I’ve always wondered how the Southern accent developed and at what point in time one could identify, if we could somehow record the voices of people living in the south, an accent that we could definitively recognize as “Southern.” I have an interesting theory as to why the Southern accent “evolved,” so to speak.
Linguists have shown that a person who is transplanted from his or her native home and placed in an environment in which he or she must learn a language that is not his native language, and must do so at a young age, will develop a sort of proto-language called a “pidgin,” which then stabilizes into a “creole” language.
A “true” creole language is derived from the mixing of two languages at a deeper level than just the borrowing of words or phrases. My hypothesis is that there are many shades and degrees of “creolization,” if you will, with the equal contribution of parent languages to form a new creole synthesis being an idealization, and that the Southern accent evolved due to the subconscious influence of Afro-English pidgin languages that were spoken by recently arrived slaves prior to the slave trade having been banned (during the years between 1609-1808).
This could possibly explain why people in the Deep South have a stronger accent than people from the “border states,” the reason being that the number of slaves imported and the slave population in general, which I claim is an agent for a two-way linguistical evolutionary process in which the newly arrived slaves learned a version of English that had characteristics of its native African language and through communication passed on these subtle characteristics and dialects to southern white people especially during the latter’s early childhood years (when language acquisition occurs, mostly subconsciously).
Does this make any sense?
More generally, can the development of a specific accent or dialect be attributed to a specific influence or cultural interaction? I.e. Is the question of why Southerners have the specific “Southern accent” a question that can be even answered?
Interesting thought, but I’m pretty sure that, in this case, it was much more about:
The English pronunciation styles in the parts of England (and Scotand, and Ireland), and the time period, that most early settlement of the south happened to draw people from; and
Essentially random shifts that occurred during the period of relative isolation among states, and to some degree between North and South, from, say, 1650 to 1800 or so.
So, the accent as we know it today would have had some elements in place already by earliest British-Isles settlement (c. 1610 to 1650), while other elements would have developed later – making the whole thing recognizably “southern” to us surely no later than 1750 or so, I would wager.
It’s not a new theory. There have been other speculations that Southern American English retains influences from white children being raised by black nannies or playing when young with black children. I’m not sure about what the current thoughts are about such theories.
I do know that there is a lot of talk about how similar Southern English is to various accents of British English, with even some supposing that Southern English is closer to how the British colonists actually sounded than any other existing dialect. If so, this would seem to negate this theory.
To my British ears, the Southern American accent is a lot more difficult to understand, and less like any sort of British accent, than other American accents.
The idea is not that American Southern accents (there are more than one) resemble modern British English, but that they resemble British English as it was spoken in the 17th and 18th centuries. Whether that’s actually true or not I don’t know, but I’ve heard the theory before. And many American Southerners are descended from people who were British but not English. A lot of Scots and Scotch-Irish settled in the South, and I’ve also heard that some of what in the US we consider “Southern” dialect terms and pronunciations are actually of Scottish origin.
FWIW, the first time I read Terry Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters (one of the Discworld books, sort of a Macbeth parody from the perspective of the witches) I wondered why he’d chosen to set it in a fantasy version of the Appalachian region of the US. I was well into the book before I realized that of course it was meant to be a fantasy version of Scotland!
The Wikipedia article on Southern American English has “multiple issues” but information may be gleaned on the various Southern accents. It’s worth a look!
Immigrants from various parts of the British Isles brought the language spoken in their day–beginning centuries ago. They taught the slaves their own versions of English. Of course, the influence went both ways–African-Americans have had a great influence on all American culture.
The Wikipedia article mentions Gullah–a creole language created by blacks living on part of the Atlantic coast. And the section on Louisiana mentions Louisiana Creole–which I remember hearing in Houston, back in the 70’s; but that’s French, not English!
It’s an interesting, complex topic. (And it caused me to add at least one overly expensive book to my Amazon cart.)
I thought the theory was that the American accent in general, not specifically the Southern accent, resembles British English as spoken in the 17th and 18th centuries. I personally find this a bit implausible. After all, American English has had just as long to evolve away from 17th century pronunciation as British English has, and it has probably been subject to more, and more diverse linguistic influences than British English, what with all the immigration into America from other parts of Europe, and elsewhere. But, be that as it may, even if true, this theory does not explain why Southern American seems to be further away from British English than other American accents do. The theory that it is influenced by African pronunciations seems much more plausible, to me, than the theory that it is “old-fashioned” English.
I would say that, if anything, Southern American English, indeed pretty much all American English, is further away from Scottish English than from English English. I have noticed that many Americans who can understand most English English accents perfectly well seem to have trouble understanding a strong Scottish accent.
Irish is another matter. To my ear, some Irish accents do resemble an American accent, but again, not specifically a Southern American accent. Anyway, I thought most Irish immigrants into the U.S. ended up in Northern cities like New York and Boston.
The one British English accent that, I think, may bear some resemblance to American Southern, is English West-Country rural. They both have that slow drawl. I have no idea why that should be, though. It may be just coincidence.
It is an anomaly for sure, but the natives of Ocracoke Island, NC and surrounding areas speak a very strange dialect, at least to the rest of us North Carolinians. Isolation must surely play a major part in that.
