Southern American English
Few generalizations can be made about Southern pronunciation as a whole, as there is great variation between regions in the South (see different southern American English dialects for more information) and between older and younger people. Upheavals such as the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl and World War II have caused mass migrations throughout the United States. Southern American English as we know it today began to take its current shape only after World War II. Some generalizations include:
- The conditional merger of and before nasal consonants, the pin–pen merger.
- The diphthong /aɪ/ becomes monophthongized to /aː/.
- Lax and tense vowels often merge before /l/
The South Midland dialect follows the Ohio River in a generally southwesterly direction, moves across Arkansas and Oklahoma west of the Mississippi, and peters out in West Texas. It is a version of the Midland speech that has assimilated some coastal Southern forms, most noticeably the loss of the diphthong, which becomes, and the second person plural pronoun "you-all" or "y'all."
South Midlands speech is characterized by:
- monophthongization of as, for example, most dialects' "I" → "Ah" in the South.
- raising of initial vowel of to ; the initial vowel is often lengthened and prolonged, yielding .
- nasalization of vowels, esp. diphthongs, before .
- raising of to ; can't → cain't, etc.
- Unlike most American English, but like British English, glides (, the y sound) are inserted before after the consonants, and ; that is to say, yod-dropping does not occur.
- South Midlands speech is rhotic. This is the principal feature that distinguishes South Midland speech from the non-rhotic coastal Southern varieties.
Read more about this topic: North American English Regional Phonology
Famous quotes containing the words southern, american and/or english:
“When Abraham Lincoln penned the immortal emancipation proclamation he did not stop to inquire whether every man and every woman in Southern slavery did or did not want to be free. Whether women do or do not wish to vote does not affect the question of their right to do so.”
—Mary E. Haggart, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“The rising power of the United States in world affairs ... requires, not a more compliant press, but a relentless barrage of facts and criticism.... Our job in this age, as I see it, is not to serve as cheerleaders for our side in the present world struggle but to help the largest possible number of people to see the realities of the changing and convulsive world in which American policy must operate.”
—James Reston (b. 1909)
“The apparent rulers of the English nation are like the imposing personages of a splendid procession: it is by them the mob are influenced; it is they whom the spectators cheer. The real rulers are secreted in second-rate carriages; no one cares for them or asks after them, but they are obeyed implicitly and unconsciously by reason of the splendour of those who eclipsed and preceded them.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)