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North American English Dialects This is just a little hobby of mine, that I thought might be interesting to a lot of people. Please let me know what you think of it. - Rick Aschmann
There are 8 major dialect areas in North American
English, shown in blue on the map and in
the Dialect Description Chart below. 6
of these begin at the eastern seaboard
and proceed west, reflecting western settlement patterns. Subdialects are
shown in red. In the Dialect Description Chart
additional features not shown on the map are provided for distinguishing the
dialects.
For many of the cities or towns on this map, you can listen to a sample of speech of a native (more specifically, someone who was raised there, though not necessarily born there, and whose dialect clearly represents that place). All of the cities or towns with a green center have such an audio or video sample that can be listened to (and a few of the ones with pink centers do also). I will continue adding new audio and video samples, so check back from time to time. So far there are over 300 samples listed. I am working on making all of these maps fully clickable. The tiny map above and the Small-Scale Dialect Map below are already fully clickable. So far about half of the states and provinces of the Full-Scale Dialect Map are also. (This web page was last updated March 1, 2010. All additions within the last couple of months are marked with “New!” and the date, or with “Adjusted”.) The important recent addition is a detailed (and somewhat conjectural) map of New Orleans. Another recent addition is the Indiana Intrusion. For many places I haven’t found an audio sample yet. If you know of an audio or video sample on the Internet that features a speaker who was raised in a particular place, and whose dialect clearly represents that place, please let me know, whether that place is currently listed or not! (The ones I especially need, and cannot find, are those with an orange-yellow center.) Also, if you think that one of the audio examples does not truly represent the local dialect, please let me know in the same way. - Rick Aschmann Thanks to enthusiastic contributor Eli Koslofsky, much of Kentucky and Tennessee and neighboring areas are about as thoroughly mapped as they possibly can be. (In fact, I was forced to go to a numbering system for such areas, since the scale of map is already big enough! I put the key to the numbers off the west coast.) That’s the kind of help needed to really fill out this map! Send in your links of audio and video samples!
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The small map below is the same as the Full-Scale Dialect Map that follows, but shows the entire map at once (on most monitors).
Click on any part of this map to move to the equivalent part of the large map. (For now this only moves to the far left or the far right, so unfortunately it doesn’t work well for the middle portions, so you will have to scroll over.)
Use the scroll bars to move around on this map. So far about half of the states and provinces on this map are now clickable, taking you to the list of samples from that state or province. Place the mouse over a particular state or province to see if it is currently clickable. If it is not, you will have to go to the Audio Samples of Local Dialects section and find the samples for a particular state. Only those locations with green centers, and a few with pink centers, have a sample so far. If there aren’t any of these yet for a particular state or province, then it will not be clickable, since there is no data to go to!
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Data from the Atlas of North American English (ANAE)
I am grateful to the Atlas of North American English (ANAE) by William Labov, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg, for a good part of the data on which this map was based. Specifically, much of the information on the map above and in the Dialect Description Chart below was obtained from: ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/Atlas_chapters/Ch11_2nd.rev.pdf, which is chapter 11 of a draft version of the atlas, as well as from many other chapters of the same work, with a few ideas from a much older version of the same: ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/home.html. (The Table of Contents of the draft version of the atlas can be seen at: www.ling.upenn.edu/phonoatlas/ANAE_ToC.pdf, but this does not link directly to the chapters.)
However, the names of a number of the dialects are my own, and I have made many adjustments to their borders (especially Inland and Lowland South, West Midland, and Allegheny Midland). Also, a lot of the data is from my own research and analysis. - Rick Aschmann
The following notes refer to numbers on the map, and show the corresponding section of the ANAE:
1: Pin-pen merger: See Map 9.5 in www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/Atlas_chapters/Ch09_2nd.rev.pdf and www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/maps/Map3.html. This is the only feature in which I find myself in significant disagreement with the ANAE: I have found that the pin-pen merger area is much larger than he shows, especially in the west. (See The Pin-Pen Merger, The Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the Texas Cattle Drives below.)
