I was born and raised in s-e Kansas. My mother's family has been here since 1869. My dad's family came from southern Missouri in 1902. People from all over the US think I'm from Texas...including Texans. Standard American is falling apart because almost EVERYONE has grown up with a friend whose parent or grandparent for whom English was a second language. PLUS, real fluency in English is undervalued.
I was stationed on Ocracoke for 3 years. I still understand the dialect, and still fall back to speaking it at times. It's the closest dialect to old English left in the world.
Haha I know the Texas accent very well Texas gal born and bred and I know the Appalachian accent too my family is originally from out there and a lot of them are from the Carolinas and Virginia and Kentucky lol..and I'm part Cherokee and Irish and I keep my accent it's apart of me
I'm from the West Coast of Scotland. I emigrated to the US when I was 20 years old. I've lived mostly in the deep American South as well as parts of the NE and Illinois. I spent almost a decade living in the DFW area. There are parts of Dallas that have really large percentages of immigrants. South Asian, Middle Eastern, African etc There are still Texans that have a wonderful drawl. But I think they tend to be from more rural areas. I believe that living in large urban areas definitely affects historical dialects. I love that my ear has become so well tuned to all the different ones. 🙂
A good way to hear people's natural, un-selfconscious speaking patterns is in local news clip interviews of citizens when the news is reporting on real time accidents, fires, robberies, or public events like festivals, fairs, and carnivals, or job fairs. Usually, the people won't be thinking about how they are talking and will just speak authentically in the moment, unlike when doing dialect tests, where people become self-observing.
This is true. Also, if you can rattle someone's chain a little, the natural accent comes straight out. My mother in law has a fairly thick southern accent, but when she's worked up, it may as well be a different language. I only catch words here and there.
Well, when the dialect tests were done in the big US survey most recently, they pretended to be an ad agency doing a marketing study. When I realized years later that I'd been a respondent, I finally figured out why they'd asked me about such disparate products, and why the caller had seemed so nonplussed by some of my answers.....
another interesting one is the "yooper" accent. basically finnish immigrants that got trapped in the upper peninsula of michigan by themselves. the longest running talk show in television history was actually run by them, have in english and half in finnish
My husband of 34 years is a Yooper from Escanaba..He still knows a few Finnish expressions Before him, all of my boyfriends have been Michiganders. Every other gay guy that I met in Texas was from Michigan. My very Southern Sister lost her accent living in Michigan while her husband was at University in East Lansing.
Having grown up in da ‘Burgh, but now living overseas I notice when I go back that the accent is alive. It definitely exists in some classic Pittsburgh locales such as going to the amusement parks in tawn.
Yinz accent is def going strong today all over Western Pa, especially Johnstown, but Pittsburgh has been attracting more newcomers who don't have the accent so I can hear people taking that as its going away. Alas.
“There's a southern accent, where I come from The young 'uns call it country The Yankees call it dumb I got my own way of talkin' But everything is done, with a southern accent Where I come from” -Thomas Earl Petty
That's a form of code-switching. I've noticed, among children of immigrants, even when they're speaking English - if they're speaking amongst their friends, they'll speak in a "standard" dialect, but when talking to their parents (even when speaking English) they adopt the accented English their parents speak.
I'm from Charleston, my family has been there since the early 1700s, and the last generation in my family to have a strong Charleston accent are my grandparents. It makes me so sad, I say a lot of words with an accent, but it's nowhere near as strong as my grandpa's was.
@@Danielle-gc6ilSame here! Family landed in Charleston in the 1700s and it’s so sad now that my grandparents’ accents are rarely, if ever, heard anymore. If someone wants to hear what it sounds like, watch some old videos of Senator Fritz Hollings. I sure do miss hearing that while running errands around town, back when Charleston was small. Hugo brought in a lot of outsiders, then the internet introduced a lot of other accents, so the real Charleston accent got so watered down it’s nearly gone. 🙁
The oldest living generation of my family has the Charleston accent. I grew up in Georgia though and missed out. I really treasure any opportunity to hear a Charleston accent.
@@RainyJan309 I still have a lot of the vestiges of that accent, as we live in an old, fairly insulated part of Mt. Pleasant where natives are plenty. I find myself calling my son, Wade, “WAY-id” and pronouncing “here” as “hair.” 😄
I used to hate my northern RI (Worcester corridor) accent. Then I went to high school in Honolulu and fell in love with pidgin. Mixed that in with my native accent, got back home to RI after graduation...and none of my friends could understand me. I LOVE ALL accents now and I do not want a single one to die. It is part of who we are. Been back in New England for ever...and I watch Andy Bumatai on youtube just to hear the beloved pidgin.
What is amazing is that the negative baggage of one accent is cherished in a totally different place. My mild Appalachian accent is thought of poorly in my area but Northerners are fascinated with it. If you came to Atlanta they wouldn't think poorly of your Worcester accent.
That rings true! I wonder if it similar to liking certain music or art styles. I do like thinking of regional accents as an artform! Do they like to drop their Rs in Atlanta, too?
I'm from Chicago and didn't realize I had an accent until I moved downstate. After being asked where I'm from so often, I started hearing my own accent. It's a weird feeling, and what's even weirder is that I can't tell you how many people ask me if I'm from Sweden. Seriously. I get it all the time.
I lived in Las Vegas for two years, one of my best friends could identify people from Chicago by their clothing! She was a retired Psychiatric Nurse from Detroit, but she knew "sisters from Chicago" immediately!
I'm originally from Pittsburgh and I can detect the accent immediately even when travelling throughout Europe or other countries. It's not disappearing! It's well ingrained in western Pennsylvania.
My grandpa was a Pittsburgh Slovak and his brother, who is still alive, has a strong Yinzer accent. But he’s in his 80s, I don’t think the younger generations have it.
I live in Pittsburgh. Both of my parents are from here but I wasn't born or raised here. Anyway, my older relatives, 60+ have the Yinzer accent hardcore. Their children don't
@dqarqeer8603 Some don't have it, but some I know have it as much as any old timer from the Burgh. I was far enough out of town that the "Yinz" was more like "Youns".
I had a professor from Pittsburgh (he wore a Pirates hat to class when his team won the ‘79 World Series) and I was baffled at first by his accent. It was unique among U.S. cities.
I grew up in North Atlanta and am a gen X. In the Atlanta suburbs it’s really its own little accent like it was a mix between valley girl and southern like “omg let’s go to chick-fil-aaaaaa guys” it’s still slow but with just a little bit of southern accent. It’s pretty unique I fear it too is going away though with the gen Z’ers but I still hear it with my friends. Thanks for an awesome video.
It's very kind of her to mention that they say "stand in line." Ever since I ventured beyond the NY metro area, everyone reacted to "stand on line" as if it were an absurd turn of phrase!
12:00 - I recognized absolutely every one of those Appalachianisms! In addition to those, you aren't preparing to go and take a shower - "You fixin' ta go rainch awf." My dad was born and raised in Dalton Georgia, but early in life he rejected his native accent because he listened to radio announcers a lot, and he decided to speak like them instead. At age 25 I became a major-market radio announcer myself in Houston TX, and I did that for the next 27 years until I got a real job.
@@claudeyaz - The US "radio accent" is basically the southern Ohio (Dayton and Cincinnati) accent, because of WLW blanketing so much of the country back in the day. Used to be the same for the generic TV accent, but now it's more of a California accent instead.
I’m from WV and I use to hate my accent. I had speech therapy as a child and I worked so hard to try to enunciate my words to not have such a thick accent. Now I embrace it. It’s part of who I am.
I live in Central Pennsylvania, and the Yinzer accent has definitely spread out to at least the Appalachians in PA. It’s crazy how you can hear the accents start to flip more towards Philly and Jersey once you cross the Susquehanna.
Yinzer was everywhere when I was in college. We rented a ski house once outside Seven Springs, and were awaiting the arrival of someone named Dawn - I was surprised that Dawn was a guy named Donald. They were also talking about a baseball player named Bawns. Took me a while to see it was Barry Bonds. The only thing I picked up myself was not the accent but one of its sentence constructions "that bed needs made" or "the floor needs swept" And BTW: The ugliest accent is my own - a Philadelphia accent. Have worked my whole life to get rid of it. The University of Pennsylvania has always had a prestigious linguistics program, so they've been studying it for years.
In York County, they have all different types of accents just in that one county. I moved to York from Northern New Jersey and have an entirely different accent so I can tell even from one part of a town to the other the accent changes.
@@michelebella677 I hear you. You hear them all up at Penn State, and they are different. Once when I was home from college, I asked one of my mom's friends, based on her accent, "Are you from Allentown?" She frowned at me. "NO. I'm from EASTON." I can tell a Philadelphian who went to Catholic school from a Jewish Philadelphian from the Northeast from a Main Line WASP, all of whom still have Philly accents, just all a little different.
I'm in north texas, and yeah dallas especially feels like its losing its accent, but there's a lot of people coming from out of state so i'm sure thats also contributing. Most people I know born in Texas still have an accent, and i refuse to change mine, although I used to when I was younger.
Gosh, the accents in the now-DFW Metroplex have changed drastically over the decades. Listen to the old news footage of the JFK assassination, the way the local news reporters and anchormen sounded. Then go to the 'plex and see how people sound today. You'll still find a few vestiges of what used to be the twangiest Texas Twang ever, but in the last 60 years that twang has all but vanished completely.
I will say, I grew up in Texas and when I moved to south Florida, I had to flatten my accent for anyone to understand me. However, it definitely comes back the second I meet someone from back home, or when I visit. And if you want to laugh, it happens in Spanish as well. My accent in Spanish is a combination of Cuban and Spaniard (wildly different), but it leans more heavily in one direction, depending on whom I'm speaking with. 😆
That's something universal. It's called "code switching", when people unconsciously switch their accents depending on who they are talking with. Sometimes people get accused of being phony when they code switch, but it happens without thinking
@@vampiro4236 I notice when I hear another person from Miami speak on video or in movies then it's really noticable. Andy Garcia , Oscar Isaac, Gloria Esteban, Alex Rodriguez
59 year old born and raised in Pittsburgh. It’s a working class accent - always been - I wasn’t allowed to speak like this growing up - when I’d come home with a colloquialism I’d be corrected - my college educated parents would call it low. When the steel died and we became more of a white collar corporate city into the 80’s a lot of new folks moved in from elsewhere. They dont speak like the working class Pittsburghers. The accent is still here but not like it was when I was a kid in the 60’s & 70’s. I’d say it is kinda going away. That News Caster you had on initially speaking was a beloved Steelers announcer and radio DJ Myron Cope. He introduced our Terrible Towel.
