Southern American English

Southern American English or Southern U.S. English is a collection of related American English dialects spoken throughout the Southern United States, though increasingly in more rural areas and primarily by white Americans. Commonly in the United States, the dialects are together simply referred to as Southern. Other, much more recent ethno-linguistic terms within American linguistics include Southern White Vernacular English and Rural White Southern English.

A regional Southern American English consolidated and expanded throughout all the traditional Southern States since the last quarter of the nineteenth century until around World War II, largely superseding the older Southern American English dialects. With this more unified and younger pronunciation system, Southern American English now comprises the largest accent group in the United States. As of 2006, its Southern accent is strongly reported throughout the U.S. states of Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana, as well as much of Texas, eastern and southern Oklahoma, southern Missouri, West Virginia, and metropolitan Jacksonville in Florida; the Southern accent's character is also documented to a weaker extent (often identified as a South Midland accent) throughout Oklahoma, Maryland, Kansas, the southern halves of Illinois and Indiana, the Miami Valley in Ohio, and in some speakers in Delaware, southern Pennsylvania, eastern New Mexico, and Greater St. Louis in eastern Missouri.

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