Born and Raised

When I actually start think about dialect and accents these days, it makes me wonder if North Carolina actually has a more popular accent over another because it seems that when we talk to each other we all seem to have our own individual accent. I was born and raised in Raleigh and would say that I have a southern accent or as some people refer to as a country bumpkin. I find myself often using words that are not a part of the English language or "slang", especially when I am talking to someone that speaks the same way as I do. I have started to wonder if North Carolinians can still be called “southern” because we have so many different origins of people that moved into our state. I often use double negatives such as “I ain’t got nothing” which is part of the way I learned to speak growing up in a southern state and family. When I first went to another state and I said something like “Can I have a soda”?, they would say they didn’t know what soda was because they call it “pop” in the northern states. I feel like every day when people carry on a conversation they don’t realize the difference in the way they speak even though there is usually a big difference but I have come to realize that we all speak in a way that we all understand but we use different words or phrases. Whenever I am at home for a while around my family and friends that speak the same way I do, my country voice starts to come out more because of my surroundings. I can imagine that it would be hard to move to a different part of the country and to get adjusted to the way that people speak around you because of the dialect and accent of other people. I believe that we often judge people by the way that they talk but in reality no one can help the way they talk because it’s just a part of who you grew up with and where you were born.