7 Southern US Accents You WON'T Understand
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- čas přidán 11. 05. 2024
- 🐊 If you've never been to the Southern US, you're missing out on some fantastic accents! Never fear, I've gone to the trouble of finding these quirky American accents for you--from the mountains to the bayous, to the Deep South. But can you guess them quick enough? Let me know in the comments which Southern American accents you got, and which ones got you!
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⏱ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
0:34 - Accent #1
2:45 - Accent #2
4:19 - Accent #3
6:45 - Accent #4
10:18 - Accent #5
12:56 - Accent #6
18:01 - Bonus Accent
📜 SOURCES & ATTRIBUTIONS:
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All sound the same to me
Growing up in Acadiana - an area of Louisiana populated by Cajuns - I used to think my mother was talking about us because she would go in between French and English while speaking with my grandmother. That was only due to my grandmother not knowing certain words in English.
Cajun I believe comes from a bastardization of the word Acadien.
The people that were exiled from Nova Scotia said they were from Acadien, which in French sounds an awful lot like Ah Kahjan. So English speakers called them Cajuns since that's what it sounded like to them.
@@EricT3769 and now Cajun is an anglicism everywhere. I hear Cajun in standard French all the time. The true term is « cadien » but English popularized the English spelling.
Go to southern new jersey and many places in Pennsylvania. That accent can be found in the north lol.
I’m surprised you don’t have any English language books or courses.
I live in Scotland, and understand them as clear as day. Much easier than many areas in England.
Awesome
A lot of the southern US accents came from our Scottish, French or English ancestry
Perhaps because so many were descended from Ulster Scots?
Aye, a LOT of southern colloquialisms, especially around the Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky & West Virginia, descend from the vernacular of the Scottish & Irish settlers, alongside the English. In some parts of the south there's still accents akin to that of William Shakespeare's time, or so they say. There is some French influence, but not as much in the Scots/Irish region I mentioned, though they were quite fond of them after a war or two and we have LOADS of cities and towns and counties named after French towns and people, though we don't always pronounce them correctly.
I once saw something that was making fun of the way Scottish people say certain things, colloquialisms and slang, and half of it was so close to the ones I'm used to being in Kentucky that I realized how much the ancestors still influence us today, even if just in our speech.
Aye I'm not sure why someone wouldn't understand these, they're very plain to me.
Appalachia is pronounced AP-uh-LATCH-uh, not AP-uh-LAY-sha. The locals will throw an apple atcha if you get that one wrong.
Good to know!
My wife is from central PA in the northern Appalachian mountains. She swears it’s AYE-sha. I’m from East Tennessee, so we disagree;-)
I also disagree with your wife. With love from your neighbor in SWVA ;)
As an Appalachian American, I approve of this message.
I don't think I heard that until I had a teacher from NC. And sure enough, when my dad and I drove along the Appalachians on the way to northern Virginia, all the locals contradicted what the rest of the country called it. While I defer to local pronunciations, I feel like I'd be a poser if I pronounced like a local, lol. But perhaps a lack of an accent would show I'm not trying to pose.
Fun fact about Louisiana: the cajun accent is mainly only found in South Louisiana. The further up north you go, the more the accent sounds like a typical Southern Belle (Source: I was born and raised in south LA and moved up north for college and was faced with a lot more cultureshock than I was expecting lmao)
Yes- from Nola here and the northern part of the state feels like a foreign country 😊
Born and raised in Metairie, then moved to East Tennessee. Can confirm. I lose a lot of my southern LA accent until I go back to see relatives and I fall right back into it.
probably because the Cajuns were mostly forced into the bayous and prairies by discrimination; they didn't mix much with the city folk, so they formed their own little community
Very true. I grew up in northern Lafourche parish which meant accents were a mesh of both. I grew up with a more city accent while my mother and grandparents all have the more drawl-y accents. It's crazy to see just how easy it is to merge from one to the other through generations and location.
Yeah New Orleans, Baton Rouge have those strong accents
Alabama girl born and raised, it’s nice to hear some appreciation for Southern accents
Roll Tide, sister!
It's impossible to read this and not hear the accent :)
War Eagle
@@applejackzogo dawgs
I immediately knew the first one was Alabama cause she said MeMaw and PawPaw and my best friend is from there she talks like that
As an East Tennessean, I couldn’t recognize the Tennessee accent until Dolly came on. Northeast Tennessee and Memphis have vastly different dialects
Very interesting!
@@storylearning Same here. I had a hard time guessing some of these because it really depends on where in a state you will hear what kind of accent and also if they are rural/suburban/urban/mountain. You can hear very similar accents in parts of Georgia and Tennessee for example but go up or down the road a bit and it changes.
One accent you might want to look into is Tidewater area of Virginia. They sound like something out of 18th century England, particularly the ones from that Tangier Island.
Then there's me over here who's only been through Tennessee a few times picking up on it almost instantly. I grew up in close contact with Texan, Alabaman, and Missourian accents along with a smidge of west coast. I think being familiar with Alabama and Missouri in particular lends itself to picking up on Tennessee.
Been there, heard that. I live in North Carolina and was living in North Carolina at the time. A few decades ago, a few of us went to help some rural people in, I think Middle Tennessee; I remember we crossed the time zone line. Over there, they say what sounded to me like "Tiom's haer" /tɪɔmz hæɛɹ/ for "Tim's hair".
We all have the same Southern Appalachian Mountain accent in East Tennessee, Western North Carolina and North Georgia.
Back in the 80's I took a seat beside an attractive young woman on a flight from Cordova to Juneau, Alaska. After striking up a conversation she told me that she was a linguist and that she could tell me where I grew up. I asked her to go ahead and tell me. She told me the exact county in southwestern Virginia where my family has lived for six generations and where I was raised. I'll never forget that. It blew me away.
Wow. Extremely impressive.
You should have asked her to marry you……
Bland?
There's some sort of language spotter (?) thing I think it was from the NY times, and despite my parents being Midwesterners, and my living as an adult in the US South, it pegged my accent to the town/county in CA where I did indeed grow up.
No, Dickenson, a few counties West of Bland.@@yesdniltrebor
I was born and raised in Alabama 22 years, then lived in Tennessee 19 years, Kentucky 14 years, Georgia 3 years and I've traveled with work everywhere in the south. Here's my take on the southern accent:
1. The distinctiveness of the southern accent in large metropolitan areas is reducing due to TV and people moving in from all over the U.S. Older people, small towns and lower income is where you still find it the strongest.
2. The Cajun accent in Louisiana is indeed unique from all the rest of the south.
3. Black and white accents in the south are distinctively different in general, regardless of state.
4. No state has the majority of its population in the Appalachian Mountains region except West Virginia, so you really can't say the Appalachian Mountains accent is representative of any state as a whole except WV.
5. Most of the time when I meet another southerner, I don't hear enough difference in the accent to identify their state of origin.
I never thought Huntsville would be bigger than Birmingham or Montgomery,, i-65 used to always say Nashville in the 80s
I appreciate you saying that there's a difference between the black and white accents. 😂
In NC you can tend to tell where someone’s from depending on how they speak because there are so many different dialects in that one state it can literally change from county to county
Well at least in the South we can understand each other, most times.
As someone who has lived all around the U.S., I must say I love the southern accents the best. Southerners aren't stupid, they are kindly, they are cordial, they are relaxed, they are friendly to a fault, but they don't brook no nonsense, and they will tell you what's on their minds when it matters.
You're absolutely correct. We don't mind sharing what's on our mind
Are you from Ukraine?
@@longwindingroad No, my wife is though.
@@nobodyknows3180 my girlfriend is from Ukraine here because of the war. She is not into the lovey dovey ways or words all the time. Very reserved and says American more loving and talk more. Is this just her or all Ukraine women like this?
