"Y'all" arose as a contraction of "you all". The term first appeared in the Southern United States in the early nineteenth century, though it was probably uncommon at that time, its usage not accelerating as a whole Southern regional phenomenon until the twentieth century. The earliest attestation, with the spelling "you all" and in the specific second-person plural pronoun usage, is 1824. Earliest attestations with the actual spelling "y'all" are from 1856, however it was likely pronounced "y'all" much earlier. Another notable early attestation is in the "Southern Literary Messenger" (published in Richmond, Virginia) in April 1858. It is not certain whether its use began specifically with black or white residents of the South; one possibility is that the term was brought by Scots-Irish immigrants to the South, evolving from the earlier Ulster Scots term "ye aw". An alternative theory is that "y'all" is a calque of Gullah and Caribbean creole via earlier dialects of African-American English. Most linguists agree that "y'all" is an original form, deriving from indigenous processes of grammar and morphological change, rather than being directly transferred from any other English dialects.