Our accents.

[Charlesaf3]

Hardly ever hear an accent in Richmond these days, and when you do, the person tend to be pretty old

[CAVA1990]

My Southern Califonia accent doesn't stand out here as unusual in NoVA. Most of the younger people here sound pretty much like I do. I think we've managed to convert the rest of you.

[wnewberry22]

The accents are virtually non-existent in NOVA...it's such a melting pot these days...the only people in NOVA that have any discernable Southern drawl are some of the really old folks. I can start to notice an accent in Culpeper and Fauquier Co. but anywhere that can really be considered Metro NOVA or DC(ish) is basically void of any dialect. Rural Virginia all over the state still has a very thick accent but the cities are very diluted these days. My parents are from Richmond and they all have fairly thick accents but these days Richmond is under a similar siege as NOVA with a large percentage moving from all over hell and creation which is mudding up the dialect into a general american accent.

It's a fairly safe assumption IMO that within the next 50 years most cities with southern accents will essentially disappear. The southern cities apart of the "New South Boom" are expanding rapidly causing tons of migrants. DC on down through Richmond, Raleign, Hampton Roads, Charlotte, Atlanta, Huntsville, Birmingham, Knoxville, Chattanooga and the list goes one. All of these cities have had corporate HQ relocations, major automotive plants, financial industry relocations, or tech relocations which have created tons of jobs....it's great for the economy...not so great for retaining local relics like accents or antiquated cultures.

[VTHokieFan]

I moved to Oregon and have been told I have a pretty moderate, noticable southern accent.

[Dan_in_DC]

Wow! A thread of SIX-YEAR DURATION! Y'all doin' real good, I reckon <LOL>!!!

Linguistics can be fascinating. Growing up in Arlington VA, I attended school with children of diplomats from all over the world who lived in Arlington and worked across the river. They were my friends and neighbors. And their parents were usually pleased that I asked intelligent questions about their country's history and politics and culture and everything else. So I got invited for dinner a lot.

This exposed me to all sorts of new and exotic accents and customs, especially from those who were native English speakers (of some sort) in their home nations -- and sometimes I also helped immigrant kids learn (or improve) their English. Of course, whenever I ran into a new dialect, I had to practice until I learned "new" ways to mispronounce words.

It became a game. And by the time I reached my teens, I could imitate almost anyone's accent within a few minutes (or a few seconds) of starting to talk with them.

However, when I was just speaking "normally" my speech patterns tended to be very similar to those of my Great-Grandmother, who had lived with us when I was born and took care of me when my parents were working. She was from Virginia's Northern Neck, and pronounced many words quite differently.

I found out years later that she had spent many summers in Halifax, Nova Scotia (literally "New Scotland"), a province in Canada where her friends lived, and that many of the "unusual" pronunciations I had learned from her were "normal" in the Northern Neck and ALSO in and around Nova Scotia.

Recently, I've been researching cultural migration through North America and its effects on linguistic patterns. Of special interest is the "Acadians" who had lived along the Atlantic seaboard in what is now generally Nova Scotia and Newfoundland/Labrador.

When the Acadians were driven from that area, groups of them were resettled in various other British colonies down the Atlantic coast as far as South Carolina -- including Virginia's Northern Neck -- and a large group of Acadians were resettled in southern Louisiana (where they came to be called "Cajuns").

As I get time, I will post some dialect samples in this thread, and/or maybe even a few links.

Dan