@@longwindingroad my wife is pretty reserved too, in the same ways you mentioned. I should mention that we are both older, it may explain much if you know she is of an older generation and grew up under Soviet times. When I met her no man had ever held hands with her or did something as silly as rub noses or give her pecks on her cheek. But she sure as heck took to liking it quick enough, it was only a matter of a few dates and she always wanted to hold hands. And no, she didn't like making conversation so much, I think partly because she is shy around strangers, and maybe because her life has always been pretty plain. And her and her mother follow deeply traditional values of home and family, which means they are more likely to take care of themselves and loved ones, while spending less time reaching out to others. It isn't that they are selfish, it's just that they tend to keep more to themselves. My wife has a great passion for the arts, dancing, reading, I think this is in part because in her upbringing, her life and schooling was pretty basic, lacking in great excitements and glamour. Another pleasant aspect of her nature is that she is very thrifty and not given over to materialistic impulses. And man, can she and her mom cook!!! Like I said, home life to them is everything.
I'm a Japanese immigrant. The South is my favorite part of the US because of the food, music, and amazing Southerners also Elvis Presley is my idol.
Not to mention the voter suppression, book-banning, homophobia, poverty, infant mortality, religious intolerance and denial of reproductive freedom. Yeah. It's a real paradise.
My husband's mother is Japanese and was born in Sendai. He came to the US speaking Japanese and moved to the southern Appalachian area on NC. I say he speaks Southern Appalachian Japanese. It's hilarious.
@@ecuarrrrr my Southern born son moved to Australia 20+ years ago. I tell him his accent is now Southern American Australian.
@@ecuarrrrr I'd love to heart the Appalachian Japanese lol
THE KING!!!! Hope you listen to Elvis's early gospels.
I'm surprised he didn't high light the Gullah Geechee accent. It's truly one the most unique and important dialects in United States history
Years ago, I was in Charlston, South Carolina on business, and had a few minutes free, so went to a museum. A couple of the maintenance workers were talking, and I could only pick up about 1/4th of what was being said, so I assumed they were African immigrants. But they were talking Gullah, which I found out was a separate language. It has a lot of English words in it (I listened for a long time); I think of it more as a separate language instead of an English dialect.
Honey I’m from upstate SC and still can’t understand the Geechee of Charleston area. I get about every 4th or 5th word. Yes lower SC has several interesting ascents.
Low country boy heah ✋️
Right! I was waiting to hear it. So much history behind it too.
Gullah Geechee is arguably its own language/distinctive dialect. To boil it down to just an "accent" is kinda a disservice imo. Deserves its own video.
I was in bootcamp with a black dude from Georgia. When we went to our "school", I was the only one who could understand him, and had to translate for other people.
I could only understand him from spending 8 weeks with him and having him slow down until I could better understand his cadence.
I'm from Oregon but all of my family is from Texas, so I had some priming.
I'm from rural SC. When I went to Navy boot camp in 1982 nobody could understand me. I sounded like Lucas Black from Sling Blade but with a dialect vocabulary that included some unique usages and word forms. For example, [won't = wasn't]. "He won't listening to me". and [belongs to = usually does] "Does the mail run on Sunday? Don't belong to". I had to go total immersion to shed all of it so I could be successful. Now it's rare that anyone can guess where I'm from. Most of the old ways of speaking have disappeared from back home as well. The old folk are gone and the younger ones were more exposed to the outside world through television etc. I can't even do a good impression of it anymore. I regret that our local dialect is now extinct.
A guy I went to Army boot camp with was from extremely rural coal country south of Hazard Kentucky and even other Southerners had trouble understanding him. In fact, the Drill Sergeants used to just ride his ass about it because they couldnt understand him either. I've never heard a Southerner talk so fast.
After Basic we both went to the same extended AIT school (10 mionths of AIT! It was awesome!) and we became close friends and roomates (off post) a couple of years later.
Interesteingly, his accent faded a bit after a couple of years of being exposed to other accents and he was easier to understand.
From Oregon? Stevie Ray Vaughn was from Texas. He was a Negro born in a white mans body.
I'm from the Bronx NY and I'm so glad that regional accents are finally getting the love they deserve . Viva la difference! We can all be different yet still hang together
As a Georgia Boy, I have a difficult time understanding Northern people, especially New England states. I watched a show about carpentry and heard the dude talking about HOD wood. I looked all over the internet trying to find, Hod wood. I finally found out he was talking about HARD wood.
😄 nice .
Sounds like the Bostonian accent
Alabama girl here and i agree my mother n law is a yankee and hard to understand but she says we are to her my son n laws name is mike for the longest time another northern friend thought his name was mark
@@beckysmith8613 "Maaak" is Mike in the South and Mark in the NorthEast. Cute story!!
Don't forget to pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd. It can be hahd (or hod) to do!
That's SO funny! The real hardcore ones ARE hard to understand!
I'm a New Yorker. When I was in the Navy, there was a red headed guy who, when he spoke, I was absolutely positive he was from the deepest part of the deep South. At the time, I was guessing Mississippi. I, therefore, was shocked to find out he was a farmer from southern New Jersey, I'm still not over it!!! And that was 55 years ago.
I met a guy once that said he was from Jersey and spoke with a southern accent. I told him no way and he replied that he was from rural Jersey.
@@wesleywooten1655 Let me guess. South Jersey!
@@encrypter46 Lol Actually I think it was!
That IS spooky!
@@wesleywooten1655 I also have that accent, I had to go to the emergency room a few years ago and the nurse said to me a few times, you're from the south, you're from the South.
I lived in the US Southland almost all my life. Being an Army Brat has exposed me to quite a retinue of accents and dialects. Also having gone to school in Germany, I was exposed to even more than the various U.S. forms of speech.... I lived in Bavaria for a number of years, and come from a Rheinland Pfalz family. But I digress....
In the United States, I lived most of my life in the deep South and married into an old Alabama Wiregrass Cattle family. Most were educated at Auburn. They all have degrees, mostly AG degrees. But they are very well educated and possess an enviable intellect.
They would point out that it makes quite a difference when making a video recording which represents a dialect and accent, as to whether the speaker has all their teeth. A HUGE difference.
We know our accents down here are largely the result of handed-down tradition, much of which flies in the face of "proper" English, but these accents and dialects represent a peculiar mode of expression, which can be very distinctive and frankly, charming.
I became the area trainer for Opticians working for Pearle Vision back in their heyday, and my territory covered the whole SE of the United States. From Kentucky and Virginia down to the Gulf. Lemmee tell ya, there are about 20 distinct "southern accents" at very least, and they vary from region and can vary by city. For instance, Charleston SC has it's own accent, separate from what the Ravenals and Ugees speak, separate from the Midland of SC, and separate from the Mountain dialects. Each southern state has probably three distinct dialects and scores of accents. If you are a "dialectician", it's a literal paradise. And being "southern" myself, I found myself having to haul in folks from Georgia Tech/ Athens to do some translating during my seminars.
Each dialect (I use the European perspective of what a dialect is. An "accent" does not change the language, just alters the way words are pronounced. An actual "dialect" goes much further, altering grammar, altering vocabulary, and is very close to a complete language change. Not unlike the difference betwixt the Scots and the Cornish in Great Britain, or the Schleswig/ Holsteiners and the Bayrisch in Germany... very nearly wholly different languages altogether!!) - possesses their own legacy, history, and charm and is kept alive by a proud recognition of family history - in the case of my "married in" family, dates back to Fairfax Co. Virginia of 1730!! (We Cottons from Fairfax County, Virginia, founded Dothan in the 1820s and defended our homeland and small farms in the War Between the States only a few decades later. After the "defeat", we became sharecroppers on our own lands!)
Just as Eire (Ireland) is replete with its own language legacy tied into its extremely colourful history, so is the Southland of the United States. Especially for us subsistence farmers and yeoman tradesmen who could never afford what the Plantation upper class could afford. And it were the Sharecroppers and Yeoman and Subsistence Farmers of the South that gave her her much-varied speech...and incredible musical legacy. With the help of the Irish, the Scots, the Germans, and the Welsh, of course.
