Northern

New England
Many of the Northern dialects can trace their roots to this dialect which was spread westward by the New England settlers as they migrated west. It carries a high prestige due to Boston's early economic and cultural importance and the presence of Harvard University. A famous speaker is Katherine Hepburn. They sometimes call doughnuts cymbals, simballs, and boil cakes.

New England, Eastern (1)
This is one of the most distinctive of all the American dialects. R 's are often dropped, but an extra R is added to words that end with a vowel. A is pronounced AH so that we get " Pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd" and " Pepperidge Fahm remembuhs."

Boston Urban (2)
Like many big cities, Boston has its own dialects that are governed more by social factors like class and ethnicity than by geographic location. Greater Boston Area is the most widely spoken and is very similar to Eastern New England. Brahmin is spoken by the upper aristocratic class like Mr. Howell on Gilligan's Island. Central City Area is what most of us think of as being the " Boston Accent." In the last few years, Saturday Night Live has featured this dialect among a group of rowdy teenagers who like to videotape themselves. Also think of Cliff on Cheers, the only character on this Boston-based show to actually speak a Boston dialect.

New England, Western (3)
Less distinctive than Eastern, but more influential on the other Northern dialects.

Hudson Valley (4)
New York was originally a Dutch colony, and that language influenced this dialect's development. Some original Hudson Valley words are stoop (small porch) and teeter-totter. They call doughnuts (which were invented by the Dutch) crullers and olycooks.

New York City (5)
Unlike Boston and other urban dialects, New York City stands by itself and bears little resemblence to the other dialects in this region. It is also the most disliked and parodied of any American dialect (even among New Yorkers), possibly because many Americans tend dislike large cities. When an R comes after a vowel, it is often dropped. IR becomes OI, but OI becomes IR, and TH becomes D as in " Dey sell tirlets on doity-doid street" and fugedaboudit (forget about it). This pronounciation is particularly associated with Brooklyn but exists to some extent throughout the city. The thickness of a speaker's dialect is directly related to their social class, but these features have been fading within all classes over recent decades. Famous speakers are Rosie Perez, Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinnie, Archie Bunker, Bugs Bunny, and (if you're old enough to remember) the Bowery Boys.

Bonac (6)
Named for Accabonac Creek in eastern Long Island, this dialect is rapidly dying out due to the influx of people from other areas. Back when New York City belonged to the Dutch, this area was part of New England, and Bonac shows elements of both dialects.

Inland Northern (7)
Combines elements of Western New England and Upper Midwestern. Marry, merry, and Mary are pronounced the same. They call doughnuts friedcakes.

San Francisco Urban (8)
Unlike the rest of California, which in the early twentieth century saw an influx of people from the South and other parts of the West, San Francisco continued to be settled by people from the Northeast and Northern Midwest, and elements of their dialects (North Midland, Upper Midwestern, Inland Northern) can be found. Mission dialect, spoken by Irish Catholics in a specific part of the city is very much like the New York City dialect.

Upper Midwestern (9)
Originally settled by people from New England and New York State who brought those dialects, this area was also influenced by Southerners coming up the Mississippi River as well as the speech patterns of the German and Scandinavian immigrants and the Canadian English dialects from over the border. It's sometimes referred to as a " Midwestern twang." They call jelly doughnuts bismarks. Minnewegian (Minnesota / Norwegian), a subdialect spoken in the northernmost part of this region was spoofed in the movies Fargo and Drop Dead Gorgeous.

Chicago Urban (10)
Influenced by the Midland and Southern dialects. Often spoken by the late John Belushi (Chicago's Second City comedy theater supplied many Saturday Night Live actors). SNL used to spoof it in the " Da Bears, Da Bulls" sketches. They call any sweet roll doughnuts.

North Midland (11)
Created as the people in Pennsylvania migrated westward and influenced by Scotch-Irish, German, and English Quaker settlers. This and the South Midland dialect can actually be considered a separate Midland Dialect region that serves as a transition zone between the north and south. They call doughnuts belly sinkers, doorknobs, dunkers, and fatcakes.

Pennsylvania German-English (12)
This was strongly influenced by Pennsylvania Dutch, a dialect of German spoken by people in this area (in this context, " Dutch" is actually a mispronunciation of the German word, " Deutsch, " which means " German"). Its grammar allows sentences like " Smear your sister with jam on a slice of bread" and " Throw your father out the window his hat." They call doughnuts fasnacht, and they also invented dunking - from the German " dunken" (to dip).

