Are Southern accents dying?

The distinct drawls and twangs that dominate America's Southeast as we know it may be dying off, new research suggests. A North Carolina State University study has noted a gradual shift away from the drawn-out vowel pronunciations widely associated with Southern speech, which experts say is 'disappearing'.
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Is the Southern accent changing?

There's a gradual shift toward a less distinctive regional accent, and the vowel sounds are leading the way. “Language is always changing, always in flux,” said Robin Dodsworth, an associate linguistics professor at North Carolina State University. “Over time in Raleigh, the Southern variant is disappearing.”
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Is the Southern accent spreading?

The Upland South accent, a faster-paced dialect native to the Appalachian mountains, is said to be spreading just as fast as the plantation drawl disappears. "The one constant about language is, it's always changing," Kretzschmar said. "The Southern accent is not going anywhere.
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Are we losing our accents?

First, accent changes are unpredictable. There's no evolutionary reason that the vowels are shifting, they just are because that's part of how human language has always worked. Second, that accents are still shifting and changing today, which means that English will never become fully homogeneous.
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Are regional accents dying out?

According to the first set of results from an app mapping changes in English dialects launched in January by the University of Cambridge, regional accents are dying out. The English Dialects app, downloaded 70,000 times already, has generated data from 30,000 users across 4,000 locations.
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Are Americans losing their accents?



Is the Southern accent attractive?

A recent survey by Cupid.com of 2,000 men and women found that the Southern twang', especially from the yellow hammer state, of the south was voted first place as the most attractive in the U.S. The Southern accent came up on top with 36.5% of the vote followed by New York in second with 16.5%.
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Are accents getting stronger?

In fact, regional accents are becoming stronger and more different from each other, says William Labov, a professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, although it's not entirely clear why.
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How do you talk without a southern accent?

Pronounce your vowels and consonants more clearly and quickly.
  1. "Clip" or shorten your vowels. ...
  2. You can try to speak with your mouth in more of a circular shape to achieve the effect of rounding out your vowels instead of flattening them. ...
  3. Place the accent on the second syllable of words such as cement and umbrella.
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Is the New York accent dying?

Kaufman says part of the reason why these accents are fading is that more well-to-do outsiders are moving into Manhattan proper. "Wealthy people, or middle-class people even, from all over the country, speak quite similarly to each other," he says.
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Is the British accent dying?

Regional accents across England are slowly fading, and are being replaced nationwide with a more 'southern' way of speaking, according to research.
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Where is the Southern accent strongest?

Another 16% say the Southern coast has the strongest regional accent, while New York and Texas were tied, with 13% saying these states had the strongest accents.
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Why do Southerners have a drawl?

However, rural and less wealthy classes who came from Northern England settled in the South. And they did (and still do) pronounce the “r” sound in words. This is where the origins of the Southern Drawl lie. Note that there are places in the South that don't pronounce the “r” but still have a similar accent.
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How do you say hello in Southern accent?

Howdy. This is a Southern way to say hello. Howdy!
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Does Texas have a Southern accent?

As one nationwide study states, the typical Texan accent is a "Southern accent with a twist". The "twist" refers to inland Southern U.S., older coastal Southern U.S., and South Midland U.S. accents mixing together, due to Texas's settlement history, as well as some lexical (vocabulary) influences from Mexican Spanish.
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Why do Southerners have an accent?

Where Does the Southern Accent Come From? The development of the Southern accent occurred over hundreds of years and had many contributing factors to its spread, most notably immigration and slavery. The main origin of the accent comes from British immigrants.
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What is a Southern accent called?

The Southern American English drawl, or "Southern drawl," involves vowel diphthongization of the front pure vowels, or the "prolongation of the most heavily stressed syllables, with the corresponding weakening of the less stressed ones, so that there is an illusion of slowness even though the tempo may be fast."
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What accent do Californians have?

California English (or Californian English) collectively refers to varieties of American English native to California. A distinctive vowel shift was only first noted by linguists in the 1980s in southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area of northern California.
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Do New Yorkers pronounce R's?

The most recognizable, almost stereotypical New York pronunciation is the elusive “r.” Most commonly, the “r” consonant is not pronounced, especially when it is found in the middle of a word. The exception to this rule is when the “r” is situated at the end of a word or is followed by a vowel.
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Why do New Yorkers sound British?

According to Prof Labov, the NY accent originates from London. "Back about 1800 all the major cities in the eastern seaboard of the United States began to copy the British pronunciation of not pronouncing the final 'r' as a consonant, saying 'caah' instead of 'car'.
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What words do Southerners say differently?

Here are eight of the most perplexing Southern words that people from other places simply wouldn't understand.
  • 'Coke' Billionaire Warren Buffett says he drinks five Cokes a day. ...
  • 'Fixing' Shutterstock. ...
  • 'Barbecue' Flickr / Carlos Pacheco. ...
  • 'Buggy' ...
  • 'Mash' ...
  • 'Yankee' ...
  • 'Sweeper' ...
  • 'Foot'
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Where are Southern accents most common?

Specifically, the Atlas definitively documents a Southern accent in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina (though not Charleston), Georgia (though Atlanta is inconsistent), Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Louisiana (co-occurring with Cajun and New Orleans accents), as well as almost all of ...
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How do Southerners talk?

You probably have an idea of what a Southern accent sounds like. Southerners have a drawl, they say “y'all” and maybe even “howdy.” Surely not everyone in the South talks this way, but most of us are aware of the fact that Southerners don't speak the same way as Northerners.
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What is the most intelligent accent?

The Yorkshire accent is rated as the most intelligent-sounding, beating received pronunciation, the accent of royalty and public school alumni, for the first time.
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At what age is an accent permanent?

Research has shown that accents become permanent around the age of 12 years old. That being said, it is possible for accents to change over time or for adults to develop a subtle accent after living in a foreign country for an extended period of time.
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