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I don't know that it's so much an accent as a way of phrasing things? My two kids were raised together, you'd think they would sound much the same but they don't, one is much more 'country' sounding than the other. Words like 'mater, tater, yonder, pronouncing can't like cain't, other little oddities, one kid picked it up from the crowd they ran with. The other kid ran with a much different crowd and is more 'proper' in his speech.
Yeah...these things still are not consistent across all rural areas.
Yeah...these things still are not consistent across all rural areas.
I didn't intend to imply they were consistent, but that rather it's not just an accent that makes people think 'country'. It's something more, or something else. I'm from MI and 'country' where I grew up does not sound the same as the 'country southern' that my kid speaks, but still, you can tell it's 'country' for the particular area you are in.
The 'Rural South/Industrial North' is a stereotyle that has been outdated for the better part of a century. In part kept alive by the association of country music with the South combined with general ignorance.
There seems to be a strange distinction that Southerners feel the need to make between "Southern" and "country" that people outside of the South have no concept of.
Like for instance, if I were to imitate a Southern accent, a Southerner might say "Noooo! That's a 'country' accent!"
Sorry, but I have absolutely no idea what "country" means. There's no such concept of a subcategory of Southerner, at least here in Minnesota. Is "country" just another word for "redneck"? Is it applied only to a certain kind of redneck? Is it just impoverished/working class rural Southerners? Or is it just a specific place in the South? I truly don't get it.
The South, historically had a higher proportion of population living in rural areas than other parts of the U.S. And, outside of perhaps New Orleans, no big city in the South really has an urban feel, so even the big cities don't feel very urban. Atlanta feels very country compared to an equivalent city in the north.
Obviously this is not true. The vast majority of New York State is urbanized.
Or are you talking geography instead of population? That would be a pretty silly argument, as obviously the vast majority of all sizable geographies are rural, pretty much everywhere. The vast majority of Hong Kong is rural, if you go by geography. The vast majority of the Netherlands (one of the densest countries in the world) is rural.
People in southern cities tend be give off a country vibe in one way or another anf EVERY city south of Philly is guilty of this, even D.C. and Baltimore although I wouldn't call them truly southern culturally, just a few southern nuances.
Once you get to Richmond people take pride in being southern and country.
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Nice Analysis!
