Tawkin' Suthern: How to Speak with a Southern Accent
In the Summer of 2009, I landed in northwest Louisiana for a few months and fell head over heels in love with the accent of that region. In truth, this love affair hadn't sprouted overnight: for one thing, my companion had grown up in the South, and for some years I had been yearning to learn to "tawk" as she did. From afar the task had seemed unsurmountable, but with my feet firmly planted on Southern ground, it now seemed that perhaps my chance had come.
I don't claim to have mastered the Suthern language; far from it. But my partner doesn't cringe as much as she used to when I practice. And, if that's any measure of achievement, I can fake my way through short conversations... when I travel through places such as rural parts of New Zealand.
This page brings together some of the material and resources I came across in my Suthern apprenticeship, in the hope that it may help others who fall under the spell of the gorgeous Southern tones.
About the Audio on this Page
By clicking the "Play" icons throughout the page, you can hear many words and expressions spoken by native Suthern speakers. At the moment the site only features the voices of two speakers from Northwest Louisiana, to whom I am grateful and who shall remain anonymous. More voices will be added over time, I hope.If you are still wondering what all the fuss about the Southern accents is about, the following track should take care of your questions.
Introduction to Suthern
Why Learn Suthern?
Apparently, some look down on the Southern accents; I look up. If I try to make the Southern sounds come out of my own mouth, it is not to poke fun. How could I make fun of something I find not only exquisite but also very hard to do? When everyone around you—from the man who packs your groceries at the store to the federal judge—produces without effort this language that is incredibly sweet on the ear, not being able to speak it makes you a bit of an alien. It's a handicap.Many Southern Accents
In Acting with an Accent, David Stern (a Northerner) distinguishes four kinds of Southern accents. He calls them "General American Southern," "Plantation," "Hillbilly" and "Panhandle-Texas". This distinction may do for a Connecticut college play, but the regional accents have a far greater flavor range than these four catch-all boxes.In Louisiana alone, according to my companion, one can count three major accents: the accents of New Orleans, South Louisiana and North Louisiana. Apparently, the New Orleans accent—called Yat for "where are you at?"—sounds a bit like a New Jersey accent! And then, without leaving Louisiana, your accent will also depend on how old you are, on your skin color and on whether you live in the country or in Baton Rouge.
Presumably, accents vary just as widely within most of the other southern States. And what are those States?
Once, my companion said this: “When I think of the South, I guess I also think of poverty.” Then we looked at the list of the USA's 50 States, sorted by income. Here is the bottom of the list:
45—Louisiana
46—Alabama
47—Kentucky
48—Arkansas
49—West Virginia
50—Mississippi
But there is no final agreement about what counts as part of "The South". Here is an answer I got one morning:
“What I'd call the 'deep South' is Mississipi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana. Then there's Texas… the Florida panhandle… Tennesse, Arkansas… North Carolina… Technically, Virginia… Let me see what they say on Wikipedia. They have Oklahoma… Wow, they even include Kentucky!… and Missouri!… Oh my gosh, they say that the South Atlantic States include DC, Maryland and Delaware… You have got to be joking. But that's what the US census bureau does—they are not tapped into any kind of cultural nuance. It seems to me they just look for a clear way to make a straight line on the map.”
I guess this tells you that somebody's South can be someone else's North. Conversely, from the perspective of a Massachussetts resident, everything south of the Mason-Dixon line (as high north as the Maryland-Pennsylvania border) might as well be called "the South", and before the Civil War it was indeed the dividing line between the slave States and the free States.
By the way, I used to remember the "Mason-Dixon" as the "Mason-Dixie" line. If this tells you that I suck at history, you would be right. The reason for my confusion is that the word "Dixie" is often used to designate the Southern United States. Well, it turns out that Dixie has nothing to do with Dixon. I read that a long long time ago, in Louisiana, ten-dollar bills used to bear the word dix, which is French for "ten". So Louisiana became known as the land of "dixes", pronounced "dixies". Then this spread to the whole South.
My Favorite Southern Accent
Of the four broad accent groups presented by Stern, the one I love the most is the "Panhandle-Texas" accent. The panhandle is the flat part of Florida on the Gulf of Mexico. Some people call it southern Alabama because culturally it is closer to Birmingham than to Miami. Others call it "the redneck riviera" because it sits on hundreds of miles of white sand beaches, of which the most famous is Panama City.Stern's "Panhandle-Texas" accent is what Wikipedia's helpful classification of regional Southern dialects calls "Gulf Southern", in reference to the Gulf of Mexico. My companion confirms that there is a general kinship between the accents across the Gulf of Mexico—from the Florida panhandle to Alabama (which would be on the Gulf if Florida hadn't stolen the panhandle), Mississipi, Louisiana and Eastern Texas. I don't know much about the variations within that huge region. The accent I have been trying to learn is the one from North Louisiana, both because that's where I landed for four months in 2009 and because I love it. To my ears, the accent there is pretty strong. And when it comes to Suthern, I am a junkie: the stronger the accent, the better.
