Southern American English

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"Southern Drawl" redirects here. For the album by Alabama, see Southern Drawl (album).
This article is about English as spoken in the Southern United States. For older English dialects spoken in this same region, see Older Southern American English. For English as spoken in South America, see South American English.
Approximate extent of Southern American English, based upon multiple dialect studies.[1][2][3]
The merger of pin and pen in Southern American English. In the purple areas, the merger is complete for most speakers. Note the exclusion of the New Orleans area, Southern Florida, and of the Lowcountry of South Carolina and Georgia. The purple area in California consists of the Bakersfield and Kern County area, where migrants from the south-central states settled during the Dust Bowl. There is also debate whether or not Austin, Texas is an exclusion. Based on Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:68).
An example of a Texas-raised male with a rhotic accent (George W. Bush).
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An example of a Plains, Georgia male with a non-rhotic accent (Jimmy Carter).
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An example of a southwestern Arkansas male with a rhotic accent (Bill Clinton).
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Southern American English or Southern U.S. English is a collection of related American English dialects spoken throughout the Southern United States, though increasingly in more rural areas and primarily by white Americans.[4] Commonly in the United States, the dialects are referred together simply as Southern.[5][6][7] Other, much more recent ethno-linguistic terms include Southern White Vernacular English and Rural White Southern English.[8][9]

The Southern U.S. dialects, which have largely superseded an older set of dialects originating in the same area, make up the largest accent group in the United States,[10] from the southern extremities of Ohio, Indiana, Maryland, and Delaware, as well as most of West Virginia and Kentucky to the Gulf Coast, and from the southern Atlantic coast extending to most of Texas and Oklahoma, and the far eastern section of New Mexico. Southern U.S. English has can be divided into several regional dialects and sub-dialects. African American Vernacular English (AAVE) has common points with the Southern dialects due to the strong historical ties of African Americans to the region.

Geography[edit]

The dialects collectively known as Southern American English stretch across the south-eastern and south-central United States, but exclude the southernmost areas of Florida and the extreme western and south-western parts of Texas as well as the Rio Grande Valley (Laredo to Brownsville). This linguistic region includes Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Arkansas, as well as most of Texas, Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and northern and central Florida. Southern American English dialects can also be found in extreme southern parts of Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, and Illinois.[11][12]

Southern dialects originated in large part from a mix of immigrants from the British Isles, who moved to the South in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the creole or post-creole speech of African slaves. Upheavals such as the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl and World War II caused mass migrations of those and other settlers throughout the United States.

Phonology of the Southeastern super-region[edit]

On this U.S. dialect map, Southern English is designated by the dark orange area numbered "6," including its core dialect areas of "6a" (Texan English) and "6b" (Inland Southern English). The larger Southeastern super-region essentially incorporates all of "6" along with most of "5" (Midland English), plus the unnumbered white areas adjoining the South, such as Florida.

Headed by William Labov, the 2006 Atlas of North American English (ANAE) identifies the South itself, as well a large area of states bordering all along the South, as constituting a "Southeastern super-region,"[13] with even remote (including arguably Northern) areas that phonologically exhibit some noticeable "Southern character."[13] Essentially all of the modern-day Southern dialects, plus dialects marginal to the South, are thus considered a subset of this super-region.[note 1] Thus, a modern Southeastern super-region is defined by essentially the whole American South, including all of the Gulf region (even Florida), the Mid- and South Atlantic regions, and southeastern New Mexico, as well as a transitional Midland dialect area between the South and the North, lying above the strict Southern region and comprising most of Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, southeastern Nebraska, Southern Illinois, Southern Indiana, and Southern Ohio.[14] Put perhaps in clearer terms, the Southeastern super-dialect region encompasses all of these most general regional dialects:

  • Southern English
  • Midland English
  • Mid-Atlantic English
  • English of the areas technically inside or just outside of the South, but without yet any well-studied "unique defining character," such as northern Florida.[15]

These are the minimal necessary features that identify a speaker from the Southeastern super-region:

