Boontling
Country Region Producer Importer
Why the name, "Hi-Rollr"?
A Hi-Rollr is Boontling for folks who live in the hills surrounding Yorkville at the southern end of the Anderson Valley in Mendocino County. Boontling was a local language used by the nearly 5,000 residents in the area surrounding Boonville, California between 1880 and about 1932. ("Deep Enders" denoted residents of the coastal end of the Anderson Valley, west of Boonville.)
The name "Boontling" is derived from the combination of "Boonville" and "lingo," and first arose among the locals working in the fields. Perhaps suspicious of "city folks," it allowed the locals to speak among themselves without being understood by outsiders. The language slowly pretty much disappeared as more outsiders moved to the Valley, Highway 128 was completed and prohibition ended. That said, Boontling briefly enjoyed a national audience in the mid-1970s when a Boontling speaker name Bobby (Chipmunk) Glover was a regular guest on the well-known The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on the NBC television network
For more words, please see:
To hear an example of Boontling, click here:
