Genuine Southern Accents
Aug. 29th, 2012 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
transemacabreAs a born and bred Southerner in exile in New York Fuckin' City, everyday I lament that so many Yankees ain't never heard a genuine Southern accent in their lives. Most befuddling is the fact that on a daily basis I have New Yorkers guessing that I am British (to which I respond, "Not for the last three hundred years!"). The media rarely gives us examples of real Southerners speaking in their native accents. Hell, there's as many Australians and Canadians twanging their vowels on country music radio as there are Southerners.
One important thing to keep in mind about the US South is that it is vast; it contains multitudes. There is no "correct" Southern accent. There are a variety of Southern accents, each one one as authentically Southern as the last. If I may, I'd like to introduce y'all to a small collection of these accents, so as to give y'all a glimpse of the diversity of the region.
1. Cajun bayou accent of Ascension Parish, LA
The Guist brothers of Gonzales, LA and thereabouts will represent the rural accent of Acadiana. To my ears, they sound Southern, but with a sing-song quality that distinguishes their dialect from my own Mississippi accent. Also notice that their accent has less "vocal fry" than a MS accent.
2. Outer Banks coastal NC accent
Wow, how distinctive! This dialect from North Carolina's isolated fishing communities is possibly the most British-sounding of all Southern dialects. At times I am unable to understand what they're saying. Note the grammar: Outer Banks lacks some of the unusual grammatical structures of more Deep Southern dialects, a legacy of the historical African and French influence on the Deep South that passed this dialect by.
3. Standard Mississippi accent
I love this clip, because the speaker is so relaxed and is not either playing up his accent nor is subconsciously downplaying it. You can really hear our elongated vowels and that "vocal fry" I mentioned earlier -- we Mississippians love saying words kinda way down in our mouths, kinda rolling the word around. You may even pick up on the warping (labialization?) of /l/ into /w/ ie. "wuff" for "wolf" and similar.
4. A plethora of New Orleans accents
New Orleans may be the most richly-accented city in the Southern US. The Yat dialect is unique among Southern dialects. It sounds closer to a Brooklyn accent than to, for example, a Mississippi accent. The narrator properly pronounces New Orleans as Nuhwallins and not as "N'Awlins" as the media would have you believe.
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5. Mountain talk of Appalachia
Gorgeous example of accents from Graham co. NC. Although both this accent and the Outer Banks dialect (#2, above) are from North Carolina, they are from opposite ends of that state and developed 250 miles apart from each other in totally different environments (mountains vs seashore). To my ears, this accent doesn't sound particularly odd, but the vocabulary is unfamiliar (jasper? poke? airish? boomer?).
One important thing to keep in mind about the US South is that it is vast; it contains multitudes. There is no "correct" Southern accent. There are a variety of Southern accents, each one one as authentically Southern as the last. If I may, I'd like to introduce y'all to a small collection of these accents, so as to give y'all a glimpse of the diversity of the region.
1. Cajun bayou accent of Ascension Parish, LA
The Guist brothers of Gonzales, LA and thereabouts will represent the rural accent of Acadiana. To my ears, they sound Southern, but with a sing-song quality that distinguishes their dialect from my own Mississippi accent. Also notice that their accent has less "vocal fry" than a MS accent.
2. Outer Banks coastal NC accent
Wow, how distinctive! This dialect from North Carolina's isolated fishing communities is possibly the most British-sounding of all Southern dialects. At times I am unable to understand what they're saying. Note the grammar: Outer Banks lacks some of the unusual grammatical structures of more Deep Southern dialects, a legacy of the historical African and French influence on the Deep South that passed this dialect by.
3. Standard Mississippi accent
I love this clip, because the speaker is so relaxed and is not either playing up his accent nor is subconsciously downplaying it. You can really hear our elongated vowels and that "vocal fry" I mentioned earlier -- we Mississippians love saying words kinda way down in our mouths, kinda rolling the word around. You may even pick up on the warping (labialization?) of /l/ into /w/ ie. "wuff" for "wolf" and similar.
4. A plethora of New Orleans accents
New Orleans may be the most richly-accented city in the Southern US. The Yat dialect is unique among Southern dialects. It sounds closer to a Brooklyn accent than to, for example, a Mississippi accent. The narrator properly pronounces New Orleans as Nuhwallins and not as "N'Awlins" as the media would have you believe.
.
5. Mountain talk of Appalachia
Gorgeous example of accents from Graham co. NC. Although both this accent and the Outer Banks dialect (#2, above) are from North Carolina, they are from opposite ends of that state and developed 250 miles apart from each other in totally different environments (mountains vs seashore). To my ears, this accent doesn't sound particularly odd, but the vocabulary is unfamiliar (jasper? poke? airish? boomer?).
