Thursday, December 30, 2010

Y'all have accents, but we don't


Here's very interesting site where someone has mapped North American dialects.  You can click on an area and You-tube links are shown where you can hear the spoken dialects.


As I have said many times, I live in an area where we have no accent. This site indicates I live in Central Midland, the "Least distinctive dialect in the U.S."   His map indicates South Florida residents speak a similar way.


According to my SIL, who has a degree in linguistics in addition to computer engineering, we do have a quirky use of words in Central Illinois.  In most parts of the country "any more" is used in the negative (i.e. I don't want any more), but in our area we also use the words "any more" in the positive to mean "nowadays" (i.e. Any more I enjoy doing that.).  So we don't have accents around here, but we like to rearrange words to keep people guessing what we really mean.
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5 comments:

  1. Red ShoesDecember 30, 2010 at 12:08 PM

    Ah dont gats no steenkin' acksent...

    Happy New Year to you!!!

    ~shews~

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  2. StacyDecember 30, 2010 at 2:04 PM

    I'm from Pennsylvania which won the "honor" of being the most linguistically complicated state with 5 distinct dialects. I live in the heart of the Pittsburgh zone. So I don't no whut yunz is talkin about.

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  3. Catch Her in the WryDecember 30, 2010 at 2:19 PM

    shews: New Happy Year to you, too.

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  4. JonDecember 30, 2010 at 4:39 PM

    I grew up in Wilmington, DE, but have been in the upper Midwest for most of the last 40 years. I thought I had assimilated rather well. My brother pointed me toward a short quiz about pronunciation and it concluded I was "as Philly as cheesesteak". You can't imagine my disappointment. I needa glassa wooter.

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  5. Catch Her in the WryDecember 31, 2010 at 10:21 AM

    Stacy: The Pennsylvania people I know say "abowoot", not about.

    Jon: So you don't say "You betcha" very often?

    ReplyDelete