An accent isn't just the way you pronounce things.

It's a representation of the community you're a part of.

The podcast app, a local, recently published its Appalachian Accent Project, a collection of over 1500 audio samples of accents from the states that make up Appalachia, including from 54 counties in Kentucky.

The creator says he wanted to showcase the dignity and diversity of the Appalachian accent.

We wanted to take away the stigma of the Appalachian and really like the Southern and Appalachian accent.

And so what I decided to do is just ask people to send us their accent.

We had a simple prompt that we sent out to our followers.

I was genuinely shocked at how many submissions we got.

I had, I was blown away that we got over even over 500.

Little alone 1500.

Hi, my name is Tommy.

I'm from Adair County, Kentucky, and this is my Appalachian accent.

And this is my Appalachian accent.

This is my Appalachian accent.

And this is how I say Appalachia.

My name is Juliet.

I'm from Casey County, Kentucky, and this is my Appalachian accent.

The accent thing has been an ongoing, kind of a joke.

My whole life.

When I go places and people talk about my southern accent.

And then, when I was in the army, they wanted us to tone those of us with southern accents.

They wanted us to tone them down.

I'm proud of where I come from, and I'm proud of the people that live, where I come from.

And I want, I want the rest of the world to know what we sound like, what we look like, what we do, the things that that we create, the things that we make.

I saw more variation between counties, I think, in Kentucky than most other states, and I think that was really cool.

Kentucky's are some of what are some of my favorites.

And so listening to them was a real treat.

And I think, like some of the ones like Estill County was really cool.

Clay County was really, really cool.

And Pike and all of those were really interesting to listen to.

And in like here, the differences between them is this how I say Appalachia?

For me, I could really tell the difference in the accents where I'm from, even just, you know, over some knobs and maybe in Pulaski County and how, how much different some of the words are, the way they sound.

But you can almost hear it and it's it's musically the same.

It sounds the same on your ears.

The people who gave you that accent are the people who loved you most in the world.

Your grade, your parents, your grandparents, your great grandparents there, your rates there.

That's how you know where you came from.

And you know that they're good people and there's nothing to be ashamed about, about the way they talk.

And there's nothing to be ashamed about the way you talk, either.

I was really grateful for all the people that were, I'll say, vulnerable enough to share their accents with me.

With us.

Our accents have been discriminated against and stigmatized throughout history, and a lot of people and a lot of people that reached out to us have had to suppress their accents or get rid of them over their lifetime because of the stigmas that have been levied against them and levied against our accents.

And I was really honored to be entrusted with those.

And so I didn't take that lightly.

I really didn't.

The Appalachian Accent Project is available for free on YouTube.

The complete project is over four hours long.