Non political discussion - are classic southern accents less widely heard?

[Stinky The Clown]

I have occasion to speak with people across the country. I travel in the south quite a bit. I hear people on the news, particularly as various sorts of election coverages.

This seems to be particularly true of younger people.

Comments?





NOTE: this is not intended be southern bashing. If I have somehow offended someone even in asking this, please speak up so I can apologize. It would not have been my intent.

[Orrex]

1. What's a classic southern accent?

I'm a boring northerner with an accent that more-or-less matches "white tv normal," so I might not have a good ear for it.

In my job I talk to people from the south all the time who have a wide range of accents. What qualifies as a classic southern accent?

[frazzled]

6. Indeed, there are many local accents and dialects across the South

My husband was born and raised in Charleston, SC, and the accent there is quite different (almost British in a way, but with a little Gullah lilt built in for color; but no "drawl&quot . He never had a thick accent, since he was one of the then-young people brought up on television, and since he's lived in the North for more than 45 years now, you'd hardly know he was a Southerner at all. Except when he's excited, or angry at the cat, or around his Charleston relatives--then he reverts a bit to that charming Charleston patois, without any "r"s at the ends of words.

[Orrex]

8. LOL for "angry at the cat"

We've all been there!

[frazzled]

9. "Git yo-ah bad self outta there!" /nt

[GulfCoast66]

13. Giton outta thare

Is how I say it. Heard my Alabama grandfather use that phrase often.

[pangaia]

27. Outta theya

[patricia92243]

2. Because my kids were exposed to tv, etc they do not have the heavy southern accent that I

have. My son now lives in NY and sounds like a yankee

My daughter lives in Atlanta and is around accents from all over the US and the world. She still has a very slight accent, but not the classic one. Her son was raised in the South and has no accent at all.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Come to Arkansas. I liked the accent in North Carolina better, but

I hear an accent daily here.

[whatthehey]

4. I've moved around a bit and am currently in southern US. It's becoming a barbell.

This was true in KY and seems true in NC to cover my last two states.

A huge chunk of the white (to exclude ethnic/racial dialect effects) population in both middle-sized town Western KY and far exurban/rural greater Triangle NC speaks with fairly flat neutral middle-American accents like mine (non-regional St Louis by original dialect. No Warshington here). A huge chunk of it speaks with the stretched multi-diphthong vowel sounds and swallowed consonants familiar to bouth southern and Appalachian dialects.

It doesn't appear to be a split based on education or class, although perhaps slightly skewed that way. I haven't exactly conducted detailed studies obviously but based purely on subjective limited anecdotes if anything the only factor I can come up with is travel. An upper management colleague of mine, well educated and competent, has a thick regional accent but she never travels, certainly not internationally (no passport as we found out when planning last global conference.) The bartender at my usual spot was born here, didn't finish high school, is a pleasant but not exactly erudite guy, and sounds like a mid-market news anchor. His dad though was military and they moved about a lot. Several other examples along those lines but again no real data.

What's interesting to me is I almost never meet anyone in the middle. People who pronounce "is" with two distinct sounds instead of four or one, or who use phrases like "fixin' to do" something but put the final g on the first word. Nobody seems to have a semi-regional dialect in other words. It's either generic mid-Yankee or full-on regional in my experience in places 800 miles apart.

[shraby]

5. I've heard the heavy southern accent so heavy I couldn't make out what

they were saying. Made me wonder why the English only stance.

[Solly Mack]

7. I moved from Atlanta to Gainesville as a teen

and the teachers at my new school wanted to know 'What part of the north" I was from. I spoke with an obvious southern accent, but I didn't speak with a mountain southern accent. See, there is no one southern accent. 50 miles away and my southern accent was seen as different , and even northern in origin. Now, no one from the north would have thought so.

So, I'm not sure what a classic southern accent is, since a southern accent is different from state to state in the south and from region to region. A coastal southern accent is not the same at all as a mountain southern accent. City southern accent is also different.

Most southern accents attempted by most actors is more mockery of a southern accent than anything. They tend to exaggerate the accent more so than actually achieve it. So, if that's how anyone sees a classic southern accent then that's just being misinformed (to be polite about it).

Brits can do American southern accents. Non-southern Americans, not so much.

A lot of factors play into the various southern accents - who settled the area, where the area is located, other language influences on the region/area.

As to if they are less widely heard, not here in Louisiana. I hear southern accents all day, every day. I also hear the many different influences that make up the different kinds of southern accents heard throughout the state. People from North Louisiana do not sound anything like people from New Orleans - but, for the mot part, it's all said with a southern accent.