Western
Compared with the Eastern United States, the Western regions were settled too recently for very distinctive dialects to have time to develop or to be studied in detail. Many words originally came from Spanish, cowboy jargon, and even some from the languages of the Native Americans: adobe, beer bust, belly up, boneyard, bronco, buckaroo, bunkhouse, cahoots, corral, greenhorn, hightail, hoosegow, lasso, mustang, maverick, roundup, wingding.

Rocky Mountain (13)
Originally developed from the North Midland and Northern dialects, but was then influenced by the Mormon settlers in Utah and English coal miners who settled in Wyoming. Some words that came from this dialect are kick off (to die), cache (hiding place), and bushed (tired). They also call jelly doughnuts bismarks.

Pacific Northwest (14)
Influenced by settlers from the Midwest and New England as well as immigrants from England, Germany, Scandinavia, and Canada. Much earlier, a pidgin called Chinook Jargon was developed between the languages of the Native American tribes of this area. It would later also be used and influenced by the European settlers who wished to communicate with them. A few words from Chinook Jargon like high muckamuck (important person) are still used in this dialect today. (Note that, in this case, the word " jargon" has a different meaning from the one discussed above)

Alaska (not shown)
Developed out of the Northern, Midland, and Western dialects. Also influenced by the native languages of the Alutes, Innuit, and Chinook Jargon. Some words that originated here are: bush (remote area), cabin fever, mush (to travel by dog sled), parka, stateside.

Pacific Southwest (15)
The first English speakers arrived here from New York, Ohio, Missouri, New England, and other parts of the Northeast and Midwest in the 1840s, bringing the Northern and North Midland dialects with them. Words originally used by the gold miners of this period are still used today: pay dirt (valuable discovery), pan out (to succeed), and goner (doomed person). The early twentieth century saw an influx of people from the South and other parts of the West. The people here are particularly fond of creating new slang and expressions, and, since Hollywood is located here, these quickly get spread to the rest of the country and the world (the influence of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was examined in Verbatim: part one, part two). During the late 1970s and early 1980s, an extreme exaggeration of this dialect that came to be known as " Valley Girl" or " Surfer Dude" was popular among teenagers and much parodied in the media with phrases like " gag me with a spoon" and " barf me back to the stone age." Sean Penn in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Whoopie Goldberg in her one women show are two famous examples.

Southwestern (16)
By the time this area became part of the United States, there had already been as many as ten generations of Spanish speaking people living here, so the Mexican dialect of Spanish had an important influence on this area that became a melting pot for dialects from all over the USA. Some local words are: caballero, cantina, frijoles, madre, mesa, nana, padre, patio, plaza, ramada, tortilla.

Hawaii (not shown)
The original language of the Native Hawaiians is part of the Polynesian family. English speakers arrived in 1778, but many other settlers also came from China, Portugal, Japan, Korea, Spain, and the Philippines to influence the modern dialect. Hawaiian Creole developed from a pidgin English spoken on the sugar plantations with workers from Hawaii and many other countries. Some words are: look-see, no can, number one (the best), plenty (very). It isn't widely spoken anymore. Nonstandard Hawaiian English developed from Hawaiian Creole and is spoken mostly by teenagers. Standard Hawaiian English is part of the Western dialect family but shows less influence from the early New England dialect than any other American dialect. It has many words borowed from the original Hawaiian as well as some from the other Asian languages mentioned above: aloha, hula, kahuna, lei, luau, muumuu, poi, ukulele.

Click on the map for a larger version

General Southern (purple and red)
This dialect region matches the borders of the Confederate states that seceded during the " Confederate War" and is still a culturally distinct region of the United States. Since it was largely an agricultural area, people tended to move around less than they did in the north, and as a result, the subdialects are much less uniform than those of the General Northern regions and have much more clearly defined boundaries. Other languages that had an important influence on it are French (since the western region was originally French territory) and the African languages spoken by the people brought over as slaves. People tend to speak slower here than in the north creating the famous southern " drawl." I is pronounced AH, and OO is pronounced YOO, as in " Ah'm dyoo home at fahv o'clock." An OW in words like loud is pronounced with a slided double sound AOO (combining the vowel sounds in " hat" and " boot"). Some local words are: boogerman, funky (bad smelling), jump the broomstick (get married), kinfolks, mammy, muleheaded, overseer, tote, y'all.