2: Long o fronting: See Map 20.2 in www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/Atlas_chapters/Ch20_2nd.rev.pdf. 2: The boundary between central-back and central-front (the yellow dots) was used by the ANAE to define the boundary between North and Midland, but this line then extends into the West. The deep dip that it takes southwards in Utah and Nevada would seem to indicate settlement of these areas by Northerners, probably represented by the Mormon settlement. Thus this dip corresponds to a large degree to the “Mormon Corridor”. Many of these settlers were originally from the Palmyra, New York, area and from Kirtland, Ohio. Another northern contribution may have been the early early northeastern organized crime influence in Las Vegas. Now I’m not saying that people in these areas sound like northeasterners: they don’t, they sound like westerners, with this one feature being dragged south because of this origin. New! 20-Jan.-2010
3: R-dropping: See Map 7.1 in www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/Atlas_chapters/Ch07_2nd.rev.pdf. R-droppers are also called non-rhotic English speakers. There are two types of r-droppers, which I call Systematic R-droppers and Simple R-droppers.
Systematic R-droppers are found in the northeastern U. S., in much of England, and in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, much of the Caribbean, and other places. Systematic R-droppers have linking and intrusive r’s. John F. Kennedy is an excellent example of a Systematic r-dropper. In a speech he gave prior to being elected, he says “The hungry children I sawr in West Vaginia.” This quote has one intrusive r, and one dropped r. In another speech during the Cuban missile crisis he says: “Theah has been a great deal of talk on the situation in Cubar in recent days...”, which again has one intrusive r, and one dropped r.
Simple R-droppers are found in parts of the Lowland South. As a general rule, they do not have linking and intrusive r’s. All of the areas in the South marked as r-droppers on my map are Simple R-dropper areas.
Numerous examples of both kinds of r-droppers are given in the audio samples below.
4: Canadian and Tidewater raising: See Map 15.5 in www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/Atlas_chapters/Ch15_2nd.rev.pdf, noting only the info for the /aw/ vowel, not the /ay/ vowel. For Tidewater I have gleaned the info from various sources, including stray comments in ANAE.
5: Bite-bout line: See Map 14.1 in www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/Atlas_chapters/Ch14_2nd.rev.pdf.
6: “On” line: See Map 14.2 in www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/Atlas_chapters/Ch14_2nd.rev.pdf. This is the only lexical item included in this analysis, but it seems to correlate with the phonological data. Why it turns north at its western end in the Dakotas is unclear. (The ANAE did not have Mitchell, SD or Ashley, ND, which are the surprises.) Miles City, Montana and San Francisco, California are below the line.
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vowel of “lot” fronted almost as much as vowel of “let” |
vowel of “cot” more fronted than vowel of “cut” |
vowel of “too” much more fronted than vowel of “toe” |
Vowel of “far” fronted |
Vowel of “caught” strongly raised |
“hoarse” = “horse”, “mourning” = “morning”, “four” = “for” |
Unique Features |
Chapter and map in ANAE |
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Chapter and map in ANAE |
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North Central |
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yes |
Like Western North, but “cot” = “caught” |
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West |
yes |
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yes |
Vowel of “too” significantly more fronted than vowel of “toe”, “cot” = “caught” |
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Alaska |
yes |
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yes |
Same as West (ANAE says there are significant differences, but does not make clear what they are.) |
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Silver City, NM |
yes |
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yes |
Same as West, but “cot” <> “caught” |
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Canada (main area) |
yes |
very little |
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yes |
Same as West, plus Canadian vowel shift, vowel of “cat” central, raising of “bite”, “bout” |
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Atlantic Provinces |
mixed? |
yes |
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yes |
vowel of “far” fronted (but not “father”) |
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Northern New England
& Montréal |
yes |
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no |
“far” & “father” fronted, systematic r-dropping, “cot” = “caught”, “father” & “bother” don’t rhyme |
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NW New England & Montréal[1] |
very little |
very little |
yes |
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yes |
