The African-American Accent in the USA

I am writing an article about the Dirty Dancing stage musical, which includes a Negro character name Elizabeth. In the stage musical, she speaks and sings. (When I talk about the year 1963, I use the word Negro, because that was the polite word in that time.)

Many of the foreigners who read my blog might not know that a large portion of African-Americans speak with an accent that is distinctly recognizable. When I hear an African-American speaking but cannot see the person, I think I can guess about 50% correctly that the speaker is African-American.

There are some words that only African-Americans say. For example, if a speaker says aks instead of ask -- I want to aks a question -- then that person must be an African-American. Also, African-Americans tend to speak with a distinct, rather musical, sassy intonation.

Even when their vocabulary and grammar are standard English, African-Americans tend to speak with a variation of the USA's southern accent -- no matter where the African-American lives. This accent difference is only slight, but people who grew up in the USA recognize the difference.

In general, people who grew up in -- or migrated from -- the states that fought on the Confederate side in the USA's Civil War speak with an accent that differs from the states that fought on the Union side. Within that Southern accent, the African-American accent differs slightly from the Southern Whites' accents.

As time passes, African-Americans are losing their distinct accent -- just all other Americans are losing their regional accents.

However, in 1963, when the Dirty Dancing story takes place, the overwhelming majority of Negroes spoke with an accent that was distinctly recognizable. In the stage musical, the character Elizabeth should speak with such an accent.

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President Barack Obama normally spoke with a standard accent. After all, he grew up only in a White family -- without his Kenyan father -- in Hawaii. However, he spoke with the African-American accent when he talked to African-American audiences.

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There is a stereotypical Jewish-American accent, but the Houseman family in the movie Dirty Dancing does not speak noticeably with that accent. Rather, they speak with a general New York accent.

Max Kellerman and the Schumachers speak with noticeably Jewish-American accents.

Miscellaneous Videos - 99

The Philippa Gregory Trilogy on Starz

This article is not about the movie Dirty Dancing, but I hope it will interest people who read my blog.

The Starz cable-television channel has been broadcasting a trilogy of historical movies based on novels written by Philippa Gregory. 

Philippa Gregory

The trilogy's first part was The White Queen, which Starz broadcast in 2013. The second part was The White Princess, broadcast in 2017. Now Starz is about to broadcast the third part, The Spanish Princess, in May 2019. Each part of the trilogy is about ten hours long. 

I watched The White Queen and The White Princess, and I judge them to be the best shows I ever have watched on television. Therefore I am looking forward to watching The Spanish Princess. 

The White Queen and The White Princess have not been available on-demand for a long time, but because of the imminent broadcast of The Spanish Princess, Starz has made those first two parts available on-demand again. I intend to binge-watch those first two parts again, before The Spanish Princess begins.

Basically, this trilogy is about the end of Britain's Plantagenet Dynasty and the beginning of the Tudor Dynasty. The trilogy takes place from 1464 to about 1515. This period is covered also by a series of plays written by William Shakespeare. Gregory's trilogy focuses on the women in this history. 

* The White Queen is Elizabeth Woodville, who became the wife of King Edward IV.

* The White Princess is Elizabeth of York, who became the wife of King Henry VII.

* The Spanish Princess is Catherine of Aragon, who became the first wife of King Henry VIII.

The color White refers to The Wars of the Roses, which was fought between the White Roses and the Red Roses.

If you have Starz available on your cable television, then start watching The White Queen on demand. You will not be able to stop watching the entire trilogy.

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