# Southern Accents **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 17, 2002, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents/109597 "2002-05-17T18:54:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents/109597/41 "2003-04-03T00:12:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ellen Cherry \* > \*\*Gullah was mentioned by barbitu8 – do you ever hear it spoken? I’ve listened, while on vacation, but haven’t detected any, even when hanging around the basket-weavers. (And not just at the downtown market either!) 🙂 \*\* Gullah is a dying language, but it is still spoken in the sea islands off the coast of SC and Ga. It’s also spoken by some African Americans in Charleston in the neighborhoods. ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents/109597/42 "2003-04-03T03:30:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Nichol\_storm \* > \*\* Wasn’t “okra” orginally an imported African word? \*\* Actually, it was originally an **indigenous** African word before being imported to North America. 😃 Specifically, _okra_ comes from the Akan (Twi) language spoken in parts of present-day Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. The root is _nkruma_, as in Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana after the former Gold Coast gained its independence from the United Kingdom. [http://www.bartleby.com/61/33/O0053300.html](http://www.bartleby.com/61/33/O0053300.html) Girl#9 asked: > [@](#): > > And weren’t a lot of folks settled in the south, prior to slaves being introduced? Slavery (or, to be precise, indentured servitude of blacks) existed in the Jamestown colony as early as 1619. Most of the folks “settled in the south” at that time were members of Indian tribes. “The popular conception of a race-based slave system did not fully develop until the 1680’s.” [http://www.apva.org/history/](http://www.apva.org/history/) ---
**Author:** ![Kevin\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de0a6/32.png) [@Kevin\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevin_H)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents/109597/43 "2003-04-03T04:15:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Wendell Wagner \* > \*\*Everybody who speaks English speaks with an accent. It’s no more or less of a problem to identify the origin of southern (U.S.) accents than it is to identify the origin of the accent of any other English speaker. There’s no such thing as a privileged accent in English from which all other accents are merely deviations. \*\* If “everyone has an accent” and there is no standard accent, then how can you explain something like the fact that I, who have lived near Boston my whole life, a friend of mine who’s lived in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton PA area, a friend who’s lived in San Francisco his whole life, a friend of mine who’s moved all around the country, but spent most of his time in Maryland, as well as my grandparents (who lived in Denver) all speak the same way? I’ve tried looking for words that are different because I got in an argument with a couple of New Yorkers with heavy New York accents (Queens and Staten Island) because they said that everyone has an accent, while I said that I have “no accent” and speak like a “normal” American without a real accent. There may be certain phrases local to an area…for me something like “wicked cool” but of course, that has nothing to do with how we pronounce words, and all of us, spanning the country pronounce every word the same what (that I’ve noticed at least). ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents/109597/44 "2003-04-03T05:41:13Z")
Before I moved to NC, I realized while I was making phone calls to set up utilities, etc. that there was a distinct North Carolina accent. It’s most pronounced in a word like “home”, though I can’t spell it like it’s said–maybe “heaum”. I don’t think I would have noticed this if I hadn’t already been a Southerner. I was hanging out with an anthropologist once who listened to my accent for a few minutes–an accent many people believe that I don’t have–and said, “You’re probably from the foothill region of the state, somewhere around Irvine or Jackson.” (He already knew I was from Kentucky.) My hometown sits right between the two, in fact. 🙂 Dr. J ---
**Author:** ![something\_clever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@something\_clever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/something_clever)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents/109597/45 "2003-04-03T08:25:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by 'Uigi \* > \*\*This place runs me nuts. Standard drawl is one thing, but when you hear a Scottish brogue (or whatever it’s called) overlaying the more common drawl, now you’ve heard a true abomonation. “Ya’ll” isn’t bad; "Yaoe’ll is. \*\* [http://www.homestarrunner.com/cantsayjob.html](http://www.homestarrunner.com/cantsayjob.html) haha 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Andy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/aeb1de/32.png) [@Andy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents/109597/46 "2003-04-03T08:59:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kevin H \* > If “everyone has an accent” and there is no standard accent, then how can you explain something like the fact that I, who have lived near Boston my whole life, a friend of mine who’s lived in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton PA area, a friend who’s lived in San Francisco his whole life, a friend of mine who’s moved all around the country, but spent most of his time in Maryland, as well as my grandparents (who lived in Denver) all speak the same way? I bet you’ve a very different accent from me;) As to whose is standard…:shrug: ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents/109597/47 "2003-04-03T13:47:49Z")
Kevin H writes: \> If “everyone has an accent” and there is no standard accent, \> then how can you explain something