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Why is that most black people, regardless of the region of the country you're in, tend to have a southern accent? They may have generations of their family living in the north, where next to NO ONE has a southern accent, yet most of the blacks do. You can call it having southern roots, having family members from the south, but this exists almost everywhere, even when they have no family in the south and their family has been rooted in the north for generations.
Anyone care to shed light on this? Or is it just a cultural accent?
I don't have a Southern Accent and I'm from the South. My family is originally from up north and have a northern accent. Guess you haven't met every black person.
People tend to have the accent of those grow up with. Blacks in most areas tend to be somewhat socially segregated, so they keep their accent. Also, not being black but guessing, there might be a social stigma amongst blacks who lose their accents as someone rejecting their community or heritage.
Blacks I've met who grew in areas with few people don't have the accent, as they're mostly around non-blacks without an African-American accent.
I grew up in the north with many blacks and it seems very many of them have roots in the south (ever go to baltimore?) , especially if you're just talking about the past 2 or 3 generations. The black culture is also very influenced by black rappers etc who are from the south. And I think the attitude has something to do with it to. The baptist/ prodestant culture helps to.
Location: Jefferson City 4 days a week, St. Louis 3 days a week
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Because most blacks lived in the Southern part of the United States for the first 100 years they were here in mass numbers. The dialect they speak probably goes back to the dialect spoken by their ancestors' slavemasters combined with their own African dialect.
Because most blacks lived in the Southern part of the United States for the first 100 years they were here in mass numbers. The dialect they speak probably goes back to the dialect spoken by their ancestors' slavemasters combined with their own African dialect.
We don't speak in any dialect.
The black people I know from Jersey, Philly, Chicago, New York, Minneapolis, and LA don't have southern accents.
Just to be clear I did not say ALL blacks have a southern accent, but the majority of them do!
If you meet a white person in the north with a southern accent, they were likely not born in the north, but recently moved to the north. However, blacks born in the north still often have southern accents. It may be cultural, it may be raised, I'm not exactly certain, but I know I cannot be the only person who has noticed this and questioned it.
In my experience, African-American Vernacular English sounds more or less southern in different cities. In Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh, it is very southern influenced, for example. On the other hand, blacks in NYC and Boston don't really sound southern at all. In part I wonder if this is because the black communities in the latter two cities before the Great Migration were large enough that southern transplants learned to talk with the local dialect, instead of establishing one of their own.
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