Ahra-lessnes in white-Southern speech

[Wilson Gray]

Are there any white-Southern speakers left who *don't* use [r] in all
the places where Northerners do? I watched a Weather Channel show on
the Great Tornado Season of '74. Many ordinary white folk from
Kentucky and Alabama were interviewed WRT their memories of that
season. Only one speaker, from around Dothan and Huntsville, Alabama,
failed to use [r] and that was in only one word: *government*, which
he pronounced as approximately "gum mint" [g^m mI at nt].

They all used what black speakers usually characterize as the
"hillbilly" dialect. The "Southern" dialect is the ahra-less one
usually attempted nowadays only by Northern actors attempting to
portray Southern-speakers.

Is BE the only r-less AmE dialect left with a number of speakers large
enough to bother to count?
--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

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