I grew up in Butler, Pennsylvania (35 miles north of Pittsburgh). There are still a decent number of people who talk like that. Some not as strong of an accent though.
I live on the periphery of Appalachia in Southwest VA. My accent is mild compared to many in my town, and I try to cover it up a bit when recording, but I get a lot of UA-cam comments of people pointing it out. Most say the love it because the accent is rare on UA-cam but I receive almost equally as many telling me my accent makes me sound like an idiot.
I live in Southern West Virginia and the Appalachian accent here is still pretty strong. There definitely are some young people that try to erase their accent here but those people usually leave. So at least where I live it doesn´t seem to be going anywhere.
The only idiots are the ones in your comment section telling you that they don't like your accent! How freaking rude! I've heard a few people on this particular channel with an accent and I really like it!
Well, we ought to pity them. They don’t have any sweet memories of Grandma standing in her cotton dress, hands on her hips calmly telling them and countless cousins, “Yoins et nah. Yah nit tah kip yah stringth up, then git on ta bet an seh yah prayers.” Also their Grandmas definitely couldn’t quote the whole Bible, like it’s no big deal. That’s love they never had.
I was born and raised in northeastern Indiana, my dad was from Boston, I lived in Chicago for 18 years and I now live in Orlando, Florida- so I have a hodgepodge of accents to contend with!
I live in the outskirts of Pittsburgh and we use the accent, it’s definitely not as popular to use as it once was, but we still love using it to piss people off.
I grew up in small town Vermont, and vividly remember my first grade teacher admonishing us about our accents. She was very derogatory about them, insulting both us, her young students and farmers , She scolded us for dropping our gs at the end of ing words (workin' instead of working) and ar sounds (we tended to say faam instead of farm). In a very snooty manner, she told us we all sounded like old farmers. Her tone of voice was so firm, we were to understand that sounding like a farmer was a horrible thing. I know it shaped my feelings about the good people who grow our food, very unfairly, for a number of years. Accents are not just a collection of sounds, they are part of the rich tapestry of our history and culture . Editing to add that I am in my 60s, so not only is that accent mostly gone now, so are most of the farmers. It's a vastly different culture now.
We have the same thing in Australia, my broad accent and strine dialect saw me singled out by teachers. "Tawkin' loik this, really mayd 'em stroppy and even sent a few tropo. But it's me mutha tung an' i jus' Kahnt do it, 'avin to finish and start words properly always got me danda up, I moin it's 'ard Yakka, what's wrong with "cooee cobber shargs in the billabong"?"
Things really started to change in The US when television became more prominent. As more people got electricity in rural areas, they got TVs the accents got much softer and more homogenized, towards TV broadcast type of speech.
I live in Northern California and I have heard a few older people speak with that "Mission brogue" but yeah, most of the people who spoke that way are six feet under in Colma (the city of cemeteries just south of San Francisco). It is true that many current residents of SF are not originally from there. But even someone like local sports radio talk show host Joe Shasky - a fifth generation San Franciscan with blue-collar roots - has a classic Northern California/general American accent and no trace of that old-timey accent. I can guarantee he probably knew a lot of people who spoke like that, but he certainly does not.
I am an Oakland native, and there is definitely an SF accent. It’s not as thick as the Mission Brogue anymore, but you can hear a native of The City. On the other hand, in the Central Valley anywhere between Redding and Bakersfield you can hear some people with the old Oakie accent.
My father was a Pittsburgh native. Born in a blue collar neighborhood in 1950, and he didn't have the yinzer accent. While some Pittsburghese was in his lexicon, neither he, nor the rest of my family there, really sounded that way. By the time I first lived there, in the 90s, the yinzers were the odd man out, there. These days it is uncommon enough that hearing a true yinzer in the wild can catch you off guard.
I remember moving to New York state as a kid, from California. My mom talked about going into a store and asking for some socks and "the sacks" were her first introduction to a language change.
In Panama City Florida they went "over town". I suspect it's because the bays make it possible to see the town "over there" from the small communities surrounding Panama City. In Texas I heard "pitch white" as a descriptor, they were baffled when I said "pitch is black". It's just an expression, was their answer. It was the first time I ever saw someone eat from a hand-held large block of cheese. In our store a customer asked me if we had any cool "pops", even though I had been born in Texas, I failed to understand him. It was PIPES he was asking about, as in bongs. Sound substitutions are bizarre!
I used to have a slight accent when I was younger, but then I purged it to fit in. After I graduated high school, I began to get involved with dialectology and realized that one's accent is something to be proud of, not ashamed. Since I know that my home accent is dying out, I have deliberately tried to reinvigorate my old speech patterns. Currently, it is not consistent; but I hope in due time that I will be able to. If you're curious, I grew up in Mid-Eastern Ohio, and so I have a mixture of that Ohio-river and Western Pennsylvanian twang.
I am fascinated by the Appalachian and Ocracoke brogue accent, because my mother-in-law who grew up Outside Fayetteville, North Carolina sounds like her accent is exactly split down the middle of those two. How wild! 😊
20:00 - I was raised in Houston TX. In east Texas you don't "put some meat on the grill". No, instead you "put some mate own tha gree-ull." At least that's the way it was when I moved away forty years ago. Don't get me wrong, I love the way southerners talk. They are generally good, friendly, and kind-hearted gentle people. I R 1.
Some of my relatives have accemt #1, but they are older. The youngest is my 60 year old uncle. When I was 6-7 we moved to Philadelphia, but I still say 'red up the room' without it being deliberate.
I'm from Lancaster PA and I don't hear the thick PA Dutch accent as much as I did growing up. I used to hear you-ins as the plural of you all the time in the 80s and 90s. (I theorize we're partway between Philly's yous and Pittsburgh's yinz lol) I still use the words like doplic and rutch but I sometimes have to explain them even to locals now. 😢
Grew up in near Harrisburg. When I was very young, “Dutchie” was still very common among my older relatives and some common expressions; “We read up the room.” Which I still say often. Having lived in Central Texas for the last fifteen years, I have lost a lot of my PA accent, unfortunately. Strangely though, if I am talking g to relatives back home it comes right out again.
I grew up in Texas but had an English mother and Turkish father so maybe I did not have too strong of a Texas twang or accent growing up (but it WAS present). Then right after graduating college at UT/Austin by the way I went up to Connecticut. so most of the time I’ve lived in Connecticut or Rhode Island for the past 41 years I would say my accent has changed. I have no idea what it is anymore. Slightly Connecticut or Rhode Island New England-inflected version of a slightly Texan accent, maybe? I am fascinated by accents and I’m looking forward to your next Texas video!
I guessed a good many of these. I LOVE learning about accents and language. I've always said the quintessential southern accent is a grandchild of the British accent!
Olly, if you want to hear one of the strangest and strongest accents in the US, check out Potter County, Pennsylvania. It's very distinctive and completely unique.
I’m from Pittsburgh, until 2019. I live in Philly now, so still go back quite often. Yinzer accent is still very strong in “da sahside”, up in “cahrrck”, and other places like “mckeezpurt” or “new ken”. I still have quite a bit of the accent still in my speaking, really, since I spent almost 20 years before I moved out of Pittsburgh in the south side. Look up Pittsburgh Dad for a really good version of the current yinzer accent. And great humor.
Yes! Pittsburgh Dads is the perfect example of what the current Yinzers sound like. Still alive and well in the suburbs for sure. It’s not until you leave that you realize the vocabulary differences.
I lived in Appalachia (as a Chicagoan) for half a year. Crazy way of talking, loved it. The youngest in the family (now ~30) dropped the accent and was more of a city guy, the rest retained it
Let me tell you this, now, that first older Tangier Island accent sounds like many of my kinfolk in southern Mississippi who are influenced by Cajun (coonass) English. It was as if I was listening to my Uncle Jimmy Dale who is now passed. Personally, I have worked on my very thick Southern twang over the years and most people do not reckon me being from South Mississippi. (adding French, Romanian, and Russian to the fray helps, for sure). Enjoyed the video. BTW, I have picked Russian Short Stories back up after over a year and am reading so well. Thanks for your work.
@blllllllllllllllllllrlrlrl7059 I worked to get rid of mine because I travel extensively and speak a few other languages. It is easier speaking Russian without a strong Southern accent. When I'm back around family, I can find my twang, still.
My brother lives in PA for a while & now has a bit of the Yinzer accent. We've also got some Cajun relatives on one side, plus German-esque Midwestern and more. Languages and accents have always intrigued me! Just stumbled on your channel & subscribed!
2:20 the couple times I’ve been to Pittsburgh in the last ten years, I didn’t hear the Yinzer dialect that much. I was given a one-sheet guide once, that listed various local oddities. One that struck me the most odd was the “whole nother” phrase. I’ve heard this in every part of the country, and from Brits, as well. I think I’ve heard it from a couple of Norn Iron expats, but not from Free Staters. At any rate, it didn’t strike me as a Pittsburgh exclusive. Now, turning left when the light changes without waiting for the thru traffic… 😂
It is literally the WORST city to drive in! I haven’t been to too many places. But there is no one that can convince me that it isn’t horrible to navigate that city. I grew up there.
@@ashleymcclung8495 I hate driving in Pittsburgh. For one thing, you have to be very familiar with your route, because all of a sudden, with almost no warning, you see a sign that says right lane must turn right or left turn must turn left. By the time you see the sign it's impossible to get over unless it's 3 AM and there's no traffic. Then there are all the intersections where you have a stop or yield sign and because you're almost parallel to the street you're turning onto, you have to turn your head around almost 180 degrees to see if anyone's coming, provided that you can even see over the top of the bushes. Don't get me started about the bridges where you enter the bridge onto the right lane and have to exit from the left lane, or vice versa.
@@ashleymcclung8495 I have fond memories of every time my family drove to either Pittsburgh or Washington, DC. Every time, we'd get lost, and my father would scream, "They tore up all the roads and put down new ones since we been here last time!"
