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Click on the map
to enlarge it,
Web-Based Survey A group of linguists are gathering data on North American English dialects using a web-based survey. They currently have about 1000 responses but would like to double or triple that if possible. This survey is distinct from the information on this page, but they have asked for our help. If you would like to take this survey, it can be found at: pantheon.yale.edu/~clb3/NorthAmericanDialects. New! 6-May-2010 |
North American English Dialects This is just a little hobby of mine, that I thought might be interesting to a lot of people. Some people collect stamps. Others collect coins. I collect dialects. Please let me know what you think of this page. - 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 500 samples listed, a number of which are from contributors! Thanks! 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 3/4 of the states and provinces of the Full-Scale Dialect Map are also. (This web page was last updated July 29, 2010. All additions within the last couple of months are marked with “ New! ” and the date, or with “Adj.” (for “Adjusted”.) 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! Although many of the people in these samples are prominent people, I actually prefer ordinary local people, but anyone at all will do, as long as their pronunciation represents the local dialect. (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 K., 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! Phonetic pronunciation with IPA: Okay, I give in. I am now showing the pronunciation of everything two different ways, both phonemically and phonetically. I finally realized that I needed to include the IPA, mainly because many non-native speakers of English, like contributor Maria Mikkonen, only use that system. I always enclose these IPA pronunciations in square brackets [ ]. I have also recently added John Wells’s Lexical Sets for comparison. Adj. 17-July-2010 Recent additions: The Cajun English dialect, which exists alongside Cajun French in Louisiana. Suggested by Philip Batton and Martin Ball. Thanks! I still don’t have many samples, so send me some, please! New! 23-June-2010 Humble pie: Oops! I was dead wrong about Montreal and southwestern Quebec being a part of the Northwestern New England dialect, as contributor Chris Harvey and my recent research have shown. I thought I had a good, clear sample that seemed to prove I was right, but Chris Harvey says that ethnic French speakers are not the best samples. Check out the two samples I have now included. It seems my entire idea was wrong that, because the Stanstead area was settled by Americans, they would still speak like Americans rather than Canadians. Chris Harvey assures me that they do not. Apparently the “Badge of Identity” applies here, too! However, I am still looking for good sound samples for Sherbrooke and Stanstead. Please send me some if you have them! Adj. 17-July-2010 There are several web forums or blogs that refer to my map. The most recent one that I know of, set up on June 7, is phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/2010/06/american-dialect-areas.html. An older one is forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=175333, from November, 2009. I have made a few adjustments based on comments made there, and am adding some sound samples. However, the main complaint, that the map is too complicated and confusing, I can’t really fix: the subject is complicated, and I am well aware that I have tried to include too many features. However, if people have ideas on how to make the map or web page less confusing, I am all ears! Adj. 20-June-2010
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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 /ō/ [oʊ] 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 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. 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. This pattern is receding, so occasionally only much older speakers retain the r-dropping in a given location. These are surrounded on the map by a dotted green circle, and in the chart below will be indicated with the phrase “Older r-dropper:”. Adj. 3-Apr.-2010
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 /ou/ [aʊ] vowel (which he writes /aw/), not the /ī/ [aɪ] vowel (which he writes /ay/). For Tidewater I have gleaned the info from various sources, including stray comments in ANAE. Adj. 3-July-2010
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 and does some contortions is unclear. (The ANAE did not have Mitchell, SD or Ashley, ND, which are the surprises. Actually, Mitchell is not a surprise, or even borderline, but one speaker seems to be anomalous.) Miles City, Montana, an outlier of Western North, is also below the line. Adj. 24-Mar.-2010
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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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Mat-Su Valley, Alaska |
yes |
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yes |
Strongly like North Central, but with some admixture from main Alaska dialect. (See Sarah Palin.) |
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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 |
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[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 /ō/ [oʊ], the raising of “bat”, and the bite-bout line[3]. Pin=pen. (Added this dialect 16-Feb.-2010) |
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Eastern North |
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, “cart” = “cot”, which is not seen anywhere else in the world! Adj. 3-Apr.-2010 |
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Greater New York City |
