Do regional accents exist in people born after '89? (best, areas)

[Stars&StripesForever]

Originally Posted by RonnieJonez

There is a southern accent though, while not everyone has it, a large percent do in both those cities (among natives as well). Even small towns in Northern Missouri typically have a noticeable southern accent.

I went to college with a girl from Olathe, Kansas. She had lived there her entire life before moving to Atlanta. I assumed she was from Georgia based on her accent. I thought that she sounded mildly southern, like myself, so I believed that she was originally from the Atlanta area.

This was 14-15 years ago.

[Smtchll]

Originally Posted by Stars&StripesForever

I went to college with a girl from Olathe, Kansas. She had lived there her entire life before moving to Atlanta. I assumed she was from Georgia based on her accent. I thought that she sounded mildly southern, like myself, so I believed that she was originally from the Atlanta area.

This was 14-15 years ago.

Yeah, I've met people from the KC area who sounded like Southerners with mild Southern accents.

[stlouisan]

Originally Posted by Stars&StripesForever

I went to college with a girl from Olathe, Kansas. She had lived there her entire life before moving to Atlanta. I assumed she was from Georgia based on her accent. I thought that she sounded mildly southern, like myself, so I believed that she was originally from the Atlanta area.

This was 14-15 years ago.

Your experiences are your experiences, but mine don't agree. Knowing several people from the Kansas City suburbs, if it's the accent I heard, calling it mildly southern is the wrong term. A few southern tendencies, yes, but it is predominantly a Midland accent. This dialect has been native to that area going back over 100 years.

Nobody I've ever met from Atlanta, even among the younger generations, speaks like somebody from Kansas City unless you get two people speaking neutral from both of those cities.

Linguistic studies certainly don't agree with your experience. And the University of Pennsylvania has a linguistic study dating back 14-15 years ago....Olathe, KS is in the South Midland range...Atlanta is in the southern range.

[Smtchll]

Originally Posted by stlouisan

Your experiences are your experiences, but mine don't agree. Knowing several people from the Kansas City suburbs, if it's the accent I heard, calling it mildly southern is the wrong term. A few southern tendencies, yes, but it is predominantly a Midland accent. This dialect has been native to that area going back over 100 years.

Nobody I've ever met from Atlanta, even among the younger generations, speaks like somebody from Kansas City unless you get two people speaking neutral from both of those cities.

Linguistic studies certainly don't agree with your experience. And the University of Pennsylvania has a linguistic study dating back 14-15 years ago....Olathe, KS is in the South Midland range...Atlanta is in the southern range.

pin/pen merger is present in KC, and that alone can make someone sound a bit Southern because it's mostly a Southern characteristic.

[stlouisan]

Originally Posted by Smtchll

Yeah, I've met people from the KC area who sounded like Southerners with mild Southern accents.

I'd be interested where you and stars are meeting these people,, how old they are, etc., because I'm unable to find them.

One thing I do know according to another user on here, Northbound74, is that many southerners have migrated to Kansas City recently, so that's why you hear the accents. Personally, I've never met a native of Kansas City who spoke with a southern accent...south midland accent is what i've heard...it has a few southern tendencies (the pin-pen merger being the main one), but is severely lacking in most areas. For crying out loud, before you decide what kind of accent somebody has, do research on them...linguists would not be needed if we could all accurately make the diagnosis ourselves...all i've heard thus far contradicts all professional studies I've come across.

If in fact I'm wrong and southern accents among natives exist, they are rare. Southern speech patterns are not the dominant dialect unless you are on the southern fringes of the midwest, well south of KC and STL. That's when it transitions from south midland to southern.

[Smtchll]

Originally Posted by stlouisan

I'd be interested where you and stars are meeting these people,, how old they are, etc., because I'm unable to find them.

One thing I do know according to another user on here, Northbound74, is that many southerners have migrated to Kansas City recently, so that's why you hear the accents. Personally, I've never met a native of Kansas City who spoke with a southern accent...south midland accent is what i've heard...it has a few southern tendencies (the pin-pen merger being the main one), but is severely lacking in most areas. For crying out loud, before you decide what kind of accent somebody has, do research on them...linguists would not be needed if we could all accurately make the diagnosis ourselves...all i've heard thus far contradicts all professional studies I've come across.

If in fact I'm wrong and southern accents among natives exist, they are rare. Southern speech patterns are not the dominant dialect unless you are on the southern fringes of the midwest, well south of KC and STL. That's when it transitions from south midland to southern.

A large group of students (about 30) from Kansas State came down here for a weekend. The majority of them were from Johnson County KS. They didnt sound Southern, but they sounded like a lot of people here with very mild Southern accents. It's mostly because they had the pin-pen merger.

