What is your American dialect?

Gene Expression ^ | 16 Sept 2013 | Razib Khan

[Theoria]

Razib’s Dialect Similarity

Language dialect is something that we often pick up unconsciously, so I find it an interesting if narcissistic project to query my own dialect affinities. The above was generated using a 140 question test (warning: server often slow). In case you were curious, my most ‘similar’ city (to my dialect) is Sunnyvale, California. Though most of my life has been spent on the West coast of the United States, I did spend my elementary age years in upstate New York. You can see evidence of that in the heat-map. There are particular words I use and pronunciations that I have which I know are probably relics of my formative years, but it was a little surprising that this survey picked up on that, as I thought most of them had disappeared.

[andy58-in-nh]

Says heah the survuh is wicked ovahloaded.

[Tax-chick]

I’ve never been to Charleston. (With a Walmart right up the street, I hardly even go to Charlotte ;-).

Teachers from up north, maybe? I’ve read that’s why natives of New Orleans talk like New Yorkers.

[EQAndyBuzz]

I have been speaking Texan for the last 50 years. Problem is it keeps coming out like south Brooklyn.

[dblshot]

I had a freshman English teacher who was really a Faulkner fan. When he was sober enough to get to class he had some interesting takes on the Southern dialect which he stated was closer to the mother tongue of our British fore bearers than that “Mediterranean and Kraut bastardized mush spoken up North. He also said that english ain't math so two negatives don't make a positive and there ain't nothing more positive than I ain't going to do nothing. Meaning not only am I not going to do something, I am not even going to do nothing. Got one of my best grades in college in that class.

[HartleyMBaldwin]

My wife grew up in North Carolina, and has a bit of accent still. But when she talks to her mother on the telephone, you can hear the accent get stronger minute by minute. it recedes in a day or so, though.

[BerryDingle]

bfl

[NKP_Vet]

I’ve noticed a lot of people from the coastal areas of the southerns states (Savannah, GA excluded) don’t have much of a Southern accent. And all other the South accents tend to be much thicker in rural areas that in the big cities. I guess that’s to be expected. The Yankee influx in the big towns are the reason for that. I have not lived in NC for 45 years, but never lost my accent and never wanted to. If you’ve ever heard Richard Petty talk you know what I sound like.

[Albion Wilde]

Server overload message. Bump for midnight.

[reed13k]

bfl

[Albion Wilde]

ping, hon!

[tbpiper]

I also know sign language but my accent is so bad nobody can understand me.

[Albion Wilde]

I speak Hall County redneck, where we warsh and wrench our hands afore supper.

Well, now, don't that soun lahk puyoor 1875 Scotch Irish Amurikin dilect.

[Sherman Logan]

English in England is odd. Your accent carries a lot of class and status markers that just don’t apply in the same way in America. With the exception of Ebonics and extreme backwoods southern accents, we just don’t assign class and status by accent the way the Brits do.

So when we watch a British TV series, a lot of the undercurrents of interactions between characters are based on their accents, which goes zooming right over our heads. They all just sound “English” to us. With probable exception of Cockney, which most Americans can spot.

Interesting point. Australians sound like Americans to Brits, and like Brits to Americans.

[dsrtsage]

“where we warsh and wrench our hands afore supper.”

It’s funny I travel for a living, and I’m used to all the accents in the country none of them bother me...but for some reason since I was a little kid the pronunciation of “warsh” has always always made my teeth itch. Though when someone I work with says “warsh”, and one of the younger people I travel with looks questioningly, I always say...”The P is silent”

[Albion Wilde]

We “ret up” before “worshin’” the “deeshes.”

You can still hear that accent in County Louth and County Meath, Ireland.

[Windflier]

I once had a stranger guess my origins as a location 3,000 miles from where I grew up.

I've had the same thing happen to me. I lived in England for about a year, twenty odd years ago. On several occasions, complete strangers would say, "Oh, you're from California."

When I'd ask them how they guessed that, they'd just laugh and tell me that it was obvious by my accent. That flipped my noodle at first, because I'd never considered that we Californians had much of any kind of 'accent'.

Now that I'm in Texas, some people still correctly peg me as being from Cali.

[Albion Wilde]

I once had a stranger guess my origins as a location 3,000 miles from where I grew up. It happened to be where my parents grew up.

So, do you then happen to be a Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or Aquarius? ("fixed" signs of the zodiac, as contrasted to "cardinal" or "mutable" signs)

[mrs. a]

“ping, hon!”

Y’all from Bawlmer, hon? Near Anna Runnle Cahnny?

[Albion Wilde]

in England...Your accent carries a lot of class and status markers that just don’t apply in the same way in America.

Am I the only one annoyed by the British hairdresser class that pronounces "hair" as "haah" in television ads for haircare products?

[Albion Wilde]

Merlin native!