Sidebar: Oxford University noted that Devonian English, as kentniss from Shakespeare, was preserved in two places in the Western Hemisphere: Laborador....and Appalachia!! In West VA and NC they still serve up "vittels". Shakespeare would have come to dinner!
and then there is the viktualienmarkt in Muenchen. vittels just came full circle :)
Well I recken you dent hav to rite a book about hit.
If I’m not mistaken, the guy used to demonstrate the TN accent is actually from western NC. The blue ridge Appalachian accent is similar, but depending on where you are along the blue ridge changes that Appalachian accent quite a bit.
It is a crime to leave out the Arkansas hillbilly and Texas/Oklahoma twang accents in this video.
They're probably in another Olly video ;)
Thank you!
Yeah I was waiting for him to get to Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma but he never did! Those are the accents I'm used to hearing, not that deep south hillbilly stuff. I was always told never to drive into the deep south because of how dangerous the hillbillies are, you might get yourself in a jackpot or something. They would say "haven't you ever seen that movie Deliverance?" Lol.
No one gives a sh*t about Oklahoma.
I was waiting for that. So disappointed.
I love that part at 1:51 "Do y'all not realize how silly y'all look, accusing me of fakin' an accent? Just 'cause I have all my teeth in my head and I'm not married t' my brother doesn't mean I can't qualify for a Southern accent." XD
Yep. I think that was a young Hannah Barron.
I'm in the South, and that's not really weird to me. You do see a lot of people missing teeth and super country, but that's either poverty or meth. I'd guess she's from up in the country tho. That's waay more country than I'm used to hearing, but not so bad I can't understand her. That's always a smile and nod, or go "that's crazy" and shake your head.
plus, that accent on that woman is so sexy...cute...
That minded me of a feller I met in Germany. He wanted me to convin ta other people in our unit he had him some cable and plummin smack dab in r middle of Kentucky. I was imitating my Pop. I'm from St Louis but grew up in western Kentucky. The first place I ever saw an outhouse was in a small town in Denmark. I was on my honeymoon. We were exploring and walked down an alley and saw one that had vines growing all over it.
She was faking, and not well either.
I am a Southerner and I love listening to all the different dialects and accents. ❤❤❤
As someone who grew up and still lives in Tennessee, it is super cool to see an outside perspective an interest in our rich history. I have studied accents from various parts of the UK with the same interest, and it is quite pleasant to see the tables turned. You'll hear accents like this among the Southern working class all the time, though most of them aren't that pronounced. Well done!
Growing up in North Carolina, you could hear three or four different accents just sitting at the lunch table in the school cafeteria. I didn't think anything of it until I started interacting with folk from around the country and realized they automatically subtracted ten points from their estimation of your IQ just because you had a southern accent. I worked hard to sound more neutral because I couldn't stand folks looking down on me for how I spoke. Now that I'm a little older, I don't mind lapsing back so much.
Where in NC? I'm in Marshall. Grew up in Catawba co tho
@@donaldquaid4361 I grew up in Rockingham County, up by the Virginia border.
My husband was born in raised in Morganton, NC - he tells me that all the time. I love his accent - and his is wicked smart - but plays off as "I'm just a dumb redneck" it's hilarious.
my Filipino friend in Hawaii says he turns his pigeon off when he talks to haoles.😢 And when he does, our Ohio accent (he lived in Columbus for a decade) comes thru so people ask why he sounds like that?! lmao😂
@@matthughes2069 Hah. I call it speaking banjo when I lapse into my southern accent.
Southern accents don't stop at state lines--instead, they are typically geographical. The Cumberland Plateau (where I am from) is the western border of Eastern TN and it has its own accent. It descends into Alabama and I sound more like the people in northern Alabama (including the people featured in your video) than I do people 50 miles east or west of the Plateau in TN.
But, if you go back a few generations, you'll hear people on the Plateau sound like the Appalachian people out of the Foxfire books. My grandmother would say "warsh" instead of "wash" and "far" and "tar" instead of "fire" and "tire." A combination of education and influence from outsiders has changed the accent. My mother did not pronounce words that way, despite growing up in the same place where my grandmother grew up. And I don't pronounce words the same as my mother, despite growing up in the same county--for instance, she says "yella" instead of "yellow."
This is very true I live in Florida and the accent changes when I drive an hour north.
When I heard the first accent, my immediate thought was North Mississippi + North Alabama (I knew a girl from MS who spoke exactly like that), but he said Alabama. Fact is, you're right -- accents follow natural geographic patterns rather than state lines. Upland South and Lowland South are noticeably different dialects with their own sub-accents (mine is Upland). Then there's Louisiana dialects and Tidewater (NC/VA) which are their own things.
Absolutely. I'm not far from your region. I'm in the NW of GA and we have that oddball Northeast Alabama/Southwest Tennessee merger going on. I sound more Appalachian because my mom's family was originally from NE Georgia and my Grandmother still had a lot of her Appalachian going on.
@@Soufriere84 Yeah, when he had the Mississippi and Alabama people on, I couldn't tell the difference between them and people from my part of Tennessee, to be honest. Author Shelby Foote, who was interviewed in the Ken Burns "Civil War" documentary, is an excellent example of a Deep South Mississippi accent. Rosalyn Carter and Dixie Carter's character on "Designing Women" (Dixie was actually a native of TN) are examples of a Deep South Georgia accent. People from Georgia that just live over the line from Chattanooga all sound like me.
And of course we can't forget Scarlett O'Hara, who I rank as one of the few non-native Southerners in Hollywood who has ever successfully pulled off a Southern accent. She was tutored by a linguistics professor from the University of the South. Brad Pitt in "Inglorious Basterds" also did a good job with an East TN accent--which, I think, is much harder to pull off because it's so very easy to make it sound like a caricature.
But I'm like the woman in the video who said most "Southern" accents in movies make me cringe. I can never put my finger on it, but almost all of them sound fake. There's a razor-thin fine line between sounding authentic and sounding mocking. And Hollywood has a very long history of mocking Southerners, especially mountain people.
In fact, I've been mocked for my accent a lot more in the U.S. than outside it. When I lived in Ireland, people just identified it as an American accent. When I have talked to Polish penpals, they love my accent because they say I'm so much easier to understand than others, especially British people. (I think it's because I speak much slower; that helps them out, lol.)
@@yourweirdauntperfumeryskin3236 Do you say "creamed potatoes"? I've always said "mashed potatoes," but my mother calls them "creamed." I'm not sure how the difference came in.
My great great grandfather was thrown out of Quebec in 1789 and took a ship to New Orleans. He was Acadian, which became Cajun.
I'm from Portland, Oregon so I have a fairly generic accent. It's the one usually copied by non-Americans in movies or TV shows across the pond.
I went into the USAF after high school and, at boot camp, one of my female flight members was from "Bamma", as was my instructor. She was from north Alabama, he was from a small coastal town in southern Alabama. I had a terrible time, at first, understanding him, but it became a no-brainer after awhile.
My flightmate was a little easier to understand, except she'd sometimes say something that even people from the South had trouble with. On two occasions I can remember, she had to repeat herself multiple times before even the most Southern of us in the group understood her.
One phrase was: "Yeetyet?"
The other was, "Y'all fixinteet?"
I finally realized she said, "Have you eaten yet?" and "Are you going to go eat?"
The one word I remember from my instructor was "arn". As in, "Arn your uniform".
My father was also in the USAF and he and my mother were stationed in Selma, Alabama, and had difficulty understanding everyone at first. To their amusement, they also observed people FROM SELMA having trouble understanding each other. It was like each neighborhood--within the town and rurally--had their own accent. Sorta like in Band of Brothers when the two guys not only peg each other as coming from Boston but what *neighborhood* they came from--only a few blocks from each other. To everyone else, they both had the same "Bahstahn" accent, but to them, they didn't.
