Old Legitimate Southern Accents

[Mr. King]

I grew up listening to my grandpaw who hailed from Elmore County, AL. He was born in 1930, and was by all measurement, from a poor farming family. I loved the remnants on his accent. The family I still have in that area still have a good bit of that old accent.
I ran across these guys on youtube. Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers. They are from Monroe, GA in the 1920s. Check out these fast talking country accents. I have to imagine that this is pretty close what a rank & file GA rebel might have sounded like.

 

[John Winn]

Now that you've discovered Gid you need one of these T-shirts:

 

[LoriAnn]

...and the Skillet Lickers.

I'd spent a lot of time around these guys saying, "Wait...what?"

 

[AUG]

Tommy Jerrell also had what I guess you could call an "original" Southern accent. He was from North Carolina, up in the Mount Airy region. He was born in 1901 and his grandfather was a Confederate soldier in the war; he also learned a few of his fiddling techniques and tunes from other Confederate veterans.

Edit: And by "original" I mean in comparison to today's stereotypical Southern accent, e.g., Larry the Cabel Guy sort of accent. I like to think of Southerners in the 19th century speaking more so with a drawl rather than a twang, but of course it still varies by who and where.

 

[Reb]

It depends on where your from. I can tell a difference between Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, Louisiana, etc.

 

[Chattahooch33]

Go to 6:08 of this video and listen to the lady speaking. This is what I imagine an upper class lowcountry woman would have sounded like.

 

[kevikens]

The most Southern sounding accent I ever heard came from folks in Sussex County, Delaware.

 

[Northern Light]

I grew up listening to my grandpaw who hailed from Elmore County, AL. He was born in 1930, and was by all measurement, from a poor farming family. I loved the remnants on his accent. The family I still have in that area still have a good bit of that old accent.
I ran across these guys on youtube. Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers. They are from Monroe, GA in the 1920s. Check out these fast talking country accents. I have to imagine that this is pretty close what a rank & file GA rebel might have sounded like.

Eggs and brains! That was neat, but I really had to work hard to understand some of what he was saying. "Turb and "hongry"

 

[Northern Light]

Go to 6:08 of this video and listen to the lady speaking. This is what I imagine an upper class lowcountry woman would have sounded like.

Pardon my ignorance but what is meant by lowcountry? I love the way she says "Cheraw"

 

[John Winn]

Pardon my ignorance but what is meant by lowcountry? I love the way she says "Cheraw"

The low country in SC encompasses the counties along the SE edge that are just inland. They are low in elevation so that provides the name. Up country is the higher elevations in the northwest third of the state (roughly). I'm not sure about now but for a long time there was also something of a cultural divide as the low country was largely settled by people of French Huguenot extraction while the north generally was not.

The low country was where they grew stuff like rice and sugar cane (and mosquitos).

 

[Northern Light]

The low country in SC encompasses the counties along the SE edge that are just inland. They are low in elevation so that provides the name. Up country is the higher elevations in the north half of the state (roughly). I'm not sure about now but for a long time there was also something of a cultural divide as the low country was largely settled by people of French Huguenot extraction while the north generally was not.

The low country was where they grew stuff like rice and sugar cane (and mosquitos).

That would explain some of the French names in South Carolina, like Scarlett of O'Hara's mother, who was a Robillard, as I recall.

 

[John Winn]

That would explain some of the French names in South Carolina, like Scarlett of O'Hara's mother, who was a Robillard, as I recall.

Yes; lots of those in the low country. My great grandmother's first husband was a Gaillard which is a very common Huguenot surname (surprisingly - to me anyway - pronounced "Gillyurd" in SC and not "Gay yard" as the French would have it). He was killed in Virginia in the war only a few months after marrying. So my family research led me to learning a thing or two about white settlement in SC and Huguenots which I'd never heard of until maybe ten years ago.

 

[Northern Light]

Yes; lots of those in the low country. My great grandmother's first husband was a Gaillard which is a very common Huguenot surname (surprisingly - to me anyway - pronounced "Gillyurd" in SC and not "Gay yard" as the French would have it). He was killed in Virginia in the war only a few months after marrying. So my family research led me to learning a thing or two about white settlement in SC and Huguenots which I'd never heard of until maybe ten years ago.

Interesting!

 

[James B White]

Go to 6:08 of this video and listen to the lady speaking. This is what I imagine an upper class lowcountry woman would have sounded like.

I've seen servant written as sarvent a lot in period dialect. And there it is.

 

[chellers]

I grew up listening to my grandpaw who hailed from Elmore County, AL. He was born in 1930, and was by all measurement, from a poor farming family. I loved the remnants on his accent. The family I still have in that area still have a good bit of that old accent.
I ran across these guys on youtube. Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers. They are from Monroe, GA in the 1920s. Check out these fast talking country accents. I have to imagine that this is pretty close what a rank & file GA rebel might have sounded like.

Not sure what it is, but it sure is not Texan.

 

[Allie]

Tommy Jerrell also had what I guess you could call an "original" Southern accent. He was from North Carolina, up in the Mount Airy region. He was born in 1901 and his grandfather was a Confederate soldier in the war; he also learned a few of his fiddling techniques and tunes from other Confederate veterans.

I eat breakfast often on Friday mornings with a bunch of men who sound exactly like that. They're farmers out near Rossville, Tennessee. The thing about West Tennessee farmers is you never know from their accents or by looking at them whether someone is a sharecropper who grew up working his own field and eating pokeweed and black eyed peas, or a millionaire who owns thousands of acres. The best way to tell is to look at the wife's ring. If it's a diamond the size of a house, probably they're pretty well off.

I'd spent a lot of time around these guys saying, "Wait...what?"

That's funny! To me that's kind of a stage accent and much clearer than people usually talk. Like the Southern equivalent of the fast talking movie accent you used to get in Katherine Hepburn's early movies.

Go to 6:08 of this video and listen to the lady speaking. This is what I imagine an upper class lowcountry woman would have sounded like.

Pretty much all my mom's friends have some variation on this accent. The funny thing about this particular accent is many ladies can drop it or pick it up at will, depending on who they're talking to.

 

[Allie]

Yes; lots of those in the low country. My great grandmother's first husband was a Gaillard which is a very common Huguenot surname (surprisingly - to me anyway - pronounced "Gillyurd" in SC and not "Gay yard" as the French would have it). He was killed in Virginia in the war only a few months after marrying. So my family research led me to learning a thing or two about white settlement in SC and Huguenots which I'd never heard of until maybe ten years ago.

There's a whole bunch of Jayroes in Lauderdale county, TN whose ancestors were Gerauds. Originally from France by way of south SC. They grew rice in SC and then they moved to TN and grew rice on the Hatchie Bottom.

My family has Trabues, Flournoys, Fontaines, and a few other French names, but ours were Huguenots in the French settlement of Manakintown in Virginia.

 

[Mild53]

Makes me wonder how regional accents evolved, where did they start, and why did they change.

 

[Private Watkins]

Brains & eggs indeed! How 'bout some backbones & spare ribs boys...!!

 

[BelleBlackburn]

There was a wonderful PBS production years back called The History of English, I think, which traces back the origins of our accents. Hope they rerun that someday. Here is a little video that is interesting too: