We all speak an English dialect and absolutely no one
actually speaks their real ancestral language including those of English
heritage. That is how language is trying
to continually shift to something else on an ongoing basis. The only thing that
saves us from disintegration is some form of educational standard that
historically was anchored by the King’s James Bible. If you do not believe this, try reading the
contemporaneous plays of Shakespeare.
Even pinning a national language does not really work convincingly. Thus we have emergent dialects everywhere we
look. This describes what all we have
today. It is fun to compare and to
listen too. At least it is not England
were divergence is vast, yet not enough to define completely new languages.
Fortunately media is now creating a working sense of
language convergence. We are comparing
our voices to each other across vast gulfs in culture and history and we are
doing it through some rough form of English.
This has the mutual benefit of providing a common lookup dictionary over
which is possible to agree on meaning for thousands if not millions of words
and potential words.
What dialect do you speak? A map of American English
BY REID WILSON
December 2 at 10:48 am
Do
you pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd? Do you refer to multiple people as “dey”? Is
a jelly doughnut called a “bismark,” or is everything that comes out of a soda
fountain called a coke, even if it’s really 7-Up? Do you root for Da Bears?
The
way we speak, both the phrases we use and the accents that inflect those
phrases, come from our upbringings. And in a nation of more than 300 million
people, it’s little wonder that those accents vary widely. More than a decade
ago, Robert Delaney, a reference associate at Long Island University, put together this map of the 24 regions of American English:
Dialects and Subdialects of American English
in the 48 conterminous states, image copyright Robert Delaney
Eastern
New England: These are the cah pahkahs, the blue
collar residents from Maine to Massachusetts who drop their Rs and substitute
an H. Think Jack Donaghywhen
he hangs out with Nancy Donovan on “30 Rock.”
Boston
Urban: There are a few sub-dialects in the Hub,
from the stereotypical Southie dialect (Sully
and Denise on “Saturday Night Live”) to the Boston
Brahmin (John Kerry). The differences are more determined by class than
anything else.
Western
New England: Outside eastern Massachusetts, it’s the
T that gets dropped. The last Democratic president was Bill Clin-n, for
example. It’s not as distinctive as the eastern accent.
Hudson
Valley: Dutch settlers, Delaney says, influenced
language development north of New York City. The sitting area in front of your
doorstep is a stoop, and the best-sellers at Dunkin’ Donuts are crullers and
olycooks.
New
York City: The mix of ethnicities that built the
Big Apple created their own dialect that doesn’t sound much like the rest of
America. TH sounds become Ds, and words get smashed together easily. There’s no
better example than Marisa Tomei and Joe Pesci in “My Cousin
Vinny.”
Bonac: A
small and dwindling dialect on Long Island, which was once a part of New
England. Combine New York City and Eastern New England and you get the idea.
Inland
Northern: Upstate New York and Vermont combine
Western New England and the Midwest, and words like marry, merry and Mary are
all pronounced identically. Delaney points out another doughnut difference:
Here, they’re called friedcakes.
San
Francisco Urban: The city by the bay has more in common
with the East Coast than the West Coast, thanks to the settlers who originally
made their way to the Bay Area. San Franciscans speak a mishmash of
Northeastern and Midwestern English.
Upper
Midwestern: Home of the Midwestern twang, influenced
by a combination of Northeasterners and Southerners who migrated up the
Mississippi River, as well as the Scandinavian immigrants who settled the area.
A subdialect in and around Minnesota reflects more of that Norwegian influence.
Think “Drop Dead Gorgeous.”
Chicago
Urban: Bill Swerski would be proud. Chicago’s distinctive
dialect is influenced by what linguists call the Northern Cities Vowel Shift,
when short vowels started sounding like their longer cousins. Chicago’s dialect
was influenced by migrants who traveled along the Erie Canal,
west from the Northeast. They root, of course, for Da Bears.
North
Midland: Here’s where the European immigrants who
didn’t move to New York City start playing a role. The Scotch-Irish, German and
Quaker settlers from Pennsylvania to the central Midwest created what Delaney
calls a “transition zone” between the north and south. Doughnuts are dunkers or
fatcakes.
Pennsylvania
German-English: A small but distinct dialect in the
center of the Keystone State, probably spoken by Dwight Schrute’s ancestors. The grammar system
is the most distinctive remnant of the region’s immigrant populations; it
sounds more like German than English.
Rocky
Mountain: Think Montana, Colorado and Utah. Heavy
influences from frontier settlers and Native American languages.
Pacific
Northwest: More influence from Native American
languages. An example is the potluck, a gathering where everyone brings a dish,
a derivation of the Native American “potlatch.” Muckatymuck, known elsewhere as
a big shot, is another Native American term adopted by Northwesterners. But
there’s less of an accent here than elsewhere, given the fact that the region
was settled relatively recently.
Pacific
Southwest: The settlers who showed up came to
California for the gold, and that still shows in some of their slang — Delaney
cites “pay dirt,” “pan out” and “goner” as phrases that started in California.
Sub-dialects of Valley Girls and Surfer Dudes are ripe for parody, as in Cher and Travis from the timeless classic “Clueless.”
Southwestern: Mexican
dialects of Spanish infuse Southwestern English, though the region is still
what Delaney calls a melting pot of other dialects. Words like “patio” and “plaza”
became a part of everyday English thanks to the Southwest.
South
Midland: West of the Appalachians and into North
Texas, speakers here sometimes put an A before a word ending in -ING, in place
of words like “are.” TH is often replaced with an F. Delaney says this region
retains more strains of Elizabethan English than modern British English has,
including words like “ragamuffin,” “reckon” and “sorry,” meaning “inferior.”
Ozark: Southern
Appalachian settlers developed their own dialect, best embodied in pop culture
by the Beverly Hillbillies.
Southern
Appalachian: The “g” in gerunds doesn’t survive often
here. But overall, the accent is pretty similar to the South Midlands.
Virginia
Piedmont: A syrupy drawl starts to develop south
of Washington, where the letter R, when coming after a vowel, becomes what
Delaney calls a slided sound. So “four dogs” sounds like “fo-uh dahawgs.”
Coastal
Southern: Similar to the Piedmont drawl, but with
more remnants of Colonial English. Something diagonally across the street is
“catty-corner.”
Gullah: A
Creole mix found in coastal areas of Georgia and South Carolina combines
English with West African languages brought over by slaves who entered the U.S.
in the 1700s and 1800s. Words like “peruse,” “yam” and “samba” all entered the
country here.\
Gulf
Southern: Basically the Deep South minus Georgia
and New Orleans. It’s a result of mixing English settlers from the southern
colonies with French settlers in Louisiana, and it’s where we get words like
“armoire,” “bisque” and “bayou.”
Louisiana: The
French settlers who first traveled up the Mississippi River brought a whole
mess of dialects. They include Cajun French, which incorporates some Spanish,
and Cajun English, which makes New Orleans “Nawlins.”
Here’s
another way linguists view the English dialects spoken in the U.S.:
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