Dudden, Iden, Waden
Before we get technical about features of Southern accents, I'll share the one feature that first tickled me when I lived in California and came across people from the South. This feature alone ignited my love affair with southern speech. It is "Dudden, Iden and Waden".Dudden means "doesn't". (Some spell it "dudn".)
Iden means "isn't".
Waden means "wasn't". (It could be spelled "wudn".)
These words are a trademark of Suthern speakers. I once had a boss who said things like
"That just dudden add up,"
"That just iden right,"
"That waden what he said."
I loved it: How had that middle "D" happened to land in the middle of these words? It sounded playful.
These words are often extended for "tag questions," especially with "it" as the subject:
Duddenit (or "dudnit") means "Doesn't it?"
Idenit means "Isn't it?"
Wadenit (or "wudnit") means "Wasn't it?"
Haden
Recently, I noticed a new word in the same family: "haden," standing for "hasn't". I probably hadn't noticed it because it sounds a lot like "hadn't". I have heard it in situations where it unambiguously replaces "hasn't", as in:
– Do you think Tommy will ask Mary-Jane to marry him?
– Aah reckon he haden made up his maand yet.
For me, there is something incredibly poetic about a present tense that almost sounds like the past.
A softer "No"
"Dudden", "Iden", "Waden" and "Haden" all stand for negative conjugations: "does not", "is not", "was not", "has not". For me, the "D" somehow does something that really softens the "No". I almost wish there were a "D" word for "can not". Instead, there is "Cain't", which is pretty good too.
The Southern accent's "D rule" actually doesn't seem to be about conjugating a verb in the negative. It seems to have more to do with S'es turning into Ds when they precede an N. Thus "business" turns into "bidness".
Lilts and Drawls
In this section, I will try to present a bit of the "theory" of the Southern accents. Lilts and drawls are the two best-known features of Suthern. The drawl is a tendency to use long lazy vowels. The lilt is a feature of speech whereby the voice rises and falls on elongated vowels. Indeed, in Suthern, single vowels often turn into two, or even into three. For instance, "pen" can sound like "pe-an", or even "pe-yun".In Acting with an Accent, as he trains actors on various flavors of Suthern, David Stern presents broad features of four Southern accents. Here I have summarized Stern's framework (with its strengths and weaknesses) because I find it an effective introduction to the accents. We're going for real Suthern, (
), so take this with a grain of salt. The next section ("Even More Features of Southern Accents") goes into fun details that may also be more accurate.
Lilt truncation. Here, two vowels turn into one long one! But that long vowel has a nice lilt.
- The "Eye" sound becomes a long, lilted "Ah". And so light turns into laht. The same phenomenon is heard in words such as high, ice, finally, fire, life, my, nice, night, ride, right, time, white, and wine. This feature of Suthern is often showcased in the phrase "nice white rice".
- The "Oy" sound becomes Oh, with a lilt. This can be heard in boy, joy, poison. I haven't really heard this in Northern Louisiana.
Minor lilt extension. One vowel turns into two.
Bill → beehill
Foot → foo-at
Calm → cah-alm
Bed → be-od
Major extension. One vowel sound turns into three, adding a consonant (a "w" or a "ye" sound) in the middle of two vowels.
Short → showat
Glass → glayus
laugh → layuf
Reverse lilt extension. In parts of the South (but not in northern Louisiana), some vowels are doubled with a lilt, but with an extension that comes before the original vowel. To me that sounds more like how Australians sometimes treat their vowels.
Face → fuh-ace
Nation → nuh-ation
Great → gu-reat
Meat → muheat
The R drop
In many words, the R disappears:
Bird → buhd
In some parts of the South, the R almost turns into a Y:
Thirsty → thi-y-sty
Hair → heya
Your → yua.
This is not a feature in northern Louisiana, where some speakers turn "your" into "yoh".
T to D, T to N. This is found in most parts of the United States.
Brittish → Bridish
Twenty → Twenny
Resonance
David Stern explains that a major feature of accents is the part of the mouth where "the energy is focused". In general American speech, he says, this "energy focus" takes place in the middle of the mouth. In some types of Suthern, he claims, the focus is either more forward in the mouth or more back. This concept is hard to convey in words, but it is fun to hear on track 4 of Stern's tape.
