Appalachian accents project update!

We're pushing to get to all 423 ARC counties

Dearest Appodlachians -

Last time I wrote something here, I announced our bold plan to collect accents from all 423 Appalachian Regional Commission counties. I am excited to share some massive updates about that, including how many we’ve received and where we still need accents from.

But first!

Our podcast will always be free — as will everything we do with this massive accent project. We never expect to get paid for this stuff (we do it for the love of the game), but sometimes it definitely helps to have financial resources to put behind new investments to make our show/content better and to validate the time spent on such undertakings.

• Would you consider supporting us as a paid member of our Patreon?

• Or as a paid subscriber here on Substack ?

The tiers of support available on Patreon and the benefits that come with each http://www.patreon.com/appodlachia

It helps tremendously with everything we do.

Now for the update

We have received over 800 audio submissions of accents from 321 counties. HOLY SHIT. That’s a lot. That is also over 75% of the Appalachian Regional Commission’s 423 counties represented.

The last time we did this, we got like 120. I was thinking we might get double that this time around, considering we’ve grown a bit in the four years since we last did this, but DAMN Y’ALL.

We’re closer to getting all counties in several states, but my goal is still to get the full GD map with at least one accent per county (Mississippi might be a tough nut to crack).

I’m embedding a couple of accents we’ve received that I liked to give you a little sneak peek. The first is from Lumpkin County, GA and the second is from Clay County, KY.

I’ve included a few graphics that show where we still need accent submissions from. If any of you reading this are from one of these places and haven’t shared your Appalachian accent yet, please consider doing so! If you know anybody from these places, share the prompt with them! (I’ll repost it below)

Here is the prompt for those who need it!

Record a voice memo on your phone with the following script:

• “Hi, my name is [FIRST NAME]. I am from [COUNTY NAME OR CITY NAME], [STATE] and this is my Appalachian accent. This is how I say Appalachia.”

Listen to make sure the recording at least sounds good enough to understand, then send it in an email to info@appodlachia.com

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Thanks for reading, y’all! Really looking forward to sharing all of these with you once it is finished!