Or, for the strong accent, how people in England say they have no idea what people from North England are saying. My SIL's parents are from Manchester, and they've said they're fine with Scottish brogues, but have a terrible time with anyone from Northern England.
Language is so amazing!
In my Army Officer Basic Course we had an allied officer from Indonesia. He had spent the prior year learning English in Texas. You haven't heard a mixed up accent like an Indonesian speaking English with a Texas Twang.
I get Indonesian English every time I have a credit card question. I just hang up. Now Texas Twang I understand clearly.
No idea why I feel this is relevant but...
Back in the mid 70's there was UK TV series called Porridge - a comedy about serving time in a UK Jail.
There was short-lived character - a Black guy (unusual in itself back then on TV) but with a very broad Scots accent - purely for the comedic effect of being very different from the expected Carribbean accent.
Ronnie Barker, as usual, way ahead of his time.
ireee! No problem Mon!@@derekmills5394
lol I had a similar whiplash experience meeting a German man who'd learnt English in Glasgow, Scotland. :-D It was cool, but ear-boggling to hear a German accent on a Glaswegian one. lol
LOL! 😂
I know you can only cover so many accents in an episode, but it was interesting to me that you had one "Alabama accent." My wife grew up in North Alabama and has a hard time understanding people native to South Alabama because the accents are so different.
North Alabama native here and yes they are quite different accents
Same with Virginia. Many different accents. I am sure it is the same in every state 😊
Yes the blond Alabama girl I could tell was Huntsville/tuscaloosa area, but the last girl talking was more southern/mid alabama. The last girl also is the accents you'll hear on the Mississippi side near Mobile county as the accents blend a little in the surrounding counties.
I was thinking the same thing. My dad is from East Arkansas right on the Mississippi, my mom is from Elmore County, AL, and I grew up in Elmore County. My wife's parents are both from North Alabama (Niceville and Fort Payne). There's a distinct difference between a North Alabama accent and South Central Alabama. Must be the elevation difference lol.
@@tannermcginn7330 I’m from Decatur/Trinity area, married a Huntsville man with family in Birmingham & Haleyville. We all have pretty much the same accent. My grandmother was from Rainsville. Her accent was more Appalachian than mine. She said things like “wrench” for ‘rinse’, and spoke of her sister in “Flardy” (aka Florida). She frequently added an “uh” sound before a gerund, as in “It’s really a raining”. She lived in “Alabammer” and was the only person I ever knew who actually used the pronunciation “treckly” for ‘directly’.
I absolutely love that you included Justin Wilson!!! We watched him every weekend to hear his stories.
I'm from Charlotte NC, and literally no body talk like that in my area. But one time I was going to Myrtle Beach, in South Carolina, and it really goes through the country side. We stopped at this gas station and accent was so incomprehensible. It was nothing like back at Charlotte.
As a trucker, i got em ALL right! Shoulda done that good in school! NC forever!!!!
As another old trucker, I covered the "Lower 48" for several years about 40 years ago. After I'd gathered a few miles I realized that if I listened carefully, I could pick out the changes in the local accents from West Texas across to Georgia pretty clearly. There was a distinct difference even from El Paso to Beaumont, with several definite changes along the way. Louisiana was so distinct that it was in a group all its own. It was entertaining to talk with the people along the way and notice how my own speech tended to shift a bit depending upon where I spent time. I enjoyed all that time spent there and all the fabulous food I found along the way. Everyplace along the way seemed to have its own specialties.
Uniden Bearcat 990 SSB
Being from south Louisiana, I always found it funny that they put subtitles on Swamp People.
You'd be surprised just how dumb and uncultured people are who need subtitles to understand what people are saying. I could see it if someone speaks very fast, or someone who mumbles when they speak, or uses a lot of slang, but that's it.
@@hermaeusmora2945Dumb and uncultured? Having trouble understanding different speech patterns is not “dumb and uncultured.” It usually has to do with being unfamiliar with the speech pattern or “accent”; considering the sheer number of English language patterns; it would be difficult to be familiar with all of them. Add in the possibility that viewers may have some degree of hearing loss, and it makes sense to have subtitles, especially for less well known dialects and accents.
😂
THANK YOU!!! @@rebeccavave3998
Most people do speak in slang and mumbling drives me nuts, but it is very common. @@hermaeusmora2945
Boy I tell you wut I reckon ain't none of these fixin to convince me, bless your heart ;)
From Kentucky and Texas and spent a few years in Virginia. Yeehaw and bless yer heart for makin' this, sugah. Just love y'all.
From East TN here! The three divisions have different influences for sure. East TN was greatly influenced by the Scots-Irish while the further west you go has more of an English influence. You can still find influences from Elizabethan England in the mountains that aren’t in other places due to how shut off we were for so long from everyone else.
Fascinating!
Agreed! I’m from East TN too. After TVA and the Manhattan Project came through in the first half of the 20th century, accents started to mix. That said, I grew up two counties over from Dolly Parton, and we sound nothing alike but I’ve heard that accent on my life.
When the high school football teams would play against each other in state championships, sometimes I think they needed a translator!
@@msam2357 Forty years ago, I did my undergrad work at a small liberal arts school in the Smokies. The population at the school was mostly from other parts of the south, but go into most businesses in town and you'd hear the East Tennessee brogue. I go back most summers for workshops at a local craft school in the mountains. The accent seems to be disappearing. What TVA and Oak Ridge started, TV, the internet and migration seems to be finishing.
The bigotry toward the people from these parts of the country, quite visible in some of the comments, doesn't help. I know more than a few educated people from the South who have felt their career was held back by their accent. After doing my grad work at a tier one research institution in Texas, I post doc'd in a major New England city. I quite startled at the remarks people would make. I had one colleague tell me I was remarkably articulate for someone educated in the South. This was supposed to be a complement.
I'm African American born and raised a stones throw from Chicago. My grandparents came from Mississippi & Tennessee. With that said no matter where I go, most people say us Illinoisans sound country. I can't hear my own accent, but when I tell you the farther south in Illinois you go the DEEPER the twang gets, it will shock you!
Southern Illinois is part of the south in my opinion. I'm from Chicago and I once visited Carbondale. I honestly thought I was in Georgia or Tennessee.
A lot of folks moved to Illinois from the south looking for work. I have cousins who still live there.
@@katiehardy1995 That's how I explain why we sound country to people who ask.
@@josephlizak8188 Exactly. I was on the Speech Team at my community college and competed again students from Southern Illinois University which is pretty close to Carbondale. We could ALWAYS pick the Southern students out by their accents, especially on words that ended in "ation".
I am a lifelong Blues fan born in England and now live in South Africa, I have never been to the USA, but knowing the history of Chicago Blues I am not in the slightest surprised.
Lumbee River resident here!!!!
Cajun speaker here. You'll also hear some unique sentence patterns, like starting and ending sentences with an affirmative (Yes or No). You'll also hear a lot of English that is a direct translation of French. Examples are "I'm going to make groceries" instead of I"m going to buy groceries.
Or you could say, Imma fixin gone git sum groceries at tha sto. French/African
What distinguishes the Southern accent from other parts of the US is the pin:pen merger, in which both words are pronounced the same. It's why some people from the South use the term "ink pen."
I was born in Ohio, but my mom’s family is from Georgia. Without thinking, I once asked my coworker for an “ink pen” and she asked me, “As opposed to what other kind of pen?” I had to explain that my family was from the South! 😂
If you think the rest of the US speaks like these people you're crazy.
This is not really accurate. You'll find single pronunciation of pen/pin across the midwest as well.
@@etiennedegaulle3817 Here's Wikipedia's map of the merger. If it's accurate (the TX-NM border looks way to clearly defined) it does include parts of the midwest.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_close_front_vowels#/media/File:Pin-pen.svg
Context is key because there is only one proper way to say these words, only the spelling is different.
