Rick Aschmann has made a hobby out of studying and mapping 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.
Aschmann goes on to explain the map:
There are 8 major English dialect areas in North America, listed below the map at left. These are shown in blue, each with its number, on the map and in the Dialect Description Chart below, and are also outlined with blue lines on the map. The first 6 of these begin at the eastern seaboard and proceed west, reflecting western settlement patterns.
There are even several hundred YouTube links clickable through the map that serve as subdialect samples. What dialect do you speak?
[Aschmann]
This is amazing! It looks like some sort of nautical chart or geological study, but aside from looking great and being interesting I’m not entirely sure what it could be used for. Language is so fluid, surely it’s going to change soon?
Awesome! If this is just a hobby, what would it look like if he got really serious about it?
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very interesting, I’ve been studying language for a while and I love learning about the dialects. It’s incredible that every language in the world varies from region to region.
ummmmmmm, cf http://www.degruyter.de/cont/imp/mouton/online/anae/
cool stuff….but don’t forget this work: http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-American-Regional-English-Introduction/dp/0674205111/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294249674&sr=8-1
25 years of work, NEH grant supported, Dictionary of Regional English with maps…
I worked with a scottish man who bristled everytime I pronounced co-worker Erin and co-worker Aaron the same way. I just spent the last 10 minutes saying cot-caught and father-bother, great stuff.
I used to think those New Englanders were quite weird with pahk the cahr in yahd. But then I realized it IS an ‘a’ in father and an ‘o’ in bother, so why should they be pronounced the same. Silly me.
That’s NOT “American English Dialects.”
The map and web site are clearly labelled “North American English Dialects.”
By changing the title you’ve skewed the meaning of his work which is a study of the language in a continent, and not the study of the language as spoken in one country.
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