yes |
Yes |
Various unusual vowels, systematic r-dropping, “bad” & “had” don’t rhyme, “father” & “bother” don’t rhyme (Adj. 30-Mar.-2010) |
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The Hamptons |
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Yes |
A lot like New York City, but more research needed! Adj. 16-Mar.-2010 |
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Midland |
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almost all |
In many ways is intermediate between Northern and Southern[4] 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[5] |
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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) [6] |
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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[7] |
yes |
Yes |
“bad” does not rhyme with “had”, like New York City (Adj. 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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yes |
East is R-dropping, west apparently not, “pin” = “pen”, French influence, th > t,d New! 23-June-2010 |
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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 /ī/ [aɪ] vowel often almost like /oi/ [ɔɪ], “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, French, and indigenous 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 |
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Indigenous languages |
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the eastern boundary of Inland North |
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Greater New York City |
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Eastern boundary between Eastern New England and Providence |
ling.upenn.edu/~johnson4/pwpl_draft.pdf 30-Mar.-2010 |
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. |
The Sounds of North American English
In many places on this web page the pronunciation of a name or other word will be given after it. These pronunciation guides will have two forms: a phonemic guide between slashes / /, based on the traditional dictionary pronunciation system that is found in many dictionaries, and a more precise phonetic guide between square brackets [ ], based on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
The advantage of the phonemic guide is that it allows different dialects to use the same pronunciation key and get the right result for each dialect. For this guide I have used the system used in the American Heritage Dictionary, rather than the one used by Merriam-Webster, since it is more complete and applies to more dialects.
However, I have included the phonetic guide as well, partly to give a more precise phonetic pronunciation of local variants, and partly because many have complained that they prefer the IPA or are familiar only with it. Adj. 3-July-2010
In the phonemic guide I have followed the American Heritage Dictionary system to the letter, except for a few minor adjustments in the vowel system, and the following differences:
1. I write the syllable with primary stress using bold and underline, and syllables with secondary stress with just bold, rather than using an apostrophe after it like the AHD. In other words, I show the pronunciation of “underneath” as /ŭndərnēth/, whereas the AHD does it as /ŭn'dər-nēth'/.
2. I do not separate syllables with a hyphen except when absolutely necessary, as in “cartridge” /kärtrij/ versus “cartwright” /kärt-rīt/, or “mission” /mĭshən/ versus “mishap” /mĭs-hăp/; although technically in these two cases the underlining of the primary-stressed syllable gives enough information, even so the hyphens help to clarify.
3.
I show the pronunciation of words like “needle”
and “sudden” as /nēdəl/
and /sǔdən/, rather
than treating them as having syllabic /l/ or /n/.
Adj. 3-July-2010
The ANAE does not use either the dictionary system or the IPA, but instead uses a completely different transcription system, described in ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/Atlas_chapters/Ch02_2nd.rev.pdf. This system is phonemic, like the dictionary system used here.[8] Adj. 3-July-2010
How Many Vowels are there in American English?
No, the answer is not: “Five: a, e, i, o u.” Granted, in traditional English spelling those are the vowel letters, yes, but I’m talking about our spoken language: How many significant vowel sounds are there? Well, if you consult any popular American English dictionary, and study the Pronunciation Key, there will be a long list of vowels. In the Pronunciation Key to the American Heritage Dictionary, 19 different vowel symbols are listed (not counting the ones only used in foreign words)! However, some of these are special vowels that only occur before the /r/ sound, which are “colored” by the /r/, so these can be separated out as special cases. One of these vowels, /ə/, only occurs in completely unstressed syllables, never in stressed syllables (whether primary stressed or secondary stressed), so it also can be separated out as a special case. This leaves us with 15 vowels that can occur in stressed syllables. Not all North American English speakers have all of these vowels: Some have 14, some have only 13. New York City has 16, including one that is not usually listed in dictionary pronunciation guides, and which I have chosen to spell /ăə/! These 16 vowels are listed below in the second column, with sample words shown in the first column. Adj. 17-July-2010
The remaining columns show what happens to vowels before final r, showing the “R-colored” vowels used in most of North America, and showing the Southern System in the final column, representing the system used in much of the South, which does not have “R-colored” vowels.
