The Accent Thread

[chelluversu]

Originally Posted by chiliD

What I find interesting is that what we think of as the "Southern (US) Accent" didn't evolve until AFTER the Civil War. So, how did "Southerners" talk BEFORE the Civil War? And, what caused the change?


An amusing thing I saw many years ago was a documentary on "the blues". They did an interview with Delta Blues master Mississippi Fred McDowell. He was SPEAKING English...but his Mississippi accent was SO THICK the filmmaker added subtitles anyway! And, the funny thing is, had the subtitles NOT been there, I'm really certain that I wouldn't have known what the hell he was saying!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNqY6ftqGq0

According to this and what I've learned in classes, the change happened because people were moving in and their accents kinda had an influence on the way people talked over time.


I'm from southeast Michigan, so I don't really have the midwestern accent a lot of people here at MSU have. I live in nothern Virginia now and that only differences between how we speak are the words we use to describe stuff. Instead of a shopping cart I call it a buggy, or instead of soda I call it pop. Stuff like that.