  • Fronting of /aʊ/ and /oʊ/: The gliding vowels /aʊ/ (as in cow or ouch) and /oʊ/ (as in goat or bone) both start considerably forward in the mouth, approximately [ɛɔ~æɒ] and [ɜu], respectively. /oʊ/ may even end in a very forward position[16]—something like [ɜy~œʏ]. However, this fronting does not occur in younger speakers before /l/ (as in goal or colt) or before a syllable break between two vowels (as in going or poet), in which /oʊ/ remains back in the mouth as [ɔu~ɒu].[17]
  • Lacking or transitioning cot–caught merger: The historical distinction between the two vowels sounds /ɔː/ and /ɒ/, in words like caught and cot or stalk and stock is mainly preserved.[13] In much of the South during the 1900s, there was a trend to lower the vowel found in words like stalk and caught, often with an upglide, so that the most common result today is the gliding vowel [ɑɒ]. However, the cot–caught merger is becoming increasingly common throughout the United States, thus affecting Southeastern and even some Southern dialects, towards a merged vowel [ɑ].[18]
  • The vowel in /ɑr/ (as in part or star) is often rounded to [ɒɻ].[19]
  • Pin–pen merger: The vowels [ɛ] and [ɪ] often merge when before nasal consonants, so that pen and pin, for instance, or hem and him, are pronounced the same, as pin or him, respectively.[13] However, this merger is not found in some vestigial varieties of the Old South, and other geographically Southern varieties that have eluded the Southern Vowel Shift, such as New Orleans, Louisiana's Yat dialect or the anomalous dialect of Savannah, Georgia. The pin–pen merger has also spread beyond the South in recent decades and is now found in isolated parts of the West and the southern Midwest as well.
  • Rhoticity: The pronunciation of the r sound only before or between vowels (but not after vowels) was historically widespread in the South, particularly in former plantation areas. This phenomenon, non-rhoticity, was considered prestigious before World War II, after which the social perception in the South reversed. Now, rhoticity (sometimes called r-fulness), in which all r sounds are pronounced, has become dominant throughout the entire Southeastern super-region, as in most American English, and even more so among younger and female White Southern speakers; the only major exception is among African American Southerners, whose modern vernacular dialect continues to be mostly non-rhotic.[20] The sound quality of the Southern r is the distinctive "bunch-tongued r", produced by strongly constricting the root and/or midsection of the tongue.[21]

Phonology of the South[edit]

Mean formant values for the ANAE subjects (Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:?)) from the Southern U.S. (excluding Florida and Charleston, SC). The red symbol marks the position of monophthongized /aɪ/ before voiced consonants. The distinction between /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ is preserved mainly because /ɔ/ has an upglide. /eɪ/ is backer and lower than /ɛ/.

The South proper as a modern-day dialect region generally includes all of the pronunciation features of the Southeastern super-region, plus additional features listed below, which are together popularly recognized in the United States as a Southern accent. However, there is still actually wide variation in Southern speech regarding potential differences based on factors like a speaker's exact region or sub-region (see the different Southern U.S. English dialects section below for more information), age, ethnicity, etc. The following phonological phenomena focus on the developing sound system of the more recent Southern dialects of the United States that altogether largely (though certainly not entirely) superseded the older Southern patterns throughout the region:

