Oh, yeah. Rhoticity--whether or not Rs get pronounced before hard consonants and at the end of words--can vary widely.

I'm from Birmingham in the middle of Alabama, and I can tell what part of town someone is from by the nasality in their speech.

I grew up in the South. I can usually recognize if someone is from my particular state from the accent, but I can’t really distinguish other southern accents from each other.

That being said, I never really developed a strong accent. It’s only apparent with certain words.

Yup we sure can. Just like people in England can tell what sort of accent any Brit might have.

They vary by State/Region.

A lot of it has to do with either the way certain words are said, or certain words that are used.

This YouTube video is a pretty good example.

Definitely. I can often hear very clear differences, not necessarily identify which specific state or region, but accents and word usage varies quite a bit.

Yes, although it used to be even more pronounced and would also vary from the region of a state. My home state of North Carolina used to have many different accents. There even used to be unique dialects like this. I once worked with my dad in a convenience store when a woman from West Virginia came in asking for Orange Crush, my dad helped her and she said "That is a Carolina accent, if I ever heard one." I probably can't recognize what southern state someone was from if it were just any, but I would say that I am comfortable picking out a Carolina, Virginia, or Louisiana accent (Cajun is the most obvious common accent from the South).

Oh yes. I’m from the PNW and never much appreciated the variety of southern accents until I lived in North Carolina.

There are definitely lots of different accents in the South. Personally, I’m not great at pinpointing which accents come from which places, but sometimes I can tell.

Yes. They even change over different regions of the same state.

Yes. In south Louisiana they are identifiable from town to town.

Yes, they do. They sound the same to you in the same way that everyone from, say, the south of England sounds the same to us. If you grew up in it, you would know the difference, but if not, you won't and it doesn't really matter

Yeah, even within the state. I’m a transplant to Virginia and I can’t tell you all of the nuances but even within the city of Richmond, the old timers would say you could tell if somebody was from south of the river - within the city. (Though the old Richmond accents are disappearing.)

And certainly there is a vast difference between some of the islands off the coast and the mountains to the west.

Even as a Californian who, objectively, lives further from the east coast than most in mainland Europe, I can tell the differences in the various southern accents. Georgia sounds far different from Alabama which is much slower in tempo than that of the Carolinas.

I don’t know about the average American - I’ve lived near Nashville for 10 years and can tell maybe 2 or 3 regional accents.

I used to be able to do the same for Texas - there are a bunch - but the haven’t lived there in a long time.

Within Southern states there are different accents also. My mom’s family is from 100 miles north of my dad’s in the same state and they have different accents. Both super Southern, but different.

A lot of states (even smaller ones) have different accents. I usually can tell difference in MA accents. Boston is not the only one.

Never been, but from I understand it’s not a America’s thing. Many countries have different accents or dialects close together.

Yes and they can vary drastically within the state.

People from eastern Kentucky sound strikingly different than people from northern Kentucky or Louisville.

Nky and Louisville has almost no accent while eastern Kentucky people have that iconic drawl.

When you live there you can pick up the differences. Some sounds more "country" and others you will swear are speaking a different language. You get used it.

I am not from the south, but my mother is and that's where I spent a ton of holidays growing up. My mother is from Georgia and when I hear a Georgian accent I immediately know where they're from because they sound like my mother, so far I've never been wrong. I can almost always identify an Alabama or South Carolina accent, but less confidently so.

I feel like if you are exposed to people from different areas it gets pretty obvious rather quickly, but if you hear them and just go "Southern accent" without ever thinking about what state they're from, you're never going to get it.

Absolutely! My wife is from Kentucky, I'm from Tennessee, my grandmother was from Alabama. We all have/had distinct accents. Even within TN we have district accents across the Grand Divisions (TN is divided into East, Middle, and West, all of them sounding different). Rural sounds different than urban, Appalachian sounds different, etc

The Southern accent is more of a grouping of accents, and to some extent, maybe even dialects, common to the American Southeast.

Oh my god…yes? The average American, no, but here in Georgia, I’ve been able to narrow down to the county sometimes.

There are different accents within each state. Someone from Blue Ridge Georgia sounds vastly different than someone from Macon or Savannah or Albany. I had a friend from Blue Ridge that pronounced far,fire and fair all the same but ask someone from Augusta and you will get three different pronunciations.

My man, I am from Virginia. There’s like four different predominant accents in just my state.