vowel of “far” fronted (but not “father”) , “cot” = “caught” (Changed name Aug. 1, 2009) |
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North |
mixed |
mixed |
mostly |
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almost all |
Back vowels strongly backed |
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Western North |
mixed |
mixed |
mostly |
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yes |
Least distinctive dialect of the North, some sections are “General American” Changed name 27-Nov.-2009 |
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Inland North |
Yes |
yes |
mostly |
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almost all |
Northern Cities Shift: “bat” strongly raised, most short vowels shifted |
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St. Louis Corridor |
Yes |
yes |
mixed |
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mixed |
Northern Cities Shift: “bat” strongly raised, most short vowels shifted, but many other vowels like Midland |
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Indiana Intrusion[2] |
no |
no |
yes |
Only “North” because of the pronunciation of long o, the raising of “bat”, and the bite-bout line[3]. Pin=pen. (Added this dialect 16-Feb.-2010) |
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Eastern North[4] |
yes |
yes |
very little |
mixed |
yes |
Mostly like Western North, but some similarities to New York City (Changed name July 21, 2009) |
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Albany |
yes |
yes |
very little |
yes |
yes |
Many vowels like New York City, but no r-dropping |
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Providence |
yes |
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no |
vowel of “cat” central, systematic r-dropping |
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Greater New York City |
yes |
Yes |
Various unusual vowels, systematic r-dropping, “bad” does not rhyme with “had” (Adjusted 20-Jan.-2010) |
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The Hamptons |
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Yes |
Less r-dropping than New York City? Really more like Atlantic Midland? “On” rhymes with “Dawn”? (More research needed!) Added 30-Nov.-2009 |
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Midland |
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almost all |
In many ways is intermediate between Northern and Southern[5] Changed name 27-Nov.-2009 |
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Central Midland |
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almost all |
Least distinctive dialect in the U.S., many sections are “General American” |
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Canton, Ohio |
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Yes |
“bat” strongly raised, “on” rhymes with “don”, not “dawn” |
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Cincinnati, Ohio |
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Yes |
Many vowels are pronounced like New York City |
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West Midland (Not in ANAE) |
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Yes |
“cot” = “caught” |
(19) |
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Allegheny Midland[6] |
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Yes |
“cot” = “caught” (Changed name June 2, 2009) |
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Pittsburgh |
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Yes |
Pittsburgh vowel shift: “out” is pronounced with no diphthong, the way a Bostonian says “art” |
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Oklahoma City (Not in ANAE) [7] |
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Yes |
Like the parts of the Central Midland south of the pin-pen line (Added this dialect July 11, 2009) |
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East Midland (Not in ANAE) |
yes |
Yes |
Like the Central Midland, with influences from Atlantic Midland (Added June 3, 2009) |
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Atlantic Midland[8] |
yes |
Yes |
“bad” does not rhyme with “had”, like New York City (Adjusted 20-Jan.-2010) |
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North Florida |
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Yes |
Like the Central Midland, “pin” = “pen” |
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South Florida |
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Yes |
Like the Central Midland, “pin” <> “pen” |
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Corpus Christi |
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Yes |
Mixture of Southern and Northern features (but no Southern shift), “pin” = “pen” |
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Galveston(Not in ANAE) |
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Yes |
Very similar to East Midland, or even to Atlantic Midland, except that “bad” rhymes with “had” |
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El
Paso |
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Yes |
“cot” <> “caught”, “pin” = “pen” |