Even More Features of Southern Accents
Pens and Pins. In much of the South, these two words are pronounced the same… and pans are not far behind. This reminds me of "The Great New Zealand Vowel," an ironic phrase some Australians use to describe a similar feature in the speech of New Zealanders, whose vowels supposedly all merge into one. It also reminds me of the neutral vowel phoneticians call "schwa"—also written "shwa" and sometimes represented with the "@" symbol.Poor and Pour. Another example of vowel merger. If you don't have a lot of money, people may think you're pore.
Feel and Fill. In some parts, these are reversed: "I fill good," "Please feel up the tank."
Tawk.
This is probably another example of what Stern calls a lilt extension. The vowel in words like "talk" often turns into two, somewhere between tah-ook and tawk.
Hold Your Consonants
When words have too many hard consonants in a row, Suthern often has a practical and charming way of breaking them up with a vowel, or of simply ignoring one of the consonants. Here are a few examples taken from HTSS:
Costs→Costes
Nuclear→Nucular
Introduce→Innerduce
Arthritis→Arthuritis
Prettiest→Purtiest
The Ree-sahcle Been Bee-hahnd the Dees-play
(The recycle bin behind the display).
Many words are stressed on the first syllable instead of the second as in other parts of the country. The most famous example is the Poh-leece, a law enforcement agency often seen on the Tee-Vee, and not just in Dee-troit.
Other examples: In-surance, Ad-ress, Ce-ment.
Pecans are in the "undecided" category. Depending on where you are in the South, it can be pronounced anywhere between "Pee-kin" (stress upfront) and "puh-Kahn" (stress last).
Not to Be
When Southerners talk about you, the verb "to be" is often dropped. "You from here? You interested?"
Getting More "Done"
I like the sound of "done". Lucky for me, there is more of it in the South.
- It can be used for emphasis: "I done told you twice."
- It can advantageously replace "did": "Forget it, I done it myself."
- It can mean "already": "I done had dinner."
Note that these uses of "done" would be more likely to crop up in a remote garage than at a dinner party.
Y'all
The plural of you. Even though I like "y'all," I have already given my love to an Australian word that serves the same purpose (when there is more than one "you"): "You's" (pronounced Use). The simple addition of the S makes "You's" both logical and compact. Compact is always good in Australia, where, when you speak, it's best to open your mouth as little as possible in order to keep flies out.
Fixin and the lost G
In the South, when one is "fixin" to do something, it means that one is about to do it: "I'm fixin to go into mah office." Yet, as in other parts of the States, "fix" can also mean "prepare": "She's fixin dinner". Sometimes, "fix" can even mean "repair"! This phrase has it all:
"I'm fixin to fix the stove so that you can fix supper." (I'm about to repair the stove so that you can prepare dinner.)
"Fixin" is an example of a Suthern grammar rule: dropping the G in all gerund forms, as in "learnin", "eatin", "workin" and so on.
Might Could
This is a feature of Suthern I relish. It is called "modal stacking" or "double modals", and it is a conjugating technique I find exceptionally effective—and elegant too. Here are examples.
"You might should call her about that."
"I might could write him a letter.
"I used to could do that." Or, better, "I usta could"—according to the phonetic spelling kindly shared by a reader from the Southwest Virgina Mountains.
Also in this department: "might ought" (no recording yet).
Other Nice Verbs
Here are other Suthern verbal constructions I like.
It don't differ to me→I don't care.
I got a mind to take a vacation→I'm thinking about it.
I'm not about to go to work for a bank→You'll never see me doing that.
I got shed of my old TV→I got rid of it.
Would you cut on the light?→Would you turn it on?
I'm standing in need of an explanation→I need one.
You best not open your mouth→I advise you not to.
I disremembered→I couldn't recall.
I cain't→I cannot.
Other Nice Nouns
Lagniappe (or Lanyap): the extra item a merchant sometimes gives you, or the extra bit of work someone throws in as a bonus when they're happy with a transaction.
A one-horse town: a pretty small town.
A weed bender: someone from a rural area. Similar to Australia's "banana benders" in reference to the inhabitants of Queensland.
Strawberry friend: someone who only shows up when you have something to share.
Izzard: the letter Z. (I'm still looking for someone to confirm that one.)
Other Nice Adjectives
The least one: the smallest.
Dad gone (or perhaps "dad gum"): a way of not saying "goddamn".
A few more words
Library→Lie-berryHere→Hair
Wish→Wush
Oven→Oben
New Orleans→Nawlins
Yours, ours→Yourn, Ourn
Expressions
In this section, I am trying to collect a few colorful and effective sayings.Dad burn it! : a polite rendition of "God damn it".
