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Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Richmond is closer to the south than north...
West Virginia is so different to Pennsylvania in terms of culture and the way they speak...It's the most powerfully different accent in the United States today, imo.
Well, frankly my dear, Northern Virginia (as well as Central+South Florida, and the Cincinnati suburbs) is just not Southern.
The American South:
Georgia
Alabama
Mississippi
Louisiana
Arkansas
Tennessee
South Carolina
North Carolina
Kentucky (without Cincinnati suburbs)
North Florida
South Virginia
Capital of the American South: Atlanta
Enough said. Case closed.
Northern Virginia was very much a part of the Old South. I grew up near Oatlands Plantation.
West Virginia is so different to Pennsylvania in terms of culture and the way they speak...It's the most powerfully different accent in the United States today, imo.
I used to live in Pittsburgh, which is about 40 miles from West Virginia. And I have to disagree. The culture of Pittsburgh proper and its close-in suburbs is obviously different than rural West Virginia, or rural anywhere else for that matter. But once you get outside the city proper about 20-25 miles in any direction but north, the culture is indistinguishable from that of West Virginia. Even the accents are basically the same, and the accent even creeps into the city of Pittsburgh itself. The thing is, there is no monolithic "Pennsylvania" culture. It's a big place, and the culture is quite different in eastern Pennsylvania versus western Pennsylvania. And the portion that borders West Virginia is not terribly different, culturally speaking, than West Virginia, whereas the portion that is nowhere near West Virgnia is not terribly similar to West Virginia.
The one place where I did notice a nearly instantaneous change in accents is Cincinnati versus its Kentucky suburbs. You only have to get past the first layer of Kentucky suburbs (Newport, Covington) to find an Appalachian/Southern accent. I bought a car from a guy in Alexandria, which is about 12 miles from Cincinnati proper. If I were to judge by the accents of the people in Aelexandria, I might as well have been in Lexington.
I think Trimac20 is speaking of WV in general, not just the northern edges.
The lower green line is the upper edge of southern dialect, which also shows why you get southern accents in Louisville but generally not the upper parts of WV. Here's the link of the U of PA website. Phonological Atlas of North America
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