True, the forum title may seem narrow minded and provocative to some, but, speaking as a Yankee, what is the origin of the southern accent? Or perhaps a better question is, why the difference in accents between North and South (forgetting for a moment the myriad variations on both).
Yes, it does.
Generalize much?
I dunno. Why do y’all talk funny?
IIRC, I once heard that the “southern accent” I think you are talking about sounds the way it does because of the scotch/irish origins of a lot of southerners, that the “southern accent” you speak of is sort of a “descendent,” if you will, of scotch/irish accents, or something like that.
BA
Your question is more than a bit narrow. There exists, in these United States, more than just “northern” and “southern” accents. Within each of these broad regions you outline there are dozens of regional accents - Appalachian, Bostonian, Maine/Down Eastern, New England, Mid-Western, etc. Within each regional accent can be dozens of variations attributable to social grouping. As a native Georgian, I can almost always tell what part of the state another native is from - the North Georgia accent is different from the South Georgia accent which is different from the Urban (Atlanta) Georgia accent which is different from the Coastal Georgia accent. The same is true up north - a Bronx accent is much different than a New York accent, for example, and in almost every language around the globe.
So the much broader question would be “Why do people who speak the same language develop regional accents?”. My answer is “I don’t have a clue, but phrasing the question correctly will likely get you a better answer”. [sub]OK, I do have a clue but I’ll defer to someone more educated in linquistics than I.[/sub]
Same reason you do.
Doctor Jackson has just about nailed the answer. All Southerners do not have the same accent, neither do all Yankees and that doesn’t include all those folks out west.
A couple of years ago, my wife and I went into a resturante in Florence, Italy. It was fairly busy at first, but when we were finishing only one couple sat across the room. All of a sudden I heard the woman say “Mississippi”. It turned out they were from Virginia, but she grew up in Mississippi. The thing is that I have what most Mississippians will tell you is a Yankee accent and my wife grew up in Alabama.
It’s possible, to a certain degree, to trace differing American accents back to different regions in England or the UK where the majority of the original settlers were from. There is also speculation that the large slave populations of the south influenced the overall speach patterns of that region as well.
I have also heard that regions which saw less “traffic” traveling through retained more traces of the original settlers’ speech patterns. The south didn’t see very many additional waves of new immigrants not being industrial.
As an interesting side note. I work with a Venezuelan for whom English is a second language. His mastery of English, both written and spoken, never fails to amaze me. But he admits that he cannot discern regional accents in English. Only a different word, like y’all, gives him clues to an English speaker’s origin.
-rainy
I am a Northerner and always will be but I heard the best ever answer for a Southerner to make on a Barney Miller show:
A Southern lawyer, when asked, why do you all talk so funny, answers:
“We no longer have accents. You do.”
It was delivered flawlessly and beautifully, I about fell over laughing because it was so true.
Swordsman, welcome.
As a guest, I know you cannot search. So I found this article which touches on many different dialects of English. Dialectical origins are not really explained, but you will gain a new appreciation for the way other English speakers talk.