5 ms·

Yeah, regional American accents are dying, unfortunately. I think they added a lot of color to dialog in the U.S. My own grandfather grew up in the Appalachians

Yeah, regional American accents are dying, unfortunately. I think they added a lot of color to dialog in the U.S. My own grandfather grew up in the Appalachians during the Great Depression and has to this day the thickest accent and the funniest idioms. But with each generation after him the accent has worn off more and more. When you go to NYC you kinda hope to run into these old school New Yorkers and have them turn and yell at you, "I'm walkin' here!"

kingkawn 6y ago
No way, there are all kinds of super next level evolutions of nyc accents going on, you just gotta go outside of the financial and commercial centers
- breakbread 6y ago
  Well don’t leave us hangin
  - smogcutter 6y ago
    Can’t speak to evolution, but you’ll hear the old school accent (real, not the “boids” cartoon version) anywhere that doesn’t get a lot of transplants. Bay ridge, Bensonhurst, corona, Astoria, midwood, Staten Island, etc.
    - cm2012 6y ago
      Definitely all over eastern Queens
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    In some cases as other socioeconomic and ethnic groups have moved into New York they have picked up features of traditional New York speech. The most prominent example I can think of is Cardi B. She has a heavy Bronx accent, and will say “talk” and “walk” in the old New York manner of “tawlk” and “wawlk”.
peckrob 6y ago
Social pressure can play a role in the demise of regional accents. As someone who grew up in Appalachia, there are certain biases that come with that accent. It's is one of the reasons some professionals from the region try very hard to "talk normally." There is even training you can undergo to lose your accent. I learned early in my career that people make certain assumptions about you based on your accent. Over the years I have unconsciously developed a "public speaking accent" that is quite a bit different from how I normally talk. I've been told I sound generically Midwestern when traveling or giving a conference presentation (one person even said Canadian.) I didn't even realize I was doing it until one conference when someone pointed it out to me at a bar-track later in the evening.
- C1sc0cat 6y ago
  My Cousin who worked in tech though that having a Brummie accent was a disadvantage and this is the normal Birmingham accent not the full Yam Yam (Rural Dialect) Though I assume he didn't mention that his family had been fairly well known off course bookies (pre legalisation)
amyjess 6y ago
> When you go to NYC you kinda hope to run into these old school New Yorkers and have them turn and yell at you, "I'm walkin' here!" Visiting NYC in 2018 and 2019 made me realize that that phrase is literal. There's nothing like walking down the sidewalk only to have the guy in front of you just stop to gawk at something with no warning, forcing you to stop short or swerve on a dime to avoid bumping into them. Or maybe if you're lucky they didn't just stop short, they'd already been just standing there in the dead center of the sidewalk since they came into view, but you still have to go around them. After one afternoon of walking around the city, I already felt like shouting "Hey, I'm walkin' here!" several times. (and being a tourist myself, I was actively self-conscious of whenever I wanted to gawk at something, so I always made sure I moved to the innermost part of the sidewalk and put my back to a wall if I ever wanted to stop and look at something or pull my phone out)
jamil7 6y ago
Thats interesting. I’ve heard the same about the UK. Here in Germany the regional accents go further into becoming whole dialects, people tend to keep them while learning a standard German in school. Strangely I’ve been told that in New Zealand the accents are getting stronger among young people. I dropped my Australian accent subconsciously when I moved to Europe years ago as it wasn’t practical and hard to be understood when speaking English with people, it appears sometimes after a few beers or when I’m with other Australians.
- Megranium 6y ago
  Interesting that you percieve it that way. Like, accents becoming dialects, not the other way round. I'd think "dialects" like lower german, Plattdeutsch, Bavarian etc. are older than current standard German, and what remains of them are the accents. That being said, especially in rural areas, the dialects are well kept. In fact, being from the western regions of Germany, I have a hard time understanding villagers from the Black Forest if they talk their native dialect. Still, in urban areas, the general trend is the same, no ? Dialects are spoken by less and less people (in fact I don't speak a single word of Plattdeutsch, even if I'm from an area where it was once common). What remains are temporary sociolects and accents. At least that's my perception of things.
  - jamil7 6y ago
    Yeah I agree with you, I'm not a native German speaker but I have a hard time with regional German dialects, especially in the South. You're correct though the trend is mostly the same it's very rare to hear the Berlin dialect but it does happen from time to time.
alexpotato 6y ago
> Yeah, regional American accents are dying, unfortunately. I don't have the exact source but I believe research has shown the opposite. When cable television started becoming more common about 20 years ago, there was a belief that a common "source accent" would flatten out regional differences in accents. Apparently, it has made accents more distinct as people, consciously or not, were using those accents as a "tribal marker" to differentiate themselves from the rest of the country. On a broader note, I remember reading an OpEd in the late 90's that predicted that because people were going to be getting all of their information from a common source (aka the Internet) that it would eliminate debates between regions of the US. The idea was that with shared common information, we would all have shared beliefs. Obviously, this completely missed the ball with regards to personalized streams of information (e.g. Netflix, Pandora etc).

