What is your favorite American English dialect?

[Odin2005]

I don't have a single favorite, but I like the R-dropping coastal Southern dialects (think Jimmy Carter), and the dialects of New England (pahk da cah in hahvahd yahd!)

And, of course, I like my own accent, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Central_American_English , which is also developing elements of the Northern Cities Vowel Shit (so when I say "cat" it sounds something like "ket", but with the vowel held longer).

[FSogol]

1. Pittsburgh! Yinz (You ones)

[femmocrat]

21. Me three!

Sownz like home t'me! n@

[Richardo]

36. Jagoff!

[distantearlywarning]

22. Yes, Pittsburghese!

[Richardo]

35. I'll meet ya dahn Pianelli station.

[Still Blue in PDX]

45. When we lived in Pittsburgh my SIL told me I have a California accent.

[rrneck]

3. As a son of the south

with the accent to go with it (think red state update) I have a lot of fun with it.

But any region that seems to have built an accent around "fuck you you fuckin' fuck" and fuggataboutit" gets my vote.

Fuckin' New York baby.

[KamaAina]

4. Hawai'i Creole English (Pidgin)

Wot, you nevah like?

Pidgin even has a robust literature of its own, with award-winning writers like Lois-Ann Yamanaka (disclaimer: "Tita" is a personal and FB friend) and Nora Okja Keller, and a Pidgin-friendly publishing house, Bamboo Ridge Press.

[Odin2005]

12. Well, technically creoles are seperate languages.

I find Haitian Creole to be cool.

[KamaAina]

26. Pidgin doesn't quite cut it as a separate language

although a speaker of standard English would be just as much at sea among Pidgin speakers as, say, those of Yorkshire dialect.

Oh, and Haiti's native tongue is spelled "Kreyol".

[RebelOne]

5. The one I still have.

I was born in Philadelphia but grew up in Miami, FL, and now live in North Georgia, but I never lost my Philadelphia accent.

[pokerfan]

6. wiki has a big list of English dialects

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dialects_of_the_English_language#North_America

Since Mexico is part of the Americas then I would have to say that I find English spoken with a Spanish accent to be especially devastating when I hear it from the opposite sex.

But if it's just the fifty states, then I would have to go with Western American: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_American_English

[Ikonoklast]

17. Gee, I can commiserate.

It's bad enought when told to "Get lost!" in unaccented English.

[PassingFair]

7. We HAVE no accent...aside from a tendency to sound "nasal".

Greetings from Michigan, mid-west bland.....

[Odin2005]

11. False, Michigan is the center of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Northern_American_English

The Inland North dialect of American English is spoken in a region that includes most of the cities along the Erie Canal and on the U.S. side of Great Lakes region, reaching approximately from Herkimer, New York to Green Bay, Wisconsin, as well as a corridor extending down across central Illinois from Chicago to St. Louis.[1]

This dialect used to be the Standard Midwestern speech that is traditionally regarded as the basis for General American in the mid-20th century,[2] though it has been since modified by an innovative vowel shift known as the Northern Cities Shift, which has altered its character.[3]

Notable speakers of the Inland North Dialect include US President Ronald Reagan, former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney, actors, Dennis Farina, Dennis Franz, Gene Wilder, as well as the late John Belushi and Chris Farley; US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; actresses Bonnie Hunt and Jami Gertz; filmmaker Michael Moore; financial adviser Suze Orman; talk show host Steve Wilkos; and musicians Iggy Pop and Bob Seger.

The dialect was used for comedic affect in the Saturday Night Live skit Bill Swerski's Superfans, and in the film The Blues Brothers.

[Ikonoklast]

19. Across a thin strip of Northern Ohio there still can be found a strong influence of the speech

patterns of Connecticut settlers when this part of the country was the Western Reserve of that state, and the settlers who were given The Firelands as compensation for their property losses during the Revolutionary War.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firelands



I have been asked what part of New England I come from, especially when down South, or out West.

[Odin2005]

20. Yup, That part of Ohio votes like New England, too.

If you look at a country-by-country political map of the Lower Midwest along with a dialect map, a culture map, and a settlement pattern map; ALL of them align, it's amazing.

[dimbear]

8. Standard American, the goal toward which all educated speakers strive, but a tip of the hat to

gullah.

[Odin2005]

9. "the goal toward which all educated speakers strive" that's a bigoted view.

I'm well educated and in normal conversation I speak my local dialect, I'll say things like "he had callen him yesterday", or "that needs fixed".

[RainDog]

10. Clay Davis-stan

(I recently saw this when someone else posted it... gawd I love to hear this actor say this.)

[applegrove]

13. I like the Boston accent because it reminds me of the Kennedys. I've also been to Boston twice and

loved it.

[pitohui]

14. gulf coast elite

unfortunately i speak hillbilly/scots irish/appalachian and no one can hardly understand me

[nirvana555]

16. I like the accents in CA (since we don't have accents) LOL! However, if I had to choose an actual

accent, I'd pick the Midwest.

[AmandaRuth]

31. I like California Valspeak and SurferDude - :)

I mean, in the movies only (think Spicoli), maybe not so much in real life, but defiantly very Californian.

