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22 Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Totally Differently From Each Other
business insider ^

Posted on 06/05/2013 3:10:55 PM PDT by SMGFan

Everyone knows that Americans don't exactly agree on pronunciations. Regional accents are a major part of what makes American English so interesting as a dialect. Joshua Katz, a Ph. D student in statistics at North Carolina State University, just published a group of awesome visualizations of Professor Bert Voux's linguistic survey that looked at how Americans pronounce words. (via) detsl on /r/Linguistics His results were first published on Abstract, the N.C. State research blog.

(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...


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To: Aliska
I recall reading somewhere that today's dialect spoken in the Baltimore-Philadelphia-Pittsburgh region hasn't changed much since Revolutionary times and is presumed similar to how English sounded in England at that time.

There is an island in the Chesapeake, Tilghman Island, where they say the English dialect remains much as it was from the first English settlers in the 1656, due to the Island's relative isolation for the first 300 years. The phenomenon has probably faded in my lifetime, tho, due to television.

One of my elderly relatives who was born in Maryland had a very strange accent. When I went on my roots tour in Ireland, where his father had migrated from, I heard that strange accent again, which was quite localized in a small area of two towns, and not at all like the "Bells of St. Mary's" stereotypes used by Hollywood.

141 posted on 06/05/2013 5:36:01 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world." -- Francis)
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To: boop

My wife is from Norwich, and like other parts of Britain, has its own accent. I can barely understand my brother-in-law who grew up in Norwich. My wife has lost a lot of her accent after living in the U.S. for about thirty years. The official name of the “posh” accent is The Received Pronunciation. There are far more regional accents in Britain than in the U.S. or any other English-speaking country. For instance, Australians have basically one pronunciation/accent from one end of the country to the other. According to sources I’ve heard tell me.


142 posted on 06/05/2013 5:39:05 PM PDT by driftless2
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To: Aliska
“quirks”. Like chimley for chimney, liberry for library, must be many others variants people don’t pronounce correctly.

Philadelphia working-class folks like to add extra syllables. Two of my favorites: the Acme Supermarket is "da AC-a-me"; and masonry is "masonary."

143 posted on 06/05/2013 5:40:14 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world." -- Francis)
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To: Aliska

The upper crust accent is called The Received Pronunciation or the “posh” accent as most average Brits call it. Most average Brits snicker at other average/non-nobility Brits who put on the “posh” accent.


144 posted on 06/05/2013 5:41:29 PM PDT by driftless2
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To: Zionist Conspirator

When I was down in the Norfolk-Williamsburg area in Eastern Virginia, I certainly heard the Southern accent.


145 posted on 06/05/2013 5:42:33 PM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: Zionist Conspirator
I'm certain he had the same accent as his contemporary fellow-Virginians, but isn't Virginia too far north to have a drawl spoken there?

Good point. There would be aspects of what we now call a "Southern drawl" and of British English, but trying to get at the sound of it would be difficult. Chesapeake accents were quite different from what we now call a Southern accent.

146 posted on 06/05/2013 5:44:18 PM PDT by x
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To: old and tired

Philadelphia speak...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3lZFiyd_-0


147 posted on 06/05/2013 5:44:36 PM PDT by Fresh Wind (The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.)
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To: MarkL
And then there’s Versailles, MO. It’spronounced “Ver-Sails” by everybody.

How about Vienna? In Virginia, it's VeeENna. In Georgia, it's VahEENna.

148 posted on 06/05/2013 5:44:56 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world." -- Francis)
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To: x

My hometown was actually a weird case. There’s a more detailed version of that map that I’ve seen, and running up the Illinois River Valley from Missouri into Central Illinois is a finger of area where it’s “sody,” I remember being at a Cubs game when I was a kid and the looks we got when my cousin yelled “HEY, SODY MAN!” at the vendor.


149 posted on 06/05/2013 5:49:43 PM PDT by Bubba Ho-Tep ("More weight!"--Giles Corey)
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To: Fiji Hill
When I was down in the Norfolk-Williamsburg area in Eastern Virginia, I certainly heard the Southern accent.

Ugh! I didn't say they didn't have a Southern accent, I said they didn't have a Southern drawl. Perhaps you think one is identical to the other?

Upper Southerners (and residents of the top halves of Deep South states) do not drawl. They twang.

I am merely pointing out that George Washington, a Virginian, would not have sounded like someone from south Mississippi.

150 posted on 06/05/2013 5:51:19 PM PDT by Zionist Conspirator (Ki-hagoy vehamamlakhah 'asher lo'-ya`avdukh yove'du; vehagoyim charov yecheravu!)
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To: Zionist Conspirator

You don’t really hit the drawl till you’re halfway down Mississippi, Alabama, or Georgia. The northern halves of those states have the same twang as their neighbors to the north.