That dog won't hunt: This is not going to work.
He's all hat and no cattle: About someone who's more talk than substance.
He couldn't manage his way out of a paper bag: He's incompetent.
Hold your potato: Be patient.
Cut your own weeds: Mind your own business.
In all my born days, I haven't seen such a thing: Not in my entire life.
You think I was born on crazy creek?: You think I'm stupid?
He chews his own tobacco: He's independent.
That ain't fitting: That's not the way nice people behave.
I gave him a piece of my mind: I let him have it.
He's in a bad way: He's very ill.
He could talk a cat out of a tree: He's persuasive.
That's in my behind: It already happened.
Southern Lexicon
There are excellent books and lists that try to phonetically reproduce how words are pronounced in the South. For instance, "fowar" for "four". The entries usually come with humorous definitions, for instance:Fowar. The number of fingers on your hand if you lose your thumb.
Beyond the smile these word lists can provide, they are of great help in training the ear. In the next section, I review these "Suthern dictionaries" and link to word lists I have found online. Just below, as the chance arises, I will add a few other words that come to my ear.
Ahma: expresses intention, as in "Ahma tell him that." Until I came to Louisiana, I was used to another contraction—"Amana" ("Amana tell him that")—but the people here are ingenious and found an even more efficient way to express their intentions.
Hooaah? A sound made to inquire into causes or motives. "Hooaah did you do that?" Why learn Suthern? The best answer to "Why" might be in the "why" itself.
Review of Books about Southern Talk
The Complete How to Speak Southern, by Steve Mitchell. Highly recommended. This is a one-volume edition of two earlier books, How to Speak Southern and More How to Speak Southern. The author grew up in North Carolina. This book will make you laugh, but not at the expense of the people of the South. It's a collection of words and humorous definitions. The "words" are phonetic transcriptions of how Southern people supposedly speak. This sounds silly, but I learned much from this approach. These sample entries will give you a flavor:
Ah: The things you see with, and the personal pronoun denoting individuality. "Ah think Ah've got somethin' in mah ah."
Awl: An amber fluid used to lubricate engines. "Ah like that car, but it sure does use a lot of awl."
Ay-rab: The desert people who inhabit much of North Africa. [Andy's note: actually, the Arabian peninsula is not in North Africa ☺]
Co-Cola: The soft drink that started in Etlanna and conquered the world. "Ah hear they even sell Co-cola in Russia."
Clone: A type of scent men put on themselves.
Dawg: A four-legged animal much esteemed in rural sections of the South.
Drank: To consume a liquid. "You want a drank of this Co-cola?"
Eyetalyun: A native of Italy or an American ethnic group of that heritage.
Farn: Anything that is not domestic. "Ah don't drink no farn liquor, specially Rooshin vodka."
Ka-yun: A sealed cylinder containing food. "If that woman didn't have a ka-yun opener, her family would starve to death."
Peyun: A writing instrument. "Some rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain peyun."
Sebmup: Soft drink similar to ginger ale. "You want a Co-cola or a Sebmup?"
Thang: A word Yankees consistently mispronounce as "Theeng."
Uhmurkin: Someone who lives in the United States of Uhmurka.
I would love to could go on, but I don't want to cross the line of fair use, so I just recommend you order this little book. Before you receive it, here are a few more entries. See if you can guess their meaning:
Ahr, aig, ails, awf, awfis, awfullest, bard, baws, bleeve, cayut, crine, crawss, daints, everhoo, everthang, fawn, gawn, git, gull, kumpny, lar, lawst, mahty raht, muchablige, munts, own, ownliest, phrasin, pitcher, prolly, quare, raffle, ratcheer, retard, sawt, sayul, shovelay, show, spearmint, tal, tamarr, tarred, tewsdee, thank, troll, vaymuch, wender, winsheel.
The Dixie Dictionary, by Thomas Howard. More recent (2002) than How to Speak Southern (1976), with about six times as many entries, and yet a distant number two. Why? You can read HTSS from cover to cover because it's funny. While the Dixie Dictionary tries to copy the HTSS style of humor here and there, it is mostly a list of entries, just one notch up from the phone book. Besides, I have checked a number of entries with Louisiana locals, and many of them are not in use in that region. The introduction is excellent, as is the biography.
