Within the vast territory in which Southern English is found, there is a considerable amount of dialectal diversity, especially in the South Atlantic states. The origins of this diversity are closely connected with the sociohistorical background of the region. Most of the Atlantic coastal sections were initially settled in the 17^th and early 18^th centuries by English colonists. Two areas, the Delmarva Peninsula and the Pamlico Sound area of North Carolina, remained relatively isolated from inland areas until the 20^th century and show several dialectal features in common: rhoticity, failure of BATH and THOUGHT to diphthongize, backing of the nucleus of PRICE/PRIZE, and fronting of the glide of MOUTH/LOUD, among others. Two other coastal regions, one comprising the Tidewater and Piedmont sections of Virginia and adjacent counties in Maryland and North Carolina and the other consisting of the “Low Country” of the South Carolina and Georgia coastal plain, were settled mainly by the English and by African slaves and also show dialectal similarities to each other. These similarities include non-rhoticity and production of higher nuclei in MOUTH and PRICE than in LOUD and PRIZE. Each has (or had) its own features, though: for example, Virginia showed mutation of FACE to [ε] in some words (e.g., make and afraid) and home pronounced with the FOOT vowel, while the Low Country showed ingliding forms of FACE and GOAT.

During the 18^th century, various non-English European groups began to settle the South. Numerous groups, including French Huguenots, Welsh, Highland Scots, Germans, Swiss, and Jews, clustered in limited areas. The major influx, however, was of Ulster Scots (Scotch-Irish). Large numbers of Ulster Scots migrated from Pennsylvania through the Great Valley of the Shenandoah River in Virginia or sailed to Charleston, South Carolina, mixing and, by the mid-19^th century, intermarrying with English settlers who were moving inland and fanning out throughout the Piedmont and Appalachian regions. This mixture was aided by changes in religious affiliation because the organizational constraints of the older Presbyterian (Scottish) and Anglican/Episcopalian (English) denominations were too rigid to function well on the frontier and new denominations, mainly the Baptists and Methodists, attracted adherents from both backgrounds. In Piedmont sections, the Ulster Scots eventually adopted features such as non-rhoticity from their neighbors, and some adopted the plantation culture. In the southern Appalachians, though, the mixed Ulster Scot and English populations, who tended to live as hardscrabble farmers, maintained rhoticity. Much later, other features, such as glide weakening of PRICE (not just of PRIZE) developed in the Appalachians.

During most of the 18^th century, plantations concentrated on growing tobacco in Virginia and North Carolina and rice and indigo in the Low Country. Tobacco growing spread to Kentucky and Tennessee as those states were settled in the late 18^th century, but in other areas, such as the Delmarva Peninsula, it was replaced by wheat culture, which was less reliant on slaves. Although tobacco plantations depended on slaves, slave holdings tended to be largest in the Low Country. In parts of the Low Country, whites made up less than 20% of the population. The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 brought drastic changes, creating a new plantation culture centered on cotton and allowing plantation agriculture (and slavery) to expand westward through the Gulf States during the early 19^th century. The west-ward spread was aided by the forced removal of Native Americans to Oklahoma on the infamous “Trail of Tears” in 1838. Plantation areas typically showed certain dialectal features, particularly intrusive [j] in car [c^hja:], garden, etc. and non-rhoticity. Plantations occupied the better farmland, such as the Mississippi valley and the “Black Belt” of central Alabama, while poor white farmers predominated in less arable regions, such as the rugged terrain of northern Alabama and the sandy “Piney Woods” region that stretched from southern Georgia and northern Florida to southern Mississippi, with a disjunct area in western Louisiana and eastern Texas. One distinctive area was southern Louisiana, with its French influence and its sugar cane- and rice-based agriculture, but it is covered in a separate paper in this volume by Dubois and Horvath.

West of the Mississippi, the plantation culture was largely restricted to the Mississippi valley and delta and the more fertile portions of eastern and southeastern Texas. Appalachian farmers, largely from Tennessee, settled the Ozarks. Germans settled parts of the Missouri and Mississippi valleys near St. Louis, and Kentuckyans and Virginians settled the “Little Dixie” region of Missouri north of the Missouri River. Various settlers, mostly from Tennessee and Arkansas, settled northern and central Texas, with a subsequent influx of Germans in central Texas. In southern Texas, these settlers encountered the already established Spanish-speaking Tejanos, though Anglo settlement of southern Texas was sparse until an agricultural boom occurred in the 1920s (Jordan 1984). Much of Oklahoma remained the “Indian Territory” until it was opened to white settlement in 1889, after which time settlers from Texas and Arkansas dominated its southern and eastern sections.

The Civil War (1861-65) put an end to slave-based plantation agriculture in the South, leading to the tenant and sharecropper systems on farms (in which owners divided profits from crops with tenants or sharecroppers) and ultimately to the establishment of mills for processing cotton and tobacco. Textile mills appeared in numerous towns, especially in Piedmont areas from Virginia to Alabama, and many of these towns grew into cities. Cotton growing declined in that same region, shifting in large part to the Mississippi valley and Texas. The invention of cigarette machines and the introduction of fluecured tobacco led to large tobacco mills, primarily in North Carolina and Virginia, and a southward expansion of tobacco farming. Northern entrepreneurs also made timber a major industry throughout the South. Coal mining became a major industry in the Appalachians and mining towns sprang up there. Other industries, such as steel in Alabama, appeared locally. Expansion of railroads facilitated the growth. A demographic effect of these new industries was that it helped to inspire considerable migration of white workers toward mill towns. In addition, Texas received large numbers of migrants from other Southern states seeking new farmland after the Civil War, and not only did cotton expand there but extensive cattle ranches also covered much of western and southern Texas. It is possible that these movements played a role in the spread of several sound changes that previously occurred only locally, including the PIN/PEN merger, glide weakening of PRIZE, fronting of GOOSE, rounding of the nucleus of START, and, after 1900, lowering of the nuclei of FACE and GOAT.

Until World War II, the South generally showed net out-migration. This trend was spurred by persistent, widespread poverty and also by specific events, such as boll weevil infestation and the Great Depression. Migration from some regions, especially Appalachia, continued after World War II, but a counter-trend began. The oil industry in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma; the establishment of numerous military bases; the growth of businesses attracted by cheap labor; and the appearance of resort and retirement communities all attracted migrants from other parts of the United States. This contact with non-Southerners may have influenced some sound changes, such as the decline of [j] in words such as tune and news, the FORCE/NORTH merger, the spread of  in the ORANGE class, and the decline of triphthongization (a correlate of the “Southern drawl”) in MOUTH/LOUD, DRESS, and other classes. However, the growth and inmigration has been concentrated in urban centers, and rural areas have continued to struggle economically. In fact, the economic gap between urban and rural areas is still widening today. Rural areas now show traditionally Southern dialectal features to a greater degree than urban areas.

Another event that may have influenced Southern dialectal patterns was the civil rights movement, particularly desegregation, which was accompanied by turmoil in the South from the 1950s through the 1970s. The civil rights struggle seems to have caused both African Americans and Southern whites to stigmatize linguistic variables associated with the other group. It coincides with the sudden spread among whites of GOAT fronting, which African Americans avoid, as well as with the reversal in which non-rhoticity changed from a prestigious to an unprestigious feature among whites. The latter change was probably also promoted by the influx of non-Southerners.