Rural Southern white accents

If the “South” and “South Midland” dialect areas, as defined by Kurath (1949) and Kurath and McDavid (1961), are lumped as “Southern”, rural white Southern accents can be said to occur over a broad expanse of the United States. They occur throughout the southeastern part of the United States, excepting southern Florida, at least as far north as southern Maryland, central West Virginia, Kentucky, southern Missouri, and eastern and southern Oklahoma and perhaps as far west as western Texas and parts of eastern New Mexico. The exact limits are subject to disagreement; some researchers include northern West Virginia and the southern sections of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, while others exclude western Texas.

Southern English has received extensive attention from dialectologists, and a large number of sources, many of them gleaned from McMillan and Montgomery (1989), were consulted for this overview. Because of space limitations, few in-text citations are included and those that are included emphasize sources listed in the selected references. The full list of sources is given in the comprehensive bibliography, available on the CD accompanying this volume.