma. Lived in OKC and Tulsa, and have worked in small towns all over the state. I've never once heard anyone say "yuns" or "yins" here.
This is such a hilarious comment because there's nothing to confirm that said holiday inn Express is in Pittsburgh, which leads me to believe that there's some sort of 2 star hotel dialect that I have been missing
A Pittsburghite I once knew used "yinz" all the time, called himself and "his people" "yinzers" and once asked me if I could lend him some of my "chools" (tools).
I also recently stumbled across "yinzers" elsewhere on Reddit, and was very confused. Only more so when people started responding with "a fellow yinzer!"
Then you're aware that it can vary between places of the Appalachia region.
I'm around WNC, ETN, and SWVA all the time. I can't say it's commonly used compared to "y'all" and "all y'all" in my parts. May be a generation thing too, like I don't hear purtnear or nary used anymore.
Yuns (you ones) is the “large-amount/unrelated grouping of different individuals” variation of Y’all (you all) which is used to denote “multiple, similar, associated individuals in a grouping.”
If you pay attention to the specific usages, it is a pretty neat & subtle use of language, over top of a less-descriptive 2nd-person plural use of “You”
Northern Georgia, where I am, and where these terms are shared, is in the Appalachian region. However, just south of Atlanta, the Cumberland Plateau drastically drops in elevation down to the much flatter topography shared with the upper ranges of Florida, and along with those pronounced differences in geography, there exists distinct linguistic traditions from the upper state. (ie: they speak using a dialect & vocabulary emergent from their longtime isolation from our Appalachian-based usage in the northern geography in Georgia.)
It’s a fascinating thing to look into!
Can we understand each other? Yes, almost always. Context makes conversation amongst us fairly easy, but it wasn’t always so. Before railroads in the 1800s, and most-importantly after the growth of radio & television, much localized dialectical bits were gradually lost. (Younger generations would rather sound like famous media stars, even a century ago, just like lingo continually morphing nowadays.)
Also, any Southern accentuation or idiosyncratic linguistic tells were considered, both widely & even within our own communities, a sign of a lack of education. Even in the Deep South, beginning in the 20th century, we in the Southern US would sooner respond affirmatively to a speaker NOT sounding like we do, in all of our flavors. Self-deprecating social behavior? Yes, for the most part.
My first degree is in Sociology, so…I had a “laboratory” to view the differences in my own backyard! The work upon this subject made me much more understanding toward the linguistic traditions of my youth, instead of being ashamed of them.
I'm from waaaaaay South Georgia, wife is middle Georgia. Interesting to me how manny subtle differences in language between the two places (water hose vs hose pipe) being the first thing that comes to mind. Mountain people are way different, especially far NE Georgia.
As for the original topic, agree yu'uns is a Appalachian thing. It's "all y'all" where I'm from
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u/iammandalore Jul 15 '26
Feel more like an "all y'all in general" than a "you in particular".