Many additional examples of American English being more similar to the English of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries than modern British English (and some the other way around) are provided. In fact she documents that well into the eighteenth century many who visited stateside were impressed by how Americans “in general speak English better than the English do.”
While New Englanders somewhat co-evolved their accent in step with the changes in England due to greater contact, the Southerners’ greater isolation resulted in some older pronunciations persisting, while it also changed from the founding English accent in its own ways as well. Certainly African dialects may have had an impact in that latter regard. How much? I haven’t read it, but I was able to find this book (available as an e-book for $29) that seems to address these questions somewhat comprehensively. If there is an answer it is likely in there.
I hear a similarity between County Donegal accents and Southern US accents. They’ve both got that twangy drawl thing going, for lack of a more formal linguistic description.
This paralleled the situation in the Spanish Americas, where coastal regions (Cuba, coastal Colombia, even Veracruz in Mexico…) maintained greater contact with colonial-era Spain, and so accents co-evolved to a greater degree than in more isolated highland areas, which were generally more conservative… And, again, people are confused about this, because they assume accents remain unchanged over recent centuries back in the European “home” country.
I suspect that a major reason why Southern American dialects might seem more “exotic” to the British than other American dialects would be that authentic Southern American dialects are rarely featured in movies or TV shows. The accents people outside the US are going to be familiar with from American media are mostly certain West Coast, Midwestern, and New York accents. When Southern characters do appear in movies and on TV, they’re frequently played by non-Southern actors who are faking the accent – sometimes quite badly.
I am not a linguist and couldn’t tell you whether American Southern dialects share more specific features with modern English dialects than do other American dialects, but I do know that non-rhotic accents – which are common in England – are not found in most of the US…except in New England and parts of the South. African-American dialects are also mostly non-rhotic, but it seems more likely to me than their ancestors picked this up from white Southerners of English descent than the other way around.
Americans have a lot of exposure to “BBC English” through the media, and almost none to authentic Scottish dialects. I also have no idea how similar the original dialect of the Scotch-Irish (Wikipedia tells me they’re known as Ulster Scots in the UK) was to that of people in, say, Glasgow even before they came over, much less how close it would be now. The Scotch-Irish have been in the US for a long time, since before it was the US, so there’s been plenty of time for accents to diverge. The Appalachian dialect does have a number of features that are known to be due to Scotch-Irish influence, though.
Those are the people who came over in the mid to late 19th century, during/after the Great Famine. There were Irish and Scotch-Irish here long before that.
I think it’s odd that people often think that the British accent doesn’t survive unchanged in the Americas. Around Ocracoke, it pretty much does.
I think that’s due to the fact that the whites in that area had so little contact with non-white people for so long.
But yes, I think the fact that the Ocracoke Island area (including Scotland Neck and surrounding areas) has an almost pure British accent is extremely strong evidence that the Southern Accent is actually different from British English largely because of African and Native American influences. Extremely strong, bordering on absolute proof, absent careful linguistic analysis.
No, it doesn’t. See here for a discussion of this sort of myth (albeit not about Ocracoke specifically); I doubt you will find any linguist who would endorse such a claim.
I don’t have an accent, “youse Guys” do and you talk too fast as well
the odd thing I have observed in myself is that my Texas Drawl changes depending on where I am. In NYC none at all, in Brimingham AL, quite a bit. I don’t do this intentionally it just happens. I didn’t know this until the English guys I tour with pointed it out, they found this extremely funny.
I have lived in NC for 40 years and I’ve never heard anyone say the mountain areas of NC have a British type accent. Those people sound like most other southern accents.
I have heard that about Ocracoke and I have been there and heard that accent for myself in person. It is sort of British to me, but I don’t know what it sounded like 50 or 100 years ago.
It sounds pretty British to me. Granted, I’ve not been to England, but I had to listen VERY closely, for several minutes, before I felt fairly sure that it might conceivably be something other than a pure British Isles accent of some type.
As to what it sounded like 50 or 100 years ago, probably just a more extreme version of what it is now. I notice that older generations tend to have heavier regional accents, and I imagine that’s been true pretty much everywhere in the US for several generations now.
Have you been there? No? Are you a degreed linguist? No?
Like I said in the above post, I had to listen for several minutes VERY carefully before I felt reasonably sure that it wasn’t an EXACT copy of some British Isles accent. I’m from North Carolina, am familiar with quite a few of its regional and class-based subdialects, and I’ve watched more than enough British TV and movies to have heard quite a few different regional accents from there as well.
I listen carefully to accents, can imitate them quite well, and also have worked for years in call centers. I talk to people from all over the world and the US, and using their accent, I can identify someone’s location to a specific region of their state, quite often.
Using accents, I can hear the difference between Minnesota and Wisconsin, the difference between eastern and western Oregon/Washington, and the difference between east and west Texas. I can pin down someone’s location by COUNTY in my part of North Carolina, quite often, and I can pin down someone’s social class in North Carolina within 3-5 words, 80% of the time.
Identifying regional US accents is a hobby of mine, because call center work is generally not mentally stimulating, and it helps pass the time at work.
So please feel free to dispute me using your lack of degree, lack of experience with this particular regional accent of a specific part of coastal NC, and lack of expertise with accents, mmkay?