South Midland (17)
This area, dominated by the Appalachian Mountains and the Ozark Mountains, was originally settled by the Pennsylvania Dutch moving south from the North Midland areas and the Scotch-Irish moving west from Virginia. A TH at the end of words or syllables is sometimes pronounced F, and the word ARE is often left out of sentences as they are in Black English. An A is usually placed at the beginning of verb that ends with ING, and the G is dropped; an O at the end of a word becomes ER. (" They a-celebratin' his birfday by a-goin' to see 'Old Yeller' in the theatah"). A T is frequently added to words that end with an S sound. Some words are: bodacious, heap, right smart (large amount), set a spell, and smidgin. American English has retained more elements of the Elizabethan English spoken in the time of Shakespeare than modern British English has, and this region has retained the most. Some Elizabethan words that are now less common in England are: bub, cross-purposes, fall (autumn), flapjack, greenhorn, guess (suppose), homely, homespun, jeans, loophole, molasses, peek, ragamuffin, reckon, sorry (inferior), trash, well (healthy).

Ozark (18)
Made famous by the Beverly Hillbillies, this isolated area was settled by people from the southern Appalachian region and developed a particularly colorful manner of speaking.

Southern Appalachian (19)
Linguists are still studying the specific differences with South Midland, but most of the research has concentrated on the many archaic words that are still alive in its vocabulary rather than on its grammar and usage. A popular myth is that there are still a few remote regions here that speak an unchanged form of Elizabethan English, but it isn't true.

Smokey Mountain English (25)
One such region that is notable for the many archaic features in its pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar is the Smoky Mountains, a small, thirty by sixty mile area located on the border between North Carolina and Tennessee (the size is exaggerated on the maps). However, while it has preserved a great many elements that once were - but no longer are - used in Britain, it has also developed a large number of unique features of its own. " They" is used in the place of " there"; subject-verb agreement can differ; and plural nouns may not end with an " s" (" They's ten mile from here to the school"). An " -est" can be placed at the end of a word instead of " most" at the beginning (workingest, completest). Irregular verbs may be treated as regular verbs and vice versa, or they may be treated as irregular in a different way from more general dialects (arrove, blowed, costed). Like many of the other dialects discussed on this page, the decrease in isolation caused by the increases in mobility and literacy has caused Smoky Mountain to be much less spoken today than it was at the beginning of the twentieth century. Some local words are withouten (unless) and whenevern (as soon as).

Southern
As the northern dialects were originally dominated by Boston, the southern dialects were heavily influenced by Charleston, Richmond, and Savannah. They tend to drop R s the way New Englanders do, but they don't add extra R s. Some words are: big daddy (grandfather), big mamma (grandmother), Confederate War (Civil War), cooter (turtle), fixing to (going to), goober (peanut), hey (hello), mouth harp (harmonica), on account of (because).

Virginia Piedmont (20)
When an R comes after a vowel, it becomes UH, and AW becomes the slided sound, AH-AW. Thus, four dogs becomes fo-uh dah-awgs. Some local words are: hoppergrass (grasshopper), old-field colt (illegitimate child), school breaks up (school lets out), weskit (vest).

Coastal Southern (21)
Very closely resembles Virginia Piedmont but has preserved more elements from the colonial era dialect than any other region of the United States outside Eastern New England. Some local words are: catty-corner (diagonal), dope (soda, Coca-Cola), fussbox (fussy person), kernal (pit), savannah (grassland), Sunday child (illegitimate child). They call doughnuts cookies.

Ocracoke (26)
Named for the island off the coast of North Carolina where it is spoken, this dialect is also called Hoi Toide (because of the way its speakers pronounce the long I sound in words like " high" and " tide") and Outer Banks English to include the coastal regions of North Carolina and Virginia where it is also sometimes heard. OW becomes a long A so that " town" becomes " tain". Unlike other Southerners who tend to drop their R s, Hoi Toiders actually emphasize their R s. Overall it tends to resemble the Scottish and Irish dialects and is another area that is often incorrectly believed to be speaking an unchanged form of Elizabethan English. Some local words are mommuck (to bother) and quamished (nauseous).

