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. The real-time results show that, among older speakers, Kurath's east-west line of traditional New England features has moved eastward to the state border of New Hampshire. The apparent-time results show that many traditional eastern variants are receding among younger speakers, and these linguistic changes are reflecting and constructing significant social changes occurring in this region. For about two centuries, the east-west contrasts of the early European settlements were faithfully transmitted to each new generation. But now, among the current generations of speakers, the Founder Effect in northern New England is rapidly dissipating..
I knew a couple of women from Texas back in the 90s and you could tell they were from Texas. But there was a woman from Texas at my workplace a few years ago who had no accent at all. I asked her 'what happened to that Texas accent?' and she said 'Globalization.'
Texas talk is losing its twang
Fewer Texans are speaking in the traditional dialect, as urbanization, pop culture and an influx of newcomers have conspired to displace the local language.
I see this occurring too, and it makes me really sad. As a Philadelphian with a typical Philly accent (wooder, cawfee, jawn, etc.), I have to go deep into South or Northeast Philly (or even out into the suburbs) to hear it. With the level of transplants in different areas of the city, it's becoming harder and harder to hear a legit Philly accent.
i live in southern NJ and have the accent you'd usually hear there. but my husband is from southern ohio, out by kentucky and indiana, so his is different than mine. it's lessened in the years he's lived here, but our 3 kids now have an odd mix of both our accents. maybe things like that are contributing to accent loss?
I enjoy many of the southern accents, as well. But I've also actually heard the "Foghorn Leghorn Georgia royalty", including up where I lived in Virginia.
The time that really comes to mind was about 15 years ago when I was driving down toward Lynchburg, Virginia, and I think it was in or near Culpeper where they were searching cars for an escaped convict. They had a road block and when I got up to the stop, a sheriff that acted like Sheriff Buford T Justice sounded just like that HEAVY southern drawl. If I'd seen it in a movie, I'd have said they were way overdoing it.
The old St. Louis accent is fading, apparently. It actually has a name, but I forget what it is. It has characteristic vowel sounds. I still sort of have it, although my parents came from OK and they had different accents. So mine is not pure, like certain St. Louis oldtimers' accents would be.
But the southern accent is still going strong. And I can usually tell when someone hails from a country burg or region. It shows in their accents.
I understand that newsreaders and entertainers (to a lesser extent) have given us a standard accent and standard pronunciations. So some regional accents have faded, since we are all exposed to the media.
There is slight PNW accent, by the way. I notice it mostly with the aur sound. I would pronounce Laura as Lawra. PNW speakers will pronounce the name, Lora. An aura would be pronounced, ora.
I do think we are moving toward a more standardized pronunciation, except in the deep South, and upper New England. There might be other areas that have distinct accents that I've never run across.
My dad's family has been in St. Louis since the Civil War, and my mom's family in the area (on the Illinois side) since the Revolution (though my mom's family kept bringing over a 'British import' every generation, LOL). The accent has been referred to as the "St. Louis Corridor". My paternal grandpa spoke with it, and my dad has some strong traces of it. My mom's family is more mixed--as I stated before, they started settling in St. Louis during the Revolutionary War, but kept marrying direct-from-England folks (my maternal grandpa's dad and my maternal grandma's mom both moved from England to to that area--in fact, my maternal grandma's three older half-siblings were actually born in England. Her older half-brother was six weeks old when he came over, and was mad to find out a few years later when he started school that this meant he couldn't ever run for President, LOL), so their accents were an odd mix of the St. Louis accent with more British English speech patterns. This held true with my mom and her siblings as well, and I picked it up from them. There have been times I've been asked if I moved from England to America as a small child, because per some folk, I have the English speech patterns but the American accent. I think they're surprised to find out that I was born and raised in the states, as were my parents, and *their* parents.
I've noticed that my cousins who stayed in the St. Louis area still speak with traces of the accent, but I think in general it's disappearing among the younger generations. My own accent is mixed--I was born and raised in St. Louis to parents of the same, but with a strong English influence. Then I joined the Army and did my basic and AIT in the South, and picked up Southernisms. Then I was stationed in Panama, and did an ITT to Germany. Then I was stationed in Texas for a while. Then I got out of the Army, and lived in Oklahoma for a few years before moving out to Colorado, where I've now been for 21 years. So my speech can go all over the place now. A friend of mine who lived with me for over a year when she'd lost her job mentioned once that I probably wasn't aware of it, but I would frequently speak in a mix of English, German, and Spanish when I was talking to her. She described it as, "If you blanked on the English word, you'd substitute the German or Spanish word for it instead." Luckily, she spoke German (she'd lived there herself for awhile), and she was able to figure out the Spanish by context. I asked my sister (who lives with me now) if I ever did this, and she said I do every so often. I only seem to do this at home, however. (If I do it outside the home, nobody's ever commented on it.)
When I was a kid in Florida, the only kind of soda I ever had was a pepsi. So the question was always "Do you want a pepsi?" It's what my parents drank, and therefore the only kind of soda in the house...but I also think it might've been the kind of thing where some people use the word "coke" for any kind of soda.
Anyway, one evening, we were at some friends of my parents, and these friends were from New York. The lady of the house asked me if I wanted a soda. I said 'yes'. I thought "Yummm...an ice-cream soda! Yay!" Because that's the only way I knew of soda. An ice cream soda. I was a tad disapointed and confused when I was given a pepsi. lol
Now I live in the midwest, and that bubbly carbonated beverage and the other beverages like it, is called 'soda'. lol
And when we were little...like before school, somehow myself and my siblings started saying "ain't". But my mom drummed that out of us real fast.
LOL--myself and two friends had gone out to eat one day. I'm from the Midwest, one friend was from the South, and the other friend was born and raised here in Colorado. When the waitress asked us what we wanted to drink, I said, "I'll have a soda." Southern friend said, "I'll have a Coke." Colorado friend said, "I'll have a pop." Cracked me up that we all showed our roots so strongly in how we ordered the same thing.
This gave me St. Louis, Kansas City, and Springfield, MO for my top three.
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