North Carolina accent

[Kbank007]

Would yall say that the NC accent is more similar to the traditional VA accents than Alabama's? I have heard some people from the piedmont Raleigh/Durham area who have similar accents to people in the piedmont Richmond area and south of the region in southside VA. I also have heard people from outside of Charlotte NC who sound similar to to the people in the Roanoke/Lynchburg area of VA (southwest VA). Some people I know from the southern part of the Tidewater VA area sound similar to people I have met from Northeastern NC like Currituck county, Elizabeth City, etc plus Currituck county NC is statistically included with the Hampton Roads VA metro area.

[Charlotte485]

^ I'd say so.

[Deez Nuttz]

Yes NC still has a southern accent. You need to listen to the native NCers. not the transplants.

An example is the head honcho of the NC highway patrol from 2000....pronounced his job as "hahway patrow"

[builder24car]

Originally Posted by GayCharlotteGuy

Words generally said in a southern accent that's some-what noticeable;

Talk (Tawk)

Walk (wok)

Oil (Oh-woah) (I do NOT say that but a lot of people do.)

Wal*Mart (Woah - mart)

And if a person says "riiiiiggghhhttt" you know they are from Johnston County!

[Francois]

Originally Posted by Kbank007

Would yall say that the NC accent is more similar to the traditional VA accents than Alabama's? I have heard some people from the piedmont Raleigh/Durham area who have similar accents to people in the piedmont Richmond area and south of the region in southside VA. I also have heard people from outside of Charlotte NC who sound similar to to the people in the Roanoke/Lynchburg area of VA (southwest VA). Some people I know from the southern part of the Tidewater VA area sound similar to people I have met from Northeastern NC like Currituck county, Elizabeth City, etc plus Currituck county NC is statistically included with the Hampton Roads VA metro area.

Generally yes, but bear in mind that "Yankees" have been moving to the area since the 1960s, so anyone 40 or older, even natives, have grown up with a hodgepodge of accents and may or may not have the "rural NC" accent of the coast, the farmlands, or anywhere else. But also, the universities in the Triangle (in particular) draw from every county in the state, so you will hear melanges of all kinds of regional idiolects (the linguistic term for "accent") even among NC natives.

I don't know so much about the "quote unquote Alabama accent", but it would make sense that NC's would be close to Virginia's due to proximity (my grandparents on both sides were from Virginia, for example). Most of us don't have that telltale Old Virginia accent where "house" rhymes with "dose", but otherwise, the flatland Virginia/Carolina accent is quite similar.

You can google "Beverly Purdue" on youtube, the governor of NC, or also "Jim Hunt" or "Mike Easley", former NC governors who have pretty "old style NC accents" (though Easley's is decidedly more "coastal" than is heard statewide, e.g. "bettah" instead of "better"--that is a feature of the "Charleston" dialect also associated with Virginia and the NC Coast, not inland NC)

[Kimmie]

NC accents are varied, fun, and fascinating. I am a native of NE NC, but have also lived in Wilmington and the Charlotte area. Accents are quite different. What has always interested me is that one can often (especially with older people) hear the class differences in accents within the same region. This is proabably true for most states, but NC is what I know.
Another fun group are the "hoi-toiders" around the OBX and just south. They even have their own dialect. It is in real danger of disappearing.