@jonathanramsey I'm from southwestern PA, so while I don't speak Yinzer, I'm definitely in its orbit. The first time I heard the expression "a whole nother" was not in PA. It was on TV. It was the early to mid-1980's. My brother and I were watching some "TV event" (I can't remember what it was now) and at the beginning of the show, there was a minute-long commercial for Texas tourism. At the end of it, the guy said, "Texas--it's like a whole nother country!" My brother and I laughed so hard at that that we fell out of our chairs! Well, you can see how things change, because I say "whole nother" all the time now, and I must resist the urge to correct people who do not say it.
Love this video! I code switch Appalachian English with standard and just loved hearing folks who sound like my family! Hoping that our version lasts ❤️🙏
I grew up in Southern Illinois, largely German (Catholic and Protestant) with lots of Scots-Irish. Amusingly there are groups in New Zealand whose accent and phrasing sounds just like my older relatives.
Closest accents to what I grew up with would be the man and woman at 10:45. Makes sense in your grouping as Southern Illinois was Shawnee country. The woman could pass as my cousin with her hooded eyes.
My cousin spent her entire life in Charlotte NC as the city grew from people up north moving there for employment. One day everyone at work ( in Charlotte NC) everyone commented on her accent and wanted to know where she was from. She told them that she grew up a mile down the road in Charlotte NC.
Pennsylvanian who lives in the Pittsburgh area here. Pittsburghese is dying because of the increase in non-Pittsburghers moving to Pittsburgh (not complaining, just explaining). I will say, even outside of Pittsburgh you will find a similar sounding accent in the Southwestern areas of Pennsylvania. I was always told its due to heavy early German, Scottish, and Irish settlements in Pennsylvania.
I asked a British lady once why she like American English. She said American English is easier to understand than British English. While nostalgia is great, being understand is gold.
The era of Shakespeare (1500s-1600s) coincided with eras of English Colonial Settlement in America. So that goes a way to explain where the American 'accents' generally developed. Such 'rhotic' features that distinguish an American accent generally as opposed to most English accents of England. William Shakespeare most likely sounded 'American' if we hard him today, also prior to the Great Vowel Shift in English. Additionally it is thought that as rhoticism disappeared in Upper Class England, Southern States of America desired to keep good business with Britain. Hence they dropped their rhoticism in speech to sound like the British more by then
@@AshleighBaggins we’re correct because we pronounce things the way they’re spelled. We don’t add an unnecessary/imaginary “f” to the middle of “lieutenant”, we don’t ignore “r” in a word that does have it or place one at the end of a word that does have one. Modern British English was created in the late 19th century with the sole intention of sounding “proper” or in other words “not like other English speaking countries”. The UK made an intentional choice to pronounce words incorrectly. That is a historical fact.
I live in Pittsburgh and Yinzer or Pittsburghese (as we usually call it) is alive and well! I will say it is evolving. I hear Yinz on almost a daily basis, even though I don’t use it myself. I do use words like gumband, sweeper, and redd up. Another prominent feature of the accent is the dropping of helping verbs. For instance it is very common to hear someone say, “the grass needs cut.” Some of the accent is not as strong as you would hear when I was a kid, but it is still there and the vocabulary that goes along with it is celebrated enough that I hear kids use it.
Proud Yinzer here! Although I grew up about an hour east of Pittsburgh, in the mountains. The dialect in the mountains, only an hour drive and its completely different accent and dialect. Little more of a southern accent… I just find this all so fascinating 🌹
I live near Memphis and they had a very very specific half Mississippi/half Tennessee accent! Elvis used it when he was young! I only know a few 70-80 year olds that still sound this way!
My Grandmother used to get so mad when me and my sister would use phrases like cut off the light, quarter till 5, and fixing to go outside. Being from NYC she wasn't down for the E Tennessee accent. I've lost most of it, but it pops up here and there. I'm in Atlanta now and you hardly ever hear a real southern accent.
I am from Philadelphia and have on occasion we used those phrases used to describe what you mean. Especially the time reference. Prior to digital, quarter to or quarter past as well as half past whatever hour you were referencing was common place.
I use all those phrases. My maternal grandmother was from Mississippi but lived in Dallas all her adult life. She had never heard cut off the light, which I find odd. 🤔
There are enclaves of what sure sounds like Appalachian in a few areas of north Idaho. I always attributed it to transplants from that area who moved out west around 1910 or so, many of whom took up farming on native American reservation land.
Thanks for including Cajun! Growing up near Louisiana, having a cajun stepmother, going to college in the heart of Cajun country & living in Louisiana for more than a decade, I felt like I was home again. Back in the early-to-mid 1800s, there was a clash between Louisiana culture & the incoming American culture - centered around New Orleans. American culture won that war, but Cajun culture has survived by keeping to itself around southwestern Louisiana. State politics seems to assist in this isolation by largely disregarding the southwest during sessions in Baton Rouge. Our parents insisted we become educated, successful Americans, and to improve our English. Personally, it was acting in the school theatre that prompted me to improve my English skills. It makes me feel sad to think that we’re gradually losing contact with Cajun culture, but I’m pretty sure language & history just work that way naturally. At least I still have my Texas side!
I grew up in the Bay Area and I remember the San Francisco accent when I was growing up especially when I was a teenager in the 80s. Mostly then by older people. One holdover of this influence is the Bay Area was the last place on the west coast to get the "caught/cot" merger and at age 53, I still say these words with a slight difference because I always have. When I visit home now I never hear this accent anymore.
same. I say cot and caught differently. My parents and especially grandparents/great-grandparents had a thick accent I still get asked if I'm Canadian or new yorker at times.
My Dad and his family came from the Pittsburgh area. I recognized it immediately, and then "yinz" was the dead give away. I totally forgot they used the word, "gumband"! I always loved the accent.
Have you even been here? “Southern accent” is NOT one thing. There are dozens of regional accents in the South. They certainly are not dying out amongst the young people I work with in Mississippi, and have in Southern Alabama and central Louisiana. I hear at least four distinct strong Mississippi dialects every day spoken by people in their 20s and younger.
I'd say you are in a working class sector, and also, the issue gets more complex when race is brought into the mix. Your area would be a "holdover" compared to a lot of more urbanized areas.
@Kerryjotx yeah, but is that strong enough to represent an actual urban area. It also requires a high number of non-Southerners, and a certain solid percentage of college educated, to push niche accents out of the way.
The vast majority of the employees have at least one degree and many have two to three, including MSN, MD, DO, and PhD. I am not going to to try to prove what we all know and hear.
I love my accent. LOVE it. It kinda disappeared when I moved to another part of the country, but a few years ago it started reappearing, and I embraced it hard.
@@revinhatol yeah, I have lived in Iowa all of my life, and no one has ever thought I had an accent. People over the phone think I sound like the automatic voice for customer service.
I moved to Pittsburgh at age thirteen from West Virginia. I know both these accents well. When calling family back 😊 I can completely understand them. Being 52 and living in ND, when i saw Myron Cope it took me back.
I lived on Long Island for most of my life. There is a distinctive Long Island accent, which, I was not aware of my speaking until my relatives in Eastern Pennsylvania started making fun of how I pronounced certain words.
I was born and raissed in Panama but served 22 years in the US Military and lived in the States 35 years, and thanks to the military insertion and exposured I was able to understand everything that was said with all those accents.
Military brat as well. born in Germany, dad from Alabama. Lived in Texas, Virginia, Oklahoma, Delaware and California and now Florida. I code switch like a master😂
All over the world media exposure is changing accents. When I was in Australia in the 1970's I found each city's different accents to be somewhat incomprehensible. Now. I watch a few Aussie humor podcasts and the accents are much less defined. Australians are hilarious!
For a possible idea you could make a video about Oklahoman and Arkansas accents . I live in Oklahoma and we are not in the Deep South, but how I talk has some twang in it. Mostly people assume that we speak with a Midwestern regional accent. However, where I live we certainly use the Midwestern and Southern dialects mashed together. Oklahoma is not brought up much when it comes to these types of videos and I would love to learn more about how we speak. Just an idea though, amusing video!
@@Ball_Punyan Same! I never thought my accent was strong either. When it comes to the regional dialect spoken in both of our states they are not mentioned at all. I would love to know more about how we speak since it’s different from the Midwestern and Deep South regional dialect. It’s like a hybrid from where im from, haha! Perhaps he’ll make a video over it soon:)
@@Tc-rn8lh for real! I was at work one day and said a few words to a customer and he asked what part of the south I was from, like damn how'd you know?? 😭 I'm in Colorado now! He was from Mississippi so I guess like recognizes like 😂
@@Ball_Punyan See what I mean? Y’all in Arkansas have some regions accent going on too! That’s funny, tehe. How I started to realize that I would say words slightly drawn out was when my German friend pointed them out. For instance when I say “grandma” it sounds like “gran-maw.” I thought that was the natural way everyone said it but I was wrong. 😂 That got me interested in learning more about my regional accent!
My Father us from North Central Arkansas and my mother is from the Ouachita mountains. I never thought mine was strong till l lived in Nebraska for 2 years now I know mine is strong.
There's the San Francisco Chinatown/North Beach accent. It's noticeable in children of immigrants who speak Cantonese to their parents at home and English outside of the home. I don't have this accent, but my childhood friend did.
1. Pittsburgh 2. Lousiana Cajun (obviously) I am back 3. Island in Virginia. You showed it countless times 😅 4. Some Southern one. No idea 5. No idea either 6. Appalachian 7. You showed this one too... North Carolina 8. NYC Brooklyn. 9. No idea 10. Texas
I Love all the different accents across America and elsewhere, I can usually tell which part of America people are from by their accent. I’m from NW Mississippi and have been told I have a Southern Accent, and have been told by people they love my accent and I’m proud of it. I live in Elvis Presley’s hometown ♥️
I went to Ole Miss and got to hear all kinds of accents during my time there. There was one older women in particular that sticks out in my mind that sounded like she walked right off the set of Gone With the Wind
@@lazydream3r There are a few older women who speak with a strong, melodic accent left, but I’ve noticed a lot of younger people trying to lose theirs. Some Big Employers don’t want to hire people who speak Southern or “Suthun” and make fun of them. If we all sound the same what a very Boring country we would have.
Grew up just outside da Burgh. There are some words and inflections I still have but mist of it faded when I moved to Maryland 40 years ago. When I visited I'd get a dose back for a bit. I can recognize it so easily when I hear someone talk.
