Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Location: The Greatest city on Earth: City of Atlanta Proper
8,485 posts, read 14,993,141 times
Reputation: 7333
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quadruple or Nothing
New Orleans may have the most unique accent out of this entire country on par with NYC. I mean just hear how blacks from NO talk, you'll hear nothing like it anywhere.
Very true given the unique situations that led to their accents through the combination of British, Spanish, French, Italian, Haitian, and American (and probably a few others I'm missing) influences early in their history and the way the city was divided and then insulated from outside influence.
I will also say that New Orleans probably has the largest variation in it's native accents than any other city in America aside from New York City.
I hate to be mean but I'm just being honest. Southern accents irritate me to no end. That twang is the same reason I can't stand country music. And believe me I've tried.
That's all I have, I could not find any clips of a full-blown Charleston accent but I've heard it described as Savannah meets Hampton Roads meets Canada.
Last edited by David Alleyne; 11-17-2010 at 03:06 PM..
Aside from a few unique places, like New Orleans, Savannah, and other places along the coast, there isn't a Southern city with a distinct accent that sounds different from other Southern cities. That's not to say that there aren't different Southern accents, there are, but they have more to do with class/race, rather than location. So you can hear a whole mix of Southern accents in most Southern cities. However, I find that most people in cities have more watered-down Southern accents. For instance, if someone from a small TN town moves to Memphis and has a really strong Southern accent, they will probably get comments & laughs about it all the time.
I hate to be mean but I'm just being honest. Southern accents irritate me to no end. That twang is the same reason I can't stand country music. And believe me I've tried.
No offense taken at all. You live in Missouri, so I take it that your state would have more people from KY, TN, AR, MS, and OK. In my opinion, TN and KY (outside of Louisville) have some of the twangiest accents ever, especially East TN.
When I think of "Southern accent" the coastal areas come to mind first. I don't really care for the other ones though.
Location: The Greatest city on Earth: City of Atlanta Proper
8,485 posts, read 14,993,141 times
Reputation: 7333
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smtchll
Aside from a few unique places, like New Orleans, Savannah, and other places along the coast, there isn't a Southern city with a distinct accent that sounds different from other Southern cities. That's not to say that there aren't different Southern accents, there are, but they have more to do with class/race, rather than location. So you can hear a whole mix of Southern accents in most Southern cities. However, I find that most people in cities have more watered-down Southern accents. For instance, if someone from a small town moves to Memphis and has a really strong Southern accent, they will probably get comments & laughs about it all the time.
You are and aren't right...sort of.
The rural parts of the South by and large will only have one or two variations of speech based mostly on the fact that most people in those areas are either of Scotch-Irish descent or of Black Belt descent. This is also compounded by the fact that accents need a critical mass of people for variations to develop and the myriad of small towns in the South aren't able to facilitate this.
On the other hand, every medium and major Southern city has it's own native accent and can vary greatly from rural accents (as you yourself have noted) and each other. Given that a larger numerical amount of people in the South now live in a metropolitan region instead of in an rural area, and the largest of those metropolitan regions have been flooded with transplants from other regions around the country in the last few decades (who are now themselves Southerners whether they think so or not ), it is not accurate to say that there are only small variations in dialects in the South. It is actually quite huge given the area discussed....and more people would realize that if they were being academically honest and not allowing a preformed bias to shape their views.
The rural parts of the South by and large will only have one or two variations of speech based mostly on the fact that most people in those areas are either of Scotch-Irish descent or of Black Belt descent. This is also compounded by the fact that accents need a critical mass of people for variations to develop and the myriad of small towns in the South aren't able to facilitate this.
On the other hand, every medium and major Southern city has it's own native accent and can very greatly from rural accents (as you yourself have noted) and each other. Given that a larger numerical amount of people in the South now live in a metropolitan region instead of in an rural area, and the largest of those metropolitan regions have been flooded with transplants from other regions around the country in the last few decades (who are now themselves Southerners whether they think so or not ), it is not accurate to say that there are only small variations in dialects in the South. It is actually quite huge given the area discussed....and more people would realize that if they were being academically honest and not allowing a preformed bias to shape their views.
When I hear those clips from different areas of the South, they sound like accents that I hear in Memphis all the time. I don't hear one and think "oh, that's Atlanta" or "that's Nashville" Only cities like New Orleans have that distinction. Memphis doesn't have a huge transplant population, in fact, it's really small.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
), it is not accurate to say that there are only small variations in dialects in the South. It is actually quite huge given the area discussed....and more people would realize that if they were being academically honest and not allowing a preformed bias to shape their views.
