english_north_america · United States
Southern US English
United States · Inland South (umbrella label)
'Southern US English' is an umbrella over a genuinely varied family -- Appalachian, Texan, Coastal Southern and Lowland Southern differ from each other in rhoticity, in the low back merger, and in how far the Southern Vowel Shift has gone. This preset models the Inland South profile: rhotic, with PRICE flattened to a long monophthong so 'ride' has no glide in it, GOOSE and GOAT fronted, and FACE lowered to a broad [æɪ]. Two features that define the accent for most listeners are deliberately NOT modelled here, because they are conditioned by their environment rather than by lexical set and the matrix has no place to put them: the pin-pen merger (KIT and DRESS fall together only before a nasal) and Southern breaking (a short vowel gaining an extra schwa in a stressed open syllable).
Live example
Transformed live against this preset's phonetic matrix.
Hear it
A/B where you're starting from against this accent, for the same sentence. That first clip is your own accent when you've said how you speak, and your language's reference variety when you haven't — the player says which.
Compare — Where you're starting from vs. the accent you're building
Active features
Every phonetic parameter that deviates from this schema’s diffing anchor, with a plain-English gloss.
| Feature | Value | Meaning | Drill |
|---|---|---|---|
| Languagelanguage | en | Drill | |
| Mixed Languagesmixed_languages | — | Drill | |
| S Treatments_treatment | standard | Drill | |
| D Intervocalicd_intervocalic | standard | Drill | |
| D Finald_final | standard | Drill | |
| R Infinitiver_infinitive | standard | Drill | |
| R Initialr_initial | approximant | Drill | |
| N Final Velarizationn_final_velarization | No | Drill | |
| Final Consonant Dropfinal_consonant_drop | none | Drill | |
| Vowel Reductionvowel_reduction | crisp_open | Drill | |
| Syllable Timingsyllable_timing | stress_timed | Drill | |
| T Flappingt_flapping | Yes | Drill | |
| Yod Behaviouryod_behaviour | dropped | Drill |