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Alabama accents are music to 'hiz' ears

By Jack Bray, guest columnist
In print: Tuesday, July 1, 2008

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"Everybody says words different," said Ivy. "Arkansas folks says 'em different and Oklahomy folks says 'em different. And we seen a lady from Massachusetts and she said 'em different of all. Couldn't hardly make out what she was sayin'."

John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, 1939

To which I can only add that they says 'em different in Alabama, too. Believe me.

I've been here in Cullman, Ala., since last October, and I have no idea what some of the folks are sayin'.

And trust me, they don't understand me at all.

It got me to thinking. Why do we speak the same language differently? The shades of drawl even in this town are distinct. After living 15 years in Dunedin, listening to a lot of familiar New Yorkese, I found these accents to be colorful and charmin', darlins'.

Oops, sorry.

Notice that I said accents and not dialects. Dialect, from the Greek "dialecktos," means talking between or discussion, the sum total of local characteristics of speech. Accent, from the Latin "cantus" or singing, is the emphasis given to a particular syllable or word when spoken. So the way we talk with inflections is much like the way we sing with notes. (Well, maybe the way you sing, but not the way I sing anymore!)

I found that discovering the history and origins of dialects is a massive undertaking. Obviously, it began with immigration. I was more interested in how accents began. I was looking for the origins of the sweet sounds of Alabama.

In an interesting article, "Southern accents still come on strong. Y'all got a problem with that?" distributed by the Columbia News Service, author Cody Lyon shed some light on my search. Some highlights from what Lyon wrote:

• "The added syllables, twangs and the occasional drop of an r or g from certain words are part of a diverse linguistic culture that blends class, race and geography, and remains, despite demographic shifts and a pervasive national media, as strong as ever, linguists say."

• "James Cobb, a professor of history at the University of Georgia, notes that as Americans become more and more alike, the 'reverse chic' effect makes speaking with a Southern accent a way of distinguishing oneself." (Except when the whole town talks that way!)

• "As Patricia Cukor-Avila, an associate professor of linguistics at the University of North Texas, notes, people outside the South often associate the Southern accent with laziness, ignorance and backward thinking, all of which have been perpetuated by years of movies, television and other media." (See: Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy and Blue Collar Comedy Tour.)

After all is said and done, however, it really doesn't matter how these accents originated. It is enough just to hear them. They're like — if y'all will forgive mah sentimentality — new and lovely music to mah ears.

God help me. I'm losing my New York accent!

Jack Bray, a retired broadcasting executive, is a former resident of Dunedin.