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EXACTLY!!!! For example, I never really have a problem understanding black people from Louisiana, but I've met and heard some white people from Louisiana and I had no idea what they were saying, and not all of them were Cajuns, either.
Also, even though it's not in the South, I think Boston/New England is another area where the black and white accents are VERY different and distinct from one another. The accent most people think of when they think of Boston/New England is one similar to JFK, but I've NEVER heard a black person from Boston/New England with that accent. That doesn't mean they have a SOUTHERN accent though, because Black Bostonians' accent is actually more like a light black New York accent than anything.
This is the only Black person from the Boston area that I know of with the "Boston" accent and it isn't really that strong: Mike Jarvis.mov - YouTube
He's originally from Cambridge. So much for all Black people having Southern accents.
Chicago, Cincy, LA, you name it, I've head blacks from all over use it.
Wu Tang even used it in C.R.E.A.M.
I don't hear black people from any of those places you just listed (besides Chicago, which is an obvious exception) use "y'all" frequently, if ever. And silly, slapstick lyrics-using Method Man saying it in the chorus of one song from 20 years ago means nothing; I go to New York at least once every year and don't think I ever remember hearing a black New Yorker saying "y'all". In fact, I remember one guy specifically in Harlem who teased me about it and said, "I can tell you're from down South because you said 'y'all'."
Ahh yes.......another thread about black people. We can never have too many of those on C-D. Okay I'll bite. Let's see.......
*checks skin tone*-Definitely black
*says something out loud to hear myself*-Definitely not southern
*reads through thread again to try and understand T/S's assumptions*-Definitely don't get it
I don't hear black people from any of those places you just listed (besides Chicago, which is an obvious exception) use "y'all" frequently, if ever. And silly, slapstick lyrics-using Method Man saying it in the chorus of one song from 20 years ago means nothing; I go to New York at least once every year and don't think I ever remember hearing a black New Yorker saying "y'all". In fact, I remember one guy specifically in Harlem who teased me about it and said, "I can tell you're from down South because you said 'y'all'."
I have family in Brooklyn so I've been a few times myself. And I have heard more than one black person use it up there. Now they don't use it all the time in every other sentence, but I have heard it.
Ahh yes.......another thread about black people. We can never have too many of those on C-D. Okay I'll bite. Let's see.......
*checks skin tone*-Definitely black
*says something out loud to hear myself*-Definitely not southern
*reads through thread again to try and understand T/S's assumptions*-Definitely don't get it
Do I get a prize for playing?
Show me a topic on CD that hasn't been done a million times (that actually makes some kind of sense) and I'll show you a damn good Tex-Mex restaurant in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Last edited by UTHORNS96; 03-08-2013 at 08:36 AM..
I have family in Brooklyn so I've been a few times myself. And I have heard more than one black person use it up there. Now they don't use it all the time in every other sentence, but I have heard it.
What you are saying is basically the equivalent of admitting they MIGHT use it once every blue moon, which still doesn't count. And like another poster said, saying "y'all" hardly makes one Southern, especially since it's a word that has pretty much seeped into popular culture now, like "ain't", which has even been added to the dictionary.
Bottom line is, if you think native black New Yorkers sound Southern or have any Southern speech patterns whatsoever, then the only Brooklyn you've ever been to is probably Brooklyn, Mississippi.
I'm not black, but I still feel like this thread is rife with stereotypes and generalizations. A poster claimed that the majority of blacks have southern accents. Has this poster met the majority of blacks? No. I don't think the poster has met 17+ million black people.
Another poster claimed that a lot "them" say axe instead of ask. I have not heard the term "axe" used in place of ask. Maybe it's a Southern thing, but I have not heard it used by anyone I know.
This thread isn't going to end well. Hopefully it gets closed. Any question that involves a sweeping generalization of a group of people based off of a poster's limited observation is ridiculous.
Saying Ax is NOT a southern thing, it is a black thing but not all black people pronounce ask as ax either. The old lady who lived next to me pronounced Mexican as Messcan or Messican. Beats the heck out of me why she pronounced it that way but she was 90-something. People just pick up ways of pronouncing things and if it goes uncorrected for too long - it becomes permanent. And the majority of black people do not have a Southern accent. People in general speak like the area they grew up in or the people they were exposed to during their formative years. I think perhaps some people don't really know what a southern accent truly sounds like and so are mistaking it for something it isn't.
Saying Ax is NOT a southern thing, it is a black thing but not all black people pronounce ask as ax either. The old lady who lived next to me pronounced Mexican as Messcan or Messican. Beats the heck out of me why she pronounced it that way but she was 90-something. People just pick up ways of pronouncing things and if it goes uncorrected for too long - it becomes permanent. And the majority of black people do not have a Southern accent. People in general speak like the area they grew up in or the people they were exposed to during their formative years. I think perhaps some people don't really know what a southern accent truly sounds like and so are mistaking it for something it isn't.
Black people may not have the generic southern accent, but they do have a unique way of speaking. Even their voice sounds different. If I'm listening to the television in the other room, and a man or woman starts speaking, 9 times out of 10 I can tell if it's a black person or not by the sound of their voice, and their slight accent. Black people in the south do have a southern accent, but it's not the same as whites in the south who have a very twangy country type of accent.
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