Are there different Southern accents?

Guest   Mon Aug 20, 2007 9:18 pm GMT
When I saw "The Glass Menagerie," the actors were talking with absolutely charming accents. Maybe it's just me, but I thought their accent was different from the stereotypical Southern accent that you hear on TV. Was it because they were middle class, or maybe from a different region...? I just hate it when people discredit that dreamy sort of English...
Damian in SW15   Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:33 pm GMT
I quite like the Southern American accent - the long, drawn out, laid back draaaahhhwwwwlll sounds so cool, reflecting a relaxed, rather lazy sort of easy going lifestyle. They all seem to talk as if they have all the time in the world to get those words out as they sit out in their rocking chairs on their porches sipping mint juleps and eating jambalaya and gazing out at the cotton fields shimmering in the blazing sunshine of an Alabama afternoon. Sounds like sheer unadulterated bliss.....pro tem.
Skippy   Mon Aug 20, 2007 11:08 pm GMT
People along the Atlantic coast tend to have a non-rhotic dialect... This is similar to the dialect of many in the deep south (southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama). However, in Texas, Tennessee, and the northern regions of the aforementioned states, it is a rhotic dialect...

So yes, there are several different Southern American varieties, but you can tell they are all similar. Also, it varies according to race and economic situation typically.
K. T.   Mon Aug 20, 2007 11:48 pm GMT
Yes, there certainly are different Southern accents. Different social classes also may have different accents.
Milton   Tue Aug 21, 2007 5:17 am GMT
I like Beyoncé's accent:

Is this a standard Texan accent?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=o4Z84O-c-n8
Skippy   Tue Aug 21, 2007 4:01 pm GMT
That's not standard Texan at all. She's speaking a Texan variety of AAVE, but do not think that is how a typical person from Texas would speak (maybe a typical person from Dallas :-P)
Jasper   Tue Aug 21, 2007 4:30 pm GMT
The accents in Glass Menagerie are similar--but not identical--to my favorite American dialect, Virginia Tidewater.

I'd read someplace that there were some 26 different dialects in the South. Non-rhotic Southern American English--which is the type you're describing--is reputed to be rapidly disappearing.
Bill Gregg   Wed Aug 29, 2007 6:00 am GMT
"So yes, there are several different Southern American varieties, but you can tell they are all similar. Also, it varies according to race and economic situation typically."

To my ears Upland Southern or Appalachian speech bears little resemblance to the Tidewater accent--at least no more than New England speech resembles Middle Atlantic. I think our tendency to lump them together under the geographic term "Southern" confuses things.
Guest   Wed Aug 29, 2007 6:13 am GMT
This is an example of a North Carolina accent


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

Is she from upper class or lower class? hmmmm
Trawicks   Wed Aug 29, 2007 3:14 pm GMT
"To my ears Upland Southern or Appalachian speech bears little resemblance to the Tidewater accent--at least no more than New England speech resembles Middle Atlantic. I think our tendency to lump them together under the geographic term "Southern" confuses things."

Appalachian isn't really Southern in the traditional sense, although it has definitely influenced the coastal south somewhat in the same way that midwestern English influenced middle-class speakers in northern areas like Boston and New York.

Appalachian English derives from the Scots-Irish, the ancestors of what are now considered the Ulster Scots in Northern Ireland, dating from about 1730.
Jasper   Wed Aug 29, 2007 4:51 pm GMT
The clip of the South Carolina teen doesn't show any kind of Southern accent; the speaker speaks General American.

She's probably a military brat.
Guest   Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:05 pm GMT
Jasper, her accent is NOT general American, how can you say that?
Guest   Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:08 pm GMT
Jasper   Wed Aug 29, 2007 8:32 pm GMT
Are we referring to the same clip?

The pretty girl doesn't have a Southern accent; I should know, I was born and raised in Tennessee. Miss Teen USA from South Carolina? That is the one, isn't it?
Guest   Wed Aug 29, 2007 10:26 pm GMT
Yes, she's the one, and she does NOT sound like a girl from Illinois or Massachusetts would.