[Stinky The Clown]

14. That was my error in the OP - not citing that vast number of local and near-in regional accents.

In my defense, my point was not about that, but rather the broader notion of . . . . well . . . . the generic (I used the word classic) southern accent. Yes, there is a difference between Little Rock, Houston, Jackson and Birmingham, for example. By the way, there is similarly differences in other regional accents, too. Having grown up close in to New York City, there are (to my ear) distinct accents in the different boroughs, in near Long Island, central Long Island, north Jersey, central Jersey, the Jersey Shore, Southern Connecticut, Poughkeepsie/Rockland, etc., etc.

Over the years I have been through the south extensively and lived in Charleston, SC, Chattanooga, Memphis, and Raleigh. I am well aware of the regional differences, can discern many of them, but far from all. In my travels now I find I hear far less of them than when I was in the south. Technically, in Maryland, I am still in the south. And since we moved from a close in Baltimore suburb to out in the sticks, we actually hear some vestiges of a Southern accent (actually, a sort of West Virginia accent being not far from the borders of VA, WV, and MD).

Anyway, it just seems to me that strong Southern accents of most types are now quite soft and in some cases/regions/areas almost non existent.

[Solly Mack]

19. One of the things I love about the USA is the different accents.

I've lived all over the states and the various dialects, patois and accents are a beautiful thing to me. Though some people seem to be without an accent. Or some influence I can't place.

Course, having lived in Germany, you'll find the same thing there. All speaking German, just with varying accents depending on where you are at the time. I could hear a difference anyway.

To some in my family, I no longer have an accent. I still hear it when I speak, but I also know it no longer sounds the same as when I first left the south.

But when I want to, I can lay it on thick.

I think maybe it depends on where in the south you are as to how strong the accent seems, and because people do move around and transplant themselves, maybe a blending is occurring.

I don't know.

[dem in texas]

32. German Accents

Years ago we lived in Germany and after a while recognized that all Germans don't speak the same way. The Bavarians have the
southern accents over there. The same for Spanish speaking countries. People who live in Spain speak in a more clipped accent than Mexicans, Cubans have a bit of Southern drawl when they speak Spanish.

[trof]

15. It's hard for me to understand my redneck buddy sometimes.

I was born and raised in Birmingham, AL.
A 'townie'.
My self proclaimed redneck friend grew up in Pine Level, AL.
It's near Wetumpka, which is near Montgomery.

I graduated from college.
He graduated from high school.

I left Alabama in the late 60s and became an airline pilot.
Lived near Chicago and Boston for 30+ years.
Travelled all over the world.

He lived in Alabama and continued in his family's timbering business.
Exporting logs to Turkey for a while.
Branched out into running a small fleet of 18 wheelers.
Then into disaster cleanup. LOTSA money there.
The guy knows how to make money.

Jeez, did I digress...anyway, we're close friends now.
But sometimes it's very difficult for me to understand him on the phone.
He has what his lovely wife calls "The Alabama Mumble".
It's easier when we're face-to-face.

[greymattermom]

20. I live in Atlanta

and the only Southern accent I hear regularly is from the receptionist who calls to schedule my furnace and air conditioner service.
All the rest seem to be from somewhere along the east coat north of here.

[oneshooter]

21. I have lived in Texas most of my life.

I have been told several times that I sound like "Hank Hill".

[stage left]

24. I was stationed with my husband in Lubbock.

Friendliest people in the world.

[Ace Rothstein]

26. Somewhat related.

The Chicago accent seems to be slowly disappearing.

[Warpy]

29. They've gotten less pronounced over the years

I know my family had a steep learning curve in the 1950s, like what the hell were payas and why did a mechanic want to pour All in the car ?(pears, oil). Part of it is a reflection of education, educated southerners always had lighter accents, but most is a product of broadcast radio and TV.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

30. The extremes of accents have been slowly disappearing

for thirty, maybe fifty years now.

I think TV and people moving around are the two most important factors. Pre TV, and when so many people never got very far from where they were born, they'd all understand each other quite well, no matter how much their pronunciation deviated from the pronunciation elsewhere. But many people find an extreme accent very off-putting in so many ways.

In the movie "Working Girl" the character played by Melanie Griffith has a very strong New York accent, and she realizes that she needs to get rid of it if she hopes to get ahead in her job. There's a nice scene of her playing recordings of her boss, played by Sigourney Weaver, with Griffith practicing new ways of speaking.

When I was just starting high school, we moved from northern New York state to Tucson, Arizona. I joke that for the first two years I didn't have any friends because no one could understand me when I spoke. I didn't consciously work on it, but over time lost almost every single vestige of New York in my voice. Only very rarely will it come out in an isolated word.

[dem in texas]

31. Let's Turn it Around

I live in Dallas, born here, but lived in many places in the world before returning to Texas. I had occasion to work in New Jersey. I thought the people there sounded like they were from the movie "Married to the Mob", yet they told me I had a funny accent! My company had clients in New England and I always enjoyed hearing their New England accents. Then one of the New England clients told me they loved when I called because of my Texas accent.