6:10 - A guy knocked on my airbnb door once in Indiana and sounded just like this guy. My wife (Brazilian) couldn't understand what he was saying and called me to the door to take over which is rare with her as she is very high level listener. But when he talked to me I didn't have a clue what he was saying either 😂😂 Thank god he had an assistant show up and it turned out he was an electrician.
You mentioned that country music is helping to keep the southern accent alive, and I agree, but I also fear music becoming so "worldwide" is part of what is accomplishing the opposite in other genres. I listen to music from a lot of different countries, and while you of course can find very localized music, the most popular stuff almost always sounds the same across every country. It's been making me sad. The idea of a monoculture is so boring in every context, be it accent or music style.
I love tangier island…I used to visit family friends there as a little girl. The island is so beautiful small they bury their dead above ground in backyards and whatnot. During bad floods it’s not unheard of to spot a casket floating down the street. Visit while you still can…sadly, Tangier is rapidly disappearing into the sea.
Someone once said "Don was in the women's room." I was shocked. The explained that "Dawn" was in restroom. To this day, I have to watch out for the lack of an "aw" in the way some people "tawk."
I was born in 1973 and grew up in southern Ontario, not far from Buffalo, NY, about 4 hours by car from Pittsburgh. That Pittsburgh accent was something I sometimes heard when I was young, but it's been a long time - early 90s or perhaps even earlier was the last time.
I moved to Pittsburgh and was so excited to hear my first "go dahn there" in the wild. I love listening to people and especially love hearing strong Yinzer. (I'm from western New York, I had to get used to living in a commonwealth, not a state!)
I grew up in the Appalachian Mountain range. Though I've lived in different parts of the nation and traveled abroad, I've never given in to changing my accent. It's a part of my own small culture and worth keeping.
I'm from the country side in Wyoming and bordering Utah. We had an accent, but it's almost gone, I moved and got harassed lightly, I still have a little accent, my kids do not.
I grew up in rural Arkansas and Mississippi, and a simple visit home shows many of the Southern Accent dialects are very much alive. All my nieces and nephews have accents thicker than my own.
One hypothesis regarding accents in America is the Virginia tidewater accent and the North Carolina Outer Banks accent are the closest approximations for how people spoke during the time of Shakespeare. Its remarkable that such isolates managed to survive after 400 years of tumultuous change in society. I lived in the West Country in Cornwall for 2 years and the Outer Banks accent sounds a lot like what I heard in Cornwall. Aside from that, I grew up in New Jersey in between NYC and Philly where an accent that combines aspects of both accents from those cities is heard. The NJ accent is on a spectrum that ranges between NY and Philly depending on ones geographic location. After leaving NJ 25 years ago, I have largely lost the accent.
Cool video. I was in the military from 1993-2000. So I got to meet people from all over the place as was always intrigued with their accents. I'm from Southeastern Michigan and was surprised that I was told I had an accent. Never realized it until I came back to Michigan and could hear it with fresh ears so to speak.
I'm Canadian, not far from the windsor/detroit border. My uncle, who is American and from Detroit (he lived his adult married life here in Ontario), always had a strong accent to me. The one word that stood out the most was "Hockey". I noticed michiganders pronounce it as hackey. Always thought it was cute.
Hearing the term “crum-bum” brought back memories! Used to use that as a kid in the 70’s in Detroit. I thought it was a school yard insult, but the man in the video seemed mighty serious!!
@@cwaisanenI was shocked to see that-but that’s Frank Rizzo, he was the mayor of Philadelphia in the 70’s. That clip was from a news reporter trying to get a comment from Frank Rizzo, who didn’t want any parts of talking to the reporter, so he was saying the reporter was a ‘lush’ and a ‘crumb bum’. That’s a typical Philly accent, and typical behavior from Rizzo. He was a very controversial mayor…very. Some people loved him, others despised him. I grew up in Philadelphia and had a really rough South Philadelphia accent, but it’s not as harsh, I lost a good bit of it when I was living in KY….I moved back to Philly and realized just how rough our accent can be.
An accent is how a person pronounces their words. Slang is actual words than come from a certain region and/or ethnic group. Southerners for example might use the expression "fixin' to" for "going to do sonething" or they might use the term "buggy" instead of the standard term "shopping cart."
I moved from England to Atlanta 47 years ago. The Southern accent I heard back then has definitely disappeared in the Metro area. I notice that when watching TV shows from England that I hear accents that didn’t exist in England when I left. Accents are continually changing.
@@lingham2099I agree about Atlanta. My cousin lived there when I was young (early 70s), and the accent was definitely southern then. When I went back in the late 80s it was so weird to hear all the northern accents there. Almost like a different city. 😵💫
I grew up speaking an accent that is now dead, or nearly so. I was born in St. Louis, MO. Where people used to say things like: fark (fork), harse (horse), farty (forty), warsh (wash), Garge (George), tal (towel). We moved to a city in Central Florida when I was ten. I was ridiculed for my accent, so I lost it as quickly as I could.
I love seeing these top 10 'strange ' accents videos always include the High Tiders of my youth. I know/ knew each of those people From Ocracoke Island as a small child. My grandmother was born out there, but I'm "from off," unfortunately. That same or similar brouge is spoke up to Hattaras, down to Harkers Island, and inland in Marshallburg, Straits, Gloucster, Atlantic, and Cedar Island, NC as well.
As a Louisiana Creole I will say that you missed the African and Native linguistic influences in the language. Acadians were but one small group, mostly European with some Native blood. There were many other Creole groups including Lafite's pirates.
Cajuns don't have an African or Indigenous influence at all. Creoles are different from Cajuns and even their accent is way more influenced by French than anything else.
How well do you know Texas accents? 👉🏼 ua-cam.com/video/45DfrwXf0bA/v-deo.htmlsi=0JdIzsNCDFLswWe-
quebec+louisiana
I was born and raised in s-e Kansas. My mother's family has been here since 1869. My dad's family came from southern Missouri in 1902. People from all over the US think I'm from Texas...including Texans.
Standard American is falling apart because almost EVERYONE has grown up with a friend whose parent or grandparent for whom English was a second language. PLUS, real fluency in English is undervalued.
I was stationed on Ocracoke for 3 years. I still understand the dialect, and still fall back to speaking it at times. It's the closest dialect to old English left in the world.
Haha I know the Texas accent very well Texas gal born and bred and I know the Appalachian accent too my family is originally from out there and a lot of them are from the Carolinas and Virginia and Kentucky lol..and I'm part Cherokee and Irish and I keep my accent it's apart of me
I'm from the West Coast of Scotland. I emigrated to the US when I was 20 years old. I've lived mostly in the deep American South as well as parts of the NE and Illinois. I spent almost a decade living in the DFW area. There are parts of Dallas that have really large percentages of immigrants. South Asian, Middle Eastern, African etc There are still Texans that have a wonderful drawl. But I think they tend to be from more rural areas. I believe that living in large urban areas definitely affects historical dialects.
I love that my ear has become so well tuned to all the different ones. 🙂
I lived in Pittsburgh from 2018-2023. The accent isn’t as prevalent as it once was but it is still alive and well in born-and-raised Yinzers.
I lived there from 1973 to 1984. It was very prevalent then! Myron Cope (the first example of the Pittsburgh accent) was still around then.
@@arjaygee I loved Myron Cope, but that accent of his was really exaggerated.
@@JRBWare1942 Do you think he was faking it? I always wondered ... it seemed extra compared to the people I encountered in real life.
It is on its way out. No one below a certain age speaks with that accent.
@@arjaygee I think saying he was exaggerating it would be fairer than to say he was faking it.
A good way to hear people's natural, un-selfconscious speaking patterns is in local news clip interviews of citizens when the news is reporting on real time accidents, fires, robberies, or public events like festivals, fairs, and carnivals, or job fairs. Usually, the people won't be thinking about how they are talking and will just speak authentically in the moment, unlike when doing dialect tests, where people become self-observing.
This is true. Also, if you can rattle someone's chain a little, the natural accent comes straight out. My mother in law has a fairly thick southern accent, but when she's worked up, it may as well be a different language. I only catch words here and there.
Or when they interview cops on TV. Cops always have the strongest local accents.
Well, when the dialect tests were done in the big US survey most recently, they pretended to be an ad agency doing a marketing study. When I realized years later that I'd been a respondent, I finally figured out why they'd asked me about such disparate products, and why the caller had seemed so nonplussed by some of my answers.....
@@pattieodonnell723
That's complete nonsense.
Cops are hardly ever local.
Yt democrats are the ones pushing for polices that are slowly destroying these languages.
another interesting one is the "yooper" accent. basically finnish immigrants that got trapped in the upper peninsula of michigan by themselves. the longest running talk show in television history was actually run by them, have in english and half in finnish
My husband of 34 years is a Yooper from Escanaba..He still knows a few Finnish expressions Before him, all of my boyfriends have been Michiganders. Every other gay guy that I met in Texas was from Michigan. My very Southern Sister lost her accent living in Michigan while her husband was at University in East Lansing.
@@leefi1 cool! I have family with a dairy farm in Escanaba. its funny that michiganders haunt you
I think it’s also Norwegian & Swedish influenced as well. Many of those immigrants settled in the U.P. & Northern Wisconsin
& what was or is that Talk Show on or from TV history?
@@1thinsouljerRidesAway Soumi Kuustsu or "finland calling". it ended about 5 years ago as the host got too old
Having grown up in da ‘Burgh, but now living overseas I notice when I go back that the accent is alive. It definitely exists in some classic Pittsburgh locales such as going to the amusement parks in tawn.
Accehts live longer among the working class.
while speaking about amusement parks, let us not forget...Kennywoods open
Steelas ganna soopa bow
In da clerb we all fam
Yinz accent is def going strong today all over Western Pa, especially Johnstown, but Pittsburgh has been attracting more newcomers who don't have the accent so I can hear people taking that as its going away. Alas.
In deep Appalachia, we still have our accents. I can code-switch quite well, though.
even out in the foothills in Southern Appalachia, we've still got it
Sadly, the Arkansas Variant is about gone.
Code switching...the funnest hobby!
My cousins from around Asheville refer to something small as "beety".
@@Flies2FLL eety beety 😂
“There's a southern accent, where I come from
The young 'uns call it country
The Yankees call it dumb
I got my own way of talkin'
But everything is done, with a southern accent
Where I come from” -Thomas Earl Petty
Great song, but Johnny Cash did a cover that really hits.
im a yankee and i love the southern accent
its got a rhythm to it that just sounds pleasant
Mississippi
My accent migrates. We moved a lot when I was a kid, so I tend to fall into what I hear around me.
