Do any parts of Kansas feel southern at all? (Kansas City: transplants, how much)

[imbored198824]

I'm pretty sure the lady in the video I put up is from southeast Kansas. I have met tons of people from rural southeast Kansas and she sounds exactly like them. The fist video the other poster put up only included one local. The other people in that video are not natives to se kansas.

[SPonteKC]

Lots of random samples of native speakers in Cherokee County, KS. None of them sound like the woman in the clip above. Again, she may be a native Kansan, though her accent would suggest she is not, but if she is, she is an outlier. Her speech is not "normal" SE Kansas accented speech.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9b7XNxbVqo

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zTicouwJoME

http://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/T...ice=tablet&c=y

[cheese plate]

Originally Posted by steel03

Wichita is more like Oklahoma City than Kansas City imo. No part of Kansas is Southern in the Georgia/South Carolina sense, but there is plenty of Central-Southern influence from Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas. It's not really anything like most of the Midwest either. The states it's most similar to are Oklahoma and Nebraska.

Agree entirely. SE corner definitely has southern touches, as in OK/N TX version of that I guess. Western third or so has Western transition feel. Many Midwesternisms east/north. Overall, a Plains state before anything else; and, like most Plains states, it has influences from both West and East (Midwest) near-ish the middle, and additionally a touch of Southern in the general Wichita area.

[eddie gein]

Historically, there was a large southern migration to Kansas in the 1850s in an attempt to get the state admitted as a slave state.


I believe that there was a large southern contingent who settled around Atchison, Ks and ended up organizing the state constitution called the Lecompton, KS

[imbored198824]

Originally Posted by s.davis

Lots of random samples of native speakers in Cherokee County, KS. None of them sound like the woman in the clip above. Again, she may be a native Kansan, though her accent would suggest she is not, but if she is, she is an outlier. Her speech is not "normal" SE Kansas accented speech.


http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9b7XNxbVqo


http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zTicouwJoME

Twister Struck Baxter Springs Moments After Warning

Lots of these videos you are posting the speakers have southern sounding accents. Are the full on southern accents....no. But it does show that southeast Kansas could be the part of the state where this dialect would be. They don't sound any different than accents right across the border in Oklahoma.

[michigan83]

Kansas accents sound a little bit southern to me. But, then again, most accents south of I-80 sound "twangy" to me, including states like Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. I do realize that it isn't a true southern accent, but my perspective is from a place that has an accent that is as non-southern as humanly possible.

[fezzador]

Yep. You know you're in the Lower Midwest when folks say things like "warsh". Not truly Southern, but definitely not Upper Midwestern.

[jtur88]

Originally Posted by imbored198824

Here is a good representation of how the accent is in far southeast Kansas.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XT6vMewXQcU
What do you think? It's hard for me to judge since I have a southern accent...does this lady have an accent???

That's an Oklahoma accent. Baxter Springs is only ten miles from Commerce, Oklahoma, home town of Mickey Mantle, who had a serious Oklahoma accent. "Bob wore faints" = "barbed wire fence".

[North 42]

Are grits and sweet tea a thing in Southeast Kansas? I'm not really sure how far west these two southern staples are found.

[Mini-apple-less]

I think Kansas has a Bible-Belt, rural feel, so while it's not southern per se, it's not super far off either.

Disclaimer: I've only been through Kansas by bus, and never been to the South.