Posted on 09/16/2013 11:54:23 AM PDT by 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.
Is the dark orange in Cali for ebonics?
ping
Bump da door once, da bell don’t make.
I usually sound like I’m from Eastern OK. Unfortunately, I spent a few formative years in Michigan. When I get nervous I sound like a dang Yooper. I didn’t even know I did it until my wife pointed it out.
I was born of Midwestern parents in the Midwest but moved to New England at six months of age. I am told no one can place my accent. No one has no accent but I think I come close to standard American.
bfl
Dad-blamed carpetbagger infestation!
(Actually, it's more Raleigh-Durham-Cary than Charlotte)
Nu skool. And it ain’t in cursive.
Oh my!!!
Thank you.
We “ret up” before “worshin’” the “deeshes.”
YMMV
:)
My father warshed his hands, too, but then he ranced them.
bump
My Mother grew up in the Carolinas, splitting her time between Easley, SC and Jeter Mountain(near Hendersonville) NC, but she lived a good portion of her life on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Consequently, you knew she sure wasn’t from up North, but her Southern accent was hard to pin down. Except when she would visit relatives in the Carolinas. Then she would re-charge her accent and it would last a good two-three weeks before settling back to normal.
There was a fascinating documentary on the history of English that ran on PBS a few years back.
It traced the development of English from Chaucer’s England to the present day, and made some predictions on the future.
The regional dialects in England are VERY pronounced. Often the local accent shifts markedly if you go just a few miles. The East Cost of the United States started out in a similar way (Boston, NY, Philly, Baltimore, etc.) But as populations moved west they intermixed, until the dialects on the West Coast were fairly homogenous.
The final episode predicted that the future of English will be determined in India, due to the sheer number of speakers (1.3 billion). So someday we may ALL be doing the needful.
You betcha eh?
I remembuh...the first time I visited the state of MAINE....
the accent I had never heard befoh.
Thanks!
Anybody got any thoughts on why Charleston, SC natives have no southern accent? To hear a southern accent in SC you have to head up-state. My brother has lived in Charleston for 40 years and he’s the only one in his family that still has a Southern accent. He’s originally from Eastern, North Carolina and still has the accent, the way I do. His sons and daughters, born and raised in and around Charleston talk real fast, more Yankee than anything else. Certainly not Southern.
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.
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