  • Southern (Vowel) Shift: A chain shift regarding vowels is completed, or in transition, in most Southern dialects, especially younger ones, and at the most advanced stage in the Inland South (i.e. away from the coastline) and Texas in general. This chain shift, called the Southern Shift, is triggered by Stage 1, described below. Stage 1 may have begun in some Southern dialects as early as the first half of the 1800s; however, it was still largely incomplete or absent in the mid-1800s, though it is widespread today throughout all of the Southern United States.
    • Stage 1 (/aɪ/ → [aː]): The starting point of the Southern Shift is the transition of the gliding vowel (diphthong) /aɪ/ (About this sound listen) towards a "glideless" long vowel [aː~äː] (About this sound listen), so that, for example, the word ride commonly approaches a sound that most other English speakers would consider to fall between the sounds of rod and rad. Stage 1 is now complete for a majority of Southern dialects.[24] Newer Southern speakers particularly exhibit the Stage 1 shift at the ends of words and before voiced consonants, but not before voiceless consonants, where the diphthong instead retains its glide, so that ride is [ɹäːd] and side is [säːd], but right is [ɹäɪt] and sight like [säɪt]. Some speakers exhibit backing to [ɑːe] in environments where diphthongization (preservation of the glide) remains,[25] particularly in Charleston, SC and possibly Atlanta and Savannah, GA. Traditional inland (i.e. non-coastal) Southern speakers, however, delete the glide of /aɪ/ in all contexts, as in the stereotyped pronunciation "nahs whaht rahs" for nice white rice; these speakers are mostly found today in an Appalachian area that comprises eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina and northern Alabama, as well as in central Texas.[26]
    • Stage 2 (/eɪ/ → [ɛɪ]; /æ/ → [ɛ(j)ə]; /ɛ/ → [e(j)ə]): By removing the existence of [aɪ], Stage 1 leaves open a lower area for /eɪ/ (as in name and day) to occupy, causing Stage 2: the lowering of the diphthong /eɪ/ towards [ɛɪ] ( listen) or to an even lower and/or more retracted sound. At the same time, a reversal effect occurs for /æ/ (as in rat or bad), which moves up higher (or acquires a complex gliding quality, moving higher and then lower) in the mouth, to avoid sounding like Stage 1's [aː] vowel; thus /æ/ can range variously away from its original position: [æɛæ~ɛ~ɛ(j)ə]. Next, this causes /ɛ/ (as in red or belt) to be pushed into a higher and fronter position, occupying the [e] area (previously occupied by /eɪ/), often with an in-glide: thus, [e(j)ə]. Stage 2 is most common in heavily stressed syllables. Southern accents originating from cities that formerly had the greatest influence and wealth in the South (Richmond, VA; Charleston, SC; Atlanta, Macon, and Savannah, GA; and all of Florida) do not participate in Stage 2.[27]
    • Stage 3 (/ɪ/ → [iə], and /i/ → [ɪi]): /ɪ/ (as in hit or lick) and /i/ (as in beam or meet) both can become diphthongs whose nuclei switch positions, with /ɪ/ raising towards [iə], and /i/ lowering towards [ɪi]. Stage 3 is most common in heavily stressed syllables, particularly of Inland Southern speakers, like the rest of the Southern shift.[27]
      • Southern vowel breaking ("Southern drawl"): Stages 2 and 3 of the Southern Shift cause the short front pure vowels to be "broken" into gliding vowels, in words like pat, pet, and pit (almost making these one-syllable words, for example, sound like they have two syllables), which is widely recognized as a "Southern drawl." The three vowels of the aforementioned example words, "short a," "short e," and "short i," develop a glide up from their original starting position to [j], and then in some cases back down to a schwa vowel: /æ/ → [æjə]; /ɛ/ → [ɛjə]; and /ɪ/ → [ɪjə], respectively. This phenomenon is on the decline, being most typical of Southern speakers born before 1960,[28] and may be a feature shared with some varieties of older Southern.
  • Unstressed, word-final /ŋ/ → [n]: The phoneme /ŋ/ in an unstressed syllable at the end of a word fronts to [n], so that singing /ˈsɪŋɪŋ/ is sometimes written phonetically as singin [ˈsɪŋɪn].[29] This is common in vernacular English dialects around the world.
  • Lax and tense vowels often neutralize before /l/, making pairs like feel/fill and fail/fell homophones for speakers in some areas of the South. Some speakers may distinguish between the two sets of words by reversing the normal vowel sound, e.g., feel in Southern may sound like fill, and vice versa.[30]
  • The back vowel /u/ (in goose or true) is fronted in the mouth and often broken into a gliding vowel.
  • Back Upglide (Chain) Shift: In Southern regional (and Southeastern super-regional) dialects, /aʊ/ shifts forward and upward to [æʊ] (also possibly realized, variously, as [æjə~æo~ɛɔ~eo]); thus allowing the back vowel /ɔː/ to fill an area similar to the former position of /aʊ/ in the mouth, becoming lowered and developing an upglide [ɑɒ]; this, in turn, allows (though only for the most advanced Southern speakers) the upgliding /ɔɪ/, before /l/, to lose its glide [ɔː] (for instance, causing the word boils to sound something like the British or New York City pronunciations of About this sound balls).[31]
  • The vowel /ʌ/, as in bug, luck, strut, etc., is realized as [ɜ], occasionally fronted to [ɛ̈] or raised in the mouth to [ə]. In former plantation areas, a more backed form, [ʌ], is common among older speakers.[32]
  • /z/ becomes [d] before /n/, for example [ˈwʌdn̩t] wasn't, [ˈbɪdnɪs] business,[33] but hasn't is sometimes still pronounced [ˈhæzənt] because there already exists a word hadn't pronounced [ˈhædn̩t].
  • Many nouns are stressed on the first syllable that would be stressed on the second syllable in other accents.[28] These include police, cement, Detroit, Thanksgiving, insurance, behind, display, hotel, motel, recycle, TV, guitar, July, and umbrella.

