Listen & Learn Blog

Research conducted at North Carolina State University shows that the Southern accent is changing and may be disappearing.

Robin Dodsworth, associate linguistics professor at NC State, has been collecting recordings of Raleigh, NC, natives to discover how their accent has changed over time. Using software that breaks down the way people say words and changes it into numbers, Dodsworth can then run a statistical analysis to see how the accent has changed over time and in specific groups of people.

So why is the accent changing?

The major difference is in something linguists call the “Southern vowel shift,” the way of speaking that makes words like “bait” sound more like “bet,” and turns “bed” into a two-syllable word. Those Southern quirks of speech are less noticeable with each generation Dodsworth interviews.

You could try blaming the influx of Yankees over the past couple decades, but the regional quirks of, say, New York- or Chicago-area speech patterns aren’t being picked up locally, Dodsworth said. Rather, the Raleigh dialect is becoming less traditionally “Southern,” smoothing out into an accent that is recognizably American but difficult to place.
Raleigh resident Bob Tomb, 70, grew up around Raleigh, then lived in California for 40 years. When he returned to the city as an adult, his ear caught the change in diction between the generations – the younger they were, the less pronounced the accent.

“It’s very pleasant to run into an older person who sounds like they’re from Raleigh,” Tomb said. “The accent gives the place a little style.”

Lifelong Raleigh resident Jim Stronach, 83, chalks up some of the change to improved schools during the area’s economic boom, plus the increased mobility of modern culture.

“The speech changes to the degree that you don’t really sound like you’re from Dixie anymore,” Stronach said. (Source: News Observer)

And the advice for people who don’t want to see the Southern accent lost forever?

“The best way to preserve it is to keep talking that way,” says Dodsworth.

New York City has always been an incredibly diverse place – people have been attracted to its charms and promise since the 19^th Century. Ellis Island saw people from all over the world pass through it, and their descendents now make New York a cultural melting pot.

This interesting article in the New York Times explores the linguistic side of the city, with an estimated 800 languages spoken there. The 2000 Census revealed that residents of Queens were listed as speaking 138 different languages.  It is described as the “capital of language density in the world”.  Many of these languages are dying out in other parts of the world, but continue to be spoken somewhere in New York.

Speakers of Garifuna, which is being displaced in Central America by Spanish and English, are striving to keep it alive in their New York neighborhoods. Regular classes have sprouted at the Yurumein House Cultural Center in the Bronx, and also in Brooklyn, where James Lovell, a public school music teacher, leads a small Garifuna class at the Biko Transformation Center in East Bushwick.

Mr. Lovell, who came to New York from Belize in 1990, said his oldest children, 21-year-old twin boys, do not speak Garifuna. “They can get along speaking Spanish or English, so there’s no need to as far as they’re concerned,” he said, adding that many compatriots feel “they will get nowhere with their Garifuna culture, so they decide to assimilate.”

But as he witnessed his language fading among his friends and his family, Mr. Lovell decided to expose his younger children to their native culture. Mostly through simple bilingual songs that he accompanies with gusto on his guitar, he is teaching his two younger daughters, Jamie, 11, and Jazelle, 7, and their friends.

“Whenever they leave the house or go to school, they’re speaking English,” Mr. Lovell said. “Here, I teach them their history, Garifuna history. I teach them the songs, and through the songs, I explain to them what it’s saying. It’s going to give them a sense of self, to know themselves. The fact that they’re speaking the language is empowerment in itself.” (Source: New York Times)

There is debate in colleges across America about the status of American Sign Language, according to an article in the Chicago Tribune.

Whilst some view it is a foreign language, and thus available for college credit, others argue that an indigenous language cannot by definition be ‘foreign’. ASL has origins in Old French Sign Language, and was developed at the American School for the Deaf in Connecticut. Because of its origins, it is noticeably different to sign languages of other English-speaking countries such as Britain, where British Sign Language is used. According to a study by the Modern Language Association it is the fourth most studied language at colleges other than English.

Some educators argue that as it doesn’t have the written or cultural components of a language like Spanish or French, ASL cannot be considered for credit.  However:

Timothy Reagan, an education professor at Central Connecticut State University, said American Sign Language has a rich tradition of poetry, history and culture that shouldn’t be dismissed.

“One of the worst things you can do to a human being is to say, ‘Your language doesn’t count,’” he said.

For potential ASL students across the nation, as well as language commentators, this debate is sure to be watched closely.

Frequently in the press and language blogs we read about another language dying, or becoming extinct. But there are also some stories about languages being revived through the efforts of dedicated researchers.

Two Indian languages of Long Island which have not been spoken for 200 years are being resuscitated by Stony Brook University and two local tribes. There are overwhelming odds against the success of the project – Shinnecock and Unkechaug are part of a family of eastern Algonquian languages where few records exist. As Robert D. Hoberman, chairman of the linguistics department at Stony Brook, explains:

The reclamation is a two-step process, the professor explained. “First we have to figure out what the language looked like,” using remembered prayers, greetings, sayings and word lists, like the one Jefferson created, he said. “Then we’ll look at languages that are much better documented, look at short word lists to see what the differences are and see what the equivalencies are, and we’ll use that to reconstruct what the Long Island languages probably were like.” (Source: New York Times)

There is some precedent for the project, with a number of language reclamation projects being undertaken by American Indians in recent years. This includes the Breath of Life project, created in California to revive dormant languages in the state and now with funding to extend it to Washington D.C.

The importance of the reclamation project is noted by the leader of the Unkechaug Nation:

Chief Harry Wallace, the elected leader of the Unkechaug Nation, said that for tribal members, knowing the language is an integral part of understanding their own culture, past and present.

“When our children study their own language and culture, they perform better academically,” he said. “They have a core foundation to rely on.”

Hello, and welcome to the all-new, super-shiny Listen & Learn blog!

My name is Michelle and I will be bringing you a heady mix of news, tips, reviews and general language miscellany.

Having tried my hand at a few different languages over the years, from French and German at school to Maori (when I lived in New Zealand), I’m currently working on improving my very basic Spanish skills.

My aim is always to post about language-related things I am interested in, and I hope you will find them interesting too! I particularly enjoy discovering the links between language, culture and history.

If you would like me to post about anything in particular, please feel free to make a suggestion in the comments section. I’m always happy to hear from readers – don’t hesitate to tell me what you do and don’t like about the blog!