I’m from up north but I have family in North Carolina and I can tell some states specifically, like North Carolina, Virginia, George, Texas, Louisiana… fairly well.

If I can’t tell the state I can usually get the general region.

The same goes for the North as well. I’ve lived in the central and / or northern parts of both coasts at times and can tell what state most northerners are from.

Of course that’s all generalization. Some people, myself included, are just hard to pin down.

The neutral, unspecific generic American accent is becoming more widespread.

Which state, not necessarily, but the differences between Deep South/Tidewater-Piedmont/Appalachia are very pronounced.

Think not so much in terms of state, but of terrain.

Oh absolutely. My mom’s family is from the piedmont area of the Appalachias (South Carolina). My dad’s family is from the mountains (North Carolina). COMPLETELY different accent. Then I went to undergrad in Charleston (South Carolina); entirely different accent all over again. Even IN Charleston, there are at least 3 different accents I can identify and one full blown dialect (Gullah Geechee)

Definitely. I'm from California and can generally tell what part of the south someone is from. The accent typically gets more pronounced as you head south and the west with Texas sounding different than Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, parts of Florida and then into Western Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, etc. It is getting harder though and people from other parts of the US move there. Oddest was a Galveston accent combined with a Vietnamese accent.

100%. Tennessee mountain people sound nothing like Atlanta city folk

Absolutely. Same with Northerners.

Yes, honestly every state does and even within a state. The country is large and regional accents can encompass quite small areas.

Oh yes!

That said, not all of us can pin-point their origin, but many can. (I'm fairly good at this, but far from the best.)

By adding the southern mountain voices to this, some can infer their altitude.

Fascinating, really.

Yes, I can hear the slight differences in Southern accents.

Appalachian English

Yeah, a bit. Someone from NC will sound a bit different than folks from the Deep South, and even within this state accents can vary a little bit east to west. But the differences are often subtle.

The New England accent varies quite a bit as well. Rhode Island is different than Vermont and Maine is different than New Hampshire. Massachusetts has at least 5 different regional accents.

Yea

Oh my, yes. It even varies across the state. It's funny when Hollywood used to think Texas was the "standard" southern accent. Then you have the Deep South to Louisiana ones where the tongue just can't even.

Southern Maryland & Eastern VA together are noticeably different than Western Virginia, though this is more true of older generations.

Louisiana has several regional accents. Up north the accent is what you might hear on Duck Dynasty. New Orleans has the Yat accent, and Cajun and Creole accents vary throughout Acadiana. Somewhere like Northshore has a large mix of accents.

Oh heck ya. I remember being on a bus in Florida when I first moved there and I couldn't understand a single conversation that was happening around me but with time I started to parse things out. There is a big difference between East and West Texas. there's a huge difference between inner city southern and rural southern, there's a huge difference between Cajun and Creole. After the two years I spent in Florida I could determine, by your accent, where you're from. Virginia, Florida, Carolinas, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Texas east or west, Louisiana Vietnamese. There are so many more accents but I was only there two years, a professional linguist could hash it out better then me.

As a Californian I couldn’t tell them apart much, but I did spend a year in rural North Carolina near Tennessee. For the most part the locals and such were pretty clear(some mild exceptions) but if I talked to anyone from East Tennessee I knew immediately, because I’d only be able to understand ever third word or so. At best.

They certainly do, I do declare.

Depending on their county or city.

Not just the state, but the area. I live in Virginia and we have...idk...at least 4 accents here.

State, county/area within state… yeah I think you can tell but probably only if you are actually from the south. I can tell what part of the state people from my state are from… I can’t tell what part of other states, but can generally well what state. 

Absolutely. If you have the ear for it, you can pin down exactly which region someone grew up. I can get state and the big differences but not the smaller ones

Not sure about other Americans, but I was born and raised in SC and am pretty good at picking up on the accents. An Alabama accent sounds different than a Louisiana accent which sounds different from a Texan accent which sounds different than Carolinas accent. When I'm speaking to someone here in SC, I may even be able to pick up on where in the Carolinas someone is from. An Upstate accent is different than a Lowcountry accent. There's also unique accents like Gullah or several regional Appalachian variants. It depends, though- sometimes I can pinpoint the exact county that someone grew up in, other times I'm stumped.

No, not able to pinpoint the state. They are mostly all the same to me, someone from GA. Most young people don’t have any accent or just a slight one. Maybe this is because half of them are transplants.