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San Francisco |
yes |
yes |
Very similar to East Midland, or even to Atlantic Midland, except that “bad” rhymes with “had” |
(11) |
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South |
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mixed |
Partial to complete Southern shift: vowels of “ride” and “buy” have no diphthong |
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Lowland South |
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mixed |
Partial Southern shift: vowels of “ride” and “buy” have no diphthong, but “right” does, “pin” = “pen” |
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Savannah |
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yes |
R-dropping, “pin” <> “pen” |
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Inland South |
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almost all |
Full Southern shift: vowels of “ride”, “buy”, and “right” all have no diphthong, “pin” = “pen” |
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New Orleans |
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yes |
Various dialects (see New Orleans inset on map and the New Orleans section below) |
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Outer Banks (Not in ANAE) |
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yes |
No Southern shift, long “i” vowel often almost like “oi”, “pin” <> “pen” |
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Charleston |
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yes |
No Southern shift, vowels of “bait” and “boat” are not diphthongs |
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Colors: |
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Transitional areas within
main dialects |
Distinctive or innovative features of a given dialect |
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Transitional areas
outside main dialects |
Intermediate or partial features |
I have added and adjusted a lot of the information on the
map based on the following audio and non-audio data. - Rick Aschmann
Regional non-audio data
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Location |
Source |
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English and French mother-tongue areas of Canada |
atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/peopleandsociety/lang/languages2001/mt |
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French mother-tongue areas of Maine |
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language_in_the_United_States -
Francophone_communities,
www.francomaine.org/English/Carto/carto.htm |
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Indigenous languages |
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the eastern boundary of Inland North |
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Greater New York City |
Multiple-region audio samples found on the Internet
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Location |
Source |
Comment |
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Samples from almost all U. S. states |
Few indications are given as to whether the speakers are
natives of the area in which they were interviewed, or if they represent well
the local dialect. Also, locations are often limited, and often only urban
locations are given. Even so, in many cases the data is useful, and I have
used it (see the next chart), especially when clearer indications are given
of “nativeness”. |
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Samples only from north-central U. S. |
Again, not always clear if the speakers are natives of the
area in which they were interviewed, or if they represent well the local
dialect. However, includes rural speakers, which can help fill in holes. Used
occasionally. |
Audio Samples of Local Dialects
Here you can hear audio
samples of different local dialects. These are all found on the Internet:
As far as possible these have been restricted to people who were raised in the location, and in many cases have lived there nearly all their lives, and have presumably retained the local dialect, except where indicated. (For most of these people, their birthplace and life history can be found on en.wikipedia.org, or at the links provided.) Items in pink are doubtful as to whether they represent accurately the dialect indicated.
DISCLAIMER: I do not necessarily agree with all of the people speaking here: I have simply selected them as good examples of their dialect! Nor does the fact that many of them are politicians indicate that I particularly like politicians: The fact is that politicians tend to retain their local dialect more than other public professions (actors, artists), to maintain their identify with the locals. Also, they talk in public a lot, so the data is readily available. Country singers and southern gospel singers also tend to be reliable, and I like them better than politicians.
You may also notice that I prefer older people to younger people. This is simply because there has been a lot more dialect mixing among the younger generation than in previous generations.
