(ConservativeHub.com) – The Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Georgia have conducted research showing that the southern accent appears to be disappearing in Georgia, according to Fox News.
According to the findings, the change started occurring with Generation X, which started in 1965 and ended in 1982. These individuals exhibited different speech patterns than those used by their parents and Baby Boomers, who were born between 1943 and 1964.
UGA Today reported that UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences associate professor of linguistics Dr. Margaret Renwick noted that from what they have found the accent of White English speakers has been moving away from the traditional Southern pronunciation. The professor is also leading the study and noted that the current generation sounds dissimilar to their parents, who also sound different from their parents.
The statistical modeling used for the research was developed by Bringham Young University professor Joseph, A. Stanley is a UGA graduate. Using the voice recordings of 135 White Georgia natives who were born between the late 1900s and early 2000s, they have examined vowel pronunciation and specifically looked at how differently certain words are pronounced in the different generations.
Some of these words include the word, “face” pronounced by older Georgian as fuh-eece and younger Georgians as fayce, and the word “prize” which is pronounced by the older generation as prahz and the younger generation as prah-eez.
Renwick further noted that one of the more important pronunciation developments came from changes to diphthongs. As she pointed out, the distinctive characteristics of the traditional Southern drawl still exist in the pronunciation of words like “face.”
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