海角大神

The South is ascendant. So, my goodness, why is its accent fading?

Every year, the annual Peanut Festival in Brooklet, Georgia, features the ultimate Southern fair competition. With a regional pace that matches its laconic drawl, the 鈥渟low tractor race鈥� hands first prize to the driver who crosses the finish line last.

Resident Cristy Malott, who helps her husband, Tony, run Southeastern Trade & Auction, knows Brooklet as a leisurely place where she can pick her own strawberries and buy pork from a local farm. She also says that its Southern pace is picking up.聽

And nowhere are the changes more evident than in the thinning out of the region鈥檚 accent and dialect, one of the most recognizable in the world. 鈥淗ey y鈥檃ll,鈥欌�� will signal the American South quicker鈥檔聽a cat on a hot tin roof.聽

When the most recent shift began

Like many remote small towns throughout the country, Brooklet鈥檚 population had dwindled well into the 1990s as businesses closed and children left for school or better-paying city jobs.聽

But over the past 20 years, the U.S. Census reports double-digit growth here. A new Korean auto plant nearby is part of it, but so is a growing migration trend across the country, aided by accessible internet, remote work options, lower taxes, and more moderate weather. All of which has led to the dramatic tipping southward of the nation鈥檚 demographic center.

The change may highlight the South鈥檚 assets and opportunities. But it also hints at danger for its unique and salient features 鈥� including 鈥渢hat gorgeous Southern drawl,鈥� as one local calls it.聽

In grocery stores and back-to-school nights, the sounds of harder 鈥渞鈥檚鈥� and 鈥渢鈥檚鈥� and clipped, fast phrasing of newcomers from other U.S. regions are noticeable.聽

鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of change going on, so you have to be open and welcoming to that 鈥� it鈥檚 progress,鈥� says Ms. Malott as she readies knick-knacks for auction. 鈥淏ut a mesh of all the accents? No.鈥�

The ascendancy of the South, and its increasing clout as a growing political, economic, and cultural force, is coming with a price. Census numbers show that the South was the only U.S. region with both positive net domestic and significant net international migration in recent years. Its accent and colloquialisms 鈥� in some ways synonymous with its identity 鈥� are fading.

Atlanta has become a hotbed of California expatriates in the state鈥檚 booming film business. Many of Nashville鈥檚 new country singers come from Oklahoma. (One favorite resident, Taylor Swift, is from Pennsylvania). Raleigh spills over with New Yorkers drawn by tech jobs and starter homes. Midwesterners flock to South Carolina, the nation鈥檚 fastest-growing state last year.

For the South as a whole and Brooklet writ small, it鈥檚 a promising, but disorienting journey. And the fade of the Southern accent 鈥� often a self-imposed muting to avoid stereotyping 鈥� poses challenges for the South itself, for its values, history, and even future.

鈥淲hen I came to North Carolina, it鈥檚 a state that loves itself, loves its landscape, its singers, its writers, its poets, its performers,鈥� says Walt Wolfram, a Philadelphia-born linguist at North Carolina State University, in Raleigh. 鈥淏ut I always wonder: Why don鈥檛 you love your language?鈥�

Language and dialect are often cured and curated in both physical and social isolation. That could be the unique Gullah language on the Sea Islands of the South. Or the cultural islands of American cities, where block-by-block racial and ethnic segregation allows dialects to form and remain unchanged.

Physical migration changes local speech patterns naturally. But social mixing and class marking do, too, linguists say. Indeed, classic brogues in Chicago and New York are fading as speakers face the same forces wearing down the Southern accent: Younger generations sometimes step away from their parents鈥� way of talking, perhaps to create distance from the older generation鈥檚 circumstances or values.聽

Taking their place is a pan-regional dialect first discovered in California in the 1980s. The 鈥渓ow back merger shift鈥� (referring to how vowel sounds form in a speaker鈥檚 mouth) has subsumed local dialects from Chicago to New York, even parts of Canada.