A gal with a southern accent, a wilderness hiking guide on CZcams, was advising hikers to always carry a "ladder" with them when they ventured into the woods. When questioned by commenters on how they would comfortably carry even a small folding ladder, and what they might use it for, she clarified by stating she was talking about a "cigarette ladder"...
We don't say "ladder" and "lighter" the same but I understand why outsiders would get em confused.
I'm from Missouri. Some folks I know don't lite fire. They build far!
I’m from Mississippi and my Mamaw used to “build a far” ever mornin’ in the winter in “the house” (the living room). My cousins and I would be in the beds under heavy quilts ‘cause it was cold in the rest of the house, ya know? And Papaw would holler “y’all come on in the house where it’s warm”.
That is Popcorn Sutton, the “moonshiner”.
@@user-dx9zf2tx5o I grew up in Massachusetts south of Boston and my mother has a VERY noticeable Boston accent. I've always had family in Missouri and moved here 5ish years ago. At first I would literally need to tell my customers that I have no idea what they are asking me because I'm not from here and needed them to occasionally spell out a word for me lol. Some of them were definitely frustrated.
My favorite things to say with a Missouri accent are boiled eggs and tire fire lmao. tahr fah-er, bowulled aygzz. I get the Missourians laughing when I break out a heavy Boston accent and say something like Bah-Hahbah(Bar Harbor) or Four-Square(foh-skwaeh)
I was born in PA raised in GA, only comments I get on my accent are you sound southern with a hint a New York (my mom is a New Yorker). Go Dawgs
As an Appalachian who traveled in Ireland and Scotland, I recognized bits of accent and even phrases common in those places that I had never heard anywhere other than back home in Appalachia.
Greetings from Ireland. I have no issue understanding these people. I love their accents.
Love you right back. My ancestors came from County Down.
Very cool and I trust you had a chance to visit. I hope to get to visit the authentic South in the USA, chat with the locals, and hear their wonderful accents soon. @@saran.4001
@@saran.4001 or ironically 'kynty dyne' as it is pronounced locally 🥰
@@krg1605 We would say Cowntee Dahown,
but I like your way better.
@@saran.4001 sounds more like my accent Saran (Brummie) 😀
As a southerner, someone not from the South, not even from the US, showing love for the South feels really good. Thank you
Loved this! I grew up in the Deep South..Mississippi, not far from New Orleans and Bayous. Havent lived there in over 30 years but still have the accent.😊
As a person from the deep south, I can understand all of these
I'm German but went to Florida for a year of high school when I was 17. The pseudo-British tcherman English my teachers spoke didn't prepare me well for the Southern accent, but I still managed to understand folks pretty quickly. I have to admit though that it took me a few months longer to also understand the black kids in school. I was shocked at the overly clear social and linguistic divide between black and white people, still in 1989.
One of my funniest language memories is that - after weeks of hearing people speak of "bald" paynuhts - I finally saw a sign advertising "boiled" peanuts (which is still a foreign concept to a European, but still makes more sense than a legume with follicle trauma...) 😅
I moved from border of Canada to the south 30 years ago and boiled peanuts was new to me. Apparently, by boiling them, it pulls out the antioxidants and is healthier to eat them boiled. Helps with allergies.
@@EagleArrowThey don’t taste good.
@@ltcajh I know, I tried them once, but people here put them in coke cola.
And all oil is named Earl! 🤣
I love boiled peanuts!
I was born in Alabama and raised in Tennessee and I NAILED this test 😂 I knew Tennessee immediately 😂 It was like I was listening to any one of my friends
I’m from the country in central Florida w my dad from Appalachian TN & mom from Alabama. No one ever guesses where I’m from. My accent is equivalent to a mutt. I knew TN immediately too
In Central Florida too.@SaltyPug
Woohoo!! I also aced this lol - from SE Virginia
See I've lived in Mississippi, alabama, and Tennessee. I knew all these accents very well. Including Louisiana. But he only touched on a couple from Louisiana. I mean you've got cajun, country cajun, city cajun, bayou cajun. You've got all the different creole. Then you've got mid and north Louisiana as well as west Louisiana which has a bit more Texas in it.
Me too. I guessed each one
People that have joined the US military really understand this type of thing. After training and being around so many people from different areas you start picking up things without knowing it. I remember coming home from AIT (Advanced Individual Training) and friends telling me how funny I was talking. So I had left without any accent to my knowledge and came back with a mix of of them. It is kind of eye opening when some guy from Boston is telling you how funny you talk. To this day I have some words that come off with everything from the Northeast to Cajun to Caribbean to Hispanic to Asin. I also catch myself falling into accents if I am around people that have some of them, not to be condescending but just because it is almost like speaking a different language and my mind just goes there. A lot of that ends up being the cadence and tone of the speech as much as the words.
I too, tend to start to use an accent if I am speaking to a person with an accent for an extended period of time. I have been told it’s an unconscious reflex used to understand and be understood by them.
I took my Australian friend on a road trip from Arizona across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and into Florida to visit my sister. There was a great deal of interpreting both ways.
When I worked for the British in the US, my coworker received a phone call from from South American Continent. Forget which country. She couldn't understand the women's English. So I took the call and understood her perfectly. She had learned English from her Texan boss. So she spoke English with a Chilian? accent and Texas twang. Very unique. Smart lady.
That sounds awesome!
INTERESTING. I was surprised that Texas wasn't included as I thought the Texas accent was quite famous and maybe there is a variety of accents as TX is so large. I lived there most of my life but because my family came from MA and Sweden, people there often asked me where I was from as I didn't develop much of a TX drawl, y'all!
Repent and trust in Jesus. We all deserve Hell for our sins, such as lying lusting coveting and more. We can't save ourselves, but Jesus can save us. He died on the cross to save us for our sins and rose from the grave defeating death and Hell. You must put your faith in him only. He is the only way to Heaven. Repent and trust in Jesus.
Romans 6:23
John 3:16❤❤😊❤
I am 71 yrs old. Raised in California and Oregon with Texan parents. After I got married, I lived all over the US. No one can ever guess where I'm from. Love this video.
I'm a native Texan from Ft Worth area and my wife was from Northern Virginia. Our daughter was born in Dallas and we moved to Houston when she was two. Next move for my job was to Wyoming where our daughter was teased about her Texas accent by her kindergarten classmates. By the end of her first grade year, her Texas accent had disappeared. Now, as a young adult she has a neutral manner of speech after college and having lived in three different states.
Californians usually live all over.
@jameshackintosh really? Where did you find that information ?
One of the best parts of having a thick southern accent like I have is you tend to understand thick english irish and scottish accents better than other Americans
This brings a smile to my face being raised in Adel ga, hearing that good ole Southern Accent. I been in Atlanta longer than I live down there now.
Same here. Valdosta. Been to all these states and South Louisiana is the tricky one for me. Cajuns are something else.
Mississippi is my home and my Mother's family was Scot/Irish on both sides. My Dad was born in Dahlonega, Ga., a beautiful place in the Blue Ridge Mountains. His father was English and a gold miner and married my grandmother, a full Cherokee, who told us about 'The Trail of Tears'. I absolutely Love their accent. They pronounce the word 'flower as flare'. Instead of saying 'y'all' like we do, they say 'youuns' and have a long, slow drawl. As a child, I spent some of the happiest times of my life in those beautiful mountains with my precious family.🌄💙🌠
The Blue Ridge Mountains are beautiful. I think of John Denver's song "Almost Heaven"
We used to tease a friend of ours with the phrase, "tayk a share, smell lahk a flare"
Hello from Clarksville Ga
Sweet, but flower and flare are two different, distinct words. Would they be talking about a flower they had seen, or a flare of lights on July 4th? It matters. Boom, always a REBEL.
The Cherokee part is bullshit. It always is.
I’m a born and bred Texan. I moved to Montana in 2019. Everyone talks about my accent. My roommate said she had to learn a new language when I moved in.
