Did Civil War-Era Southerners Speak With a 'Southern Accent'?

I have the impression there was a pronounced "cracker" accent in FL-GA during Reconstruction and presumably antebellum too. I'm pretty sure I've seen whites quoted in dialect from that period.

Television destroyed most accents

It's still pretty easy to identify people from Baaaahstan and Long Isleland. Alaskans and some Wisconsin/Minnesota folks sound almost Canadian at times.

Were those accents as identifiable in the 1860s?
 
Except for Bostonians I've never heard a New Englander with an accent.

You haven't spent much time around rural New England folks have ya ?

:smile coffee:

They are some of the nicest people on the planet.
But they have an accent that's just as hard to understand as our Deep South Drawl.

I love this young lady from New England talking about Boston accents.
I understand everything she's saying until she gets excited and starts talking fast.



But then again, I doubt she would understand me on any day.

:bounce:
 
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My Scots were indeed Scots--Highlanders who got out of Dodge after the Rising...to Virginia's Tidewater and also to the Shenandoah (via Barbados). My father's paternal line came from Ireland to Maine--my 3rd Great-Grandfather. His son married a girl from Massachusetts (English Puritan) and immigrated first to Ohio, then Missouri and eventually to Texas...where he ended up in Comanche County chasing--Comanches. I can just imagine him talking to my 2nd Great-Grandfather (his son's in-law who was from Arkansas) in what was probably a pretty strong Irish/Mainer accent while they were in the midst of a battle...

I always thought my mom's dad had an unusual accent--it was honestly more like Walter Brennan, who we know was from Maine.
 
My Scots were indeed Scots--Highlanders who got out of Dodge after the Rising...to Virginia's Tidewater and also to the Shenandoah (via Barbados). My father's paternal line came from Ireland to Maine--my 3rd Great-Grandfather. His son married a girl from Massachusetts (English Puritan) and immigrated first to Ohio, then Missouri and eventually to Texas...where he ended up in Comanche County chasing--Comanches. I can just imagine him talking to my 2nd Great-Grandfather (his son's in-law who was from Arkansas) in what was probably a pretty strong Irish/Mainer accent while they were in the midst of a battle...

I always thought my mom's dad had an unusual accent--it was honestly more like Walter Brennan, who we know was from Maine.
I have some Massachussetts Puritans in the family tree who ended up in the Carolinas by the 1700s via Delaware (?), and it is weirdly funny to me. They stick out like a sore thumb. :bounce: :giggle: :laugh: :D
 
You haven't spent much time around rural New England folks have ya ?

:smile coffee:

They are some of the nicest people on the planet.
But they have an accent that's just as hard to understand as our Deep South Drawl.

I love this young lady from New England talking about Boston accents.
I understand everything she's saying until she gets excited and starts talking fast.



But then again, I doubt she would understand me on any day.

:bounce:

My parents are both born and raised in New Jersey. A lot of New Jowsey accents do the vowel thing too. I grew up drinking wahta and eating pizzer, with my dog Hanner. My dad's accent was very mild, my mom's was the nails on chalkboard, Jowsey Gal accent. Thankfully she's lost most of it from being in PA as long as she has. Although it still creeps on in at times, especially if she's mad or otherwise upset.

I have a mostly "generic American" Inland Northern accent. (The aforementioned Johnny Carson dialect), but there isn't one single PA accent either. People from Scranton speak different from someone from Philly, who speaks way different than someone from Pittsburgh, who all speak differently from us rural folk.

I still sometimes find my self slipping into a more rural vernacular, which here means "I'm goin down the crick cause I seen they got some deer down there I wanna hunt since anymore nobody hunts down there."
 
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