The pronunciation of “W” will also reveal a rural-tainted, otherwise cosmopolitan accent.
As in, “George Dub-Yuh Bush”… truly cosmopolitan (ie., standard broadcast English) would be “Double-You”.
Or so I was told in a Communications “Voice-Over” class years ago… from an Oklahoman Half-Cherokee! (I love the diversity of a university setting!)
I grew up in Alabama and now live in the next county over from my mom. Until I was 14, when she married someone from this county, I never knew anything about it or the people who live here. There is a very odd pocket of accent here that is completely different from anything I have heard anywhere else in the south, or in the US for that matter. A girl who works in my office has an accent that used to make me howl with laughter. Living here for the past year, I’ve grown more accustomed, but it still strikes me funny from time to time.
Like Trumpy303, I too have no discernable southern accent. I attribute it to the fact that my mom, who is from Wyoming, taught me to speak standard written English and did not encourage any “southernisms”. I have unfortunately been told that I have a slight Junior Year Abroad accent. Bah!
Re: antiquated English and hillbillies.
Hit(it), yonder, and* reckon*
are still common here, especially among country folk. They are also seen in Shakespeare’s work. This is not my imagination. There are other examples that elude me at the moment.
I, too, grew up with less of an accent than my peers. Mom was from OH, stepdad from AL…both schoolteachers. I still get “where you from?” (I’ve lived in TN 38 of my 40 years). But, people from other parts say I have a soft southern accent.
Oh, and the most obnoxious accent is a fake Southern drawl. Gets me riled up agin the Yankees jest thinkin bout it.
I agree about fake southern drawls…but borrowed accents have their uses. As the Floridian daughter of two Alabamans, I grew up fairly accentless, but I can “borrow” my dad’s faint drawl when I need it. It is very useful dealing with older men.
My sister, on the other hand, can’t resist picking up whatever accent predominates around her (usually flawlessly.) We always joked that we were going to send her on a European tour just to see how she talked when she came back.
TennHippie:
Most linguists agree that Appalachian/hillbilly speech contains more archaisms than many other American dialects, but the idea that you can legimitately call their dialect Elizabethan or Shakespearean because of a few words or phrases has been met with a unanimous HAHAHA. It’s something of a classic UL of the field, actually.
Can’t remember the specifics, but there was actually a study a few years ago which attempted to demonstrate that Appalachian speech was Elizabethan by presenting the locals with texts from that era. The results demonstrated clearly that there is no substantial connection.
evilbeth:
I would think the language spoken by most of these people (at least the ones from the highlands and the remote areas of Scotland and Ireland) wouldn’t be English at all, but Scots Gaelic or Irish? For those who did speak English, though, you may be right. I’ll have to dig some old books out when I get home.
As far as Florida goes…it really depends on where in Florida. Culture-wise, most coastal areas aren’t really southern. However, there are many areas in Florida, that aren’t large cities, that aren’t on the water, that don’t have big tourist attractions, that are as southern as any place you can find in Alabama, or Georgia, or Louisiana.
Now…I live on the Gulf coast, south of Tampa, in an area popular with both snowbirds and tourists, but I DO have an accent. Sometimes I hear it, sometimes I don’t, but even when I can’t hear it myself, other people do. It varies in strength, sometimes I’m just in the mood for a long slow drawl, but it’s always there.
I was born and raised here. My parents were born and raised here. One grandparent was born here, two were born in Georgia, and the other was born down in Panama, of Scottish parents, but all have lived here for most of their lives.
Do I consider myself to be Southern? Hell yes. 's all them Northerners who live here who ain’t.
And I resent being called a Yankee. 
The Minty One
ruadh: I believe you, but evilbeth’s theory sounds plausible. Then again, it could be purely coincidence.
While we’re talking about Appalachian mysteries, any new theories on the origins of the Melungeons?
You know, I’m doubting this thing about Appalachians talking funny because they came from remote outposts of Britain and Ireland. IIRC my Colonial American History, the mountains were settled because of overcrowding nearer the coast - the settlers didn’t just get off the boat and head straight for the mountains. Surely the dialects would have blended as they were mingling on the eastern shores with settlers from other parts of Britain/Ireland/Europe. It also strikes me as a bit unlikely that it would have been such a homogenous group that pushed west, but I’m just kind of thinking out loud at the moment (or talking out my ass, whichever you prefer :))… in all seriousness, evilbeth, do you have a cite? I’m curious.
As for the Melungeons, it’s really hard to find anything reliable on them. I was under the impression they were generally considered to be of Portuguese descent; doing a quick web search I find very little scholarly research and a whole lot of … um, garbage, to put it nicely. Check out this site for a hilarious example of the latter - if you can’t make it through the whole thing, just scroll down to the part about the Lost Colony and the Carthaginians.