Tips For Writing A Southern Accent

tips for writing a southern accent

contractions are everything. just smash some words together and i guarantee you, someone out there’s said it

y’all = you guys. functions as a plural you.

all’a y’all = all of you, makes sure people know you mean ALL of them

you can get wild from there with things like these:

y’all’re = you all are

y’all’d’ve = you all would have

how’d’ya = how did you/how do you (meaning is implied by context)

and of course, y’ain’t = you are not

ain’t is the same thing as isn’t

you can use ain’t like ‘ain’t it funny?’

but you don’t use isn’t it, it’s usually ‘innit funny?’

wasn’t branches off into weren’t and wudn’t cos we have a tendency to drop the ‘s’

weren’t is usually used with a double negative = “weren’t nothing we could do”

wudn’t is when there’s no double negative = “wudn’t much we could do”

doesn’t branches off into don’t and dudn’t but there’s no rule that i can see for what to use when

‘don’t seem like much of a problem’ is used as often as ‘dudn’t seem like much of a problem’

going back to innit, there’s a tendency to tack an ‘it’ onto the end of words that aren’t already southern slang, this gives you things like innit (isn’t it) and lookit/lookat (used like ‘lookit him over there’)

also you can just straight up drop words if you the meaning can be understood without it

s’okay = it’s okay

‘m = in place of i’m (don’t use this all the time)

s’not = it’s not/is not

dropping more letters! if you can drop the ‘g’ at the end of a verb, that’s good. also, you can drop the ‘d’ from and if you wan’t to use ‘an’ but don’t over saturate your work with it. you can also occasionally drop the ‘t’ from the end of just, ending up with ‘jus’

you can smush together anything that’s asking a question with either you or to

hafta = have to

howta = how to

don’tcha = don’t you

won’tcha = won’t you

or if you want to get REAL southern ‘ain’tcha’ (used like ‘ain’tcha got something else to do’ = isn’t there something else you can do)

also, we have a tendency to not use the word ‘really’ to describe something, instead we use ‘real’

i.e. real big, real mean, real cute as opposed to really big, really mean, really cute

another phrase you can throw in is ‘and all’

used like ‘ain’t safe cos’ of the floodin’ an’ all’

ALSO I FORGOT: you can change anything that ends with a ‘ve’ except for i’ve into an a

shoulda = should’ve

coulda = could’ve

woulda = would’ve

i’da = i would’ve/should’ve/could’ve depending on context

uhh that’s all i can think of for now. if anyone has something to add on, feel free to do it bc i want to help fanfic writers write real southern accents.