Gullah (22)
Sometimes called Geechee, this creole language is spoken by some African Americans on the coastal areas and coastal islands of Georgia and South Carolina and was featured in the novel on which the musical, Porgy and Bess, was based. It combines English with several West African languages: Mende, Yoruba, Wolof, Kongo, Twi, Vai, Temne, Ibo, Ewe, Fula, Umbundu, Hausa, Bambara, Fante, and more. The name comes either from the Gola tribe in Liberia or the Ngola tribe in Angola. The grammar and pronunciation are too complicated to go into here, but some words are: bad mouth (curse), guba (peanut - from which we get the English word goober), gumbo (okra), juju (magic), juke (disorderly, wicked), peruse (to walk leisurely), samba (to dance), yam (sweet potato).

Gulf Southern (23)
This area was settled by English speakers moving west from Virginia, Georgia, and the Carolinas, as well as French speaking settlers spreading out from Louisiana, especially the Acadians (see " Cajuns" below). Some words are: armoire (wardrobe), bayou (small stream), bisque (rich soup), civit cat (skunk), flitters (pancakes), gallery (porch), hydrant (faucet), neutral ground (median strip), pecan patty (praline).

Louisiana (24)
There's a lot going on down here. Many people in southern Louisiana will speak two or three of the dialects below. Cajun French (the Cajuns were originally French settlers in Acadia, Canada - now called Nova Scotia - who were kicked out when the British took over; in 1765, they arrived in New Orleans which was still French territory) carries the highest prestige of the French dialects here and has preserved a number of elements from the older French of the 1600s. It has also borrowed some words from the Spanish who once controlled this area. There are many local variations of it, but they would all be mutually understandable with each other as well as - with some effort - the standard French in France. Cajun English borrows vocabulary and grammar from French and gives us the famous pronunciations " un-YON" (onion) and " I ga-RON-tee" as well as the phrase " Let de good times role! ", but movies about cajuns usually get the rest wrong. A famous authentic speaker is humorist Justin Wilson, who had a cooking show on PBS, with his catch phrase, " How y'all are? I'm glad for you to see me." New Orleans is pronounced with one syllable: " Nawlns." There is another dialect of English spoken in New Orleans that is informally, and some would say pejoratively, called Yat (from the greeting, " Where y'at"), that resembles the New York City (particularly Brooklyn) dialect (more info). Provincial French was the upper class dialect of the pre-Cajun French settlers and closely resembles Standard French but isn't widely spoken anymore since this group no longer exists as a separate social class. Louisiana French Creole blends French with the languages of the West Africans who were brought here as slaves. It is quite different from both the Louisiana and standard dialects of French but is very similar to the other creoles that developed between African and French on various Caribbean Islands. Married couples may speak Creole to each other, Cajun French with other people, and English to their children.

References:
Success with words: a guide to the American language / Reader's Digest; prepared in association with Peter Davies; David Rattray, project editor. Pleasantville, NY: Reader's Digest Association, 1988.

The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language / David Crystal. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2000. (emphasizes British English but also covers American)

What is a dialect? - The Sci.Lang FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions About Linguistics / Michael Covington and Mark Rosenfelder. Mark Rosenfelder's Metaverse, March 3, 2002. < https://www.zompist.com/lang9.html#12>

Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English / Michael B. Montgomery and Joseph S. Hall. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004.

Hoi toide on the Outer Banks: the story of the Ocracoke brogue / Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.

The Oxford companion to the English language / Tom McArthur, editor; Feri McArthur, managing editor. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. (for additional information on Cajun English)

A lexicon of New Orleans terminology and speech / Chuck Taggart. The Gumbo Pages, accessed May 7, 2001. < https://www.gumbopages.com/yatspeak.html>

For Further Information:
American dialect links (courtesy of Evolution Publishing's American Dialects Page)

Dialect Survey Maps (maps out locations where different pronunciations of particular words are used and where different expressions are used for the same concept)

Do you speak American? (extensive website to accompany the PBS documentary)

IDEA: International Dialects of English Archive (audio files of each dialect)

The great pop vs. soda controversy / Alan McConchie. (maps out locations where different terms for carbonated beverages are used)

The English-to-American Dictionary / Chris Rae. (translates words from British English into American English)

Robert Delaney, last updated March 27, 2007

L.2 Handout: Modern Dialects of Ukrainian [4]