Southern accents are more unique than any other

The Southern United States is distinguished as being its own specific region from the rest of the country for various reasons, and dialects are just one factor. One day, I was sitting on a bench in a city in North Carolina, having a comical conversation with a person from New York City who was earnestly telling me about all the different levels of culture shock he had experienced upon crossing the Mason-Dixon line.

This elicited a familiar recollection. Although I was born and grew up in the South, my parents are also from New York state, thus, the level of shock and confusion the man expressed upon attempting to decipher Southern dialects was relatable.

One of the first major expressions that “New York,” as he christened himself, immediately leapt into discussing was the expression: “Do what?”

“What does that even mean?!” he shouted, upon discussing the expression, that, in the Northern regions, translates to exactly the question he was asking. He cited “Whaddya you mean by that?” or “What the hell do you mean?” as the Northeast equivalents of this saying.

Specific to North Carolina, Alabama and Texas, the expression “Do what?” is usually not in reference to the action of doing anything, but is specific to the context of what the person is saying. In colloquial American English, this translates to the basic “what?” and in Canadian English to “pardon.”

In the United States, you might hear that one of the primary differences between Southern and Northern culture is the fact that Northerners tend to be more upfront and verbally blunt, whereas in the South, the meaning of what is said can be sometimes ambiguous.

This is perhaps no better represented than the expression “bless your heart.” Used primarily by Southern women, this expression, while initially sounding syrupy-sweet and thoughtful, is the equivalent of what is known in the rest of the United States as “fuck you.” If you hear this, it is a sign your conversation should probably end. Pronto.

Another distinctive phrase would be “Ya hear?” Used at the end of the sentence, this translates to “do you understand?” Oftentimes, though, there isn’t usually a pause to reiterate the person they are speaking to understands, it’s just kind of an autopilot expression that gets tacked on whenever a person finishes expressing an opinion.

The spirit of the expression is the same in the Northeast, as “You know what I’m sayin’?” is tacked on to the end of many a sentence hailing from this region of the land. After transcribing New York’s interview for an article a friend and I are writing, we joked we were not even going to include the “you know what I’m sayin’?” in the transcription because he said it every other sentence, not in an inquisitive way, just out of dialectic default.

The expression that had me perplexed for a while was “over yonder.” I first remember hearing it when I was 11 years old, and a classmate of mine pointed across the field and used this term. I thought “yonder” was the name of a specific place, like a town or a designated landmark. It was only until later when, in isolated incidents, I heard other people pointing and referring to this same “yonder” that I realized it was a universally Southern expression for “over there,” or in the direction of where the person was pointing.

Like many expressions in Appalachia and other parts of the South, “yonder” is a Middle English word, and the majority of the fringe dialects still located in certain mountain basins are hybrids of the language(s) that English, Scottish and Irish people used when they journeyed across the pond. Although not as linguistically diverse as provinces in countries like, say, China, researching the origins of dialects within the United States is an interesting and worthwhile field of study for anyone interested in linguistics, or simply to learn when someone is offending you.