7 Southern US Accents You WON’T Understand

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๐ŸŠ If you've never been to the Southern US, you're missing out on some fantastic accents! Never fear, I've gone to the trouble of finding these quirky American accents for you–from the mountains to the bayous, to the Deep South. But can you guess them quick enough? Let me know in the comments which Southern American accents you got, and which ones got you!

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โฑ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 – Intro
0:34 – Accent #1
2:45 – Accent #2
4:19 – Accent #3
6:45 – Accent #4
10:18 – Accent #5
12:56 – Accent #6
18:01 – Bonus Accent

๐Ÿ“œ SOURCES & ATTRIBUTIONS:

๐ŸŽฌ Video Clips:

Jean Antoine
 

  • @storylearning says:

    Up for another accent challenge? ๐Ÿ‘‰๐Ÿผhttps://youtu.be/jTViP7QoW0k?si=CIklBTjz9gHqDNQ1

  • @sterlingdafydd5834 says:

    Iโ€™m teaching a Ukrainian Englishโ€ฆ.but heโ€™s so advanced that Iโ€™m really teaching him Texan English as I was born and brought up in Houstonโ€ฆhe just learned about Louisiana and the Cajuns (cajun music/ Mardi Gras)โ€ฆ.so thank you for this videoโ€ฆ.i will definitely recommend it to others learning โ€œAmericanโ€ English..!!
    PS my mother is from Llanidloes, Wales ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ท๓ ฌ๓ ณ๓ ฟโ€ฆso Iโ€™m not ALL AMERICAN..!!!

    • @Donathon-qx8kq says:

      OMG you’re all the way in Houston lol ( I’m from Houston….We Are Texans…. sorry it was a really great season)….I have to admit I have lived on the Texas/Louisiana border for a looong time….. Have a Great Day

    • @jamesborrow5949 says:

      I am welsh (born and live in Wales) that’s cool

    • @johnsamu says:

      Wales? I just learned a tiny bit about the very interesting history of long forgotten(post Roman) Welsh kingdoms (eg the origin of the “Prince of Wales”title).
      HOWEVER the names of all these little kingdoms, chiefs, towns, provinces consist of ALL the letters of the alphabet in a seemingly random sequence๐Ÿ˜ฏ๐Ÿ˜ฏ๐Ÿ˜ฏ
      So I’ll never be able to visit Wales because when I get lost I don’t know the difference between LLLGRVCSD and XXLKHGJRW ๐Ÿ˜‰๐Ÿ˜‰๐Ÿ˜๐Ÿ˜

  • @MichaelPhillipsatGreyOwlStudio says:

    Appalachia is pronounced AP-uh-LATCH-uh, not AP-uh-LAY-sha. The locals will throw an apple atcha if you get that one wrong.

    • @storylearning says:

      Good to know!

    • @sdmartintn says:

      My wife is from central PA in the northern Appalachian mountains. She swears itโ€™s AYE-sha. Iโ€™m from East Tennessee, so we disagree;-)

    • @emilypons956 says:

      I also disagree with your wife. With love from your neighbor in SWVA ๐Ÿ˜‰

    • @wikdbill9693 says:

      As an Appalachian American, I approve of this message.

    • @peregrination3643 says:

      I don’t think I heard that until I had a teacher from NC. And sure enough, when my dad and I drove along the Appalachians on the way to northern Virginia, all the locals contradicted what the rest of the country called it. While I defer to local pronunciations, I feel like I’d be a poser if I pronounced like a local, lol. But perhaps a lack of an accent would show I’m not trying to pose.

  • @R32R38 says:

    What distinguishes the Southern accent from other parts of the US is the pin:pen merger, in which both words are pronounced the same. It’s why some people from the South use the term “ink pen.”

  • @garrettedebord915 says:

    From East TN here! The three divisions have different influences for sure. East TN was greatly influenced by the Scots-Irish while the further west you go has more of an English influence. You can still find influences from Elizabethan England in the mountains that arenโ€™t in other places due to how shut off we were for so long from everyone else.

    • @storylearning says:

      Fascinating!

    • @msam2357 says:

      Agreed! Iโ€™m from East TN too. After TVA and the Manhattan Project came through in the first half of the 20th century, accents started to mix. That said, I grew up two counties over from Dolly Parton, and we sound nothing alike but Iโ€™ve heard that accent on my life.

      When the high school football teams would play against each other in state championships, sometimes I think they needed a translator!

  • @juannoval69 says:

    Texas accents can be quite different from one end of the state to the other. You should do a video exclusively on Texas. =)

  • @nateonmission says:

    I spent the first 28 years of my life in East Tennessee (near Knoxville), then 19 in Louisville Kentucky and just moved to Mobile Alabama. So, I loved this video and seeing the comments from those not from here.

  • @regX02 says:

    Hi Olly, it’s an amazing video, as always! I’m suggesting for you to make a video about the main accents of the portuguese language, or even the main accents of the brazilian portuguese. Greetings from Brazil!!๐Ÿ˜‰๐Ÿ’ช๐Ÿคœ๐Ÿค›๐Ÿ‘

  • @williamlejeune8611 says:

    As a Cajun myself you properly presented our beautiful dialects โค๏ธ!