So South Midland accents can sound like people in urban areas of the South who have almost lost their Southern accents.

[stlouisan]

Originally Posted by Smtchll

pin/pen merger is present in KC, and that alone can make someone sound a bit Southern because it's mostly a Southern characteristic.

That feature is also present in Indiana well to the north of Indianapolis. There is a pin-pen merger map which can find on google image showing you where it exists, and it is not confined to the south. And not at all surprising for a South-Midland accent, which will have a few southern features...what the KC accent doesn't have are the lengthening of "o's", "y'all", and many other southern features. Linguists exclude KC from the southern speech patterns specifically for that reason. I realize you and StarsandStripes could be exceptions to your regions, but the simple fact is that southern accents are the dominant dialects in your respective regions, or at least was until recently..that was not the case with KC.

here is the pin-pen merger map:

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/maps/Map3.GIF

As you can tell, that merger occurs as far north as Northeast Indiana, and includes most of Indiana and a large chunk of Illinois.

http://hoofin.files.wordpress.com/20...ents-in-us.png

This second one was made right around the time period period Starsandstripes claimed to have met the woman he did. Both maps are professional linguist-crafted. IF that was 15 years ago, I can guarantee that saying KC has southern accents makes even less sense now.

[stlouisan]

Originally Posted by Smtchll

A large group of students (about 30) from Kansas State came down here for a weekend. The majority of them were from Johnson County KS. They didnt sound Southern, but they sounded like a lot of people here with very mild Southern accents. It's mostly because they had the pin-pen merger.

So South Midland accents can sound like people in urban areas of the South who have almost lost their Southern accents.

They can, but they typically do not. South Midland is called what it is called specifically because it's not a southern accent. And regardless, if somebody from Kansas can be said to talk similar to someone from Georgia, by no means does it make sense to say that the person from Georgia isn't a Southerner, or than the person from Kansas isn't a Midwesterner..cultural and demographic differences cancel out the similarity.

[Smtchll]

Originally Posted by stlouisan

That feature is also present in Indiana well to the north of Indianapolis. There is a pin-pen merger map which can find on google image showing you where it exists, and it is not confined to the south. And not at all surprising for a South-Midland accent, which will have a few southern features...what the KC accent doesn't have are the lengthening of "o's", "y'all", and many other southern features. Linguists exclude KC from the southern speech patterns specifically for that reason. I realize you and StarsandStripes could be exceptions to your regions, but the simple fact is that southern accents are the dominant dialects in your respective regions, or at least was until recently..that was not the case with KC.

here is the pin-pen merger map:

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/maps/Map3.GIF

As you can tell, that merger occurs as far north as Northeast Indiana, and includes most of Indiana and a large chunk of Illinois.

http://hoofin.files.wordpress.com/20...ents-in-us.png

This second one was made right around the time period period Starsandstripes claimed to have met the woman he did. Both maps are professional linguist-crafted.

It makes people sound slightly Southern. It's an overwhelmingly Southern characteristic that happens to spill over into some of the Midwest.

Also, one of the maps puts Northern OK in the same dialect region as KC. My family is from Northern OK and they sound very Southern, so it's not a stretch to say that some people in KC sound a bit Southern.

[GunnerTHB]

Originally Posted by stlouisan

That feature is also present in Indiana well to the north of Indianapolis. There is a pin-pen merger map which can find on google image showing you where it exists, and it is not confined to the south. And not at all surprising for a South-Midland accent, which will have a few southern features...what the KC accent doesn't have are the lengthening of "o's", "y'all", and many other southern features. Linguists exclude KC from the southern speech patterns specifically for that reason. I realize you and StarsandStripes could be exceptions to your regions, but the simple fact is that southern accents are the dominant dialects in your respective regions, or at least was until recently..that was not the case with KC.

here is the pin-pen merger map:

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/maps/Map3.GIF

As you can tell, that merger occurs as far north as Northeast Indiana, and includes most of Indiana and a large chunk of Illinois.

http://hoofin.files.wordpress.com/20...ents-in-us.png

This second one was made right around the time period period Starsandstripes claimed to have met the woman he did. Both maps are professional linguist-crafted. IF that was 15 years ago, I can guarantee that saying KC has southern accents makes even less sense now.

I'd like to meet whoever they talked to for Cape Girardeau. I've only heard one native family here in my life pronounce pin and pen differently, and they actually are a Scotch-Irish family that speak more of a mountain south dialect than anything.

Hell, maybe they used Rush Limbaugh for their evidence for Cape but I saw several of their maps that made no sense. They are dreaming if they think the pin-pen merger isn't common in Cape.