I believe Texans also speak with the twang rather than the drawl. Has to do with the origin of most Texas settlers.


A lot of Texans ancestors were from the upper south. Mine came down from Virginia and North Carolina, migrating through the lower south to east Texas around and after 1865. I think a lot came from Tennessee. Possibly that’s why Texas has more of the twang than the soft southern drawl? I do think the southern drawl is really pretty. I’ve noticed when I’m around native Texans or true southerners, my pronunciation starts to mirror theirs. I’m not trying to change it, but it just happens!(Probably because my parents and grandparents talked closer to that way so it seems natural).


151 posted on 06/05/2013 5:54:03 PM PDT by boxlunch (the fourth estate is the fifth column)
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To: KC Burke
there are often temporary historical origins to these expressions, terms, or usages that get lost or lightly recorded and baffle us later. There were plenty of people like my great-grandfather called “the Dutchman” even though they were of german ancestry, because we waged two wars with Germany — I thought I had Dutch ancestry until I was 25.

The Pennsylvania Dutch, or Amish people, are actually of German descent. Calling German-Americans "Dutch" came from the German word for "German" -- "Deutch", pronounced "doyitch."

152 posted on 06/05/2013 5:54:35 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world." -- Francis)
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To: x
Good point. There would be aspects of what we now call a "Southern drawl" and of British English, but trying to get at the sound of it would be difficult. Chesapeake accents were quite different from what we now call a Southern accent.

Exactly. Virginia isn't Alabama. And it always amuses me when actors portraying Robert E. Lee always give him a Gulf Coast Deep South drawl.

The few times I have heard someone from Virginia, Maryland, or West Virginia, they have all seemed to have a very prominent "R," unlike the stereotypical Deep South dropped "R." The Upper South is rhotic, the Deep South is non-rhotic (except for American Blacks, who appear to be almost universally non-rhotic wherever they are).

153 posted on 06/05/2013 5:54:57 PM PDT by Zionist Conspirator (Ki-hagoy vehamamlakhah 'asher lo'-ya`avdukh yove'du; vehagoyim charov yecheravu!)
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To: driftless2
Interesting. I asked my GF just WHY she didn't speak like her relatives, and I guess she thought it was cultural, if not prejudice.

Kind of like how Dan Rather is from Texas, but got rid of his "icky" accent that made him unemployable nationally unless he talked like Walter Cronkite.

Personally I love accents.

I told my GF how much her accent turned me on, and she scolded me because it was "ridiculous".

You Americans! WHY do you like the way we speak? It's the PROPER way to do so.

To her ears, Americans are rubes. And she would mock my midwestern accent all the time.

154 posted on 06/05/2013 5:57:02 PM PDT by boop ("You don't look so bad, here's another")
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To: pax_et_bonum
Now, be nice - they don’t know any better!

Bless their hearts!

155 posted on 06/05/2013 5:57:30 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world." -- Francis)
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To: boop
And off topic, but I lived in Baltimore for years, and I still can't imitate that accent.

If you rent the recent version of Hairspray, John Travolta had it down! "I got to do mah arnin!" (do my ironing)

156 posted on 06/05/2013 6:02:06 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world." -- Francis)
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To: Albion Wilde

Bless their hearts!
__________

Rofl!!!

Very nice!

;-)


157 posted on 06/05/2013 6:04:43 PM PDT by pax_et_bonum (Never Forget the Seals of Extortion 17 - and God Bless America)
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To: Albion Wilde
LOL! Well done.

In Tin Men, Danny Devito does a HORRENDOUS job of imitating a Bawl'mor accent.

It actually bothered me because he obviously didn't do the work in getting it right.

158 posted on 06/05/2013 6:07:31 PM PDT by boop ("You don't look so bad, here's another")
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To: Bigg Red; boop
Used to love it when my father’s family would come for a visit from the Philadelphia suburbs to our house in Bawl-T-More County...when they spoke of drinking a cup of couwfee.

You nailed it! And did you say, "Look at the Mewn! How many mahls is it from Earth to the Mewn?"

The best Bal-T-moor accent ever is in the radio commercials by Don DiMarchio, "Mister Tire." "Oin di rim an owt di dewr! Ah'm Mistuwr Tahr!"

159 posted on 06/05/2013 6:11:50 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world." -- Francis)
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To: Betty Jane

Are Erin and AAron said the same?


Uh oh, you just gave me an excuse to post this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7FixvoKBw

Warning: language in a few spots


160 posted on 06/05/2013 6:12:58 PM PDT by Yardstick
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