Studying and working with the Appalachian ‘hillbilly’ dialect begins to gain academic legitimacy in the US.
[Update Jan 2016] Mair aboot Soothren Appalachian
How to speak Southern Appalachian
“Southern Mountain Speech” is the official term given to the dialect spoken in Southern Appalachia. It is a unique subset of the Southern accent, with many similarities in pronunciations but with a lot of differences, as well (there are also a lot of similarities with many African American dialects.)