Southern Fried Accents

It has been said that while there are many American Souths, in the end there is only one South.  It is true that this area is hardly homogeneous.  There is tremendous diversity in its landscapes, for example.  From sun-splashed beaches to mile-high mountain peaks, from lush subtropical forests to the only desert east of the Mississippi River, the South has enough variety to keep anybody curious about it occupied for a lifetime.  Geographically speaking, there is the Upper South, comprising of Delaware, Maryland, the Virginias and Kentucky; the Mid-South which is made up of Arkansas, Tennessee and the Carolinas; and finally the Deep South which takes in the remaining states.  But these three provinces still have an unmistakable Southern stamp on them which serves as the overriding unifying factor for this region’s identity.

When people think of American Southerners, they naturally divide them into two main demographic groups: black and white folks.  That is changing also with the great influx of Latino newcomers in recent years.  Spanish is being heard far more frequently now than it was when I lived here thirty-five years ago with most of the immigrants arriving, not from Cuba and the Caribbean, but from the American West, Mexico and Central America.  Asians are also coming in growing numbers.

Still, black and white folks make up the overwhelming majority of the population.  Their presence is more than just the natural result of the slavery that was sustained here for nearly two hundred fifty years.  Not all black Southerners were slaves and not all white Southerners were slave-owners or even free men.  Many whites came here originally as indentured servants while the first blacks accompanied the early Spanish and French explorers and sometimes led expeditions themselves.

It was the meeting, mixing, and in many cases, mating of these people that created something for which the South is world famous:  the Southern accent.  But even this very American form of speech has both a complex history and usage.  Like the South itself, there is no one and only Southern accent.  There are many and which one you hear depends on a wide range of factors.

First, it is important to understand that black and white Southerners speak in different Southern accents.  For white Southerners, their accent will depend a good deal on which part of the South they inhabit.  There is a difference between the way a Virginian will say something and the way an Alabamian will.  And there are variations even within the same state.  An administrator in Atlanta shouldn’t be expected to talk the same way that a mechanic in Macon would.  Furthermore, city dwellers’ speech is often markedly different from their rural cousins. 

These differences will be heard in the different voice inflections.  Some will drawl their words the way Andy Griffith so famously did.  Others will have the kind of crisp speech you might expect to hear in Washington D.C.  Occupations also play a big role in speech patterns as well.  Some people seem to take a long time to say anything while others shoot straight from the hip, er, lip.  My point is that you are as likely to run into white Southerners who talk like Rhett Butler as you are those who are more like Andy Griffith; or who sound a lot like Scarlett O’Hara as opposed to Reba McIntire.

With black Southerners there is the additional factor of different dialects.  Everyone has heard about Black English, or Ebonics as some like to call it.  I won’t get into all the issues with its usage here, but I will say that when Black English is combined with a black Southern accent, you get speech which makes the heads of those unaccustomed to it spin round and round.  There is also the very different and fascinating Gullah speech heard in South Carolina’s Low Country and Sea Islands.  I’ve known a few Gullah folk, or Geechees as they also call themselves, and found listening to them a remarkable experience.

When I lived in Colorado, very few of my friends and acquaintances ever heard me speak Black English.  One who did was my housemate Andy Gill who often overheard my telephone conversations with different family members back in the South.  Andy told me he couldn’t believe how the inflection, accent, and even volume of my voice would change during those conversations.  I would switch back and forth during the same chat depending on the topic.  Andy would listen while a strange smile played on his face as he saw a facet of my personality that otherwise was very well hidden.

One of the other rare occasions when my Colorado friends would hear my Southern accents come out was whenever I would read aloud from passages of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  The book is one of my all-time favorites and one of the things that makes its humor come to life is when you allow the characters to speak in Southern accents, and that is how I would read.  I’ve had people tell me they never really had appreciated the humor, sarcasm and irony of the novel until they heard its characters talk in Southern accents.

Now that I am back in Alabama, I hear Southern accents all the time of course.  And while I have always enjoyed hearing it and speak that way far more frequently than I did in the West, there is still part of my mind that will occasionally wonder at what I am hearing.  I also am quite conscious of who my listeners are and that will have a strong impact on what kind of speech I will employ.

When I interact with white folks, I talk the same way I did in Colorado.  There is no trace of accent and I seldom will use the many colorful turns of phrase and colloquialisms which spice Southern speech.  I am friendly, but professional because I want to make a strong impression on the listener that I am serious and should be taken seriously.

With black folks, the setting is what matters.  If I am transacting business, then I am formal, but less reserved than I am with whites.  When the situation doesn’t involve anything really important, then I’m relaxed and as Southern as they come.  So whether I am greeting the postman bringing the mail, or chatting with a neighbor during the morning walk, or simply conversing with family and friends, I speak Black English in a Southern accent freely and warmly.

I am interested in hearing other Southern accents in their home areas.  Before the year is over I hope to travel to Atlanta, Mobile and New Orleans.  All of them are fascinating cities with much history and legend attached to them and their residents have some interesting ways of talking.  These cities are also very close to Birmingham and reaching them requires little effort.  Eventually I will also be traveling further afield and becoming reacquainted with the Appalachians of Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia where some of the language has remained unchanged since the late seventeenth century.

“Who is it that gives man speech?” Moses was once asked.  The English language is a very rich one and I have been lucky enough to hear different variations of it in my native country, let alone to have encountered speakers from outside its borders.  But of all the variations of English I know, my favorite flavor is the one with a Southern fried accent.