That's a form of code-switching. I've noticed, among children of immigrants, even when they're speaking English - if they're speaking amongst their friends, they'll speak in a "standard" dialect, but when talking to their parents (even when speaking English) they adopt the accented English their parents speak.
Military brat here
This video isn't correct. The word "grit" is a Germanic word so he needs to correct that. I am sick of it. The slow erasure and change is real.
A chameleon
The Charleston (SC) accent is almost totally gone too. Only ever heard it in Silent Generation ladies who lived “south of Broad St.” Truly beautiful
I'm from Charleston, my family has been there since the early 1700s, and the last generation in my family to have a strong Charleston accent are my grandparents. It makes me so sad, I say a lot of words with an accent, but it's nowhere near as strong as my grandpa's was.
@@Danielle-gc6ilSame here! Family landed in Charleston in the 1700s and it’s so sad now that my grandparents’ accents are rarely, if ever, heard anymore. If someone wants to hear what it sounds like, watch some old videos of Senator Fritz Hollings. I sure do miss hearing that while running errands around town, back when Charleston was small. Hugo brought in a lot of outsiders, then the internet introduced a lot of other accents, so the real Charleston accent got so watered down it’s nearly gone. 🙁
The oldest living generation of my family has the Charleston accent. I grew up in Georgia though and missed out. I really treasure any opportunity to hear a Charleston accent.
@@RainyJan309 I still have a lot of the vestiges of that accent, as we live in an old, fairly insulated part of Mt. Pleasant where natives are plenty. I find myself calling my son, Wade, “WAY-id” and pronouncing “here” as “hair.” 😄
I used to hate my northern RI (Worcester corridor) accent. Then I went to high school in Honolulu and fell in love with pidgin. Mixed that in with my native accent, got back home to RI after graduation...and none of my friends could understand me. I LOVE ALL accents now and I do not want a single one to die. It is part of who we are. Been back in New England for ever...and I watch Andy Bumatai on youtube just to hear the beloved pidgin.
What is amazing is that the negative baggage of one accent is cherished in a totally different place. My mild Appalachian accent is thought of poorly in my area but Northerners are fascinated with it. If you came to Atlanta they wouldn't think poorly of your Worcester accent.
That rings true! I wonder if it similar to liking certain music or art styles. I do like thinking of regional accents as an artform!
Do they like to drop their Rs in Atlanta, too?
I went to Providence College in the early 70s. We outer of staters would make fun of the local accent and always say “Wusta”
No matter where we go, we can't escape our NE accent. I had a strong one I wasn't proud of, but in Germany and Russia they loved it.
I'm from Chicago and didn't realize I had an accent until I moved downstate. After being asked where I'm from so often, I started hearing my own accent. It's a weird feeling, and what's even weirder is that I can't tell you how many people ask me if I'm from Sweden. Seriously. I get it all the time.
Da Bears ! Byack Pyack !
I lived in Las Vegas for two years, one of my best friends could identify people from Chicago by their clothing! She was a retired Psychiatric Nurse from Detroit, but she knew "sisters from Chicago" immediately!
Swedes heavily populated Chicago in the late 1800s.
You must have grown up in Andersonville ! haha!
@@cubbie8330 👍
Accents are just so fascinating. If you haven't watched Erik Singer's videos on accents in the United States, I HIGHLY recommend it!
They are awesome. And he is so good at reproducing them!
I'm originally from Pittsburgh and I can detect the accent immediately even when travelling throughout Europe or other countries. It's not disappearing! It's well ingrained in western Pennsylvania.
Swear
My grandpa was a Pittsburgh Slovak and his brother, who is still alive, has a strong Yinzer accent. But he’s in his 80s, I don’t think the younger generations have it.
My family is Chicago Polish/Slovak and honestly the yinzer accent sounds like a combination of our accent with a Philly accent.
I live in Pittsburgh. Both of my parents are from here but I wasn't born or raised here. Anyway, my older relatives, 60+ have the Yinzer accent hardcore. Their children don't
@dqarqeer8603 Some don't have it, but some I know have it as much as any old timer from the Burgh. I was far enough out of town that the "Yinz" was more like "Youns".
I had a professor from Pittsburgh (he wore a Pirates hat to class when his team won the ‘79 World Series) and I was baffled at first by his accent. It was unique among U.S. cities.
I grew up in North Atlanta and am a gen X. In the Atlanta suburbs it’s really its own little accent like it was a mix between valley girl and southern like “omg let’s go to chick-fil-aaaaaa guys” it’s still slow but with just a little bit of southern accent. It’s pretty unique I fear it too is going away though with the gen Z’ers but I still hear it with my friends. Thanks for an awesome video.
It's very kind of her to mention that they say "stand in line." Ever since I ventured beyond the NY metro area, everyone reacted to "stand on line" as if it were an absurd turn of phrase!
That does sound weird. Online? How do you stand on the Internet? Lol
@@GUITARTIME2024I heard it decades before the Internet. It always made me picture someone standing in a line, sometimes even on the line of people.
I've never understood that expression. There is no visible line to stand on. You are in a group of people standing in a line!
@@kimfleury totally. It was on King of Queens, Seinfeld, etc.
It is.
12:00 - I recognized absolutely every one of those Appalachianisms! In addition to those, you aren't preparing to go and take a shower - "You fixin' ta go rainch awf." My dad was born and raised in Dalton Georgia, but early in life he rejected his native accent because he listened to radio announcers a lot, and he decided to speak like them instead. At age 25 I became a major-market radio announcer myself in Houston TX, and I did that for the next 27 years until I got a real job.
You spoke with any sort of accent?
@@claudeyaz - The US "radio accent" is basically the southern Ohio (Dayton and Cincinnati) accent, because of WLW blanketing so much of the country back in the day. Used to be the same for the generic TV accent, but now it's more of a California accent instead.
I’m from WV and I use to hate my accent. I had speech therapy as a child and I worked so hard to try to enunciate my words to not have such a thick accent. Now I embrace it. It’s part of who I am.
I live in Central Pennsylvania, and the Yinzer accent has definitely spread out to at least the Appalachians in PA. It’s crazy how you can hear the accents start to flip more towards Philly and Jersey once you cross the Susquehanna.
Yinzer was everywhere when I was in college. We rented a ski house once outside Seven Springs, and were awaiting the arrival of someone named Dawn - I was surprised that Dawn was a guy named Donald. They were also talking about a baseball player named Bawns. Took me a while to see it was Barry Bonds. The only thing I picked up myself was not the accent but one of its sentence constructions "that bed needs made" or "the floor needs swept"
And BTW: The ugliest accent is my own - a Philadelphia accent. Have worked my whole life to get rid of it. The University of Pennsylvania has always had a prestigious linguistics program, so they've been studying it for years.
@@pattieodonnell723Add my cousin Jawnie to your list! He and my brother Chon made quite the pair 😉!
In York County, they have all different types of accents just in that one county. I moved to York from Northern New Jersey and have an entirely different accent so I can tell even from one part of a town to the other the accent changes.
@@michelebella677 I hear you. You hear them all up at Penn State, and they are different. Once when I was home from college, I asked one of my mom's friends, based on her accent, "Are you from Allentown?" She frowned at me. "NO. I'm from EASTON." I can tell a Philadelphian who went to Catholic school from a Jewish Philadelphian from the Northeast from a Main Line WASP, all of whom still have Philly accents, just all a little different.
I'm in north texas, and yeah dallas especially feels like its losing its accent, but there's a lot of people coming from out of state so i'm sure thats also contributing. Most people I know born in Texas still have an accent, and i refuse to change mine, although I used to when I was younger.
We still have our accent in Fort Worth 🤠
Gosh, the accents in the now-DFW Metroplex have changed drastically over the decades.
Listen to the old news footage of the JFK assassination, the way the local news reporters and anchormen sounded. Then go to the 'plex and see how people sound today. You'll still find a few vestiges of what used to be the twangiest Texas Twang ever, but in the last 60 years that twang has all but vanished completely.
@@marlenekirkham1386
A lot of people in Fort Worth sounded almost as if they were from western Tennessee. I haven't heard that in awhile.
I will say, I grew up in Texas and when I moved to south Florida, I had to flatten my accent for anyone to understand me. However, it definitely comes back the second I meet someone from back home, or when I visit.
And if you want to laugh, it happens in Spanish as well. My accent in Spanish is a combination of Cuban and Spaniard (wildly different), but it leans more heavily in one direction, depending on whom I'm speaking with. 😆
That's something universal. It's called "code switching", when people unconsciously switch their accents depending on who they are talking with. Sometimes people get accused of being phony when they code switch, but it happens without thinking
I just mentioned the Miami accent. Even white people from Miami sound Cuban.
@@Shinobi33 It's funny how many people in Miami don't think they have one, when it is so distinct.
@@vampiro4236 I notice when I hear another person from Miami speak on video or in movies then it's really noticable. Andy Garcia , Oscar Isaac, Gloria Esteban, Alex Rodriguez
59 year old born and raised in Pittsburgh. It’s a working class accent - always been - I wasn’t allowed to speak like this growing up - when I’d come home with a colloquialism I’d be corrected - my college educated parents would call it low. When the steel died and we became more of a white collar corporate city into the 80’s a lot of new folks moved in from elsewhere. They dont speak like the working class Pittsburghers. The accent is still here but not like it was when I was a kid in the 60’s & 70’s. I’d say it is kinda going away. That News Caster you had on initially speaking was a beloved Steelers announcer and radio DJ
Myron Cope. He introduced our Terrible Towel.
I agree. I'm 55 and can remember the 70s when it was stronger. DVE morning show had it down with "Pants N At".
Yep, but Myron Cope had his own accent.
DOUBLE YOY !!
@@Buconoirloved Pants N’at! I still listen to it on UA-cam occasionally
@ShanLH5 i miss Randy's cat, lol
I grew up in Butler, Pennsylvania (35 miles north of Pittsburgh). There are still a decent number of people who talk like that. Some not as strong of an accent though.
Trump was in Butler
@@JimmyGoldberg-ux8ik I wondered if anyone would notice.
I live on the periphery of Appalachia in Southwest VA. My accent is mild compared to many in my town, and I try to cover it up a bit when recording, but I get a lot of UA-cam comments of people pointing it out. Most say the love it because the accent is rare on UA-cam but I receive almost equally as many telling me my accent makes me sound like an idiot.