  • @jimgreen5788 says:

    Olly, just in case someone out there didn’t recognize the blonde at 6:20, it’s Dolly Parton.
    After hearing about these people for a number of years, last summer, their area was a place I stopped on vacation–the Gullah-Geechee, and their “accent” has actually been re-classed as an actual language.
    The biggest clue for me on the Cajuns was the “squeeze box” accordion in the little band.
    Oops! I just about hit “comment” when I realized I still needed to comment on the Cherokees. Their language is the #6 most spoken tribal language in the USA, with 22,000 speakers.

    • @gehrkegehrke2000 says:

      Everyone knows who Dolly Parton is – sheยดs the Godmother of Miley Cyrus

    • @jimgreen5788 says:

      @@gehrkegehrke2000, don’t assume that everyone in the country knows and loves Dolly. My brother, for instance, used to be a ’60s rocker, and prides himself on refusing to listen to anything remotely related to country music. He despises it. Not only that, but as she’s aged, she somehow doesn’t look like herself anymore.

  • @john-paulbitler3657 says:

    As an East Tennessean, I couldnโ€™t recognize the Tennessee accent until Dolly came on. Northeast Tennessee and Memphis have vastly different dialects

    • @storylearning says:

      Very interesting!

    • @Kelnx says:

      @@storylearning Same here. I had a hard time guessing some of these because it really depends on where in a state you will hear what kind of accent and also if they are rural/suburban/urban/mountain. You can hear very similar accents in parts of Georgia and Tennessee for example but go up or down the road a bit and it changes.

      One accent you might want to look into is Tidewater area of Virginia. They sound like something out of 18th century England, particularly the ones from that Tangier Island.

    • @pamspray5254 says:

      Then there’s me over here who’s only been through Tennessee a few times picking up on it almost instantly. I grew up in close contact with Texan, Alabaman, and Missourian accents along with a smidge of west coast. I think being familiar with Alabama and Missouri in particular lends itself to picking up on Tennessee.

  • @Perpetualnerd63 says:

    I was always embarrassed by my Kentucky accent. Thanks for letting us know that we’re not alone Olly!

  • @kerim.peardon5551 says:

    Southern accents don’t stop at state lines–instead, they are typically geographical. The Cumberland Plateau (where I am from) is the western border of Eastern TN and it has its own accent. It descends into Alabama and I sound more like the people in northern Alabama (including the people featured in your video) than I do people 50 miles east or west of the Plateau in TN.

    But, if you go back a few generations, you’ll hear people on the Plateau sound like the Appalachian people out of the Foxfire books. My grandmother would say “warsh” instead of “wash” and “far” and “tar” instead of “fire” and “tire.” A combination of education and influence from outsiders has changed the accent. My mother did not pronounce words that way, despite growing up in the same place where my grandmother grew up. And I don’t pronounce words the same as my mother, despite growing up in the same county–for instance, she says “yella” instead of “yellow.”

  • @expmin1 says:

    Interesting video! I devoured TV from all parts of the US and the UK when I was learning English, so it got easier and easier to understand various accents. As a non-native learning English from home, I found long-running TV shows were great material for that. I remember southern accents were really hard to understand at first. I could place Georgia (lived there for a couple months) and Louisiana. The most difficult english accent I ever experienced in real life was from Glasgow though…

  • @norcimorci says:

    I must be weird, but I LOVE dialects and accents. Makes languages magical. It would be a shame if any of these would die out.

  • @jsphat81 says:

    As a New Yorker, I guessed all of them correctly except Kentucky, West Virginia and North Carolina. It helped that you gave out some clues such as “Blues” and “Bayou” in your explanations. Cool video. It really shows how diverse the USA really is.

  • @ava_ruth_wagner says:

    As a true Southerner from South Carolina, I love to see what other people’s perceptions of us are; what’s sad is that alot of ppl still have prejudice against Southern accents and think we’re all hicks or dumb

    • @TheMVCoho says:

      That perception was purposeful propaganda introduced by politicians in US to justify the murderous acts of The War of Northern aggression. The south was better educated and society more proper and thus the need to stigmatize the people whom you can just invaded was paramount in saving face for the north. This has persisted to this day and accounts for the fake accents and backwards portrayals seen from Hollywood. In other ways the effects of the war lead to extreme poverty as reconstruction didn’t happen and neither did the deportation/assimilation of former slaves. This is why racism isn’t much of thing in the south and yet is such a fascination in other parts of the country that lack the large natural integration of racial diversity which has long been a reality in the south.

  • @captainireland1375 says:

    im irish and ive never heard an american accent in person apart from like 3 or 4 times in my life but never a southern american accent, however, i understood every one of these accents i actually find it much harder to understand some rural irish accents

  • @AlbertHardyJr says:

    Thank you for that tour of the South. I did understand almost everything that was said, having grown up in North Carolina. As others have pointed out about their States, there are many accents across NC–from the hillbillies of the mountains to the residents of the Outer Banks. I’ve heard that the Outer Banks were so isolated that the accent there is closer to that of the British Isles. And there’s the Gullah language from South Carolina and Georgia.

  • @119438hm says:

    I live in oklahoma and I hear anything from georgia to midwest accents nearly daily. I have a slight twang to my voice myself at times. I used to sound more midwestern but I’ve grown attached to saying “y’all” now โค

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