You won’t believe it! Scientists say the classic South American accent is dying out
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- Researchers say Generation X is mainly responsible for the accent falling off a cliff
- Research based on white people native to Georgia, born between the 19th century and the 2000s
From Matthew McConaughey’s distinctive accent to the soft tones of Reese Witherspoon and Renée Zellweger, the South American accent is synonymous with a number of Hollywood blockbusters.
But perhaps not for much longer.
That’s because new research shows that there is a classic accent in the extinction of young people, with Generation X mainly to blame.
Scientists have observed the most striking change between baby boomers and those born between 1965 and 1982, when the accent fell off a cliff.
“We found that here in Georgia, the accents of white English speakers have shifted away from traditional Southern pronunciation over the past few generations,” said lead author Margaret Renwick, an associate professor at the University of Georgia (UGA).
Iconic: Matthew McConaughey’s distinctive Southern accent is well-known, but new research suggests the classic accent is dying out among younger people – with Generation X largely to blame
Together with the dulcet tones of Reese Witherspoon (pictured) and Renée Zellweger, the South American accent is synonymous with a number of Hollywood blockbusters
READ MORE: Why Are Gen Z Americans Putting On British Accents?
“Today’s students don’t sound like their parents, who didn’t sound like their own parents.”
She added, “We had listened to hundreds of hours of speech recorded in Georgia and noticed that older speakers often had a thick Southern accent, while current students did not.”
Professor Renwick said this in turn led them to ask the question ‘which generation of Georgians sounds the most southerly of them all?’
“We suspected they were baby boomers, born around the mid-20th century,” she added.
“We were surprised to see how quickly the Southern accent is falling away, starting with Gen X.”
The team of researchers is the first to identify the shift in emphasis in Georgia.
Their analysis was based on recordings of white people native to Georgia who were born between the late 19th century and the early 2000s, with the study focusing specifically on the way the speakers pronounced vowels.
They found that older Georgians pronounced the word “price” as prahz and “face” as fuh-eece, but the youngest speakers use prah-eez and fayce.
“Changes in the diphthong in ‘price’ are the oldest characteristic statement in Southern speech, dating back over 100 years,” Professor Renwick said.
‘The Southern pronunciation of words like ‘face’ emerged in the early 20th century. These are distinguishing features of the traditional Southern accent.”
Analysis: Researchers found that older Georgians pronounced the word “price” as prahz and “face” as fuh-eece, but the youngest speakers used prah-eez and fayce
“The demographics of the South have changed a lot as people have moved to the area, especially after World War II,” said co-author Jon Forrest, an assistant professor at UGA in the department of linguistics.
He added that what scientists had observed in Georgia was part of a general shift not only in other Southern states, but also in the broader US.
‘We see similar shifts in many regions, and we may find people in California, Atlanta, Boston and Detroit who have similar speech characteristics,” Professor Forrest explains.
Because language patterns differ for other ethnic groups, the researchers now also want to study intergenerational accents among African Americans.
The new study has been published in the journal Language variation and change.