Some of these links may not be current. Please let me know
about any bad links. - Rick Aschmann
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Person(s) |
Location |
State or Province |
Source |
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1
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White male, student, born 1988 |
Auburn |
Alabama |
IDEA audio (
source) |
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2
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Bobby Bowden, football coach |
Birmingham |
Alabama |
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3
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U.S. Senator Richard Shelby |
Birmingham |
Alabama |
YouTube video 7-Nov.-2009 |
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4
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White male, student, born 1980 |
Brewton |
Alabama |
IDEA audio (
source) |
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5
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Charlie Hodge, Elvis associate |
Decatur |
Alabama |
YouTube video New! 30-Jan.-2010 |
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6
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Governor Jim Folsom, Sr. |
Elba |
Alabama |
audio links New! 30-Jan.-2010 |
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7
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White male, student, born 1981 |
Elberta |
Alabama |
IDEA audio (
source) |
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8
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Sam Phillips, record producer |
Florence |
Alabama |
YouTube video New! 30-Jan.-2010 |
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9
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Ron Sparks, Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries |
Fort Payne |
Alabama |
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10
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Sonny James Loden, country singer |
Hackleburg |
Alabama |
YouTube video 7-Nov.-2009 |
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11
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City council meeting |
Hamilton |
Alabama |
YouTube video All speakers clearly Inland North! 7-Nov.-2009 |
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12
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U.S. representative Bud Cramer |
Huntsville |
Alabama |
YouTube
video 1-June-2009 |
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13
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Eugene Walter, writer |
Mobile |
Alabama |
YouTube video New! 7-Dec.-2009 |
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14
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Lt. Gov. Jim Folsom, Jr. |
Montgomery |
Alabama |
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15
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Steve Patton, football coach |
Oneonta |
Alabama |
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16
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Tammy Wynette, country singer |
Redbay |
Alabama |
YouTube video (Clearly Inland, though with some inconsistencies, which is not surprising, given that she grew up right on the border) New! 23-Feb.-2010 |
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17
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Charlie Louvin, country singer |
Section |
Alabama |
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18
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Jay Barker, football player |
Trussville |
Alabama |
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19
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U.S. senator Mark Begich |
Anchorage |
Alaska |
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20
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John Binkley, politician |
Fairbanks |
Alaska |
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21
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Jake Metcalfe, politician |
Juneau |
Alaska |
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22
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Andy Devine, actor |
Kingman |
Arizona |
YouTube video (Chubby guy with odd voice. Also plays Friar Tuck on Disney’s Robin Hood.) 1-Sep.-2009 |
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23
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Carlos
Nakai, Native American flutist |
Flagstaff |
Arizona |
YouTube video 26-Sep.-2009 |
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24
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U.S. representative Ann Kirkpatrick |
McNary |
Arizona |
YouTube video 1-Sep.-2009 |
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25
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Joan Ganz Cooney, Sesame Street creator |
Phoenix |
Arizona |
YouTube video 31-Aug.-2009 |
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26
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Transportation Sec. Mary Peters |
Phoenix |
Arizona |
YouTube video 31-Aug.-2009 |
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27
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U.S. Senator Dennis DeConcini |
Tucson |
Arizona |
YouTube video 31-Aug.-2009 |
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28
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Rex Allen, western actor |
Willcox |
Arizona |
YouTube video 31-Aug.-2009 |
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29
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Ernest Tsosie, Navajo comedian |
Window Rock |
Arizona |
YouTube video (other info) 26-Sep.-2009 |
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30
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Collin Raye, country singer |
De Queen |
Arkansas |
YouTube
video 13-May-2009 |
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31
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White male, born 1980 |
DeVall’s Bluff |
Arkansas |
IDEA audio ( source) |
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32
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Bear Bryant, football coach |
Fordyce |
Arkansas |
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33
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U.S. President Bill Clinton |
Hot Springs |
Arkansas |
YouTube
video 13-May-2009 |
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34
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Houston Nutt, college football coach
[9] |
Little Rock |
Arkansas |
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35
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Jerry Jones, Dallas Cowboys owner9 |
Little Rock |
Arkansas |
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36
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White female, born 1947, medical technician[10] |
Little Rock |
Arkansas |
IDEA audio ( source) |
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37
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White male, born 1982, student |
Palestine |
Arkansas |
IDEA audio ( source) |
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38
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Ben Rutledge, Olympic rower |
Cranbrook |
British Columbia |
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39
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Nilesh Patel, filmmaker |
Prince George |
British Columbia |
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40
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Michael Bublé, big band singer, actor |
Vancouver |
British Columbia |
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41
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Carey Price, pro hockey player |
Anahim Lake |
British Columbia |
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42
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Dave Brubeck, jazz musician |
Concord |
California |
YouTube video “on” rhymes with “Dawn”, not “Don” (Interview starts at 9:00.) 1-July-2009 |
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