ADD in Overdrive! - A Site About Nothing

asiteaboutnothing.net - go to "Tawkin' Suthern: How to Speak with a Southern Accent"
     I just stumbled across this site and had to share it.  My ADD is in overdrive this morning. I started checking my email, then "bounced" over to youtube after learning from my aunt's message that our family has Cherokee ancestors. (So WHY am I just now learning this??!!) Anyway, after viewing LOTS of:

• Trail of Tears, 
• Cherokee language, songs, and stories, 
• powwow, and 



Segregation in Southern U.S. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

• Cherokee history videos 

     I started looking for Louisiana accents. I have no idea why, it's just the way my brain works when I don't have my ADD meds!  THAT'S when I found asiteaboutnothing.net. The author, Andy, has put a lot of work into "researching" Southern accents.  (Bless his heart!)  I laughed when I got to where he listed "can" as pronounced "cayen."  In 2005, I was tutoring some Japanese students with parents working for Honda of Alabama (Lincoln, AL). When I checked the Spelling words for a first grader I saw he had written "cayan" for "can."  That's when I realized just how Southern my accent was! One of the Japanese moms started writing a list of words and phrases and next to them she wrote how we actually pronounce them down here.  For example: did you - didja,   isn't it - idden it,  wasn't it - wadden it.  I can't imagine how difficult it is to come to the U.S. and not only have to learn English, but learn all of the dialects, idioms, colloquialisms, etc. (So of course after thinking that I just had to see how many dialects there are in the U.S.) According to Wikipedia, these are the recognized dialects. Actually, I think there may be neighborhoods with their own dialects!

United States[edit]

American English - Standard American English is the general form

• Cultural
  • African-American Vernacular English (AAVE)
  • Chicano English
  • New York Latino English
  • Pennsylvania Dutch English
  • Yeshivish
  • Yinglish
  • Hawaiian Creole English^[5]

• Regional
  • New England English
    • Boston accent
    • Boston Brahmin accent
    • Hudson Valley English
    • Lake Dialect or Lake Talk
    • Vermont English
  • Inland Northern American English (includes western, central and upstate New York)
    • Northeast Pennsylvania English
  • Mid-Atlantic dialects
    • Baltimore dialect
    • Philadelphia dialect
    • Pittsburgh English
    • New York dialect
    • New Jersey English dialects
  • Inland Northern American English (Lower peninsula of Michigan, northern Ohio and Indiana, Chicago, part of eastern Wisconsin and upstate New York)
  • North–Central American English (primarily Minnesota, but also most of Wisconsin, the Upper peninsula of Michigan, and parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa)
    • Yooper dialect (Upper Peninsula of Michigan and some neighboring areas)
  • Midland American English
    • North Midlands English (thin swath from Nebraska to Ohio)
    • St. Louis
    • South Midland (thin swath from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania)
  • Miami English
  • Southern English
    • Appalachian English
    • Tidewater accent
    • Virginia Piedmont
    • Virginia Tidewater ^[6]
      • Coastal Southeastern (Charleston, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia area)
      • Cajun English
      • Harkers Island English (North Carolina)
    • Ozark English
    • Southern Highland English
    • Gullah or Geechee
    • Texan
    • Yat dialect (New Orleans)
    • Ocracoke
    • Florida Cracker
  • Western English
    • California English
    • Boontling
    • Pacific Northwest English

   Every region, state, county, parish has its own.  I spent most of my life in Birmingham, AL, but my husband is from Cullman, AL.  A few colloquialisms I learned after marrying him were:

• You've fell off. - You have lost weight.
• You got somethin' in the oven? - Are you pregnant?
• the least one - the youngest one

Another cute page with Southern sayings is: http://usadeepsouth.ms11.net/southmouth.html.
It's amazing what you can find on the internet when you have the concentration of a flea!

                           ~~~~Happy Father's Day!~~~~

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