Speaking of Southern...Dialects
By Vicki Wilkerson
One of the most identifiable characteristics about Southerners
is dialect. I’ve noticed that many people beyond the Mason-Dixon Line, however,
believe that this characteristic is pretty much generic—as evidenced by
Hollywood’s bungling of the Southern brogue in numerous movies and television
shows (and some even believe that Southern speech is accompanied by a slight…dulling
of intellect—but that is another blog article entirely—and one which I cannot
wait to address).
To most astute Southerners—and linguistic professors—the
myriad dialects identify very specific geographic locations and demographic
factors. I am particularly attuned to the numerous variances around the
Charleston, South Carolina, area. That’s right. There is not a single accent in
any given city. In the Charleston Lowcountry one can find the downtown gentry
brogue, Geechee, Gullah, rural South, redneck South and—what I call—university Southern
(where one’s education dumbs down one’s dialect), among others. Each of these vernaculars
can be pure, or they can be—and many times are—combinations of several of
these. To figure out how many different dialects can be found in one particular
area, we’d have to pull out some logarithmic equations—and we just don’t want
to have to do that because we’ll get a headache.
Each city or area in the South has a unique combination of
dialects, speech indicators, and speech patterns that include distinctive phonological
features and lexical differences. It could be an exhaustive study to categorize
them all—fascinating, but nevertheless, exhausting. Authentic Southern writers
are able to discern and communicate some of those nuances in their books and
are able to add depth and layers to their stories by imbedding those tones,
gradations and distinctions on their pages. One can only wish that Hollywood
would follow suit—or at least do just a little homework.
Southern dialects developed mostly because of geographical
isolation and economic practices. Think about it. Why don’t we hear the
Southern dialect above the Mason-Dixon Line? Because they weren’t engaged in
plantation economics. Plantations were geographically isolated—for the most
part—and required slave labor to flourish. Many Southern dialects were directly
influenced by the African-Americans who worked on those isolated acres. And
because those workers came from different parts of Africa (and the plantation
owners came from different parts of Europe), dialects across the South combined
to create precise identifiers of the people who spoke in particular areas.
The more successful plantation families were able to send
their sons to fine schools in England, and much of their speech was refined
there, and they brought those influences back home. The amount of time spent in
cities and in American schools also influenced the Southern dialect.
With the advent of television, speech is a bit different
today. Even the most severe of dialects gets affected by the generic Midwestern
pattern that the mainstream media values and tries to emulate. Travel,
education, geographic location, and media exposure affect Southern dialects
today.
No matter, however, how far one travels, how well one gets
educated or how much CNN one watches, traces of Southern dialect can be
detected if one listens quietly to the lilt, and rhythms, and pace of words. And
if you care to, you can ascertain much about Southerners by appreciating the
beauty and history bound up in their language.
