Languages

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I'm always afraid I'll be seen as racist for this, but I have more difficulty understanding a lot of the black people I speak with.  I suppose there's a bit of a selection effect in that I don't remember all the conversations I've had with black people that I found perfectly intelligible, so it's probably only a minority of black people.  My parents were raised in the south, so southern is fairly natural for me.  Not as much for Hillbilly or Louisianian.

There is a big difference in Southern accents.  When I moved to SC and off the Army base, the accent I was hearing was NOT the one I grew up hearing from my mom's family who were from the Outer Banks of NC.  Louisiana, I can handle...Cajun takes a bit to work through.

My uncle (who has lived in your area for decades) was in NC with us when my dad died.  We were inland, so not the family accent I grew up with.  Uncle sounds very, very Minnesotan.  A waitress came to take our order one evening and he leaned over to me and asked what she had said.  After she walked away, he said he wasn't able to translate that country southern into Twin Cities dialect.  LOL.  We were deep in the heart of they have to pipe in sunshine out here.  Think Mayberry.

It’s the same in the British Isles. There’s no such thing as a ‘British accent’ - there are dozens. Accents change from region to region, city to city, and (sometimes) from street to street.

Boru