Phonology of the urban South

The half-century following 1880 was a period of extraordinary activity for SAmE phonology. During that time, many of the most distinctive features of the SAmE vowel system either first appeared or became widespread (e.g., monophthongization of the vowel in the PRIZE and PRICE classes, the merger of the vowels in the PEN and PIN classes, the vowel rotations known as the Southern Shift, and probably the Southern Drawl). These are illustrated below. At the same time, some older hallmarks of rural SAmE began gradually to disappear (e.g., the long offglide in words like DANCE  ) and the “loss” of stressed syllabic and, to a lesser extent, postvocalic r in words like third (θз​d) and NORTH  ). In fact, Bailey (1997) argues that what we now think of as SAmE is largely a product of developments of this half-century. The kind of data that would indicate decisively whether or not these linguistic developments emerged first in urban areas and then spread elsewhere does not exist. The correlation of their spread with the initial period of urbanization, however, suggests that both the dialect contact that was a consequence of town and city building and also the expanded communication networks among villages, towns, and cities provided the impetus for the formation of a regional dialect from what was earlier a number of local vernaculars.

The regional dialect that was formed during the first phase of urbanization has been substantially transformed during the second phase. As non-Southerners have moved into the Southern cities in large numbers, many stereotypical features of SAmE, including some of those that emerged during the first period of urbanization, have begun to disappear in Southern metropolitan areas, especially during the last 30 years. As a consequence, the current metropolitan-rural distinction that has developed since the 1970s forms a major axis of variation in SAmE, rivaling ethnicity as a correlate of language differences.