I live in Southern West Virginia and the Appalachian accent here is still pretty strong. There definitely are some young people that try to erase their accent here but those people usually leave. So at least where I live it doesn´t seem to be going anywhere.
The only idiots are the ones in your comment section telling you that they don't like your accent! How freaking rude! I've heard a few people on this particular channel with an accent and I really like it!
Accents add flavor. Anybody assigning intelligence by accent is the true idiot.
Well, we ought to pity them. They don’t have any sweet memories of Grandma standing in her cotton dress, hands on her hips calmly telling them and countless cousins, “Yoins et nah. Yah nit tah kip yah stringth up, then git on ta bet an seh yah prayers.” Also their Grandmas definitely couldn’t quote the whole Bible, like it’s no big deal. That’s love they never had.
@@GeographyGeek that's normal for working class regions, having a lot of locals maintaining the accent.
I was born and raised in northeastern Indiana, my dad was from Boston, I lived in Chicago for 18 years and I now live in Orlando, Florida- so I have a hodgepodge of accents to contend with!
I live in the outskirts of Pittsburgh and we use the accent, it’s definitely not as popular to use as it once was, but we still love using it to piss people off.
I grew up in small town Vermont, and vividly remember my first grade teacher admonishing us about our accents. She was very derogatory about them, insulting both us, her young students and farmers , She scolded us for dropping our gs at the end of ing words (workin' instead of working) and ar sounds (we tended to say faam instead of farm). In a very snooty manner, she told us we all sounded like old farmers. Her tone of voice was so firm, we were to understand that sounding like a farmer was a horrible thing. I know it shaped my feelings about the good people who grow our food, very unfairly, for a number of years. Accents are not just a collection of sounds, they are part of the rich tapestry of our history and culture . Editing to add that I am in my 60s, so not only is that accent mostly gone now, so are most of the farmers. It's a vastly different culture now.
What an awful teacher. I’m sorry…
Yep, now you're all a bunch of woke pansies... just like that teacher wanted. Just being real, no offense
I’m so sorry you experienced that! Thank you for sharing
We have the same thing in Australia, my broad accent and strine dialect saw me singled out by teachers. "Tawkin' loik this, really mayd 'em stroppy and even sent a few tropo. But it's me mutha tung an' i jus' Kahnt do it, 'avin to finish and start words properly always got me danda up, I moin it's 'ard Yakka, what's wrong with "cooee cobber shargs in the billabong"?"
@kingbillycokebottle5484 I'm sorry that your teachers tried so hard to change your authentic dialect. 💜
My great-aunt used to say to us after we visited, "Ya'll come back now, ya' hear?"
Southern MO... 'bout 15 miles er so north of the Arkansas border.
Like from the Beverly Hillbillies TV show!😁
Things really started to change in The US when television became more prominent. As more people got electricity in rural areas, they got TVs the accents got much softer and more homogenized, towards TV broadcast type of speech.
I live in Northern California and I have heard a few older people speak with that "Mission brogue" but yeah, most of the people who spoke that way are six feet under in Colma (the city of cemeteries just south of San Francisco).
It is true that many current residents of SF are not originally from there. But even someone like local sports radio talk show host Joe Shasky - a fifth generation San Franciscan with blue-collar roots - has a classic Northern California/general American accent and no trace of that old-timey accent. I can guarantee he probably knew a lot of people who spoke like that, but he certainly does not.
A few people who are 65 and up maintain the accent. A few guys out in the excelsior.
I am an Oakland native, and there is definitely an SF accent. It’s not as thick as the Mission Brogue anymore, but you can hear a native of The City.
On the other hand, in the Central Valley anywhere between Redding and Bakersfield you can hear some people with the old Oakie accent.
My father was a Pittsburgh native. Born in a blue collar neighborhood in 1950, and he didn't have the yinzer accent. While some Pittsburghese was in his lexicon, neither he, nor the rest of my family there, really sounded that way.
By the time I first lived there, in the 90s, the yinzers were the odd man out, there. These days it is uncommon enough that hearing a true yinzer in the wild can catch you off guard.
I remember moving to New York state as a kid, from California. My mom talked about going into a store and asking for some socks and "the sacks" were her first introduction to a language change.
In Panama City Florida they went "over town". I suspect it's because the bays make it possible to see the town "over there" from the small communities surrounding Panama City. In Texas I heard "pitch white" as a descriptor, they were baffled when I said "pitch is black". It's just an expression, was their answer. It was the first time I ever saw someone eat from a hand-held large block of cheese. In our store a customer asked me if we had any cool "pops", even though I had been born in Texas, I failed to understand him. It was PIPES he was asking about, as in bongs. Sound substitutions are bizarre!
I used to have a slight accent when I was younger, but then I purged it to fit in. After I graduated high school, I began to get involved with dialectology and realized that one's accent is something to be proud of, not ashamed. Since I know that my home accent is dying out, I have deliberately tried to reinvigorate my old speech patterns. Currently, it is not consistent; but I hope in due time that I will be able to. If you're curious, I grew up in Mid-Eastern Ohio, and so I have a mixture of that Ohio-river and Western Pennsylvanian twang.
I am fascinated by the Appalachian and Ocracoke brogue accent, because my mother-in-law who grew up Outside Fayetteville, North Carolina sounds like her accent is exactly split down the middle of those two. How wild! 😊
20:00 - I was raised in Houston TX. In east Texas you don't "put some meat on the grill". No, instead you "put some mate own tha gree-ull." At least that's the way it was when I moved away forty years ago. Don't get me wrong, I love the way southerners talk. They are generally good, friendly, and kind-hearted gentle people. I R 1.
My Texas grandfather, "Gwahd a' mighddy da yumed."
@@pphedup I love when old people get mad and say that its so funny to me. I'm a born and breed texan lol.
Some of my relatives have accemt #1, but they are older. The youngest is my 60 year old uncle. When I was 6-7 we moved to Philadelphia, but I still say 'red up the room' without it being deliberate.
I'm from Lancaster PA and I don't hear the thick PA Dutch accent as much as I did growing up. I used to hear you-ins as the plural of you all the time in the 80s and 90s. (I theorize we're partway between Philly's yous and Pittsburgh's yinz lol) I still use the words like doplic and rutch but I sometimes have to explain them even to locals now. 😢
I’m from Reading and you are right. You almost never hear the “Dutchie” accent any more.
Grew up in near Harrisburg. When I was very young, “Dutchie” was still very common among my older relatives and some common expressions; “We read up the room.” Which I still say often. Having lived in Central Texas for the last fifteen years, I have lost a lot of my PA accent, unfortunately. Strangely though, if I am talking g to relatives back home it comes right out again.
I grew up in Texas but had an English mother and Turkish father so maybe I did not have too strong of a Texas twang or accent growing up (but it WAS present). Then right after graduating college at UT/Austin by the way I went up to Connecticut. so most of the time I’ve lived in Connecticut or Rhode Island for the past 41 years I would say my accent has changed. I have no idea what it is anymore. Slightly Connecticut or Rhode Island New England-inflected version of a slightly Texan accent, maybe? I am fascinated by accents and I’m looking forward to your next Texas video!
I guessed a good many of these. I LOVE learning about accents and language. I've always said the quintessential southern accent is a grandchild of the British accent!
One of my favourite channels. Waiting for new episodes.
Olly, if you want to hear one of the strangest and strongest accents in the US, check out Potter County, Pennsylvania. It's very distinctive and completely unique.
I lived in Cattaraugus Co. NY back in the '70's. Potter County Pennsylvania, God's Country! Loved living there, just no enough jobs to go around 😏
I’m from Pittsburgh, until 2019. I live in Philly now, so still go back quite often. Yinzer accent is still very strong in “da sahside”, up in “cahrrck”, and other places like “mckeezpurt” or “new ken”. I still have quite a bit of the accent still in my speaking, really, since I spent almost 20 years before I moved out of Pittsburgh in the south side.
Look up Pittsburgh Dad for a really good version of the current yinzer accent. And great humor.
Yes! Pittsburgh Dads is the perfect example of what the current Yinzers sound like. Still alive and well in the suburbs for sure. It’s not until you leave that you realize the vocabulary differences.
I work in Cahrrck 😆👍🏽
New Ken native here 👍.
In NYC, I used to work with some ironworkers from New Foundland. Those conversations were awesome! You should check out their accents!
It's like a watered-down Irish.
I lived in Appalachia (as a Chicagoan) for half a year. Crazy way of talking, loved it. The youngest in the family (now ~30) dropped the accent and was more of a city guy, the rest retained it
Let me tell you this, now, that first older Tangier Island accent sounds like many of my kinfolk in southern Mississippi who are influenced by Cajun (coonass) English. It was as if I was listening to my Uncle Jimmy Dale who is now passed. Personally, I have worked on my very thick Southern twang over the years and most people do not reckon me being from South Mississippi. (adding French, Romanian, and Russian to the fray helps, for sure). Enjoyed the video. BTW, I have picked Russian Short Stories back up after over a year and am reading so well. Thanks for your work.
Why would you work to get rid of your accent? Its beautiful.
@blllllllllllllllllllrlrlrl7059 I worked to get rid of mine because I travel extensively and speak a few other languages. It is easier speaking Russian without a strong Southern accent. When I'm back around family, I can find my twang, still.
My brother lives in PA for a while & now has a bit of the Yinzer accent. We've also got some Cajun relatives on one side, plus German-esque Midwestern and more. Languages and accents have always intrigued me! Just stumbled on your channel & subscribed!
2:20 the couple times I’ve been to Pittsburgh in the last ten years, I didn’t hear the Yinzer dialect that much. I was given a one-sheet guide once, that listed various local oddities. One that struck me the most odd was the “whole nother” phrase. I’ve heard this in every part of the country, and from Brits, as well. I think I’ve heard it from a couple of Norn Iron expats, but not from Free Staters. At any rate, it didn’t strike me as a Pittsburgh exclusive. Now, turning left when the light changes without waiting for the thru traffic… 😂
It is literally the WORST city to drive in! I haven’t been to too many places. But there is no one that can convince me that it isn’t horrible to navigate that city. I grew up there.