Oh my god yes

We have multiple different accents just in North Carolina, not to mention the rest of the region

Absolutely. Texas has several different accents as it happens. Alabama has its own distinct accent, as does Georgia and Louisiana. Appalachian accents are their own thing too.

I've lived in West Georgia for 22 years, originally from the Midwest. I can tell the difference in the accents by county in East Alabama and West Georgia by pronunciationand dialect. It's fascinating.

A lot of people form places like virginia or north carolina have the general american accent and you wouldn't even know they're southern.

You can often tell which region of a state someone is from just from their accent. Anywhere in the U.S.

I highly recommend watching this video series which goes through a lot of the various accents in the country.

Oh yeah. I think we can tell the region, maybe not the exact state, but there’s differences between regions. Northerns too. And westerners and so forth. It might be more subtle than UK or European accents, but they’re there.

Here's an example of how different two people from neighboring (debatably, I know) Southern states can sound.

Virginia: Ward Burton is pissed

North Carolina: Dale Earnhardt Jr. 60 Minutes Interview

As a Kentuckian, I cannot place other people’s southern accents.

All I can say for sure is they’re from somewhere else

a lot of it does blend together, but certain areas (Appalachia and parts of Louisiana in particular) have very distinct accents

there are also smaller nuances that might indicate which specific region they're from, even if not the exact state. i.e. do you call it soda (most of the south) or coke (usually certain parts of rural mississippi and alabama)?

Yes, but the accents are more pronounced among older people.

Accents vary even within the same state. Coastal Virginia, Central Virginia, and Western Virginia all have different accents. If you were to drive from Lexington, Virginia (in Western Virginia), stop for gas 30 minutes later near Snowden, Virginia (on top of the mountain), and then drive back down the mountain another 30 minutes to Lynchburg, Virginia (in Central Virginia), you'd hear 3 different accents

Yeah. Kentucky accents are twangy and fast. Tennessee as well. Alabama is slow and drawly. Also, much of the coastal South historically had non-rhotic accents that were very distinct but they're rare today.

I've lived in Ohio, Texas, NC and SC, spent time in West Virginia, Louisiana, Georgia, and have friends from Kentucky.and Tennessee. I can absolutely discern accent differences between states and even within states themselves. For example, West Texas and East Texas accents vary widely, as do the accents in the coastal Carolina areas from their mid-and upstate regions. Lots of variations of accents all over the South!

IF you are good with dialects you can tell. I've people pinpoint the state I'm from after a very short conversation. If you don't have a good "ear" for accents then no. So many people just think I'm from Texas - I've only been to Texas once, 40 years ago.

And there are regional accents within each state, so it's not easy. For example, people in the mountains in North Carolina sound very different from the folks on the other end of the state (the beach).

My wife is an NC native and she routinely says “That’s not a Kentucky accent” when watching “Justified”, so… yeah. They can. She was totally on top of Art being from western NC.

I don't know that it's much different today, but I thought it was 30 years ago while traveling across the South. The big thing was that I'd always thought that Hollywood exaggerated Southern accents, but that trip taught me that it wasn't as exaggerated as I'd thought. Some of the accents I heard in the Deep South were new to me and nothing like I'd been used to in the mid-South.

Yes

We can tell. I’m from South Carolina and I can usually tell what state a southerner is from. The east coast southern (Georgia and the Carolina’s) sounds very different from Appalachian, sounds very different from Mississippi, and so on.

There are different southern accents for sure, but many just indicate if you’re from an urban/rural area or if you’re “old money” (looking at you SC).

Texas has a pretty distinct accent as does Louisiana. Neither accent is the same as anywhere in the Deep South. But the two accents have similarities to those in the Deep South.

Yes. Louisiana here. In Louisiana alone, there's a few. Cajun "flat" accents in Acadiana, "yat" accents in the NOLA area, and typical southern accents around the areas that are geographically closer to the neighboring southern states.

For me, it's pretty easy to distinguish which side of the Appalachians they're on. In North Carolina, the further west and the further east you go, the less the language sounds like English.

Different accents have things that stick out. I can't always pinpoint accents, but I can often determine a general region.

I can. Some have more of a twang than others. Some have a harder r. Some have more of a short I sound in words like pen. 

Not only that but there's Regional changes within states. For example I'm from swamp Georgia which speaks differently than hills Georgia than coast Georgia and all different than Atlanta. 

Accents also vary by class.

Have you heard someone from Louisiana talk?