Matthew Yglesias: What Kind of English Do You Speak?

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What Kind of English Do You Speak?

Via Ogged:

Your Linguistic Profile:

35% General American English

35% Yankee

20% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

I don't know how plausible it is that my speech is 20 percent Dixie, but my babysitter/nanny type person when I was little was from Georgia and spoke with a pretty thick accent, so it's possible. Sadly, the test doesn't pick out specific New Yorkisms that I'm prone to like "stand on line" or "caw-fee."

April 17, 2005 | Permalink

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» What kind of English do you speak? from Left Oblique
According to this quiz (link via Matt Yglesias) I am, evidently, 55% Yankee, 30% General American, and 15% Dixie (must be from saying "y'all"!) That's about right, I think. I wish they had a "bubbler" option for water fountains... [Read More]

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» Language Test from The Colossus
What Type of American English do you speak? My results: Your Linguistic Profile: 50% Yankee 40% General American English 10% Upper Midwestern 0% Dixie 0% Midwestern What Kind of American English Do You Speak? Interesting stuff. I was born in Western Ma... [Read More]

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» What Kind of American English Do You Speak? from One and Four
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Tracked on Apr 19, 2005 3:57:05 PM

Tracked on Apr 19, 2005 3:58:17 PM

Comments

My Profile:
80% General American English
10% Dixie
5% Midwestern
5% Yankee
0% Upper Midwestern

My English is basically region-less.

Posted by: Dan the Man | Apr 17, 2005 10:51:23 PM

That ain't right. It scored me as

65 GAE
20 Dixie
10 Yankee
5 Upper midwestern
0 Midwestern

My mom grew up in Oklahoma, descended from Southerners, my dad's descended from Yankees, but I am 3rd generation raised-in-Florida ("Flar-da") and my great-grandfather grew oranges ("Arn-jez") there. Maybe 7 years in CA and 11 years in MA have messed up my language. They also left out a choice on diagonally, which is "catty-whompers".

Posted by: dr2chase | Apr 17, 2005 11:07:25 PM

I grew up in Indianapolis. I get scored
75% Gen Amer Eng
20% Dixie (so, OK, I spent 5 years in WV and 1 in KY)
5% Yankee
0% Midwestern
0% Uppermidwestern

I do wonder what the differentiating questions are.

Posted by: Donald A. Coffin | Apr 17, 2005 11:27:23 PM

60% General American English
15% Dixie
10% Upper Midwestern
5% Yankee
0% Midwestern

What no southern California dialect? Whenever we used to visit family in the midwest while I was growing up, they would invariably mock our LA dialect (which probably included a great many "likes" where they didn't necessarily belong). Interestingly, they also claimed that we spoke with southern California accents as well. I always thought that part of the world had no accent, but apparently I was wrong.

Posted by: Robin the Hood | Apr 17, 2005 11:28:11 PM

Doesn't General American English = Midwestern?

And everywhere in the Rockies and westward pretty much with the same accent as the MidWest?

Posted by: Anita Hendersen | Apr 17, 2005 11:28:25 PM

Doesn't General American English = Midwestern?

I think you're right. For myself: Whoop-dee-doo. I'm one of the most Midwestern English speaking person who reads this blog. I guess I should feel proud. The only thing which makes me disgusted is that 10% Dixie English. I have to get rid of that.

Posted by: Dan the Man | Apr 17, 2005 11:46:37 PM

0% Dixie. I might as well be Canadian, eh?

Posted by: John Emerson | Apr 17, 2005 11:47:19 PM

Why is there no entry for the West Coast? There wasn't a "wicked" versus "hella" versus "lotta" square-off? Are there any other words that are West Coast specific?

Posted by: Electoral Math | Apr 17, 2005 11:55:20 PM

45% Yankee
40% General American English
15% Dixie
0% Midwestern
0% Upper Midwestern

Grew up in Manhattan, college in Mass., my family has a house in southern Florida -- but everyone I know in Florida is from the NE, and I'm pretty sure I don't use any southern expressions. Have never even been to the midwest.

