How to write a southern accent?
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Question by EMME: How to write a southern accent?
I am currently writing a novel that takes place in Alabama for the majority of the time. many of my characters have strong southern accents. what are words that people with southern accents use alot? y’all? any more, i am clearly clueless, being born and raised up north.
thanks again, a list of words that are commonly used by people who have southern accents… or a way to express a southern accent through my writing. Thanks!
Feel free to answer in the comment section below
3 Responses to How to write a southern accent?
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There are a lot of fun ways to depict southern accents in text. “Ya’ll” is used all the time. There are different accents according to region (really); some Alabama speech sounds very different from South Carolina or Mississippi or Savannah, Georgia. A woman talking about “mah maw” (my mom) comes across differently to readers than an older man referring to “muh truck” (my truck). The book “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston is a good representation of southern vernacular. For much lighter reading, X-Men comics featuring the characters Rogue, Gambit and Sam Guthrie will have short blurbs of written southern speech.
Good luck!
aboysbane
March 11, 2013 at 1:09 pm
It’s not really “words” you are looking for.
It’s more a “turn of a phrase”.
First of all, remember this…..the word Y’all is NOT singular.
It’s plural.
We do use a lot of “terms of endearment”.
Honey.
Sugar.
Baby.
Sweetie.
Darlin’.
Instead of saying men and women, we usually say boys and girls.
“S’s” on the end of words sound more like a “Z”.
We tend to use more terms of formal respect than our northern counterparts do.
Yes Ma’am. No Sir.
There is a saying down south that if there is a remote possibility that you are 15 minutes older than I am…..I will call you Ma’am.
When speaking with familar older folks we tend to add a Mr or Ms in front of their first names…..Like Ms Mary, Mr Robert.
We use “please”, “thank you”, and “you’re welcome” more often than Northerners too, beat into us at a very early age.
Keep in mind, all Southerners do NOT speak the same way.
The accents vary greatly between Southern states to a degree that we are able to tell what state someone is from by the way they talk.
Georgians and Alabamans tend to speak a sentence rather normally in speed but tend to drag out the last word in a sentence, giving the illusion of slower speech.
Alabamans do NOT have that super slow drawl a Texan does.
And Tennesseans tend to talk so fast sometimes it’s hard to understand them.
Alabama and Georgia accents tend to have a musical lilt to it.
Southern states are just as urban as Northern states are……FARM country is in the Mid-West.
We use a lot of words we call Southernisms.
“Dear God in the mornin'”
“High as a sweet Georgia pine”
“Drunk as a three eyed spider on a blue tick dog.”
“Mess of…” is a term used for “A lot…”.
Grocery carts are called buggies.
All sodas are Cokes…..Coca Cola being invented in Atlanta, you know….they have “different flavors”….like Orange, or Diet.
Southerners don’t drink Pepsi.
And they drink Mr Pib instead of Dr Peper.
Crazy people are called “characters”.
It’s not unusual to hear someone call their grandmother and grandfather “Big Daddy” or “Big Mama”.
Atlanta is pronounced Atlanna or Florida is pronounced Flarda, and Georgia, Jawja.
And Mississippi is missing a few letters, Miss-Sipi.
Southerns are college football fanatics.
And when you say you went to Georgia or Alabama….you mean University of Georgia and University of Alabama. (Georgia State, Flordia State, Alabama State is said as such.)
There is no such thing as UNSWEETENED tea in the South.
It COMES to you sweetened in a restaurant…you don’t have to put sugar in it.
Southerners barbecue everything….year round.
And Southerners fry everything.
We tend to run words together and use statements when ASKING a question.
Like…..You’re going to the store without me……?
Southerners do NOT call their parents Ma and Pa……it’s Mama and Daddy.
It is NOT unusual to hear a 40 yr old 300lbs man call his father DADDY.
40 degrees in Alabama is damned cold.
But ice storms are not unusual.
And you have no clue what humidity is like unless you’ve experienced humidity in Southerner Alabama.
LA does NOT mean Los Angeles…..it means Lower Alabama.
Georgians and Alabamans make fun of one another.
Fried Chicken is eaten 3/4 times a week for dinner or lunch.
Pork is second.
Beef comes in third.
Fish is always fried.
Gravy is a normal side dish.
Southerners drive everywhere….including the mailbox.
Beards on men are rare….too hot for them.
Southerners do NOT lay out in the sun…..too hot and skin cancer is huge.
That is how you pick out the Yankees, they are all baking in the sun.
Beer and wine are the alcohol beverages of choice in the South, not liquor.
Up in Carolina means North Carolina….down in Carolina means South Carolina.
Southerners are always “fixin’ ” to do something.
The first Southern expression to creep into a transplanted
Northerner’s vocabulary is the adjective “big ol'”, as in “big ol’
Truck”, or “big ol’ boy”.
I you have a hundred men in one room, there will be a dozen Bubba’s……black, white, and other.
Most Southerners do not use turn signals; they ignore those who do.
In fact, if you see a signal blinking on a car with a Southern
License plate, you may rest assured that it was already turned on when the car was purchased.
It’s hot…your car windows are down anyway…we’ll just yell out of them.
Mama’n’em…..your mother and them, as in “How’s yo mana’n’em?”
One of my personal favorites from Jeff Foxworthy…
Widjadidja…..with you did you; “Ya didn’t brang ya truck widjadidja?”
I highly recommend that you check out Mr Jeff Foxworthy, honor engineering graduate of Georgia Tech University. He has a an entire glossary of Southernisms.
Remember…it’s not the words, but how they are used.
muinghan
March 11, 2013 at 1:17 pm
I’m also from the north, but have lived in Alabama for several years. I have about a thousand things I could tell you, but here I don’t really have the room — if you’ll email me through my profile here, I’ll send you my info. : )
M H
March 11, 2013 at 2:08 pm