@@ashleymcclung8495 I hate driving in Pittsburgh. For one thing, you have to be very familiar with your route, because all of a sudden, with almost no warning, you see a sign that says right lane must turn right or left turn must turn left. By the time you see the sign it's impossible to get over unless it's 3 AM and there's no traffic. Then there are all the intersections where you have a stop or yield sign and because you're almost parallel to the street you're turning onto, you have to turn your head around almost 180 degrees to see if anyone's coming, provided that you can even see over the top of the bushes. Don't get me started about the bridges where you enter the bridge onto the right lane and have to exit from the left lane, or vice versa.
@@sarco64 ALL OF THIS! Plus Penn Dot has a terrible habit of posting exactly ONE detour sign and then expecting you to figure out the rest.
@@ashleymcclung8495 I have fond memories of every time my family drove to either Pittsburgh or Washington, DC. Every time, we'd get lost, and my father would scream, "They tore up all the roads and put down new ones since we been here last time!"
@jonathanramsey I'm from southwestern PA, so while I don't speak Yinzer, I'm definitely in its orbit.
The first time I heard the expression "a whole nother" was not in PA. It was on TV. It was the early to mid-1980's. My brother and I were watching some "TV event" (I can't remember what it was now) and at the beginning of the show, there was a minute-long commercial for Texas tourism. At the end of it, the guy said, "Texas--it's like a whole nother country!" My brother and I laughed so hard at that that we fell out of our chairs! Well, you can see how things change, because I say "whole nother" all the time now, and I must resist the urge to correct people who do not say it.
Love this video! I code switch Appalachian English with standard and just loved hearing folks who sound like my family! Hoping that our version lasts ❤️🙏
I grew up in Southern Illinois, largely German (Catholic and Protestant) with lots of Scots-Irish. Amusingly there are groups in New Zealand whose accent and phrasing sounds just like my older relatives.
Closest accents to what I grew up with would be the man and woman at 10:45. Makes sense in your grouping as Southern Illinois was Shawnee country. The woman could pass as my cousin with her hooded eyes.
My cousin spent her entire life in Charlotte NC as the city grew from people up north moving there for employment. One day everyone at work ( in Charlotte NC) everyone commented on her accent and wanted to know where she was from. She told them that she grew up a mile down the road in Charlotte NC.
We have that here in Raleigh-Cary.
@@GUITARTIME2024 Yeah, I get that in Durham, too. I tell them "I don't have an accent, you do"! BTW I'm old enough to still call Cary "Cay-ry",
@@GUITARTIME2024OMG, yes! Scarcely a southern accent to be heard. You know what they call Cary though- containment area for relocated yankees. 😅
@Mick_Ts_Chick lol. True but it's also north and west raleigh, Apex, Morrisville
Pennsylvanian who lives in the Pittsburgh area here. Pittsburghese is dying because of the increase in non-Pittsburghers moving to Pittsburgh (not complaining, just explaining). I will say, even outside of Pittsburgh you will find a similar sounding accent in the Southwestern areas of Pennsylvania. I was always told its due to heavy early German, Scottish, and Irish settlements in Pennsylvania.
Dying? It sounds like they are a separate species that do not reproduce with others and are literally dying due to habitat loss in the environment.
I would like your take on Detroit
Sounds like my folks from Bal'more, I've heard it's the Scotch-Orish
I asked a British lady once why she like American English. She said American English is easier to understand than British English. While nostalgia is great, being understand is gold.
90% of my television viewing is British Television. Since viewing "Monty Python" on public television in the 70's, I've been hooked!
Yeah, because we pronounce things correctly and Brits don’t.
The era of Shakespeare (1500s-1600s) coincided with eras of English Colonial Settlement in America. So that goes a way to explain where the American 'accents' generally developed. Such 'rhotic' features that distinguish an American accent generally as opposed to most English accents of England. William Shakespeare most likely sounded 'American' if we hard him today, also prior to the Great Vowel Shift in English.
Additionally it is thought that as rhoticism disappeared in Upper Class England, Southern States of America desired to keep good business with Britain. Hence they dropped their rhoticism in speech to sound like the British more by then
@@Blackdiamondprod.
You’re not correct for sounding different
@@AshleighBaggins we’re correct because we pronounce things the way they’re spelled. We don’t add an unnecessary/imaginary “f” to the middle of “lieutenant”, we don’t ignore “r” in a word that does have it or place one at the end of a word that does have one. Modern British English was created in the late 19th century with the sole intention of sounding “proper” or in other words “not like other English speaking countries”. The UK made an intentional choice to pronounce words incorrectly. That is a historical fact.
I live in Pittsburgh and Yinzer or Pittsburghese (as we usually call it) is alive and well! I will say it is evolving. I hear Yinz on almost a daily basis, even though I don’t use it myself. I do use words like gumband, sweeper, and redd up. Another prominent feature of the accent is the dropping of helping verbs. For instance it is very common to hear someone say, “the grass needs cut.” Some of the accent is not as strong as you would hear when I was a kid, but it is still there and the vocabulary that goes along with it is celebrated enough that I hear kids use it.
Proud Yinzer here! Although I grew up about an hour east of Pittsburgh, in the mountains. The dialect in the mountains, only an hour drive and its completely different accent and dialect. Little more of a southern accent… I just find this all so fascinating 🌹
I live near Memphis and they had a very very specific half Mississippi/half Tennessee accent! Elvis used it when he was young! I only know a few 70-80 year olds that still sound this way!
My hometown and I keep my Southern Accent ❤
Born and raised in Appalachia. Used to hate when my accent would come out, but in recent years, I've embraced it
My Grandmother used to get so mad when me and my sister would use phrases like cut off the light, quarter till 5, and fixing to go outside. Being from NYC she wasn't down for the E Tennessee accent. I've lost most of it, but it pops up here and there. I'm in Atlanta now and you hardly ever hear a real southern accent.
My Southern Cousins say "fittin' to go outside".
I had a dear friend from Tennessee who used those phrases. She passed away some years back. This made me think of her. Still miss her a lot.
I am from Philadelphia and have on occasion we used those phrases used to describe what you mean. Especially the time reference. Prior to digital, quarter to or quarter past as well as half past whatever hour you were referencing was common place.
I use all those phrases. My maternal grandmother was from Mississippi but lived in Dallas all her adult life. She had never heard cut off the light, which I find odd. 🤔
I worked hard to get rid of my accent when I was going to college but this inspired me to go back to speaking with my Appalachian accent
There are enclaves of what sure sounds like Appalachian in a few areas of north Idaho. I always attributed it to transplants from that area who moved out west around 1910 or so, many of whom took up farming on native American reservation land.
Thanks for including Cajun! Growing up near Louisiana, having a cajun stepmother, going to college in the heart of Cajun country & living in Louisiana for more than a decade, I felt like I was home again. Back in the early-to-mid 1800s, there was a clash between Louisiana culture & the incoming American culture - centered around New Orleans. American culture won that war, but Cajun culture has survived by keeping to itself around southwestern Louisiana. State politics seems to assist in this isolation by largely disregarding the southwest during sessions in Baton Rouge. Our parents insisted we become educated, successful Americans, and to improve our English. Personally, it was acting in the school theatre that prompted me to improve my English skills. It makes me feel sad to think that we’re gradually losing contact with Cajun culture, but I’m pretty sure language & history just work that way naturally. At least I still have my Texas side!
I grew up in the Bay Area and I remember the San Francisco accent when I was growing up especially when I was a teenager in the 80s. Mostly then by older people. One holdover of this influence is the Bay Area was the last place on the west coast to get the "caught/cot" merger and at age 53, I still say these words with a slight difference because I always have. When I visit home now I never hear this accent anymore.
same. I say cot and caught differently. My parents and especially grandparents/great-grandparents had a thick accent I still get asked if I'm Canadian or new yorker at times.
My Dad and his family came from the Pittsburgh area. I recognized it immediately, and then "yinz" was the dead give away. I totally forgot they used the word, "gumband"! I always loved the accent.
Have you even been here? “Southern accent” is NOT one thing. There are dozens of regional accents in the South. They certainly are not dying out amongst the young people I work with in Mississippi, and have in Southern Alabama and central Louisiana. I hear at least four distinct strong Mississippi dialects every day spoken by people in their 20s and younger.
I'd say you are in a working class sector, and also, the issue gets more complex when race is brought into the mix. Your area would be a "holdover" compared to a lot of more urbanized areas.
Large urban university/ medical center, surrounded by thousands with advanced degrees
And the areas in Alabama and Louisiana were also academic medical centers.
@Kerryjotx yeah, but is that strong enough to represent an actual urban area. It also requires a high number of non-Southerners, and a certain solid percentage of college educated, to push niche accents out of the way.
The vast majority of the employees have at least one degree and many have two to three, including MSN, MD, DO, and PhD. I am not going to to try to prove what we all know and hear.
I love my accent. LOVE it. It kinda disappeared when I moved to another part of the country, but a few years ago it started reappearing, and I embraced it hard.
I have Americans ask me if I am from the USA. I have a Midwestern accent. It's crazy.
You must have been sounding like someone from Upper Michigan.
@@revinhatol yeah, I have lived in Iowa all of my life, and no one has ever thought I had an accent. People over the phone think I sound like the automatic voice for customer service.
So where do they think you come from?
I moved to Pittsburgh at age thirteen from West Virginia. I know both these accents well. When calling family back 😊 I can completely understand them. Being 52 and living in ND, when i saw Myron Cope it took me back.
I lived on Long Island for most of my life. There is a distinctive Long Island accent, which, I was not aware of my speaking until my relatives in Eastern Pennsylvania started making fun of how I pronounced certain words.
@@jamescameron2490
"Lawng-gIslandth"
Same here
I was born and raissed in Panama but served 22 years in the US Military and lived in the States 35 years, and thanks to the military insertion and exposured I was able to understand everything that was said with all those accents.
Military brat as well. born in Germany, dad from Alabama. Lived in Texas, Virginia, Oklahoma, Delaware and California and now Florida. I code switch like a master😂
@@SpookyEng1 lol
You could also include the New England Yankee accents and Boston Brahmin that is leaving with the Silent Generation.
All over the world media exposure is changing accents. When I was in Australia in the 1970's I found each city's different accents to be somewhat incomprehensible. Now. I watch a few Aussie humor podcasts and the accents are much less defined. Australians are hilarious!
Maine.
1:08 THANK YOU! I can't tell you all the times I passively wondered what you-uns is broken down lol.