A Different Natural Scene

I have been pleasantly surprised by the abundance of nature in Birmingham’s urbanscape.  As a matter of fact, it would be more accurate to say that I have been overwhelmed by it.  I had completely forgotten how nature is in the South, even in its cities.  Of course, the Colorado landscape I lived in was dominated by mountains and they made residents aware of the land’s tremendous natural splendor.  I am slowly coming to appreciate that the same can be said of Alabama and furthermore that natural splendor can be exhibited in ways that eclipse what I knew in Colorado.

The words “natural splendor” are often equated with incredible scenery.  That is the way the phrase is used in travel brochures, for example.  While Birmingham has its own beauty and charm, nobody would equate its setting with that of Boulder or Colorado Springs.  Nature here does not shout but hums instead.  You have to be willing to uses senses other than sight to appreciate the wonders this area has.  In Boulder, your gaze was always directed upward toward some mountain peak.  In Birmingham, I have learned to take things in with a different kind of perception and awareness.

One feature of Southern nature that made its presence felt as soon as I arrived was the abundance of birds and birdsong.  Birds begin singing well before sunrise and I’ve awakened to their song while the world outside is still dark.  I still don’t know the names of most of the birds I’ve seen but I have discovered that the different species here have made their presence known by the songs they sing.  I’ve heard a bewildering variety of calls, notes and cadences filling the air on a typical day in Birmingham.  That was a pleasant surprise but by no means the only one.

Local bird species are quite colorful and I’ve learned to recognize some.  Robins, mourning doves, cardinals and mocking birds abound.  I’ve seen hummingbirds sipping nectar from the flowers in our front yard and a few weeks ago I had an encounter that startled me very much.  I noticed a yellow-breasted bird hopping along the ground which did not fly away when I approached.  Instead it found refuge under one of the front yard shrubs, settling there and hoping that the shade and foliage would make it inconspicuous.

Seeing this bird gave me an idea as to its possible identity so I went into the house and consulted the Internet.  It turned out that my hunch was correct and the fowl in question was the yellowhammer, Alabama’s state bird.  The one I had seen was a female, identifiable by the dark feathers on her head whereas the males have bright yellow feathers on theirs.

That was remarkable enough, but you can understand my amazement when I learned that the yellowhammer is a ground nester!  I couldn’t believe that.  It would seem that the bird I spotted likely had a nest under the shrub and that explained her refusal to take flight when I approached.  She had a clutch of eggs that she was sitting on or perhaps even a small brood of nestlings she now had to feed and care for.  I told my family about the yellowhammer and her putative nest, but I didn’t tell them where to look and I decided not to disturb her in any way.

It’s not that I have never encountered ground-nesting birds before.  I was familiar with the meadowlark and the lark bunting when I lived in Colorado, ground-nesters both.  But those birds dwell in the open grasslands east of the Rockies where there are very few trees so nesting on the ground is the only option they have.  It is quite otherwise in Alabama, a state that is heavily forested and home to scores of tree species that never grow in Colorado.  With the abundance of trees in the state, I would never have thought any bird would choose to build a nest on the ground.  Add to this the fact that the yellowhammer is actually a woodpecker which preys on grubs found in tree bark and you will understand why I was completely amazed by my discovery.

Then there are the other natural instrumentalists whose music is heard quite frequently.  I was finally getting used to all the birdsong when new sounds became part of the scene.  The trees in this area are homes to katydids, insects that possess amazing acoustic abilities.  They sit in the branches and produce a high-pitched vibrating note that carries a great distance.  They can be heard during the heat of the day, but it is as evening draws near and particularly during the gloaming which comes with dusk and twilight that they become especially vocal.

A small group of insects will settle in a tree and begin to sing.  They will sing in unison for a set time and then end their song with a long, drawn out sound that goes from a high note to a low one.  When they have finished, insects in another tree will take up the melody and sing; and when they are done those in another tree will contribute.  You can often hear an entire street burst into song as the katydids sing, each group knows its place in the order and the symphony produced will play for some time until finally darkness falls and the performance ends.

Another remarkable thing about these insects is that they will not sing if some creature walks under the tree they occupy.  When that happens they will cut their song short and remain silent until the ground below is clear again.  But I’ve noticed something else:  if eye contact is made with them, they will take flight and find another tree before they will sing again.

After night falls and the birds and katydids have ended their performances, other animals chime in.  In the evenings I can hear crickets, frogs and I don’t know what else all in chorus.  Of course, there are many other creatures also calling, but their notes are produced at frequencies beyond the range of human hearing.  Even so a night in Alabama is seldom a quiet one because life here is abundant and vocal in ways I never experienced in Colorado.

I know that these sounds are not made to please human listeners.  They are mating calls, territory claims, lures for prey and other things far removed from human intercourse.  They represent an aspect of nature that takes time to appreciate and learn.  I suppose another way of putting it is that Colorado is given to the grand gestures:  snowy peaks, deep canyons, horizon-claiming prairies and awesome vistas.  They make an immediate impression upon the observer.  Alabama, on the other hand, is much more intimate:  the scent of magnolia blossom, the song of the katydid, the flower-spangled hillside and the small-scale landscape.  The lessons learned come from patient observation.

Both states have their share of natural splendor and both can be studied profitably by the nature lover.  Along with her geography, Colorado has secrets that demand as intense an examination as any Alabama biome.  On the other hand, Alabama’s biological diversity is supplemented by spectacular landscapes that leave visitors as breathless as Colorado’s terrain.  What I am discovering in Alabama is that I must adjust my viewpoint in order to fully enjoy this state’s many treasures.  Doing so will enhance my life and put a marvelous patina on my sense of wonder.