😂🤠yeeee haw. Native Texan too
I read a few years back that a linguist said that 1980 was a watershed year for the traditional Texas accents. Those born after 1980 were proportionally much less likely to have a traditional Texas accent. Throw in multiple transplants over the last few decades from places like California, Illinois, and Colorado and it is largely washed out into a kind of generic mid-American accent. I believe it is called the Midlands accent. You really hear it in the urban areas! Among the school age kids, it sounds "southern" as in Southern California.
Yeah, that singing fella at the start was Texan wasn't he? He wasn't from AL, MS, or AR for sure unless he was trying to sound more different than he had to. 😂
@@williammcleroy558 He sounded more Appalachian to me, not traditional Texas.
@gregorysouthworth783 I'm from Illinois and where I live since I live real rural is everyone here sounds more southern and I've had people up in or from Chicago not be able to understand us down here when we talk since it's not that flat and smooth accent like a lot of urban illinois has, but it's not really country either. It has some more country sounds but here we speak real fast bc of how clear the accent before was I assume.
Amazing that we all speak the same language..in so many different ways! Well done.
I would love to hear you do a video about the accent of the people on Tangier Island, VA. They also have a quite unique accent that comes from being remnant survivors of a British settlement during the Colonial era, and because they were isolated on an island, their language developed into something unique in the world. Absolutely lovely people, too.
I lived in North Carolina, my best friend is from West Virginia. Love listening to folks from the Lumbee tribe! Southern accents are beautiful, like spoken music.
Wonderful description!
Vance Randolph, co-author of Down In The Holler, visited the Ozarks and was so captivated he spent the rest of his life there. He avoided the prosperous towns and associated with all the old backwoods families he could, even by marriage. He wrote "These people were the best talkers I have ever known. Their speech was musical and soothing, full of strange, meaningful words and phrases."
I'm a 42 yo Frenchman who started learning english since I was 12, and I find southern accents from the US way easier to understand than some accents they have in Britain. Last time I tried to watch a British TV show (Misfits) I had to turn the subtitles on because I really coudn't catch everything some characters were saying (typically the Chav ones). Meanwhile I haven't needed subtitles on american movies/TV shows for decades, even ones that take place in the South (like Justified).
To a foreigner's ear, it's much more disturbing/confusing when some sounds are not actually pronounced (like the T in a lot of "Bri'ish" accents) than when sounds are elongated (like vowels in southern accents) which is something you can easily get used to.
I don’t like an accent which fails to pronounce the “T” in the middle of a word either. It’s just very poor English, in truth.
Maybe that's because New Orleans used to be French and Andy Jackson sent the "Red Coats" running back down the Mississippi River.
Yeah I think it also really helps southerners talk slower than other English accents
I'm English and lived in Paris for three years. I once flew from Paris to Manchester and caught taxis at both ends. I had no problem understanding my French speaking taxi driver in Paris. In Manchester, i found it almost impossible to understand my driver speaking my native language.
I have to admit though I've a bad habit of dropping my "t"s in the middle of words especially talking to family members. My parents are from London and it's very common there.
@@JNN- Yes, yes it does. Excellent point.
English is not my first language. That’s why I loved so much visiting Kentucky, TN, and the Carolinas. I was visiting someone and they were talking about a lady that recently hid a bay-bay. I figure out the baby part, but not the hiding part. I learned they meant “had” a baby. Also, I loved going to the stores and diners and being told “thankee” for your visit. “Your shirt is hanging from that “thaing”. I loved loved loved being there and I’d love to go back.
I work drive thru at a restaurant in a small town in TN. You get real good at understanding thick southern accents real quick.
"Nobody knows his government name... "
Ok, that made me snort... 🤣
LOL same.
for real though, I didn't know what half my kin's names really were until Facebook was a thing lol. my partner? everyone calls him by his nickname, I didn't know what his actual birth name was until we happened to work together and a coworker confused me by calling out to him and he responded haha The struggle is real in the south lol
Yes, my son and his friends...none of them go by their government name. And few of them know mine, they all call me "ma." We're in Portland Oregon. 😏
YES!!! I loved that.
The number of daddies and grandaddies (or Pawpaws) called Bubba who have a totally different given name is astronomical. We just call em Bubbas
Sugar, I understand everybody, but then I'm Southern! 😂😂😂 I love you showed Justin Wilson, God rest his soul! Used to watch his cooking show all the time.
I loved watching Justin Wilson as well. My Dad, (RIP) got me to watching JW. Justin sure liked his wine, I garontee...lol.
@@miked2090 and his oyn-yun too, lol!
Tell you what I'm gonna did.
I garowntee!!❤❤❤
Thing about Justin Wilson was that he was born and raised near Amite LA, which is just south of Amite county MS where Jerry Clower was from (as am I). The area could be called Comedy Central Southern Edition.
Born and lived 37 years in Alabama. Pretty accurate. I'd say Miss., Tennessee, Arkansas, and Kentucky are fairly similar. Georgia and SC are similar to each other. Florida is its own animal - as is Louisiana. These constitute the deep south. Others like to claim, but we don't claim them ;)
I'm Floridian and I strongly beg to differ! Florida, traditionally has an accent like the rest of Dixie. Yankee influence has sadly diluted much of it in the bigger cities and urban sprawl, but, that doesn't make us a different animal. I could take you to many places all over Florida where you'd know you was deep in Dixie!
@@spiritofdixie2389the further south you go in Florida the more it’s gets diluted . The exception is Okeechobee . Southern accent is still strong there .
@@spiritofdixie2389 True! In Florida, you have to go north to go "south" lol South Florida is very diluted and the Miami area tends to be a very Cuban/Hispanic mix.
If there’s one thing I love about Louisiana, it’s our culture and our speech. Alright that’s two things, but don’t sweat the small stuff. It does suck how it’s hard to emphasize in text on a screen.
I am born and raised in South Louisiana. Louisiana has so many dialects and is truly just so neat to hear them. Deep South is Cajun but it becomes more southern drawl almost Alabama as you go north. Nothing sweeter than a beautiful girl with the Lafayette accent. She just sounds like a perfect southern belle.
is it said "LAH - FAYE -ette"?? or "lah...FAYETTE"?? i never could figure it out
@@danf4447 Depends on if you are talking about the town or the person and which region you are from.
@@danf4447me and all my friends are from Pointe Coupee and we call it Laffy
@@danf4447 Lahf-Eee-Yet. Some parts of and around Lafayette it's Lahf-Aye-Yet.
Same here with South LA - honestly I hear many of these accents locally that are supposedly from Alabama and Tennessee and Mississippi. We have a lot of variations of drawl and twang.
As someone from Asia, I like the southern accent more than the standard US accent. I may not understand them all but I like it
There is no "standard" U.S. accent. No, I don't think there is - not like there is a standard system of writing.
I think the “standard “ accent you are referring to is more TV/Radio “accent “, which is a form of speech made very general to be understood by everyone.
Each area of the country has various accents and dialects, mostly regional, but some are specific to certain cities or smaller areas.
Many states have several different regions.
📻🙂
@@jeffking4176 Yes, there are actual communication courses people take for TV and radio. I have friends here in Tennessee who went to those classes, and now they put on their "store bought accent" as a joke.
@@jeffking4176 I agree. The standard accent can be heard on many sitcoms as well. I live on the CT side of the border with NY and people travel back and forth for work and shopping. I can tell if they grew up on the NY side and went to school there. On the opposite end of our small state you can hear an accent closer to that of Boston.
As a Tennessean, I appreciate the compliment. Not knowing where you're from in such a vast continent, I can't return the compliment properly except to say every Asian country I know much about has the most extraordinary food and traditional clothing so I'd assume your home is the same.
Understanding accents is more a matter of vocabulary than it is the accent itself. If you understand the vocabulary preferences, phrasing, and slang of a given region it’s pretty easy to follow along.