Posted by: sofia | Apr 18, 2005 12:06:32 AM

Your Linguistic Profile:

50% Yankee
40% General American English
10% Dixie
0% Midwestern
0% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Posted by: Dan Kervick | Apr 18, 2005 12:18:46 AM

Your Linguistic Profile:
60% General Galactic Lingua
20% Kodosian
10% English (had two for breakfast with a cruller)
10% Antarean

Posted by: Kodos | Apr 18, 2005 12:38:10 AM

This doesn't contain enough questions on vowel position to distinguish ncs.

Posted by: yoyo | Apr 18, 2005 12:45:30 AM

50% General American English
15% Dixie
15% Upper Midwestern
15% Yankee
5% Midwestern

Don't Californians have linguistic idiosyncracies?

Posted by: bob mcmanus | Apr 18, 2005 12:55:42 AM

I got stuck on the first question. I use both "cellar" and "basement" pretty much equally. Ditto "rotary", "traffic circle", and "roundabout." So more questions on the quiz need an "all of the above" answer.

Posted by: Andrew Boucher | Apr 18, 2005 1:18:34 AM

16. The second syllable in pajamas sounds like:

The A in jam
The A in father

Let's call the whole thing off.

Posted by: Delicious Pundit | Apr 18, 2005 2:06:28 AM

Your Linguistic Profile:
65% General American English
20% Yankee
10% Upper Midwestern
5% Dixie
0% Midwestern

Yet I learned english in England and since have lived in the Upper Midwest (Wisconsin, albeit Madison). Hmmm...

Also, one question, the one about water fountains, leaves off the true Wisconsin option: some call it a bubbler...

Posted by: Isaac | Apr 18, 2005 2:58:16 AM

Doesn't General American English = Midwestern?

This is a common misconception among Midwesterners. Newscaster English is modeled after how some Ohioans spoke more than half a century ago, but in no way does the average U.S. speaker sound like a Midwesterner - especially those living in the big cities around the Great Lakes.

For one thing, these speakers have a number of regional vocabulary words, like saying "pop" instead of "soda" or "coke" (well, except in St. Louis and parts of Wisconsin, where they do say "soda"). But Midwesterners have very strong accents compared to other speakers. Long "o" and "a" tend to be purer sounds and less like "uhw" and "ehy". And, for speakers in and around the big Great Lakes cities, all the short vowels are different. For example, the word "hat" is pronounced "hiyut" or "heyut". "pit" is pronounced almost like "pet", and "pet" almost like "putt". "Caught" is pronounced like "cot" and "cot" nearly like "cat". This makes these speakers very hard to understand for us non-midwesterners if they're talking quickly; it's almost as bad as listening to someone from the Deep South.

Posted by: Dave | Apr 18, 2005 3:09:52 AM

I second the lack of a Western dialect. Personally, I think the pacific northwest has the blandest dialect of American English. Californians, although not in possession of a hard accent of say, someone from Georgia or Worcester, MA, have a small accent. Pacific Northwesterners? Nothing. We've got very little in the way of regional colloquialisms and slang. Anybody could come from any part of the country and easily understand someone from the Northwest, not so with other thick dialects of American English.

Posted by: Jordan | Apr 18, 2005 3:14:50 AM

Your Linguistic Profile:
65% General American English
15% Dixie
15% Yankee
5% Upper Midwestern
0% Midwestern

I have lived in North Texas my entire life. Same with my mother, my father and so on. Exceptions were WWII traveling by grandfather and my maternal grandmother originating in New York. I don't have a lot of Dixieisms in my accent, but that's because I'm not a Southerner, I'm a Texan. (You can see the change when traveling from Arkansas to Texas on the interstate through Texarkana. On the Arkansas side, the car dealership signs proclaim them as the biggest dealership 'in the Southland'. On this side of the line, they're the biggest dealership 'in Texas'. Aka 'The Ford F-150 is the best selling truck in Texas.') I have lots of Oklahoma in my accent, that is, 'caught' and 'cot' sound almost identical, but 'hat' sounds like 'at', and 'that' almost makes it to being 'dat', 'Aunt' sounds like 'ant', 'Pin' and 'pen' are almost identical as well.

The setup is so I can say that when I get on the phone with somebody from San Diego or central CA, word choices differ, slang differs slightly, but accents are very similar. I could talk to somebody on the street here and if they didn't reference their origin it might take me awhile to figure out that they were from California. (Cowl-eh-forn-nyeh)

ash
['Damn swedes, ruining my accent.']