(I have included the IPA equivalents of these vowels in brackets [ ] as well. However, keep in mind that the actual pronunciation of a given phonemic vowel may vary greatly from region to region. For example, the /ŏ/ vowel is pronounced as [a], an open front unrounded vowel, in much of the Inland North, but is pronounced as [ɔ], an open-mid back rounded vowel, in England. A whole gamut of vowel sounds in between these two occurs somewhere in North America: in much of Canada and in some other cot = caught areas the pronunciation is [ɒ], whereas most others use [ɑ] or [a] or something in between. Many other vowels have similar variants. The most distinctive Southern pronunciation is shown in a separate column. However, keep in mind that I have not listed all possible variants for any region.) Adj. 3-July-2010
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Ordinary Stressed Vowels |
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“R-colored” Stressed Vowels |
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phonemic |
IPA |
IPA South |
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keepers |
droppers |
Southern System |
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beat, bee, fleece |
ē |
[i] |
[ɪi] |
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pier, peer, near |
îr |
[ɪr] |
[ɪə] |
intemediate between ē and ĭ |
/ēər/ [ɪiə(r)], rhymes with “skier” |
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bit, fill, kit |
ĭ |
[ɪ] |
[iə] |
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bait, bay, face |
ā |
[eɪ/e] |
[æɪ] |
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bear, care, square, |
âr |
[er] |
[eə] |
For most speakers, intemediate between ā and ě, but ăər [eə(r)] in areas with ăə. |
/ăr/ [ær/æə], “hairy” = “Harry” [hærɪ], but “merry” is different. |
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bet, help, dress |
ě |
[ɛ] |
[e] |
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bat, had, trap |
ă |
[æ] |
[æiə] |
┐ |
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bad, man |
ăə |
[eə] |
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┘ |
(NYC, Atlantic Midland) |
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father, palm, Bach |
ä |
[a/ɑə] |
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┐ |
(E. New England, NYC) |
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far, farther, heart, start |
är |
[ar/ɑr/ɒr] |
[a/ɑ/ɒə] |
Everyone has this![9] |
/är/ [ɒ(r)/ɔr] |
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cot, lot, bother, |
ŏ |
[a/ɑ/ɒ] |
[ɒ] |
┤ |
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caught, thought, |
ô |
[ɒ/ɔ/oə] |
[ɒʊ] |
┘ |
(Eastern U.S. See map.) |
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for, horse,
morning, |
ôr |
[ɔr/or] |
[ɔə/oə] |
Varies a lot! |
[ɒ(r)/ɔr/ɒʊ]; /är/ for many speakers, /ôr/ for others |
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boat, goat, toe |
ō |
[oʊ/o] |
[ɘʊ] |
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four, hoarse,
mourning, |
(ōr) |
[or] |
[oə] |
/ôər/ [ɒʊə(r)], rhymes with “rawer” |
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cut, strut, rush, love, rough |
ŭ |
[ʌ] |
[ə] |
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urge, nurse, term, |
ûr |
[ɝ] |
[ɝ/ɜ/ɜɪ] |
Varies. |
/ûr/ [ɝ] or /ŭr/ [ʌr] or /ŏŏy/ [ɜɪ] |
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foot, took, put, bush |
ŏŏ
* |
[ʊ] |
[ʏ] |
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poor, tour cure, pure |
ŏŏr (yŏŏr)
† |
[ʊr], etc. ([jʊr]) |
[ʊə], etc. ([jʊə]) |
Many lack this, using /ōōər/, /ōr/, or /ûr/ instead |
/ōōər/
[ |
|
|
boot, goose, true, through |
ōō
* |
[u] |
[ |
|
|
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cue, beauty, you |
(yōō)
† |
[ju] |
[ɪʊ] |
|
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