How did American Southerners get that Southern twang in the first place?

Question

...if the Europeans came from Europe with British accents, how did it end up that people in the South now have a Southern accent?
Did they somehow just come up with it on their own? Or was that English influenced by some other type of English, or some other language originally spoken in the American South?

Answer 1

Ah, a real simple question!

The Southern accent and many of their gestures, came from their nannies, who were black slaves that all seemed to come from a certain area. If you go to Africa, to this region, you can hear the southern accent, except they don't speak English. The women fan their faces exactly the say way the southern belles do.

This information was shown on a TV Documentary about 10 years ago. They showed how the southern accent and mannerisms developed. They also showed how different southern accents came from different areas of Africa.

Answer 2

What happened and most people do not notice it is after the Civil War, the south was subservient to the north for many yearts since the south lost. When the people from the north would come down to run things or settle disputes, they would sometimes have to interrogate or quiz the southerners. OK, now think about it how does a nervous guilty person usually sound. Quite often they will say something with a drawl or sound like they are lying. Sort of an awkward made up kind of sound. Well they got so used to speaking this way that it got ingrained into the society.

Answer 3

Good question. It's also important to note that there isn't just one southern accent. In NC, we have at least five or six. There are also people along the outer banks here who still speak with English accents. Their ancestors set up fishing villages and stayed, along with the accents.

Answer 4

There are definately some French influences, especially the long vowels

Answer 5

I think it is dialect. People in different regions of the world (and the USA) talk differently, have different slang, pronounce things differently, and have different nuances in thier words. Just like people from New York seem to talk differently (they saw Pawk instead of park, new yowk in stead of new york... that sort of thing).