like the fact that I, who \> have lived near Boston my whole life, a friend of mine who’s \> lived in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton PA area, a friend who’s lived \> in San Francisco his whole life, a friend of mine who’s moved all \> around the country, but spent most of his time in Maryland, as \> well as my grandparents (who lived in Denver) all speak the \> same way? I didn’t say that there was no standard accent. I said that there was no privileged accent. The accent that you speak is probably pretty close to the accent that I speak. I grew up in rural northwest Ohio, spent several years in college and grad school in Florida and Texas, spent several years working in England, and have lived for most of my adult life in Maryland just outside of D.C. (And, of course, most of the time I hung out with people who themselves had moved around the country a lot.) This is an accent. It may well be the Standard American English accent, but it is an accent. It’s the accent that foreigners who learn American English are taught to speak. It’s the accent that national news broadcasters are taught to speak. It’s not a privileged accent in the sense that linguistically we can explain all the other accents of American English by deviations from it, nor is it historically prior to other accents of American English. It was a choice that this should be the Standard American English accent. (Incidentally, I heard once that rural northwest Ohio English is the closest to this Standard American English. I don’t know if that’s true.) There have been other accents that were once standard. Before radio and TV chose this as standard in the 1930’s, in so far as there was a standard accent, it was this Boston/New York upper class accent that now sounds rather odd to most of us. If you want to hear an example of it, listen to Franklin Roosevelt’s speeches when he was President. This was the accent that speech coaches taught back then when someone wanted to “get rid of their accent.” It was only with the advent of TV and radio that the current Standard American English became standard. This was a choice, and it could have been made differently. ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents/109597/48 "2003-04-03T17:19:04Z")
> [@](#): > > I was hanging out with an anthropologist once who listened to my accent for a few minutes–an accent many people believe that I don’t have–and said, “You’re probably from the foothill region of the state, somewhere around Irvine or Jackson.” (He already knew I was from Kentucky.) My hometown sits right between the two, in fact. > > Dr. J I’ll agree with the anthropologist! I’ve long thought people from Irvine (“Ur-vun”) speak particularly distinctively. I’d pay money to hear you say “white rice.” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents/109597/49 "2003-04-03T19:06:51Z")
The (somewhat unfortunately named) book **Albion’s Seed** has some interesting discussions of the distinctive “speech ways” of different British emigrants to the U.S. [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195069056/qid=1049396774/sr=8-1/ref=sr\_8\_1/103-5690030-5489455?v=glance&s=books&n=507846](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195069056/qid=1049396774/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/103-5690030-5489455?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) The author’s basic premise is that there were four distinctive strands of emigration, each originating in and terminating in distinct parts of the British/Isles (e.g., Midlands, East Anglia, etc.) and the U.S. (Virginia, the Appalachia back country, etc.), and that identifiable and very discrete cultural traits (including but not limited to dialect) endured/endure. ---
**Author:** ![chigger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@chigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chigger)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2003, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents/109597/50 "2003-04-04T01:29:25Z")
Aesiron: “I try my damnedest to not use “y’all” or “ain’t”. They sound ignorant to me.” Interesting point. Growing up in Oklahoma, I sensed an unspoken purpose to use and hone a dialect or accent that clearly differentiated us from people like Yankees or Brits. Frankly, we perceived such groups as arrogant and hateful precisely because they viewed us ignorant or stupid without really knowing us. Our version of the language was a butchering to be sure, but the style imparted a sense of identity and fraternity. Perhaps one could say “culture”, but we would never have owned up to such a pointy-headed platitude. In school we had the same language books as did all the other kids across the country, so we certainly weren’t ill-informed, i.e. ignorant, about the English language. We wrote and spoke however properly we were required to in the classroom, but made a bloody mess of it on the playground and in the after hours. During the college and career years, I’ve met quite a number of people from across the U.S. and England. In this small sample, the percentages of sharp vs. dim-witted and wise vs. foolish are pretty much uniform regardless of geographic, dialectal, or even “cultural” boundaries. I certainly cannot correlate dialect with either intellegence or temperament, but I am suggesting that fraternalism is a significant evolutionary pressure. Right now my problem is that I’m in a southern accent (south Louisiana) that is so different from my own that I’m often recognized as “not from here” and misidentified as a Texan, which is about the biggest insult one can aim at an Okie. I love “y’all” and “aint” (notice, not contracted); I use them daily in the lecture room and on campus (even around the College Dean). What I can’t figure out though is how all them smarty pants Yankees came up with “nor’easter” for “north-eastern”. … Gahhh, some people are so ignernt. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents/109597.md?page=2)