My dad is from the Texas/Louisiana area. When we moved back there for awhile I had to relay to my mom what my dad's family were saying.
Texas accents can be quite different from one end of the state to the other. You should do a video exclusively on Texas. =)
That would be great. I've been in the Houston area the vast majority of my life, but was born in Arkansas and have family there. I do have a Texas accent, but it is colored to be a bit Southern. It is unlike that clean Texan accent Texans that haven't been in East Texas and further east. (at least that is what I figure)
Yep, my husbands and mine are completely different. He's from north Texas, me from south Texas.
Definitely a noticeable difference in regional Texas accents. I was born in Houston, but lived a good part of my life in the Ozarks. It's relatives from north Texas that have that twang.
I was hoping he would get into the Odessa, Texas accent. Most impressive!
Yeah, we still don't know what people from Odessa are saying, but it's cute.
American here; living in Scotland and showing my seven year old the way some Americans talk and she absolutely loved this video!
How about doing an episode on JUST Texas? Having lipved in many areas of Texas and visited many more, I am sure you would find SO many accents to demonstrate!!
I really enjoyed this video. So well done. I’ve always loved accents! I think our differences are what make us beautiful & I LOVE when people tell me I have an accent 😅
We moved from Ohio to NC in the '70s when I was a boy. I have more stories than what I'll relate here as to trying to learn to understand my new Southern neighbors. One such account is a neighbor lady stopped by with her daughter to welcome us. One of the first things kids do is ask each others' names. I could swear she said her name was Peony. The way she said it sounded just like what we called that flower up north: PEA-uh-knee. I didn't realize that they didn't pronounce peony like that in the North Carolina piedmont region. They call it pea-OH-knee. Her name wasn't Peony, it was Penny.
Yep, we pronounce "pen" something like "PEE-in" so Penny would sound something like '"pee-inny". A lot of older people pronounce names like Mary, MAY-ree, and Karen, KAY-ren
My mother (from SE Kentucky) would pronounce the name Penny as you describe, but the peony flower she pronounced as “piney”. Confused the hell out of me when I first saw it in print.
@@takemyjobpleeez Exactly - like GAY-ry for Gary.
@@takemyjobpleeez My mother pronounced Sarah as Say-Rah
This is gold and too relatable. Got a birthday card as a kid that said "Sayeth"...my name is Seth.
I grew up in south Arkansas and I have to agree with one of the comments. I hate when they try to imitate accents in movies and/or classify the entire South as a single accent. Even in Arkansas, there is a huge difference in the way people in the Ozarks speak compared to the delta. The one thing the South has in common is the fact that people will usually talk to you like you're long- lost friends, try to feed you and then find out your life history in under an hour. When people visit from New York, New Jersey, etc...., their gruff accents will definitely be noticed.....bless their hearts.....lol
As an Ozarker, half of whose family comes from the Delta, can 1000% confirm. My own voice is a combination of growing up and living in the Ozarks but influenced by my late beloved grandmother who grew up in the Delta.
I can also confirm to the world how we like to learn about people. But if I'm gonna be honest, NY/NJ folks are easier to deal with despite their gruffness than Texans and Californians. New Yorkers GET that they're in a different land.
Sadly you have to get out of the NWA Metro to find an Ozark accent anymore. (Damn transplants) I think the SW corner of the state has their own accent too. That southern drawl is thick as skeeters down here in this river tho
My people are from the Ouachita area---in fact, Lake DeGray was built partially on my grandfather's dairy farm--and although I consider myself a North Carolinian, I still have traces of the accent and some of the vocabulary. Coincidentally my wife bought the home in which we now live in the North Carolina Piedmont county from which my maternal great-great-great-grandfather migrated to Arkansas.
I had cousins in Dumas, and when I was growing up, spent a lot of time down there. Their accent was a little thicker than mine, but I am from Little Rock. I am now in NW Arkansas and this area has grown so quickly that only about half the people still have Southern accents.
@@stephanledford9792 you can tell folks are from Dumas by the way they pronounce Dumas
After watching one of your other videos on English dialects, I feel far more comfortable listening to these. I'm from the Western United States, so I obviously speak a very different dialect than those featured here, but being able to understand these makes me feel very American. Great video!
I knew the Mississippi accent near-instantly as most of my extended family is from there. And with myself being North Carolinian, I recognized the NC right away as well. Though I admittedly didn't recognize the specific region as quickly. The moment you mentioned a "mystery that has never been solved" is when I knew the specific area despite never having been there personally.
But the accent portrayed is SE North Carolina, and not the "hoy toyder" accent of the Outer Banks.
Born and raised in N.Ky. and as I traveled northern states while working, they were surprised I had no discernible accent. If you go just 20-30 miles from me, you find the accents. My youngest daughter would go to church camp, 20 miles away, for a week and return with a very definite accent.
As a teenager, in the 60's, I worked in a large gas station that was the first stop off the interstate from Detroit. So many times, we were asked, "How far until we get to Kentucky?". The reply that they were in Kentucky was using followed by them looking at our feet. To which our response was "Yes we wear shoes in Kentucky", which usually embarrassed them, sometimes generating laughter.
Fun video, thanks.
Lol the shoes!
I'm from East Ky. Went to UK for a while (University of Kentucky for you guys across the pond) and had English and Russian pals who understood me just fine. Met a girl from N. Ky who had absolutely no idea what I was trying to say! It's wild how much changes across our little state.
Hold the phone! Popcorn Sutton was born and grew up in Maggie Valley North Carolina. Yes, he did move to Cocke Cnty Tennessee where he died but his stomping ground growing up was Maggie Valley North Carolina. I was born in Ft Campbell Kentucky. Military Brat! Half of my life was living in Kentucky and the rest of my life in Asheville North Carolina. My mother hired a speech therapist for me growing up and it did help with twang & drawl, yes we can have both. What I find hysterical is that I’m a Regional Account Manager for a National Company and when I go to meet with clients, I find myself enunciating more with a “Southern Bell Drawl” during the meetings. For some reason I have found that it puts clients more at ease to talk to me. 😂❤
He is from up Hemphill in j-creek which is waynesville
Love it, reality.
I've found that when I was abroad, say out of the South or out of the country, I'd revert to a stronger accent then I use at home! Maybe its a coping mechanism, who knows!
I used to run into Popcorn in the 80's when I used to frequent Maggie Valley, NC. His brother had a flea market/shop right outside my folks old property. He's def from Maggie Valley.
@@WillieNelsonMandela1 cute story. his old house was up Hemphill rd which has a waynesville address ….I live just down the road. It’s close to Maggie but not Maggie.
From Connecticut for decades but now living in Kentucky. It has taken a while but I can decipher very well now.
I was born and raised in NYC, so I have a difficult time trying to "place," Southern accents. Mainly, I want to thank you for being respectful with your video. Usually, southern accents are viewed in a negative light, as if the inhabitants are not smart/educated, etc. As Americans, we have to learn to appreciate and celebrate each others' differences, instead of making fun, you know?
Your TN section had a Tarheel (NC) in it. Popcorn Sutton was from Maggie Valley, NC. not far from Dolly in TN but still NC.
I said the same thing 😂
RIP Popcorn! One other thing, most people mispronounce Appalachia. If you say Appalachia, I’m gonna throw an “apple atcha.” Ken in Hendersonville WNC
correct! That threw me off with the guessing as well.
Popcorn says f*#% you 😂
@@jaime4890 😂😂😂 I seen that !! 😂😂
Funny story, my husband is a city boy from Tampa Florida, and my dad was a mountain man from South western VA. My husband couldn’t understand my dad so I had to translate for him.
Born and raised in Tampa/Central Florida and spent a season working at a hotel in western NC. The locals were so hard to understand! Give me a tourist from Mobile or New Orleans any day.
I'm Australian, but originally from the West Country (thinking of the map, that's that's the 'leg' bit of England). I can hear some west country origins in that mountain accent. To me, it has similarities to the mumbling of a Dorset farmer after 5 ciders down the pub.