You All Spoken Here, by Roy Wilder, Jr. After I received this book, one month slipped by before I started to study it, partly because the title made no sense to me. Then one day I said "Okay, what could this possibly mean?" Then it dawned on me that the title is a play on signs you sometimes see the shop windows of tourist areas, such as "German Spoken Here". Aha! "You All Spoken Here" means "Here we speak ‘You all’", in other words, "Here we Speak Southern". Yes, I'm a bit slow, so for me the title is awful. What about the subtitle? "Prepared for the edification & jollification of readers, writers, browsers, dialectitians, linguists, folklorists, etc., and for visitors from foreign parts who need to parlez-vous in cornpone country." Whether that's cute or pompous is a matter of taste—too many curlycues for mine. Between the covers, the book is rife with Southern idioms. Many are a delight to read. Sadly, many of those I sampled did not pass the "real deal" test in Louisiana. Some of the expressions in the book may be widespread in parts of the South. Others, one wonders, might be the vivid manner of speech of the many people who were called upon to contribute. Worth having if you'd like to inject color into your language, otherwise stick with HTSS.
Jeff Foxworthy's Redneck Dictionary: Words You Thought You Knew the Meaning Of. When I ordered this book, I waden sure what to expect. The word "redneck" in the title made we worry that the book might take cheap shots at the wonderful people of the South. As it turns out, this book is not so much offensive as it is useless—at least for the purpose of learning to tawk Suthern. Whilst Mitchell's excellent book gives a phonetic spelling for words pronounced in Suthern, e.g. "awl" for "oil", along with a humorous definition (a pattern followed by this site and others that you will find in the links section), Foxworthy goes one step further and tries to match the everyday pronunciation of phrases to existing words in the English language. For instance,
Classified: pertaining to regret over a course at school. "I'd have gone to classified been smarter."
Whether one finds this entry funny is a personal matter, but in learning to tawk Suthern it's certainly no help. First, when an entry that's an actual word in the English language ("classified") represents other words in the English language ("class if I'd"), your brain has to twist and turn in rather unpleasant ways just to make sense of the definition. Second, phrases like this sample are not particularly representative of southern talk—people talk like that in most of the States. In the South, "I'd have gone to class if I'd been smarter" might sound more like this:
"Ahda gonda clayas if ahda bin smarter".
No "classified" here. To Foxworthy's defense, his book does not purport to be an instructional on Suthern tawk.
Audio Courses to Sound Southern
Acting with an Accent: American Southern, by David Alan Stern.The author is not a native Southern speaker, and his attempts can make you cringe. Yet, even though Stern's accent is not always on target, he helps you learn by pointing out the accents' components.
The same author has a method for the Texan accent. I enjoyed this tape more than the previous one (American Southern) as David Stern's accents sound a lot more convincing here. And he covers a smaller region, so he is more focused. Even within that smaller region (Texas), David Stern manages to cover four local variations which are fun to hear.
US Southern accent, by Bob and Claire Corff. I have not yet had a chance to hear this.
Southern Accent Links
Southern American English. This excellent Wikipedia article has much detail about the features of Suthern and its main dialect zones.The Strictly Southern website has a small humorous "Southern dictionary", as well as a longer list of words excerpted from Steve Mitchell's More How To Speak Southern.
Hah Tu Spek Suthun. Another excerpt from a Steve Mitchell book, this time the original How To Speak Southern.
A Glossary of Quaint Southernisms. Yet another humorous Southernese lexicon. And another.
Ehow has several short pieces on the topic, among which this one and that one are in my opinion the best.
Wishing you success in your journey with Suthern!!!
With smiles and warmest regards,
Andy
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x8L87akI5s
Do what? ("I didn't hear you" or possibly "are you kidding me? ")
Yownt (you want)
J'all (did you all)
Own for on
Wont for want
Light a shuck (leave in a hurry)
the only NJ stronghold of the NYC accent. Elsewhere in New Jersey, the accent is much more similar to General American in the northern (except for Hudson County) and most of the central parts of the state. In the southern and the southern central parts of NJ, people speak with a Philadelphia accent. (So you can see that accents differ within New Jersey as well as within Louisiana and within the South, period!
Drink is draink. Also beware, anybody speaking like Foghorn Leghorn is no more than a pathetic 'Southern wannabe'.
Single syllable words with an "I" like right, knife, night and ice are pronounced completely differently. WNC pronounces the "I" very flat like the vowel sound in "eye. "
WNC yellow is pronounced yallow. Some of my dad's folks are from the Pamlico Sound region in ENC where I've heard people pronounce half as "hoaf" (rhymes with loaf), house as "hosse", cow as "coh". Here's a good way down east ENC sentence: "We'll go oat in a boat aboat a hoaf mull. " (We'll go out in a boat about a half mile. )
I've always liked listening to the variety of language and pronunciation, even within one state.