From Matthew McConaughey‘s signature drawl, to the dulcet tones of Reese Witherspoon and Renée Zellweger, the Southern American accent is synonymous with a number of Hollywood blockbusters.

But perhaps not for much longer.

That’s because new research suggests the classic accent in dying out among younger people — with Generation X particularly to blame.

Scientists observed the most notable change between baby boomers and those born between 1965 and 1982, when the accent fell off a cliff. 

‘We found that, here in Georgia, white English speakers’ accents have been shifting away from the traditional Southern pronunciation for the last few generations,’ said lead author Margaret Renwick, associate professor at the University of Georgia (UGA).  

‘Today’s college students don’t sound like their parents, who didn’t sound like their own parents.’

She added: ‘We had been listening to hundreds of hours of speech recorded in Georgia and we noticed that older speakers often had a thick Southern drawl, while current college students didn’t.’

Professor Renwick said this in turn led them to ask the question ‘which generation of Georgians sounds the most Southern of all?’

‘We surmised that it was baby boomers, born around the mid-20th century,’ she added.

‘We were surprised to see how rapidly the Southern accent drops away starting with Gen X.’

The team of researchers are the first to identify the accent shift in Georgia. 

Their analysis was based on recordings of white people native to Georgia who were born from the late 19th century to the early 2000s, with the researches specifically focusing on the way the speakers pronounced vowels.

They found that older Georgians pronounced the word ‘prize’ as prahz and ‘face’ as fuh-eece, but the youngest speakers use prah-eez and fayce.  

‘Changes to the diphthong in “prize” are the oldest characteristic pronunciation in Southern speech, that can be traced back well over 100 years,’ Professor Renwick said. 

‘The Southern pronunciation of words like “face” emerged in the early 20th century. These are distinctive features of the traditional Southern drawl.’

‘The demographics of the South have changed a lot with people moving into the area, especially post World War II,’ said co-author Jon Forrest, UGA assistant professor in the department of linguistics. 

He added that what scientists had observed in Georgia was part of an overall shift not just in other southern states but across the wider US as well. 

‘We are seeing similar shifts across many regions, and we might find people in California, Atlanta, Boston and Detroit that have similar speech characteristics,’ Professor Forrest explained.  

As linguistic patterns differ for other ethnic groups, the researchers now want to study cross-generational accents among African Americans, too.

The new study has been published in the journal Language Variation and Change.

A study into heat-related deaths in the Northern Territory suggests air-conditioning is ruining our ability to handle high temperatures and that traditional practices may be a better way to stay cool.

Research published in the top medical journal The Lancet examined temperature data from deaths in the Territory from 1980 to 2020, covering more than 15,800 Indigenous and almost 16,000 non-Indigenous deaths.

Australian National University experts found more time spent inside air-conditioned spaces is making people more vulnerable to heat stress.

The study found that Indigenous people were found to be no more susceptible to heat mortality than non-Indigenous despite typically having less access to air-conditioned spaces.

‘The social and cultural practices developed by First Nations people over generations, such as reducing physical exertion in hotter parts of the day, are powerful mechanisms for protecting human health,’ he said.

Warumungu Elder and study co-author Norman Frank Jupurrurla said the results should be informing housing policy in the NT.

‘Today we still live like we used to live in humpies, our houses are poor and overcrowded … these houses have been built for England or cold country. We need houses to be built for this hot climate here,’ he said.

Countries in Europe like Spain that traditionally enjoy siestas are also having a decline in the heat-avoidance practice, with a push towards a 9-5, globalised workforce.

Study co-author Aparna Lal said the move was counter-productive and planners should be designing homes that don’t require artificial cooling.

‘Instead, housing in hot climates should be designed to ensure passive cooling where people live comfortably within the predominant climate and at the same time requiring minimal energy costs for cooling,’ she said.

Associate professor Lal said there was an increasing awareness that Indigenous societies and their understanding of climate change provide important insights into climate adaptation

‘As extreme hot temperatures become more common in Australia and around the world, the most important tool we have to adapt to climate change may be cultural change,’ Prof Quilty said.

‘It’s time to learn from First Nations people and other societies from the past that used culture as a tool to thrive in hot climates. Perhaps we should all be having an arvo nap when it’s hot rather than turning up the AC.’