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Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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^^^ And then you post a video of a Baltimore dude imitating "DC dudes" knowing damn well people talk nothing like that here. Lol It's funny to me because I joke with friends from Bmore all the time about their exaggerated emphasis on certain words when they are trying to imitate DC. They slur their words and talk slow like a true southerner on purpose to make a point, cracks me up every time. People in DC don't talk slow nor slur their words, at least the majority don't. Even the video of "What DC girls say" is a DC person imitating and exaggerating ones DC accent for comedy. In fact notice all your videos posted are "imitation videos" (people intentionally exaggerating their accent vs actual interviews in the Chicago people).
Look, there are what I consider to be exaggerating versions of an accent from every major city. What I mean by that is in every city you have people who sound REALLY from there and talk with a very heavy local accent. The videos you posted of DC are that, and the videos I posted of Chicago are that. To the contrary, among the black community in EVERY city not just the ones being discussed, there are many many blacks and people of all races who come with a much much more neutral sounding accent. The videos you posted from Chicago are that, and the videos of people from DMV I posted are that. We're just dancing around each others point.
I have love for all Chicagoans and Chicagoland as a whole, but to me. Coming from the East Coast, which is what I consider DMV to be, the Blacks in the Midwest and Chicago specifically have more twang in their speech than even people from VA do, let alone DC or Maryland.
Again DC/MD/VA all have SOME people who have a deeper versioned accent that has a decent amount of twang to it, but in all honesty you only hear much of that strong accent you are referring to in two jurisdictions DC and PG County, and not even all of both those jurisdictions have people that talk the same. Cats from Montgomery County, MD sound way more neutral or dare I say Northern than just the people in those videos you posted.
Last edited by the resident09; 07-20-2018 at 03:44 PM..
Sure, Chicago has some Southern influences, as do practically all large American cities save perhaps those in New England and the far West or NW like SF, LA, Portland or Seattle.
... But the question is, of the 2, Philly and Chicago, which "more" Southern influence, and if you voted for Chicago you must not have spent much time in Philadelphia. I moved here 15 years ago having grown up in Cleveland and spent time in Michigan and D.C. But coming here I felt it immediately. ... Philly is just 25 miles north of the Mason-Dixon Line and more importantly the Southern feel of the place is palpable -- the diphthong speech patterns, the slower pace of city of life for such a large city (which is in stark contrast to the Big Apple just 95 miles up the turnpike), the reverence for all things Civil War related , the old-style prim & proper mannerisms here -- the genteel Main Line, class-stratified mentality is definitely an outgrowth of that...
There are good and bad aspects of genteel Philadelphia... The good is that despite the rude Philly "addytood" of the streets, educated and refined Philadelphians exercise good manners. The bad side of this is that people often don't say what they mean -- save the 'lesser' 'addytood' types, so there often is a kind of phony-ness here at times. Being too direct is simply seen as bad manners...
As for the Civil War aspect: while Philly was a Union/North city as was the state, er, Commonwealth (a word my friends say reeks of Southern-ness in itself), there always has been a tacit respect for Confederate ways here. After the 15th Amendment was past granting African Americans the right to vote, many Black people were threatened and even lost their lives attempting to vote (ie: the revered O.V. Catto who infamously was gunned down while attempting to get Blacks out to vote Republican, the party of Lincoln and abolition at the time). There was widespread segregation here -- it was widely accepted until the 1950s and 60s, and I was amazed to find there were, and are, still segregated cemeteries-- one of the dumbest things I've ever heard...
So while Chicago may have some influences in folks transplanted from the South, it would be hard pressed to top Philly in Southern ways and customs.
I'm originally from SC and lived in south Jersey (I could see the Philly skyline from my apartment building) for a year. I can't think of any "Southern ways" I observed in Philly at all among the population at large. I DEFINITELY didn't notice any "old style prim and proper mannerisms."
The Chicago accent may be slightly more southern than DC. You can definitely hear it in Chicago, you can kinda hear it in DC especially with the younger generation. My Brother's girlfriend is from DC and her accent is noticably different. You'll really hear it when she says "dollar," "five" "car" "park" "well."
Not sure why segregation would even be brought up as a justification for "southerness", as every major city in this country is very notably racially segregated. The idea that it's an exclusively southern trait is pretty laughable.
Also, if we're getting into Civil War allegiances, I recall that NYC at that point in time had plenty of Confederate sympathizers due to economic ties to slavery.