For a possible idea you could make a video about Oklahoman and Arkansas accents . I live in Oklahoma and we are not in the Deep South, but how I talk has some twang in it. Mostly people assume that we speak with a Midwestern regional accent. However, where I live we certainly use the Midwestern and Southern dialects mashed together. Oklahoma is not brought up much when it comes to these types of videos and I would love to learn more about how we speak. Just an idea though, amusing video!
I'm from Arkansas (spent most of my life in NWA) and never thought I had a very strong accent, so I'd love a video on this as well!
@@Ball_Punyan Same! I never thought my accent was strong either. When it comes to the regional dialect spoken in both of our states they are not mentioned at all. I would love to know more about how we speak since it’s different from the Midwestern and Deep South regional dialect. It’s like a hybrid from where im from, haha! Perhaps he’ll make a video over it soon:)
@@Tc-rn8lh for real! I was at work one day and said a few words to a customer and he asked what part of the south I was from, like damn how'd you know?? 😭 I'm in Colorado now! He was from Mississippi so I guess like recognizes like 😂
@@Ball_Punyan See what I mean? Y’all in Arkansas have some regions accent going on too! That’s funny, tehe. How I started to realize that I would say words slightly drawn out was when my German friend pointed them out. For instance when I say “grandma” it sounds like “gran-maw.” I thought that was the natural way everyone said it but I was wrong. 😂 That got me interested in learning more about my regional accent!
My Father us from North Central Arkansas and my mother is from the Ouachita mountains. I never thought mine was strong till l lived in Nebraska for 2 years now I know mine is strong.
LOVE THIS VIDEO!! And Terence Hill... are you kidding??! That made my day. 😍😍😍
There's the San Francisco Chinatown/North Beach accent. It's noticeable in children of immigrants who speak Cantonese to their parents at home and English outside of the home. I don't have this accent, but my childhood friend did.
I lived in Pittsburgh for 10 years and still go back every year. Im still and always be intrigued and really enjoy Pittsburghese.
1. Pittsburgh
2. Lousiana Cajun (obviously)
I am back
3. Island in Virginia. You showed it countless times 😅
4. Some Southern one. No idea
5. No idea either
6. Appalachian
7. You showed this one too... North Carolina
8. NYC Brooklyn.
9. No idea
10. Texas
I Love all the different accents across America and elsewhere, I can usually tell which part of America people are from by their accent. I’m from NW Mississippi and have been told I have a Southern Accent, and have been told by people they love my accent and I’m proud of it. I live in Elvis Presley’s hometown ♥️
I went to Ole Miss and got to hear all kinds of accents during my time there. There was one older women in particular that sticks out in my mind that sounded like she walked right off the set of Gone With the Wind
@@lazydream3r There are a few older women who speak with a strong, melodic accent left, but I’ve noticed a lot of younger people trying to lose theirs. Some Big Employers don’t want to hire people who speak Southern or “Suthun” and make fun of them. If we all sound the same what a very Boring country we would have.
I was born and raised in Central Texas and many people have told me that I do not sound like a Texan but I don’t know why or what accent I do have.
Good chance you have a non regional type accent. It's getting more common in lots of Southern areas.
Grew up just outside da Burgh. There are some words and inflections I still have but mist of it faded when I moved to Maryland 40 years ago. When I visited I'd get a dose back for a bit. I can recognize it so easily when I hear someone talk.
6:10 - A guy knocked on my airbnb door once in Indiana and sounded just like this guy. My wife (Brazilian) couldn't understand what he was saying and called me to the door to take over which is rare with her as she is very high level listener. But when he talked to me I didn't have a clue what he was saying either 😂😂 Thank god he had an assistant show up and it turned out he was an electrician.
I'm truly amazed and proud! You found my people! I'm from the Outer Banks of NC. Specifically Dare and Hyde County. THANK YOU!
You mentioned that country music is helping to keep the southern accent alive, and I agree, but I also fear music becoming so "worldwide" is part of what is accomplishing the opposite in other genres. I listen to music from a lot of different countries, and while you of course can find very localized music, the most popular stuff almost always sounds the same across every country. It's been making me sad. The idea of a monoculture is so boring in every context, be it accent or music style.
That's what happens when everyone can communicate with each other at anytime.
I love tangier island…I used to visit family friends there as a little girl. The island is so beautiful small they bury their dead above ground in backyards and whatnot. During bad floods it’s not unheard of to spot a casket floating down the street.
Visit while you still can…sadly, Tangier is rapidly disappearing into the sea.
Someone once said "Don was in the women's room." I was shocked. The explained that "Dawn" was in restroom. To this day, I have to watch out for the lack of an "aw" in the way some people "tawk."
I was born in 1973 and grew up in southern Ontario, not far from Buffalo, NY, about 4 hours by car from Pittsburgh. That Pittsburgh accent was something I sometimes heard when I was young, but it's been a long time - early 90s or perhaps even earlier was the last time.
My aunt is from Pittsburgh and she still says yinz and gumband and calls shopping carts buggies.
I moved to Pittsburgh and was so excited to hear my first "go dahn there" in the wild. I love listening to people and especially love hearing strong Yinzer. (I'm from western New York, I had to get used to living in a commonwealth, not a state!)
''Fixing" for "getting ready" in African-American usage has long ago morphed into "fin". At least as far back the 1970s.
Finna
I grew up in the Appalachian Mountain range. Though I've lived in different parts of the nation and traveled abroad, I've never given in to changing my accent. It's a part of my own small culture and worth keeping.
I'm from the country side in Wyoming and bordering Utah. We had an accent, but it's almost gone, I moved and got harassed lightly, I still have a little accent, my kids do not.
I know that accent. My Uncle and grandpa had it. It sounds like Jeff Bridges in the True Grit remake
I grew up in rural Arkansas and Mississippi, and a simple visit home shows many of the Southern Accent dialects are very much alive. All my nieces and nephews have accents thicker than my own.
One hypothesis regarding accents in America is the Virginia tidewater accent and the North Carolina Outer Banks accent are the closest approximations for how people spoke during the time of Shakespeare. Its remarkable that such isolates managed to survive after 400 years of tumultuous change in society. I lived in the West Country in Cornwall for 2 years and the Outer Banks accent sounds a lot like what I heard in Cornwall.
Aside from that, I grew up in New Jersey in between NYC and Philly where an accent that combines aspects of both accents from those cities is heard. The NJ accent is on a spectrum that ranges between NY and Philly depending on ones geographic location. After leaving NJ 25 years ago, I have largely lost the accent.
I'm in NC. My guess is that accent is dying out fast.
Tidewater va is interesting. I will say we do seem to be losing our accent.
@JaneDoe-qf1kk wait til the vocal fry arrives. Lol
Cool video. I was in the military from 1993-2000. So I got to meet people from all over the place as was always intrigued with their accents. I'm from Southeastern Michigan and was surprised that I was told I had an accent. Never realized it until I came back to Michigan and could hear it with fresh ears so to speak.
I'm Canadian, not far from the windsor/detroit border. My uncle, who is American and from Detroit (he lived his adult married life here in Ontario), always had a strong accent to me. The one word that stood out the most was "Hockey". I noticed michiganders pronounce it as hackey. Always thought it was cute.
Crummy used to be a swear word in my parent’s generation from Brooklyn- major put down fighting words
In my dialect it meant something of poor quality -- but no-one says "crummy" anymore except the over-60s.
Hearing the term “crum-bum” brought back memories! Used to use that as a kid in the 70’s in Detroit. I thought it was a school yard insult, but the man in the video seemed mighty serious!!
@@cwaisanenI was shocked to see that-but that’s Frank Rizzo, he was the mayor of Philadelphia in the 70’s. That clip was from a news reporter trying to get a comment from Frank Rizzo, who didn’t want any parts of talking to the reporter, so he was saying the reporter was a ‘lush’ and a ‘crumb bum’. That’s a typical Philly accent, and typical behavior from Rizzo. He was a very controversial mayor…very. Some people loved him, others despised him.
I grew up in Philadelphia and had a really rough South Philadelphia accent, but it’s not as harsh, I lost a good bit of it when I was living in KY….I moved back to Philly and realized just how rough our accent can be.
That’s how I grew up saying iron, I still have to process how to correctly pronounce it before saying it, I’m from Evansville Indiana lol
as a person who is from Georgia, The southern accent is dying for sure BUT the southern slang stuck around
Can you give an example of accent vs slang?
An accent is how a person pronounces their words. Slang is actual words than come from a certain region and/or ethnic group. Southerners for example might use the expression "fixin' to" for "going to do sonething" or they might use the term "buggy" instead of the standard term "shopping cart."
Head west over to Mississippi. We are doing just fine retaining several accents
I moved from England to Atlanta 47 years ago. The Southern accent I heard back then has definitely disappeared in the Metro area. I notice that when watching TV shows from England that I hear accents that didn’t exist in England when I left. Accents are continually changing.
@@lingham2099I agree about Atlanta. My cousin lived there when I was young (early 70s), and the accent was definitely southern then. When I went back in the late 80s it was so weird to hear all the northern accents there. Almost like a different city. 😵💫
I grew up speaking an accent that is now dead, or nearly so. I was born in St. Louis, MO. Where people used to say things like: fark (fork), harse (horse), farty (forty), warsh (wash), Garge (George), tal (towel). We moved to a city in Central Florida when I was ten. I was ridiculed for my accent, so I lost it as quickly as I could.
I live in Washington state, it's been said that most of us sound like news anchors. Although the Seattle area is developing a gloteral growl
The news anchor thing is likely a well enunciated non regional American.
@@GUITARTIME2024 It is much the same in Portland, my general American accent is right at home after moving here.
@leefi1 oddly, it would be very at home here in Raleigh-Cary NC too. So many non-southerners, corporate jobs, colleges, etc.
I love seeing these top 10 'strange ' accents videos always include the High Tiders of my youth. I know/ knew each of those people From Ocracoke Island as a small child. My grandmother was born out there, but I'm "from off," unfortunately.
That same or similar brouge is spoke up to Hattaras, down to Harkers Island, and inland in Marshallburg, Straits, Gloucster, Atlantic, and Cedar Island, NC as well.
As a Louisiana Creole I will say that you missed the African and Native linguistic influences in the language. Acadians were but one small group, mostly European with some Native blood. There were many other Creole groups including Lafite's pirates.
Cajuns don't have an African or Indigenous influence at all. Creoles are different from Cajuns and even their accent is way more influenced by French than anything else.