Inland South and Texas[edit]

Main articles: Appalachian English and Texan English

ANAE identifies the "Inland South" as a large linguistic area of the South located mostly in southern Appalachia, inland from the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts, and the originating region of the Southern Vowel Shift. The Inland South, along with the "Texas South" (the geographic majority of the state of Texas), are considered the two major places in which the newer Southern sound system is the most evolved, and therefore the core pronunciation areas of the modern-day South.[34]

The accents of Texas are actually diverse, for example with important Spanish influences on its vocabulary;[35] however, it is still primarily an unambiguous region of Southern speech, with the current-day west and central Texan dialect, notably including the cities of Dallas, Abilene, Lubbock, Odessa, and, marginally, Amarillo,[36] being rhotic and fully realizing all threes stages of the Southern Shift.[37] In western Texas, the phoneme /ɔː/ may remain a pure vowel.[38]

Phonology of Atlanta and Charleston[edit]

ANAE identifies Atlanta, Georgia as a dialectal "island of non-Southern speech,"[39] and Charleston, South Carolina likewise as "not markedly Southern in character," despite these being two prominent Southern cities. The modern dialect of Atlanta is extremely young, influenced by a huge movement of non-Southerners into the area during the 1990s,[40] while the modern dialect of Charleston has evolved as a Midland-influenced update of the traditional Lowcountry dialect, whose speech patterns were "diametrically opposed to the Southern Shift... and differ in many other respects from the main body of Southern dialects."[41] For this reason, the following vowel sounds of Atlanta and Charleston have been unaffected by typical Southern phenomena like the Southern drawl and Southern Vowel Shift:[40]

However, the modern dialects of Atlanta and Charleston do, in fact, incorporate the general Southeastern super-regional features listed above and can be mostly regarded as varieties of Midland English.[40][42]

Phonology of Southern Louisiana[edit]

Acadiana[edit]

Main article: Cajun English

Since the early 1900s, Cajuns of southern Louisiana, though historically monolingual French speakers, began to develop their own vernacular dialect of English, which retains some influences and words from Acadian/Cajun French, such as "cher" (dear) or "nonc" (uncle). This dialect fell out of fashion after World War II, but experienced a renewal in primarily male speakers born since the 1970s, who have been the most appealed by, and the biggest appealers for, a successful Cajun cultural renaissance.[43] Speakers of Cajun Vernacular English demonstrate these major features, among many others:[44]

  • Non-rhoticity (or r-dropping), for the most part.
  • High nasalization, even in vowels before nasal consonants.
  • Deletion of any word's final consonant(s): Examples are that hand becomes [hæ̃], food becomes [fuː], rent becomes [ɹɪ̃], New York becomes [nuˈjɔə], and so on.[44]
  • Universal glide weakening: A particular process of glide weakening is common in the South for certain gliding vowels; however, Cajun English is distinct in that every single English gliding vowel is subject to glide weakening or deletion. For instance, /oʊ/ (as in Joe), /eɪ/ (as in jay), and /ɔɪ/ (as in joy) have somewhat or entirely reduced glides: [oː], [eː], and [ɔː], respectively.[44]
  • Cot–caught merger towards [ä].[44]

New Orleans[edit]

Main article: New Orleans English

Southern Louisiana, as well as some of southeast Texas (Houston to Beaumont), and coastal Mississippi, feature a number of dialects influenced by other languages beyond English. Most of southern Louisiana constitutes Acadiana, dominated for hundreds of years by monolingual speakers of Cajun French,[43] which combines elements of Acadian French with other French and Spanish words. This French dialect is spoken by many of the older members of the Cajun ethnic group and is said to be dying out. A related language called Louisiana Creole also exists.

