Raleigh's disappearing accents

Southern accents in Raleigh are getting harder and harder to find, according to research and the ears of anyone who has chatted with someone under the age of 50 or listened to the banter in a local craft brewery.

Why it matters: Raleigh, like many parts of the South, is experiencing a fading of the region's well-known twang and all the various pockets of dialects that exist across the vast region.

Driving the news: A series of research papers published late last year is documenting just how much the accents have fallen, specifically among people who grew up in Raleigh, white working-class people in New Orleans and Black residents in Atlanta, the Associated Press reports.

Zoom in: Research from linguist Sean Lundergan found that the catalyst for the decline of the Southern accent in the Triangle began in 1959, with the opening of Research Triangle Park.

• RTP helped spearhead the technology economy in the Triangle, and it also attracted tens of thousands of workers from outside of the South to move to the area.
• That growth has yet to stop.

The big picture: White residents born after 1979 in Raleigh typically don't talk with a southern accent, according to Lundergan's research.

Yes, but: Another study, however, found the changes are less pronounced among Black residents of Raleigh.

• And while Southern accents may be diminishing in urban areas, they're unlikely to disappear completely, said University of Georgia linguist Margaret Renwick, who authored a paper on Atlanta accents.
• "Accents are an incredibly straightforward way of showing other people something about ourselves," Renwick said.

Go deeper: Is the Southern accent fixin' to disappear in parts of the U.S. South?