Posted by: ash | Apr 18, 2005 6:38:07 AM

there are other versions of this test out there that include additional choices for mose of those questions. ex. the night before Halloween was "cabbage night", where i grew up (eastern NY - i think Cabbage Night is a Boston area thing). Cabbage Night is on many of the other tests but wasn't on this one.

so, this time:

70% General American English
20% Yankee
10% Upper Midwestern
0% Dixie
0% Midwestern

my "Yankee" score is usually higher - close to 40% sometimes.

Posted by: cleek | Apr 18, 2005 7:59:43 AM

Re: And, for speakers in and around the big Great Lakes cities, all the short vowels are different. For example, the word "hat" is pronounced "hiyut" or "heyut". "pit" is pronounced almost like "pet", and "pet" almost like "putt". "Caught" is pronounced like "cot" and "cot" nearly like "cat".

Hmm. I grew up near Ann Arbor, and some of the above is correct (at least for that part of Michigan) and some of it is not. I have never heard the above pronunciation of “hat”. Our short “a” is is simply /æ/ (to use the IPA notation) as elsewhere in American English. It is however true that short “i” is lowering to short “e” in unstressed positions, while unstressed short “e” is moving back and up, though not all the way to short “u” (it’s somewhat similar to the Russian short “i” that is transliterated as “y” though not as strong. However the vowel in “caught” is identical to the vowel in “boss”: a somehwat rounded mid back vowel, while the “o” is cot is definitely not /æ/ but is rather /a/ (the “a” in “father”). Perhaps these other pronounciations are accurate for the Yupers and for folk in Wisconsin and Minnesota?

Posted by: JonF | Apr 18, 2005 8:22:27 AM

Hmm. I grew up near Ann Arbor, and some of the above is correct (at least for that part of Michigan) and some of it is not.

And I live in Ann Arbor, and also find most that list seems wrong. As does the idea that all Great Lakes cities have similar accents. I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and there's a very distinctive Chicago accent not even generally found in the 'burbs (and definitely not found in southern Michigan).

My non-linguist ear cannot readily pick up any obvious accent differences going as far east central PA (though Philly is distinct), and going as far west as the Pacific Ocean, but regional differences are pretty apparent going south (I don't have to go very far south into Indiana, Ohio, or Illinois before I start to hearing a bit of Dixie), and going north, there are the speakers of yooper, canadian, and minnesotan (which, to my ear, are one linguistic family). By the way, my results:

75% General American English
10% Yankee
10% Upper Midwestern
5% Midwestern
0% Dixie

Posted by: mw | Apr 18, 2005 9:59:31 AM

Duude.

Posted by: jerry | Apr 18, 2005 10:00:23 AM

My results:

45% Yankee
40% General American English
10% Dixie
5% Upper Midwestern
0% Midwestern

I'm from New York (Westchester until age 8, then two places in Manhattan through high school) and went to college in the Chicago suburbs. I lived in DC for two years after college, then back in the New York area for the 11 years since then (now living in Westchester again). My father also grew up in New York and Westchester, my mother is from Virginia and my wife is from New England. I actually have no quibbles with the test; seems fairly accurate for me.

Posted by: John | Apr 18, 2005 10:40:10 AM

Hmm. I grew up near Ann Arbor, and some of the above is correct (at least for that part of Michigan) and some of it is not.

It varies from place to place. Michiganders tend to strongly front the vowel in "cot", centralize short "i" and "e" (though not as much as Chicagoans) and have very pure long "o" and "a". As for the vowel in "hat" - most americans already raise this from // to /ε/, so you wouldn't hear the difference. But the Northern Cities Chain Shift is an ongoing process (it's only about 40 years old) so younger speakers are more likely to produce the new values for the short vowels than older speakers. I bet if you went to the Detroit suburbs and listened to some teens (especially girls) talking, you'd hear /het/ or even /ht/ for "hat". Rounding of // ("cut") and lowering/unrounding of // ("caught") are relatively new phenomena, and I'd expect to see them expressed most strongly in Chigago and Milwaukee.

Posted by: Dave | Apr 18, 2005 10:41:52 AM

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