One historical English dialect spoken only by those raised in the Greater New Orleans area is non-rhotic and remarkably shares more pronunciation commonalities with the New York City dialect than with other Southern dialects. Since at least the 1980s, this dialect has popularly been called "Yat," from the common local greeting "Where you at?". The New York City English features shared with this dialect include:[40]

  • Non-rhoticity
  • Short-a split system (so that bad and back, for example, have different vowels)
  • /ɔː/ as high, often with a glide [ɔə].
  • /ɑr/ as rounded [ɒː~ɔː].
  • Coil–curl merger, traditionally (though now in decline).

Yat also lacks the typical vowel changes of the Southern Shift and the pin–pen merger that are commonly heard elsewhere throughout the South. Yat is associated with the working and lower middle classes, though a spectrum with fewer notable Yat features is often heard the higher one's socioeconomic status; such New Orleans affluence is associated with the New Orleans Uptown and the Garden District, and its speech patterns are sometimes considered a separate variety altogether from the Yat dialect.[45]

Additionally, many unique terms such as "neutral ground"[46] for the median of a divided street (Louisiana/Southern Mississippi) or "banquette"[47] for a sidewalk (southern Louisiana/eastern Texas) are found in New Orleans and elsewhere in coastal Louisiana.

Grammar and vocabulary[edit]

Newer features[edit]

Frequency of either "Y'all" or "You all" to address multiple people, according to an Internet survey of American dialect variation.[48]
Frequency of just "Y'all" to address multiple people, according to an Internet survey of American dialect variation.[48]
  • Use of the contraction y'all as the second person plural pronoun.[49] Its uncombined form – you all – is used less frequently.[50]
    • When addressing a group, y'all is general (I know y'all) and is used to address the group as a whole, whereas all y'all is used to emphasize specificity of each and every member of the group ("I know all y'all.") The possessive form of Y'all is created by adding the standard "-'s".
      "I've got y'all's assignments here." /ˈjɔːlz/
    • Y'all is distinctly separate from the singular you. The statement "I gave y'all my truck payment last week," is more precise than "I gave you my truck payment last week." You (if interpreted as singular) could imply the payment was given directly to the person being spoken to – when that may not be the case.
    • Some people misinterpret the phrase "all y'all" as meaning that Southerners use the "y'all" as singular and "all y'all" as plural. However, "all y'all" is used to specify that all members of the second person plural (i.e., all persons currently being addressed and/or all members of a group represented by an addressee) are included; that is, it operates in contradistinction to "some of y'all", thereby functioning similarly to "all of you" in standard English.
  • In rural Southern Appalachia an "n" is added to pronouns indicating "one" "his'n" "his one" "her'n" "her one" "Yor'n" "your one" i.e. "his, hers and yours". Another example is yernses. It may be substituted for the 2nd person plural possessive yours.
    "That book is yernses." /ˈjɜrnzɨz/
  • Use of dove as past tense for dive, drug as past tense for drag, brung as past tense for bring, and drunk as past tense for drink.[citation needed]

Shared newer and older features[edit]

These grammatical features are characteristic of both older Southern American English and newer Southern American English.

