Apr 18thAppalachian Accent

As you can see from my previous golf trip posts, I just got back from being around about 40 guys with West Virginian accents.  Theses are guys my parents grew up with and around, so their accents are only so different from my parents’.  My dad, and to a lesser extent, my mom, still have accents, but years of living near DC has toned them down considerably.  I always enjoy seeing how much the accents come back when we go up to see relatives.  My wife and I were born in the same hospital, and raised about 20 miles apart.  However, she was raised by former New Yorkers, while I was raised by West Virginians.  It was pretty wild to come back from the trip and notice how different her accent really is from mine, and how neither of us really have a neutral DC accent.  While the DC area has a lot of out of towners that come and go, the native accent, at least to me, is pretty neutral.  If you find someone who grew up in Northern Virginia or Southern Maryland, you won’t hear much of an accent at all.  We also had a native Oklahoman and his son (also raised in Northern Virginia).  The Oklahoma accent doesn’t sound wildly different given a cursory listen, but the argot is quite different (darlin’).

I have a suspicion that my mother-in-law did the Brooklyn part of this video:

It took me forever, but I finally found a few videos of the accent particular to the part of WV my parents are from.  Its funny that its from a fire department as my parents once told me I couldn’t go see my grandparents until I learned to say, “fire truck” the correct way (F’AR truck).

I can’t be sure if either of those guys are native to Wayne County WV, but they sound about right.  This one sounds about right as well:

I remember reading in, The Right Stuff, that the West Virginia drawl became popular with pilots because of Chuck Yeager.  Yeager grew up about an hour from where my parents were raised.

I also found part of a documentary called Mountain Talk.  It features North Carolinians, but reminded me of how my relatives always say, “mashed”, where I might say, “smashed”, or, “crushed.”  For example, by accident one might mash his finger with a hammer, or get a finger mashed by the door.  They also say, “pop”, where I say, “soda.”

I was inspired to write this post not only by my recent trip, but also the video below, that I found via the linked blog:

http://oldvirginiablog.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-brief-explanation-of-southern-accenty.html