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Well, if those kids are children of transplants then they'll have some diluted hybrid accent but still can be classified as Southern.
I'd imagine that it would sound like a Cincinnati (or South Midland) type accent more or less. Nowadays, Raleigh and Charlotte are just more "Middle America" with traditional southern values fading into the background, while Atlanta is a mix of Middle American and global values (but still with that tinge of southerness). They're certainly less "country" (At least in the suburban/urban areas among the under 40 crowd) then they were in terms of the "honky tonk" lifestyle of listening to guitar-strummed songs with basic chords and sappy lyrics, biscuits, fried chicken & sausage (not just Chick-Fil-A), and watching movies with horses, guns, and cowboy hats. There's more of a cross-cultural exchange of multiple races as well compared to the past. This is especially true in Atlanta.
But honestly, given that Raleigh is still well over 200 miles from the Mason-Dixon line as the crow flies, true Northern influence like a high Puerto Rican population, unions, Italian-American enclaves, large non-Christian communities, is very minor. That's too far away for an easy day tirp (Richmond is probably about as far as you'll get from the Triangle for a reasonable day trip, and even that is still quite southern). NC outside of Charlotte and RDU is still very southern though in a traditional sense I just described. I'd replace "Northern" with "outside" though. The West Coast influence is probably just as strong as the NY influence in Atlanta for that matter.
Last edited by Borntoolate85; 05-27-2020 at 07:46 AM..
There was a time when Canadian presence in Raleigh was palpable. Now that was about as northern as it gets, but that was back in the 90s. For now, it seems that parts of Wake County are simply suburbs of Pittsburgh.
It's not called the Containment Area for Relocated Yankees for nothing!
That acronym never gets old! My family moved to the Triangle from California, so we weren't allowed in Cary. We ended up in Raleigh.
Ironically the biggest exception to this is that probably the "least northern-influenced" area of the urban Triangle is ITB Raleigh. And in ITB Raleigh they say Cary stands for Can't Afford Raleigh Yet.
I think the Triangle's yankee-dom will seem much less pronounced in the next decade or so as I've seen the amount of transplants shift from overwhelmingly northeasterners to a decent mix of people coming from NY/NJ yes but also Florida (native Floridians, not just the "halfbackers") , California (especially Bay Area; strong tech-ties), Texas, and especially international migration largely from East Asia and the Indian subcontinent.
My parents are yankee transplants from Upstate NY (nowhere near NYC) my siblings and I all grew up here (two out of three of us were born up north) I've been told I sound northern by native southerners and southern by northern relatives (they tell me I have an accent as they stress the hell out of their vowels "oh my gaaaahd its sooo haaaaaht I need to drink a paaaaahp")... pretty sure I'm closer to Newscaster accent than anything else.
I'd imagine that it would sound like a Cincinnati (or South Midland) type accent more or less. Nowadays, Raleigh and Charlotte are just more "Middle America" with traditional southern values fading into the background, while Atlanta is a mix of Middle American and global values (but still with that tinge of southerness). They're certainly less "country" (At least in the suburban/urban areas among the under 40 crowd) then they were in terms of the "honky tonk" lifestyle of listening to guitar-strummed songs with basic chords and sappy lyrics, biscuits, fried chicken & sausage (not just Chick-Fil-A), and watching movies with horses, guns, and cowboy hats. There's more of a cross-cultural exchange of multiple races as well compared to the past. This is especially true in Atlanta.
But honestly, given that Raleigh is still well over 200 miles from the Mason-Dixon line as the crow flies, true Northern influence like a high Puerto Rican population, unions, Italian-American enclaves, large non-Christian communities, is very minor. That's too far away for an easy day tirp (Richmond is probably about as far as you'll get from the Triangle for a reasonable day trip, and even that is still quite southern). NC outside of Charlotte and RDU is still very southern though in a traditional sense I just described. I'd replace "Northern" with "outside" though. The West Coast influence is probably just as strong as the NY influence in Atlanta for that matter.
I agree with most of this. The West Coast influences in Atlanta are small and most Westerners won't make it past Texas. ATL do have a ton of people from OH, MI, and IL from the Midwest & NY, NJ, and PA from up north... Not sure which region has more but they're over the West Coast easily.
Cary only accepts Northeastern transplants. If you're a Midwestern transplant but you have an uncle from Boston then you're welcome there too. Everyone else has to move to Johnston County
There are actually many people from outside the NE in the Triangle.
There was a time when Canadian presence in Raleigh was palpable. Now that was about as northern as it gets, but that was back in the 90s. For now, it seems that parts of Wake County are simply suburbs of Pittsburgh.
Lmao what suburbs of Pittsburgh? No. I'm not even sure how these correlations are even being drawn...
There is a lot of northern transplants/people with northern ties in The Triangle. Nothing around here looks like the Northeast, the accent here is clearly southern, the characteristics of the population (dining, style/decor, etc) is southern...
The funny thing is out and about I have never heard a single person here say anything about this area feels like the Northeast. What would City-Data be without faithful Triangle embellishing...
The ones full of Pittsburghers. They are everywhere, they feel second only to upstater NYers.
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