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Southern American English is a group of Dialect s of the English Language spoken throughout the Southern Region of the United States , from northern Virginia and central Kentucky to the Gulf Coast , and from the Atlantic coast to central Texas . Southern American English can be divided into different sub-dialects (see American English ), with speech differing between, for example, Texas and the coastal area around Charleston, South Carolina . The dialect spoken to various degrees by many African American s, African American Vernacular English (AAVE), shares many similarities with Southern dialect, unsurprising given that group's strong historical ties to the region. The Southern American English dialects are often stigmatized (as are other American English dialects such as New York-New Jersey English ). Therefore, many speakers of this dialect sometimes attempt to eliminate many of its more distinctive features from their personal Idiolect , settling for a more "neutral-sounding" English ( General American ), though more often this involves changes more in phonetics than vocabulary. Well-known speakers of Southern dialect include United States Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton along with Playwright Tennessee Williams and Singer Elvis Presley . OVERVIEW OF SOUTHERN DIALECTS The range of Southern dialects generally includes the from the African Americans who were at this time enslaved in the South. Others brought accents from other cultural and linguistic traditions and this diversity combined with the South's geographic separation, and longtime use and familiarity with the King James Version of the Bible in religious life, to produce a unique American dialect. Southern dialects in some form can be found chiefly in the States of Alabama , Georgia , Florida , Tennessee , Mississippi , Louisiana , Arkansas , Texas , Oklahoma , Virginia , North Carolina , South Carolina , Kentucky , West Virginia , and the Ozark and Little Dixie areas in Missouri . The dialect found in the remaining rural areas of tidewater Maryland is similar to the dialect found in Virginia, and some experts have also suggested that the dialect found in two of Delaware 's three counties is related to Southern. There are also places in Kansas , New Mexico , Colorado , Arizona , and the San Joaquin Valley of California where the prevailing dialect is Southern in character, due to historical settlement by Southerners. Also, the speech patterns in the rural areas of the southernmost counties of Ohio , Indiana , and Illinois - settled by Southerners and other groups - have strong Southern influences. Southern dialects are also common in areas associated with the oil industry of Alaska . In the second half of the 20th-Century, concurrent with the development of the oil industry and pipeline, large numbers of Gulf Coast , Texas and Oklahoma petroleum workers moved to Alaska for high pay and adventure - and many stayed. Phonology Few generalizations can be made about Southern pronunciation as a whole, as there is great variation between regions in the south (see the Different Southern American English Dialects section below for more information) and between older and younger people. Upheavals such as the Great Depression , the Dust Bowl and World War II caused mass migrations throughout the United States. Southern American English as we know it today began to take its current shape only after WWII. The following features are characteristic of older SAE, and the younger a speaker is the less likely he or she is to use these features:
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