How about the economic relationship between the textile mills of New England and slave-produced cotton? Sounds pretty complicit to me.
I think the issue is that folks have this notion of Northern "purity" in their minds, whereby Northerners wanted nothing to do with slavery or all of them were fiercely anti-Confederate. That's honestly nowhere near true.
Also, LOL, there's nothing "genteel" about the Main Line in the Southern sense. It's classic, "old money" Northeastern suburbia through and through. There's plenty of parallels, particularly in terms of classism, between the coastal Northeast and coastal South (think Charleston versus Nantucket), but you'd never mistake them for one another.
I whole heartedly disagree. I'm not going to say that DMV or Mid-Atlantic black folks sound particularly "Northern" but it's nothing like what I perceive the black Chicago accent to be. You chose some pretty neutral sounding black folks as your examples of Chicago, try Chief Keef and some of those young street rappers as examples the countryness is astounding in their accent.
Everywhere you can find people with a nice neutral sounding accent vs a deeper one, listen to Kevin Durant, Martin Lawrence, Jeff Green, Jarret Jack etc or even south VA natives like Allen Iverson, DeAngelo Hall or Mike Vick or Pharrell or Pusha T. They don't have country accents at all maybe at best a slight twang. From an overall perspective the Mid-Atlantic accent has less twang however than a Midwest one, I have family from Cincinnati, to Detroit, to KC, and Chicago this is no comparison. My cousins from each (in terms of accent only) are straight country.
The simple fact that majority of blacks that migrated up to DC years back were from NC and VA vs the majority that fled to Chicago were from Mississippi and Alabama and Arkansas should tell you which accent would have or be derived from more of a country sound.
Something I'm at pains to point out to people is that Kansas City has a sizable "native" African-American population due to Missouri having been a slave state (in contrast to the Northern cities whose free black populations were relatively small before the first and second Great Migrations).
The same would apply to the DMV, given that both Maryland and Virginia also had slavery (one state seceded, the other didn't - though like Missouri, which also didn't secede, the Civil War tore the state that didn't in two).
It's my impression that Chicago got some of its black population during the First Great Migration (the one that also produced the "Exodusters" bound for Kansas, a very few of whom actually made it there), while the other large Northeastern cities got their sizable black populations during the Second.
KC had migrants too, however; they came from Texas and (western) Louisiana rather than the Mississippi Delta. (The Kansas City Southern Railway roughly duplicates their migratory path.) A good chunk of my mother's side of the family, and a small piece of my father's (who are native Missourians otherwise), came from this area. African-Americans in Kansas City speak with accents that in no way resemble those of African-Americans who migrated to the North from points further east in the South; they're actually pretty close to the generic Central Plains accent.
My father-in-law lives in southern Illinois and if I had not visited the area (twice), then I wouldn't have believed it either but it's true.
At least when it comes to the accents of most, if not all, residents who were born and raised down there.
Allow me to point out that Carbondale, IL, sort of the capital city of Southern Illinois, is 330 miles south of Chicago, and Cairo, at the very southern tip of Illinois is 370 miles from Chicago. So perhaps we shouldn't make too much of this connection of Chicago and the south.
NO WAY!!!! Grew up in the DC region, and live in Chicago. DC, Maryland, and Virginia blacks sound more southern/country than Chicago blacks. Chicago has a range, with some sounding completey east coast (think Common, Michael Wilbon, Lupe Fiasco) to moderate (Dwayne Wade, Derrick Rose, Kanye) to very southern. DC/MD/VA blacks just sound plain southern/country (although it’s not a deep south southern accent), which isn’t surprising, given that the DMV is Southern light/upper south/ mid atlantic.
Overall, I could agree they are about equal, but NO WAY Chicago blacks sound MORE Southern than DC, Maryland, or Virginia blacks.
I will post the videos I usually do on here when I get a chance to show the range of Chicago blacks’ accent. There are many who sound way less southern than DC/MD/VA blacks, who have a more consistent southern accent, which makes sense given your upper south location.
Judging by hip hop this paragraph has a lot of truths. People like Lupe, Wade, Common and even the rappers LEP boys never had a deep southern accent to me.
DC black folks to me sound southern but then again I’ve met DC folks who don’t have the accent. In other words the hood dudes had a southern sounding accent while the black people I knew who weren’t part of that life sounded a whole 180 degree less southern!
Had a similar experience with guy I know from Charleston, SC who had no southern accent or a geechee accent but I don’t really count him since he’s so educated and seems that he himself let go of his accent!
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