Accents

A couple of years ago we visited the battlefield of Gettysburg, Pa. I've heard that Lincoln had a mystical experience there that lead him to more faith in God. He seemed to feel the souls of multitudes of fallen there and was deeply moved for the fallen from both sides.

The most striking reality though for me on that trip when we afterwards headed south along Lee's retreat across the Mason Dixon line, was how completely different the Virginia, just a few miles away, accent is than the Pennsylvania accent. But the Virginia accent is not that different from any other southern accent, including Texan, though there are regional dialects of course. For some reason northern accents, like Boston, NYC, and Maine are more varied. People in the North were more snowbound and didn't socialize or trade as much?

But apparently there were deep divisions between the North and South from the very beginning, as George alluded to in his comment to my last post. I remember in our Sonlight American History course that Washington DC was chosen as our capital to be on the border between the already divided North and South rather than a more geographical center point. I don't remember if they traced the roots of it though.

Back to accents, my accent changes according to who I am talking to. Growing up in the metroplex meant that most of my friends were not from Texas, but enough were that I think Texan is my native tongue despite my parents being from Louisiana. When I worked as a utilization review nurse for an insurance company I was talking to a patient from West Texas who was having trouble understanding me. When I slipped into his accent I could hear him relax enabling him to share with his folk. I've noticed on several other occasions that northeners are not as "intimidated" by people of other accents as southerners are. And I'm not as much as my fellow natives who grew up in smaller, more cloistered towns who have a more dedicated accent than I. I've thought it was because of how southerners felt disrespected after the Civil War, but maybe it comes from before that.

And it was interesting to me when I watched North and South about industrial age/vs rural south England that there were similar divisions and feelings over there. Is it because of climate or did the US inherit this mindset from across the pond?