And nowhere is the California accent more evident than in the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and northern Florida, where increasingly bland city accents contrast sharply with the twangs and sayings still heard out in the countryside.聽

鈥淭he connection to the past or to local culture ... that is transmitted through dialect is fraying,鈥� says Peggy Renwick, a linguist at Johns Hopkins University who has researched Southern dialects. 聽

When the shift began

The classic Southern accent likely peaked in the mid-1960s, then began its slow fade with Generation X, which began to question the interplay of accent and the South鈥檚 complicated history.

鈥淪outhern accents generally rate high on dimensions of friendliness, solidarity, and hospitality, but in terms of prestige on the national stage, it doesn鈥檛 rank so high,鈥� says Professor Wolfram, referring to post-Civil War, civil rights era, and rural stereotypes. 鈥淧ractically everybody who came up pretty Southern in their home is corrected not to be so Southern because it doesn鈥檛 sound smart.鈥澛�

That so-called dialect leveling has translated to building tension in Southern communities.

鈥淭he ones born and raised here that鈥檚 older, they鈥檙e going to keep [the accent],鈥� says Mark Grimes, an auction attendee. 鈥淣ow ... I don鈥檛 want to talk about the younger generation. They鈥檙e going to hogwash. That鈥檚 a nice way to say it.鈥�

Today, people born in Raleigh, North Carolina, where IBM helped the Research Triangle draw academics beginning in the late 1950s, may still speak with a whiff of a Southern accent, like the hint of magnolia over a fence. But 10 miles out of town, the drawl twists and turns, thick as kudzu.聽

鈥淵our speech is kind of like your clothes: It sends information about who you want to be and how you see yourself and how you fit into society,鈥� says Lelia Glass, a linguist at the Georgia Institute of Technology. But, she adds, 鈥渉omogenization and standardization sometimes go in the direction of people who have more power.鈥�

That dynamic is playing out in the Deep South. In Statesboro, Georgia, named for states鈥� rights, a founding ideal of the Confederacy during the Civil War, the Georgia Southern University campus brims with foreign students and urbanites on state scholarships.聽

Pace Jenkins, a self-help author and Amazon delivery driver, is on campus for a visit, reading on a bench. His unmistakable twang is a geographical happenstance 鈥� he grew up on the edge of Statesboro, on a dialect border.聽

鈥淟ike Johnny Cash, I walk the line,鈥� he laughs. But even here, 鈥測ou really have to listen hard to hear the accent,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd the people who still sound that way are consciously holding on to it.鈥澛�

鈥淩eal Southern, real quick鈥�

One of the most characteristic features of a Southern accent is the 鈥渋鈥� sound, which dates back to the Civil War. The elongated vowel, pronounced 鈥渁hhh,鈥欌�� can be heard in words like 鈥渨hy鈥� and 鈥渇ire.鈥� Some Southerners lump words together. One example: 鈥淢omanem.鈥� Say what? 鈥淢omanem. Mom and them.鈥�

The various Southern accents and dialects are also malleable.

鈥淵ou have some people who really ham it up, put [the accent] on more. In fact, if you get me mad enough, I can be real Southern, real quick,鈥� says Ms. Malott, the auctioneer鈥檚 assistant in Brooklet. 鈥淚 can also smile and be sweet as sugar pie and insult you in a hot second, and it鈥檒l be so nice,鈥� she says, dragging out 鈥渟ooo naahss.鈥�

But for many Southerners, the changing accent represents the conflict between progress and tradition, between growing demographic and economic power, and the gauzy gentility and family-centric nature of the traditional American South.聽

鈥淭his society here is just changing,鈥� says David Whitten, who runs the auction鈥檚 barbecue pit. 鈥淧eople are less friendly. But our whole society is turning that way anyway, where nobody trusts anybody anymore. It鈥檚 becoming less Southern, I guess, is one way to put it.鈥�

The question is whether those shifts are irreparably changing the South or whether the drawl might be poised for a renaissance.

Each year at the North Carolina State Fair, Dr. Wolfram hands out 7,000 鈥渄ialect buttons鈥� with phrases such as 鈥淏less your heart鈥� and 鈥淎ll y鈥檃ll.鈥澛�

鈥淧eople want to be from some place,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 want to be the voice of nowhere.鈥澛