Southern Accents during the War

Hey ladies and gents! Its been a while since I've been on, but I have a question. I apologize if its already been covered. On the show, "How the states got their shapes", they said that the southern accent didn't exist until after the war. I've always been under the impression that the southern accent or dialect has existed in some form since before the war. Does anyone really know the answer? Thanks....

It's probably always in a state of change, beginning with the British immigrants. Fremantle, in his book, made reference to all of the top commanders in the ANV having British accents, while the rank and file sounded different. In my youth, the old people sounded a bit different than we do now. And then there are regional differences. There is a bit of a difference between someone who grew up in Chattanooga and someone who grew up in around Atlanta. Here in Louisiana we have countless different accents.

Thanks for the reply. The show I was watching seemed to suggest that there were no accents at all until after the war. Like you said, I'm sure there had to be regional differences.

Here's the only recording I could find of a Confederate veteran speaking, though apparently the Smithsonian has a number of recordings and interviews with soldiers of both sides, though I don't think they're accessible by internet.

Using South Carolina as an example, I'd say there were several distinct accents in place prior to the ACW. Since Charleston had been around about 200 years, I'd say the low country accent was well in place. Influences there would be French Huguenot, English, Native American and African dialects. I've read quite a few soldier's letters from the upstate and their phonetic spelling tells me they had the same or similar accent as we have now. My father told me his grandfather(born 1866) had the Appalachian accent, same as people there have today.

Sounds a bit tidewater to me. River = riv-uh

Great post! I live in the upstate, so I. Know how they sound and its neat to think the accent may not have been much different, maybe just words they used. When I think of Charleston or Atlanta, I imagine they had that accent for many many years.
Good point about gathering an idea of dialect and accent by reading the letters of soldiers.


Great post

I am glad some soldiers lived long enough to be recorded. I am going to listen to this when I get home where my comp has ears.

He also says 'hoid' for heard and 'foist' for first, which also sounds like New Jersey! Shelby Foote usually said 'choich' for church and 'fust' for first. But the ending 'er' is 'ah' - I think Mr Howell sounded like Robert E Lee!

Some years ago there was a discussion among scholars about George Washington's accent. Many had considered it a transitional one, with large amounts of residual British and Gaelic in it. However, it was finally realized that almost all of Washington's writings were rewritten and edited by Alexander Hamilton. What they were seeing was Hamilton's West Indian British accent! So, they studied letters and such known to be written only by Washington and, what do you know, George sounded exactly like the tidewater Virginian he was!

My grandparents and their siblings, the ones that I knew, all had soft deep south accents with very little drawl. Their fathers were Civil War veterans and I expect that's the way they sounded also.

What would have been interesting is the accent of the Tiger Battalion men from New Orleans and south Louisiana. New Orleans has a strange Brooklynese sound to it, and Cajun French was still common in the backwoods until the 1960's. I know that when I was a freshman at LSU in the late '60s it literally took me weeks before I could fully understand what some of those folks were saying.

The problem is that there is no such thing as a clear "southern" accent. Growing up in Chattanooga, we noticed differences between the social classes and the urban vs. rural southern accent. Southern Alabama, Georgia, and Mississipi accents were quite a bit different from the "border state" accents in urban Tennessee areas. Those growing up in the Appalachian foothills have a distinctive sound which I recognize right away, Jodie Foster tends to have a similar accent (although I don't know where she grew up). We can easily tell the difference between a southern drawl and a Texas twang, although most northerner's can't. I'm sure the differences in accents in states like Virginia and the Carolinas are just as pronounced.

The one thing which most southern accents have in common is the dropping of the "g" at the end of a word ending in "ing". When I was in Toastmasters I used to get dinged regularly for giving speaches where I dropped the "g" from the end of the word. I was quite surprised the first time that happened - I thought the "g" was SUPPOSED to be silent!

I work in an international company in the Seattle area, and most of the staff there come from different countries in Asia. Occassionaly they have difficulty understanding people from southern states, at which time they put me on the phone instead. I've been out here for some thirty+ years, so it even takes me a couple of minutes before my ears re-adjust to the rythm of a southern accent. Southern accents are hard for non-native English speakers to understand, because the words tend to get strung together so they don't know where one word ends and the other word begins. "Howyawldoinn" isn't easily found in a Japanese-English dictionary.

I figure most from around my part sounded about like i do.. My dad says i talk like my granddad and my granddads dad was a war vet, so im sure the two sound somewhat alike.. Either way,Tennessee accents are somthing you cant get rid of...And honestly i wouldnt want to get rid of mine..

Oh, well. I can't understand someone from New York City.

You're one up on me - I can't understand anybody from Boston or Charleston! Think it's been an old problem - one of Jeb Stuart's Virginians said some troopers had arrived from southern Alabama and 'spoke a different language'. They were speaking English!

Having been dragged up in Brooklyn, your life is never the same. I remember in boot camp when a drill insructor shouted if there is anyone from Brooklyn here I advise them they're in for big trouble. A few days later when he was asking people where they came from and he came to me and I said Queens New York, Sir. I reckoned bailing out was my only option,

Mulejack

Remember that even among the "British/UK" immigrants, the source of immigration varied widely, as did the accents. In Britain the accent can be quite different from one town to another, and in some instances from one neighborhood to another. As detailed in David Hacket Fischer's book, "Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America", there were four general waves of migration from the U.K to America, and each came from different locations within Britain, with remarkable differences in language, religion customs, food, etc. which they transferred to the U.S.

He lists these as the first Jamestown migrants to coastal Virginia; the Puritan migration to New England, the Cavalier migration to the fertile tidewater region of Virginia and South Carolina; and the Scots/Irish migration from the Scotish/English border and northern Ireland to the Appalachian foothills. (Note: the Scots/Irish ended up in the foothills because the really good land was already claimed by the English descendants, and the Scots/Irish were fighters of some repute who were sought as "barriers" between the Indians and the the more gentile elite of the eastern settlers.

Of course, after the failure of Prince Bonney's rebellion, there were a number of true Scottish highlanders who came to the U.S., either in irons as prisoners, or free under an order of banishment, or simply as escapees from the hangman's noose.

So, even within the "English" settlers, you can have all variety of accents represented in the South. Depending upon an individual's own travels and how long their family had been in America up to that time, the accent might or might not have been intermixed with that of others.

By the way, I would highly recommend Fischer's book, if you want to understand early American history and culture (pre-revolution). You can see how some differences in culture and religion still form the basis of arguments in today's society, and why the Founding Fathers expressed such a varied and sometimes contradictory view of such subjects. You can also see how the differences between Puritan New England culture contrasted so much with that of the Cavalier and Scots/Irish cultures, which is part of the reason why neither side could understand the other's viewpoint very well in the years leading up to the civil war. Be prepared, however. It's a scholarly work, which means in some parts its a bit of a slog getting through the discussions of child-rearing and education philosophy, for example.

You don't know how much of a strain it is for me to add that "g" on "ing". It's plain torture and just doesn't look right.

When I'm around low country people it takes awhile before I adjust to their speech. I remember the first time I heard it in Charleston. A local lady was telling us about Charleston and described its' location. "Chawston is located at the confluence of the Ashleh and Cuppuh Rivuhs.

When I went to live with my granny a while back there I didn't speak much English in the first place. So when my uncle said, "Y'all wont t'pious the braid down yar?" I hadn't a clue! Had to re-learn when I came back to California - but I always say I'm just a couple beers from sounding like Andy Griffith!