Do most people in Lynchburg and Roanoke have southern accents? (Richmond: contractor, military)

[Kbank007]

I was wondering if most people in the Lynchburg/Roanoke region of Virginia have strong southern accents. I am originally from southside VA (Nottoway County) and even a lot of younger people there have some country twang or drawl in there speech. I remember visiting Lynchburg as a kid and thinking that the city was fairly laid back but I can't remember if most of the residents had strong southern accents. I have never been to Roanoke, but I have met some people from the area who have fairly strong southern accents. Thank you in advance for your responses.

[Teebyrd86]

Originally Posted by Kbank007

I was wondering if most people in the Lynchburg/Roanoke region of Virginia have strong southern accents. I am originally from southside VA (Nottoway County) and even a lot of younger people there have some country twang or drawl in there speech. I remember visiting Lynchburg as a kid and thinking that the city was fairly laid back but I can't remember if most of the residents had strong southern accents. I have never been to Roanoke, but I have met some people from the area who have fairly strong southern accents. Thank you in advance for your responses.

I think a lot of it depends on where you are from. When I moved here from Richmond I noticed the southern talkers around here and I could tell which ones were from here and which ones transplanted like myself. But I have gotten use to it. Not sure about Lynchburg but Roanoke folks definatly have a southern twang to their speach!

[Kbank007]

Thank you for your response. I assumed that Roanoke had a southern feel to it in comparison to tidewater, because the lady I met from Roanoke in Newport News kept commenting about how the tidewater region felt like a whole different state from the roanoke area. She also made talked about how everybody thought she was from NC or GA, and how she had to get used to driving in tunnels. I'm going to visit the Roanoke region for the first team in a week or two. Does anybody else have any comments/insight in reference to accents in roanoke/lynchburg?

[Diamond Dave]

Most local Roanokers definitely have a southern twang. Of course, there's an exception to every rule. Baltimoreans have an accent, too, but they don't all say "Oreos" or "hon."

[whynot?]

Virginia actually has quite a number of regional accents, many still influenced by the state's original settlement patterns, with early English settlers on the eastern coasts and more Scots-Irish and German settlers toward the western areas. There are lots of articles about Virginia's regional speech influences online, some more authoritative than others. The Tidewater region has a very distinct native accent, but there is so much population influx there (largely due to the military and defense contractor industry base) that the accent is gradually dying out and the "generic American accent" [Yes, that is an acknowledged accent.] is taking over more rapidly there than in less transient areas of the state.

Native Roanokers have more of a "mountain accent," while Lynchburg natives have something between that and what other Virginians call "the Richmond accent." The mountain accent involves a tendency to drop word-ending Gs and several softer pronunciations overall. The traditional central Virginia/Richmond accent is noticeable in the pronunciation of several key words such as "house," "out," etc. This accent is definitely on the decline, especially in/around Richmond itself. (I suspect due, again, to the large influx of people from other places in the U.S. during the past 30 years especially.) While you don't often hear the peculiar pronunciations of those words anymore, people in the central/Richmond areas still tend to have a rather generic Southern accent with what speech experts describe as "flat" pronunciations of "long I" words such as "Hi," even though they do not "flatten" words like "bright." The mountain accent tends to "flatten" both "Hi" and "bright," but even that varies from area to area.

[Diamond Dave]

A fascinating book on accents native to coastal North Carolina is "Hoi Toide on the Outer Banks," which talks about the "Ocracoke brogue."

[EasyLivin]

Gosh I hope they have a southern accent. We are moving there soon from the mountains of Far West North Carolina but my accent is from Middle Georgia (Macon). LOL I don't want to stand out!!

[Diamond Dave]

Originally Posted by EasyLivin

Gosh I hope they have a southern accent. We are moving there soon from the mountains of Far West North Carolina but my accent is from Middle Georgia (Macon). LOL I don't want to stand out!!

I think you'll be just fine!

[Kbank007]

Can the locals in the area normally recognize when someone is not from the area and is from another southern place like NC, SC, or GA from talking to them?

[Diamond Dave]

Originally Posted by Kbank007

Can the locals in the area normally recognize when someone is not from the area and is from another southern place like NC, SC, or GA from talking to them?

No. No southern twang varies by county around here.