  • Use of done as an auxiliary verb between the subject and verb in sentences conveying the past tense.
    I done told you before.
  • Use of done (instead of did) as the past simple form of do, and similar uses of the past participle in place of the past simple, such as seen replacing saw as past simple form of see.
    I only done what you done told me.
    I seen her first.
  • Use of other non-standard preterites, Such as drownded as the past tense of drown, knowed as past tense of know, choosed as the past tense of choose, degradated as the past tense of degrade.
    I knowed you for a fool soon as I seen you.
  • Use of was in place of were, or other words regularizing the past tense of be to was.[citation needed]
    You was sittin' on that chair.
  • Use of been instead of have been in perfect constructions.
    I been livin' here darn near my whole life.
  • Use of double modals (might could, might should, might would, used to could, etc.--also called "modal stacking") and sometimes even triple modals that involve oughta (like might should oughta)
    I might could climb to the top.
    I used to could do that.
  • Use of (a-)fixin' to, or just "fixing to" in more modern Southern, to indicate immediate future action in place of intending to, preparing to, or about to.
    He's fixin' to eat.
    They're fixing to go for a hike.
  • Preservation of older English me, him, etc. as reflexive datives.
    I'm fixin' to paint me a picture.
    He's gonna catch him a big one.
  • Saying this here in place of this or this one, and that there in place of that or that one.
    This here's mine and that there is yours.
  • Existential It, a feature dating from Middle English which can be explained as substituting it for there when there refers to no physical location, but only to the existence of something.
    It's one lady that lives in town.
  • Use of ever in place of every.
    Ever'where's the same these days.
  • Use of "over yonder" in place of "over there" or "in or at that indicated place", especially to refer to a particularly different spot, such as in "the house over yonder". Additionally, "yonder" tends to refer to a third, larger degree of distance beyond both "here" and "there", indicating that something is a longer way away, and to a lesser extent, in a wide or loosely defined expanse, as in the church hymn "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder".[51]

African American Vernacular English[edit]

Main article: African American Vernacular English

"Southern U.S. English" popularly refers to those dialects spoken by White Southerners;[9] however, as a geographic term, it may also encompass the dialects developed among other social or ethnic groups in the South, most prominently including African Americans. African American Vernacular English is spoken primarily by African Americans throughout the United States, deriving from varieties that developed out of the South.

This variety originated in the Southern States where Africans and African Americans were held as slaves until the American Civil War. These slaves originally spoke indigenous African languages but eventually picked up English to communicate with their masters and one another. Since the slave masters spoke Southern American English, that is the dialect of English the slaves learned. Over time, the form of Southern spoken by these slaves developed into what is now African American Vernacular English, which retains many Southern features. Like Virginia Piedmont, Coastal Southern, and Florida Cracker dialects, AAVE is largely non-rhotic. While the African slaves and their descendants lost most of their language and culture, some vocabulary and grammatical features from indigenous West African languages remain in AAVE. While AAVE may also be spoken by members of other racial groups, it is largely spoken by and associated with blacks in many parts of the U.S. AAVE is considered by a number of English speakers to be a substandard dialect. As a result, AAVE speakers who seek social mobility typically learn to code-switch between AAVE and a more standardized English dialect. Liberian English is said to be at least partially based on AAVE, since that dialect of English was modeled after American English and not British English.