kingkawn 6y ago

No way, there are all kinds of super next level evolutions of nyc accents going on, you just gotta go outside of the financial and commercial centers

breakbread 6y ago
Well don’t leave us hangin
- smogcutter 6y ago
  Can’t speak to evolution, but you’ll hear the old school accent (real, not the “boids” cartoon version) anywhere that doesn’t get a lot of transplants. Bay ridge, Bensonhurst, corona, Astoria, midwood, Staten Island, etc.
  - cm2012 6y ago
    Definitely all over eastern Queens
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  In some cases as other socioeconomic and ethnic groups have moved into New York they have picked up features of traditional New York speech. The most prominent example I can think of is Cardi B. She has a heavy Bronx accent, and will say “talk” and “walk” in the old New York manner of “tawlk” and “wawlk”.

peckrob 6y ago

Social pressure can play a role in the demise of regional accents. As someone who grew up in Appalachia, there are certain biases that come with that accent. It's is one of the reasons some professionals from the region try very hard to "talk normally." There is even training you can undergo to lose your accent. I learned early in my career that people make certain assumptions about you based on your accent. Over the years I have unconsciously developed a "public speaking accent" that is quite a bit different from how I normally talk. I've been told I sound generically Midwestern when traveling or giving a conference presentation (one person even said Canadian.) I didn't even realize I was doing it until one conference when someone pointed it out to me at a bar-track later in the evening.

C1sc0cat 6y ago
My Cousin who worked in tech though that having a Brummie accent was a disadvantage and this is the normal Birmingham accent not the full Yam Yam (Rural Dialect) Though I assume he didn't mention that his family had been fairly well known off course bookies (pre legalisation)

amyjess 6y ago

> When you go to NYC you kinda hope to run into these old school New Yorkers and have them turn and yell at you, "I'm walkin' here!" Visiting NYC in 2018 and 2019 made me realize that that phrase is literal. There's nothing like walking down the sidewalk only to have the guy in front of you just stop to gawk at something with no warning, forcing you to stop short or swerve on a dime to avoid bumping into them. Or maybe if you're lucky they didn't just stop short, they'd already been just standing there in the dead center of the sidewalk since they came into view, but you still have to go around them. After one afternoon of walking around the city, I already felt like shouting "Hey, I'm walkin' here!" several times. (and being a tourist myself, I was actively self-conscious of whenever I wanted to gawk at something, so I always made sure I moved to the innermost part of the sidewalk and put my back to a wall if I ever wanted to stop and look at something or pull my phone out)

jamil7 6y ago

Thats interesting. I’ve heard the same about the UK. Here in Germany the regional accents go further into becoming whole dialects, people tend to keep them while learning a standard German in school. Strangely I’ve been told that in New Zealand the accents are getting stronger among young people. I dropped my Australian accent subconsciously when I moved to Europe years ago as it wasn’t practical and hard to be understood when speaking English with people, it appears sometimes after a few beers or when I’m with other Australians.

Megranium 6y ago
Interesting that you percieve it that way. Like, accents becoming dialects, not the other way round. I'd think "dialects" like lower german, Plattdeutsch, Bavarian etc. are older than current standard German, and what remains of them are the accents. That being said, especially in rural areas, the dialects are well kept. In fact, being from the western regions of Germany, I have a hard time understanding villagers from the Black Forest if they talk their native dialect. Still, in urban areas, the general trend is the same, no ? Dialects are spoken by less and less people (in fact I don't speak a single word of Plattdeutsch, even if I'm from an area where it was once common). What remains are temporary sociolects and accents. At least that's my perception of things.
- jamil7 6y ago
  Yeah I agree with you, I'm not a native German speaker but I have a hard time with regional German dialects, especially in the South. You're correct though the trend is mostly the same it's very rare to hear the Berlin dialect but it does happen from time to time.

alexpotato 6y ago

> Yeah, regional American accents are dying, unfortunately. I don't have the exact source but I believe research has shown the opposite. When cable television started becoming more common about 20 years ago, there was a belief that a common "source accent" would flatten out regional differences in accents. Apparently, it has made accents more distinct as people, consciously or not, were using those accents as a "tribal marker" to differentiate themselves from the rest of the country. On a broader note, I remember reading an OpEd in the late 90's that predicted that because people were going to be getting all of their information from a common source (aka the Internet) that it would eliminate debates between regions of the US. The idea was that with shared common information, we would all have shared beliefs. Obviously, this completely missed the ball with regards to personalized streams of information (e.g. Netflix, Pandora etc).