[independentLiberal]

15. all of them are interesting

the Scottish make me laugh, New Yorkers sound nasally and sick. Minnesotans and Canadians sound extra happy.
The English sound constipated... but their lower classes (Pikey, Cockney) sound scary (they scare me). Lol

[kwassa]

18. Who let the dugs owt?

They got owt of the howse.

Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Living nearby in the Warshington, DC, area in the great state of Murlin.

[Doc Holliday]

38. aw, hell-yeah

I lost most of my virginity to a girl from Baldemur, so that's a pleasant association.

But my personal fave is a soft, sultry Dixie accent from the mouth of a Southern belle.

[OriginalGeek]

23. I never realized how much I missed Texas accents

until I went back there a couple years ago after having been gone for more than 25 years.

But I actually enjoy listening to most all accents. I don't notice much of a southern accent here in Orlando but when I travel out to the swamps of south Florida I can hear it - it's still way different from Texas southern though.

Since I moved all over when I was young I seem to have picked up little or no accent - wherever I go people ask me where I'm from since I don't talk like them but I don't sound like anything else.

Except the one time I visited Maine to tour the HQ of a company I was working for and the warehouse guy said "Ayuh, I could tell you wah the Flah-da bah 'cause you talk funneh..."

My wife was born and raised in Orlando but I never really heard much accent in her except when we visit her relatives in Georgia - she totally starts talking in a Georgia southern accent and refuses to believe me when I point it out to her. It's pretty funny to me but I think she's annoyed by it.

[Burma Jones]

24. N'Awlins Yat.....my go-to drunk dialect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yat_dialect


Spent a chunk of my childhood in New Orleans

[nolabear]

27. Merci, Baby.

I actually have a light Mississippi Coast accent but having lived in NO and being ass-over-teakettle in love with the place I love the Brooklyn-esque French influenced Southern "Where y'at?" accent as well. And hell yeah, it does drunk like no other.

[MrCoffee]

29. That's the one

I try to make my mom say "under water", just to hear it in all its Yat glory

[tabbycat31]

25. I've been told I don't have much of an accent

And coming from NY, that says a lot.

However, as a small child, I was corrected if I "talked like a New Yorker."

I spent the spring in WI last year working on a recall, and the first thing they did upon my arrival was drill their way of pronouncing their state in my head. I later saw a friend I hadn't seen in awhile (after I returned to NJ) who had a friend with her that thought I was from WI.

[Iggo]

28. That Southern lilt...

...particularly spoken by the women of Geneva, Alabama.

I have occasion to call a certain office there on the telephone from time to time, and I look forward to it every time, no matter which one answers.

I melt.

[geardaddy]

30. I'd have to say New England and Great Lakes are my two favorite.

[tjwmason]

32. Texan, and most of the rest of the South

I know it's probably not a popular choice due to the political leanings of the area...but there's something beautifully melodic about the dialects and accents, to my ear at least.

[Sanity Claws]

33. Not one person has mentioned the New York, Brooklyn, Bronx or Queens accent

How could you folks overlook our melodious accents?

[geardaddy]

34. I do love the NYC / Boroughs accents.

[Doc Holliday]

39. "Melodious"?

Ooooookay.

Not my first choice of adjective....but oooookay.

I once knew a woman from the Bronx. Listening to her speak made me want to drive knitting needles into my own ears, just to make it stop.

[blueamy66]

37. Buffalo

nt

[Honeycombe8]

40. Whatever it was in the movie "Fargo." Is that Minnesota? Also, cajun accent. nt

[trof]

41. Um...North Dakota?

But it's kinda Scandinavian.

[Odin2005]

43. Yup, I speak the Fargo Accent., Oh, and I live in Fargo, too!

[Honeycombe8]

46. That's it! N Dakota! So you live in Fargo? How cool is that? Literally cool.

Every time I see that movie, I love listening to the characters' accents. So unusual. I wonder what the history of that is. I know why Bostonites speak the way they do (I think). Dialects are interesting.

[Odin2005]

47. The Upper Midwest was first settled by New Englanders

Older folks here will have accents influenced by German and Scandinavian immigration, but that is mostly gone in folks under 50. In fact, us folks under 30 are picking up elements of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift found in places like Detroit and Chicago. But unlike the folks around the Great Lakes, though like New Englanders and Canadians, we have the Cot-Caught merger, we pronounce "ah" and "aw" the same.

Also, we have the Flag-Plague merger, the short "a" sound (as in bat) becomes "ay" (as in bait) before g and ng.

[Honeycombe8]

48. Interesting. Thanks for the info. I'll have to read up on this.

German/Scandinavian explains why I'm unfamiliar with the dialect. I haven't had many encounters with people of that ancestry, and those I have had, live in the south. (I'm from the deep south, of French ancestry.)

[aikoaiko]

49. Coastal Southern -- particularly the Savannah variety.

Last edited Sun Jan 8, 2012, 05:59 PM - Edit history (1)

Now that I married a southern woman and our son speaks this way, I better love it.

Funny story. My son comes home from preschool with a new saying from his teacher. When a child is unhappy with something he or she got for lunch, she would say, "You get what you get and don't have a fit." And my wife said it was a nice rhyme.

I looked at her and said that it only rhymes in the south and she didn't get it for a long time.


As someone born and raised in northeastern NJ, I have always hated the Jersey accent. In high school, my friends and I would correct each other so that we didn't sound like that.