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ "ASA 147th Meeting Lay Language Papers - The Nationwide Speech Project". Acoustics.org. 2004-05-27. Retrieved 2012-11-08. 
  2. ^ http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/NationalMap/NatMap1.html
  3. ^ "American English Dialects". Aschmann.net. Retrieved 2012-11-08. 
  4. ^ Thomas (2006:4, 11)
  5. ^ Stephen J. Nagle & Sara L. Sanders (2003). English in the Southern United States. Cambridge University Press. p. 35[This page differentiates between "Traditional Southern" and "New Southern"] 
  6. ^ "Southern". Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, based on Random House, Inc. 2014[See definition 7.] 
  7. ^ "Southern". Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, Inc. 2014[See under the "noun" heading.] 
  8. ^ Thomas, Erik R. (2007) "Phonological and phonetic characteristics of African American Vernacular English," Language and Linguistics Compass, 1, 450–75. p. 453
  9. ^ a b (Thomas (2006)
  10. ^ "Do You Speak American: What Lies Ahead". pbs.org. Retrieved 2007-08-15. 
  11. ^ Map from the Telsur Project. Retrieved 2009-08-03.
  12. ^ Map from Craig M. Carver (1987), American Regional Dialects: A Word Geography, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Retrieved 2009-08-03
  13. ^ a b c d Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:137)
  14. ^ Southard, Bruce. "Speech Patterns". Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Oklahoma Historical Society. Retrieved October 29, 2015. 
  15. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:141)
  16. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:263)
  17. ^ Thomas (2006:14)
  18. ^ Thomas (2006:9)
  19. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:261)
  20. ^ Thomas (2006:16)
  21. ^ Thomas (2006:15)
  22. ^ Thomas (2006:1–2)
  23. ^ Heggarty, Paul et al, eds. (2013). "Accents of English from Around the World". University of Edinburgh. 
  24. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:244)
  25. ^ A Handbook of Varieties of English: Volume 1, p. 301, 311-312
  26. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:245)
  27. ^ a b Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:248)
  28. ^ a b Thomas (2006:5)
  29. ^ Stephen J. Nagle & Sara L. Sanders (2003). English in the Southern United States. Cambridge University Press. p. 151. 
  30. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:69–73)
  31. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:254)
  32. ^ Thomas (2006:7)
  33. ^ Wolfram (2004:55)
  34. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:148, 150)
  35. ^ American Varieties: Texan English. Public Broadcasting Service. MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. 2005.
  36. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:131, 164, 254)
  37. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:69)
  38. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:254)
  39. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:181)
  40. ^ a b c d Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:260–1)
  41. ^ a b Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:259–260)
  42. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:68)
  43. ^ a b Dubois, Sylvia and Barbara Horvath (2004). "Cajun Vernacular English: phonology." In Bernd Kortmann and Edgar W. Schneider (Ed). A Handbook of Varieties of English: A Multimedia Reference Tool. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. p. 412-4.
  44. ^ a b c d Dubois, Sylvia and Barbara Horvath (2004). "Cajun Vernacular English: phonology." In Bernd Kortmann and Edgar W. Schneider (Ed). A Handbook of Varieties of English: A Multimedia Reference Tool. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. p. 409-10.
  45. ^ Alvarez, Louis (director) (1985). Yeah You Rite! (Short documentary film). USA: Center for New American Media. 
  46. ^ "neutral ground". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. Retrieved 2008-09-08. 
  47. ^ "banquette". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. Retrieved 2008-09-15. 
  48. ^ a b http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/states.html
  49. ^ Harvard Dialect Survey - word use: a group of two or more people.
  50. ^ Hazen, Kirk and Fluharty, Ellen. "Linguistic Diversity in the South: changing Codes, Practices and Ideology". Page 59. Georgia University Press; 1st Edition: 2004. ISBN .0-8203-2586-4
  51. ^ Regional Note from The Free Dictionary

References[edit]

  1. ^ The only notable exceptions of the South being a subset of the "Southeastern super-region" are two Southern metropolitan areas, described as such because they participate in Stage 1 of the Southern Vowel Shift, but lack the other defining Southeastern features: Savannah, Georgia and Amarillo, Texas.
  • Bernstein, Cynthia (2003). "Grammatical features of southern speech". In In Stephen J. Nagel and Sara L. Sanders, eds.,. English in the Southern United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-82264-5. 
  • Crystal, David (2000). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-82348-X. 
  • Cukor-Avila, Patricia (2003). "The complex grammatical history of African-American and white vernaculars in the South". In In Stephen J. Nagel and Sara L. Sanders, eds.,. English in the Southern United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-82264-5. 
  • Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (2006), The Atlas of North American English, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, ISBN 3-11-016746-8 
  • Hazen, Kirk, and Fluharty, Ellen (2004). "Defining Appalachian English". In Bender, Margaret. Linguistic Diversity in the South. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 0-8203-2586-4. 
  • Wolfram, Walt; Schilling-Estes, Natalie (2004), American English (Second ed.), Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing 
  • Thomas, Erik R. (2003), "Rural White Southern Accents" (PDF), Atlas of North American English (online) (Mouton de Gruyter): 1–37. [Later published as a chapter in: Bernd Kortmann and Edgar W. Schneider (eds) (2004). A Handbook of Varieties of English: A Multimedia Reference Tool. New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 300-324.] 

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