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.
Coastal accents are different from tidewater to outer banks to Gullah to Naples Florida
Different linguist stimuli
Charleston sounds southern to me
But not country
Younger college educated all of America sound alike now mostly
They are all ashamed of the accents of their ancestry
Pity
My wife is Charleston raised and has cotton state accent
Dah-lynn
Eastern Patrician.
Hall County where?
I grew up in KC, and my best friend’s whole family warshed and wrenched stuff. They were from S. Missouri.
Ping for later ... server overloaded
I used to think there was “a southern accent.” That’s before I lived and traveled in the South and discovered there are a WHOLE BUNCH of southern accents.
With exception of NE, the rest of the country sounds pretty much the same to my ear. But southerners are wildly diverse, though possibly not as much as they used to be.
Texas... but I understand my grandparents are of Scotch-Irish descent..
You learn something every day.
If you lived where there was a strong divergence of accents like I do you would realize a degree of income and education affiliation
We simply don’t think much about class period except in old robber baron environs....Newport..... Brewster
Down here...you speak like a hick....you will be judged as one
I saw upper class manhattanites treat bensonhurst and bay ridge and other bridge and tunnel folks the same way
I love how for you only southerners have crappy white accents
You’re such a snob Shermie.....and oblivious to your own bigotry
If you lived where there was a strong divergence of accents like I do you would realize a degree of income and education affiliation
We simply don’t think much about class period except in old robber baron environs....Newport..... Brewster
Down here...you speak like a hick....you will be judged as one
I saw upper class manhattanites treat bensonhurst and bay ridge and other bridge and tunnel folks the same way
I love how for you only southerners have crappy white accents
You’re such a snob Shermie.....and oblivious to your own bigotry
I grew up in Western Pennsylvania but after all these years I have a voice pattern that is a mix on the NYC area and the SF Bay Area.
I speak flat American announcer English. Even though I grew up in the Valley, I did not take on “that” local dialect.
I don’t get it. The midwest has a detectable accent, and of course the south, but California is especially noted for not having an accent
I said “extreme backwoods southern accents.”
While there probably are “extreme northern backwoods accents,” I don’t recall ever running into them.
Some people in all regions sound uneducated, but that has little, as such, to do with accent.
Many southerners sound highly cultured, more so than most other Americans. I think of Shelby Foote.
Also, I didn’t say I assign class/status connotations to southern backwoods accents. I said Americans do.
Do you disagree?
We’re in Merlin, too...In Maownnaery, in Kaerl Cahnny near the Haird Cahnny line.
For those of you not from the Old Line state, that would be in Mount Airy, in Carroll County, near the Howard County line.
Yes, dawlin. My hawt is beating now as I speak. (New Orleans bawn and bred).
Mouwnerry? Near the canny lahn, blow Dorsetohwn?
I live in the South (suburb of New Orleans)and I notice that black people pronounce “bedroom” as “bayroom”, “jewelry” as “jury”, and “children” as cheeren”. And when I listen to reality TV such as court shows and hear black people speak on those shows, they pronounce these words the same, so I don’t think it’s regional.
I’m an Army Brat and averaged a new home every two years, including a couple of places in Europe. My parents are from Georgia and Florida so I figured that’s where the test would place me. Oddly, it said my dialect was most similar to four cities in Texas and Shreveport, LA. At least I don’t sound like a damned Yankee!
Yeah, not too far from WessMINISTER...
Typical for the East Coast where different cities have very different accents. Supposedly, it’s the “Coastal Southern” dialect which is different from Inland Southern dialects. It’s speculated that a Tidewater planter like George Washington wouldn’t have sounded much like much like what we’ve come to understand as a “Southern accent.”
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