Why is it always someone describing a tornado 😂😂😂
Arkansas here 👋 and I'm never leaving. I've been here all my life. It's too beautiful and friendly here in the mountains 😊
The Navy took me from my home in East Tennessee to Southern California. I lost most of my accent over the last 45 years but I travel to Tennessee 2-3 times a year and can pick right up where I left off. I tell people I’m bilingual and have dual citizenship.
We lived in Tennessee for about 5 years, and LOVED it! We watched the Moonshiners TV show, and noticed they were subtitling Tim and Tickle. I was briefly puzzled by that, then realized we'd lived there long enough that they sounded perfectly natural to us. We have friends with that accent, and thoroughly enjoy it. Growing up in Nebraska, I never understood why more southern people might say "ink pen". I mean, what else IS a pen, but an inked writing instrument? Well, if the words "pen" and "pin" are both pronounced as "pay-en", you have to distinguish! There's bobby pay-ens, straight pay-ens, and of course ink pay-ens! I just love it.
Did you ever get hit with “tire, tower, tar”? I was born and bred in Chattanooga and went to engineering school at UT Chattanooga. I was doing homework with a guy from Dayton, and one of the problems had a tower in it. Jeff asked me a question about the “taher”. I looked through all the problems looking for a tire. Finally, he pointed to the tower in the illustration. I said “oh, the TOWER”. He responded “ yeah, the taher”.
Dayton is only one county away.
@@sharonbass6110 Lived my whole life in Ringgold, and that's my mama's accent to a "T." It makes me feel at home to hear it.
This reminds me of my mamaw who said "fire" and "far" nearly indistinguishable from each other. She was born in W.V but was raised in Southern Ohio. She was born during the Spanish Flu.
And safety pin.
One thing that I am puzzled by is how British people say, I'll be there in two hours' time." Everyone knows that hours are a measure of time.
Many years ago there was a documentary on PBS that went from one Appalachian area to another and also to some towns on the US coast recording speech. Then they went to Great Britain, traveling from small town to small town and found people there with accents indistinguishable from the Southern US. It was amazing and spooky at the same time.
Oh I would love to have seen that!
I recently made the connection between how similar some of our words sound. Like riiiiight or liiiight. They sound as hillbilly as I do sometimes 😂
The Hillbilly accent? Shakespeare's original pronunciation? Try it.
That's because American English is much closer to Elizabethan English and non rhotic posh English popularized by queen Victoria spoken predominately in England now did not become 100% pervasive there. Turns out the ones with the wierd pronunciation are the non rhotics... and Americans and those in England that still pronounce all their Rs are the most similar to early modern english.
I saw the same thing!!!
WHAT FUN YOUR VIDEO IS!! Thank you kindly!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I knew popcorn was coming from the 1st hint. From SC and take pride in being able to distinguish. Great vid man!
I'm a Canadian born.. Florida risen Mississippian.. my accent is all over the place but I love it ❤
hey there me too! I still say "leg" and "egg" in ways that Southerners ask me where the hell I learned to speak like that, and then I go up north and they all laugh at my southern accent. I guess I mostly do sound Southern but a few words stayed midwestern sounding, some sound "yankee: according to deep South friends. In fact that's how I learned how dumb people are, to judge by an accent. I would go up north and people hated southerners and thought we were all dumb, then go back down south and be looked at askew bc I sounded too northern. That's when you learn how people are just the same everywhere.
@nadiamccall4311 same.. I say oil instead of "ull" and they look at me so funny
Wow, you ended up here in MS? Cool!
Me irl = 🤣
He'll yes
Not American, but love Southern accents, sound so warm and reassuring 😍
I dated a guy from Virginia and he cured me of that affliction forever!
As an American , that’s so funny. I think you’re getting that from watching movies.
Talking with a British relative, she was left puzzled by puh-khan instead of her pee-can for pecan. She said it’s usually us using the posh pronunciation. .
Loved this. I'm from Memphis, TN snd have traveled quite a bit and always get comments on my accent.
What I like though is the chance to hear other accents as I travel.
This is very cool. I am fascinated by 'accents' (like yours too). Thanks for making the video! Out of curiosity, can you tell when someone is trying to imitate your accent? I would guess you can. Your point about acquiring an accent due to the folks you grow up with - family, friends, etc. - is definitely correct. Love listening to Justin Wilson ( you had a short clip of him) too.
People growing up in the cities, will have different accents than in nearby rural areas. You also have to take into account the accents of other people in their family.
As a Tennessean who does not have an accent i understood most of this video perfectly.
Another Tennessean here. I thought the same thing. I don’t think I have accent until I travel. Blows my mind when people say are you from Tennessee?
Yes you do! You just can't hear it yourself!!
Everyone has an accent. Yours might just be a standard American one.
Thatwoman who died recently hadda distinctive accent TNFlygirl Jenny Blalock
@AvioftheSand "Standard American" is a myth. There's very literally no such thing as a "standard American" accent.
Born an and raised in Memphis, TN; which is more Mississippi (Delta) than what was shown in the video for Tennessee. I did immediately recognize every state though. Great video.
I grew up pretty much smack in the middle of NC so my accent kinda fluctuates depending on who I’m around. One side of my family grew up in the mountains and the other side grew up down east in tobacco country plus all my buddies speak different ways too so I can sound different from one moment to the next. Once I was in Chicago for work and wi stopped in a store to grab some stuff for the hotel. When I went to the checkout line and the lady behind the register heard me talk she asked me straight away “you’re from North Carolina aren’t you?” And I replied “you would be right, you must be from or have kin down there to recognize the accent” and she came back with “neither, my husband watches a lot of nascar and you sound just like the commentators.” Made my day hearing that😂
I love how he hears a Southern accent and his instinctive response is, “Fascinating!”
We got purdy accents here in the southern states 😂.
Everybody I know from the UK love my Southern Accent. (They're not many, just a hand full.) Same with the one person (lol) I know from India.
Girls can marry at 15 in Mississippi. I find that "fascinating"
His's accent sucks !! Is that english?
I hear a southern accent and proceed to vomit.
Cajun blew my mind. I was stationed at Ft Polk when I was in the Army. One of the guys in my platoon was a local. We were headed to his parents house and ran across a Cajun station. I recognized the French but it wasn't French. I was like WTF was that lol I ended up marrying a Cajun girl...a LeBleu. She grew up in a town that her family founded in the 1700's just outside Lake Charles. I fell in love with crawfish and southern style cooking...yum. I was told that as you go south, it gets deeper, and as you go west, it gets slower. My brother in law married a girl from South Carolina and none of us couldnt understand her because she has such a fast drawl. Oh, BTW...I grew up in the Chicago suburbs in an Italian family lol.
nice story ( :
See my comment above. Ya' hear?
Is town still there and if so what is the name? My daughter lives in Orange, TX so I am familiar with surrounding area Even though I live in PA. Visit her often. Always look forward to Cajun food, love boudain (sp?) balls, crayfish boils, gumbo, etouffe, alligator, shrimp & grits, and Chess Pie!
@@marshataylor3703yes...LeBleu Settlement just outside of Lake Charles.
@@marshataylor3703 Yum! You're makin' me hungry!
Love the video. I am from Louisiana. As with other states I reckon, there are actually several accents that a Louisianan can distinguish within the state-- including different Cajun accents. Bayou Teche, Bayou Lafourche, Ville Platte, etc all have their own distinct sound. Same with the anglo part of the state. Shreveport and Monroe, both in North Louisiana, have very distinct accents-- Shreveport more like East Texas and Monroe more like Mississippi Delta or even the old Jackson lilt. And my birthplace of Ruston has a serious twang-- Jim = Jeeyum. Heck, even within greater NOLA there are Y'ats, Creoles, West Bankers, Chalmatians, etc that all sound different from one another.