What kind of American English do you speak?

[surferboy]

http://www.blogthings.com/amenglishdialecttest/

80% General American English
15% Dixie
5% Yankee
0% Midwestern
0% Upper Midwestern

Edit: Meh, more of a dialect test. I don't call the language of America "English". I say "American".

 

[Pecker]

I'm from Texas - it's pronounced "A-mur-kin."

55% General American English
35% Dixie
5% Upper Midwestern
5% Yankee
0% Midwestern

 

[budday]

55% General American
20% Yankie
10% Dixie
5% Midwestern
5% Upper Midwestern

And I didn't even know I could speak American!

I call an easy course a "bird course" and I work out in "running shoes". Route doesn't rhyme with "out". But "out" and "boot" are both raised and rounded in my dialect (altho boot is more rounded) so they sound the same to most Americans. We don't open our mouths wide enough to say "out" the way you guys do, because we might inhale the air from the Ohio valley.

Silliness aside, do most Americans find it easy to identify which words in the survey belong to which dialects? "Y'all" was obvious to me, but much of the rest of it was mystifying.

 

[Leung]

I didn't answer half of them. Shouldn't the results read:
"Bad English 100%"

?

And there is no language "American" there is English and bastardised (or bastardized) English

 

[Pecker]

Originally posted by Leung@Apr 16 2005, 12:31 PM
I didn't answer half of them. Shouldn't the results read:
"Bad English 100%"

?

And there is no language "American" there is English and bastardised (or bastardized) English

[post=301102]Quoted post[/post]​

I'm quite sure you can find a few Brits who'd declare Americans as bastards.

 

[prepstudinsc]

40% General American English
30% Dixie
15% Yankee
10% Upper Midwestern
5% Midwestern


I don't know how I got the Upper Midwestern and Midwestern. LOL

 

[steve319]

55% General American English
25% Dixie
20% Yankee
0% Midwestern
0% Upper Midwestern

That's much more of an evenly-spread mixture than I'd expected. I love my Appalachian dialect and thought it would make a different impact on the results. (Then again, it's a pretty short quiz to be very scientifically accurate, isn't it?)

Fun, though! Thanks for posting that!

 

[surferboy]

No prob. They need to like, add a SoCal dialect to that test. Like, whoever I meet instantly knows where I'm from.

 

[B_DoubleMeatWhopper]

45% General American English
30% Yankee
20% Dixie
5% Upper Midwestern
0% Midwestern

...or so it says. In actuality, my English tends to be a touch more British than the test allows for. By the way, the accepted linguistic term for English dialects (including American) is Anglo-American. That is, in theory, inclusive of all varieties of English, but I wonder if it extends to patois like Gullah and Scots Doric.

 

[Max]

Originally posted by DoubleMeatWhopper@Apr 16 2005, 07:40 PM
By the way, the accepted linguistic term for English dialects (including American) is Anglo-American. That is, in theory, inclusive of all varieties of English, but I wonder if it extends to patois like Gullah and Scots Doric.

[post=301135]Quoted post[/post]​

DMW ... I don't think we'd agree with that over here, or that you'd ever find an Englishman using that phrase, 'Anglo American', in that way. Our mind-set here in the south-east corner of the UK is that everyone else (including many Brits, and even including many Londoners — "estuary English") deviates from RP (= received pronunciation) in greater or lesser degree.

Those who know their onions, however, will tell us if they get the chance that American style and accent tend on the whole to be closer to where we all were before the parting of the ways in the 17th and 18th centuries .. in other words our grammar, our use of language and the way we speak have on the whole changed more than yours have in North America. I'm not sure how they can tell ... but that is what they say.

 

[13788]

hung_big:

Originally posted by surferboy@Apr 16 2005, 12:09 PM
No prob. They need to like, add a SoCal dialect to that test. Like, whoever I meet instantly knows where I'm from.

[post=301121]Quoted post[/post]​

*Nods head in agreement* Yes, I could tell he's from SoCal. Mr. I-say-florida-like-flarida (well, actually I couldn't type it that way you pronounced it )

Those are mine:

55% General American English
20% Yankee
15% Dixie
5% Midwestern
5% Upper Midwestern

EWW....20% Dixie? *vomits*

 

[jonb]

60% General American English
20% Yankee
15% Dixie
5% Midwestern
0% Upper Midwestern

Oh, speaking of linguistics, anyone here know what a ghoti is?

 

[B_DoubleMeatWhopper]

Originally posted by jonb@Apr 16 2005, 07:08 PM
Oh, speaking of linguistics, anyone here know what a ghoti is?

"Fish". The gh of 'laugh' + the o of 'women' + the ti of 'ration'.

 

[B_DoubleMeatWhopper]

Originally posted by Max@Apr 16 2005, 07:02 PM
DMW ... I don't think we'd agree with that over here, or that you'd ever find an Englishman using that phrase, 'Anglo American', in that way.

Actually, the term 'Anglo-American' was coined in the UK by English linguists. British scholar Lancelot Hogben almost exclusively used that designation when referring to the English language in general.

Our mind-set here in the south-east corner of the UK is that everyone else (including many Brits, and even including many Londoners — "estuary English") deviates from RP (= received pronunciation) in greater or lesser degree.

Only about 6% of the population of the UK have RP as their natural accent. Unless someone happens to have the last name Windsor, is a newsreader of the BBC, or teaches at Oxford or Cambridge, it is highly unlikely that he uses Received Pronunciation is his daily life. For most, RP is 'acquired', and not habitual. It was widely promoted as the standard during the 1920's - 1960's, but socio-economic changes in the UK since then have taken their toll.

 

[Max]

Originally posted by DoubleMeatWhopper@Apr 16 2005, 09:47 PM

Actually, the term 'Anglo-American' was coined in the UK by English linguists. British scholar Lancelot Hogben almost exclusively used that designation when referring to the English language in general.

Only about 6% of the population of the UK have RP as their natural accent. Unless someone happens to have the last name Windsor, is a newsreader of the BBC, or teaches at Oxford or Cambridge, it is highly unlikely that he uses Received Pronunciation is his daily life. For most, RP is 'acquired', and not habitual. It was widely promoted as the standard during the 1920's - 1960's, but socio-economic changes in the UK since then have taken their toll.

[post=301171]Quoted post[/post]​

I bow to your expert knowledge, DMW. But I don't think Anglo-American is in general use with such a meaning.

I suppose I use RP in my daily life (or something pretty close to it) ... I don't fit those categories though I had 3 years at Oxford in the distant past.

 

[B_DoubleMeatWhopper]

Originally posted by Max@Apr 16 2005, 09:01 PM
But I don't think Anglo-American is in general use with such a meaning. 

No, of course not. That connotation is peculiar to the field of linguistics. It can, of course, be used in other contexts, but I was referring only its linguistic sense.

About RP: there is RP, and there is RP, if you get my meaning. Oxford students are taught RP, but it is a bit different than RP as used by Elizabeth II. When you get right down to it, even Diana's RP was different than the Queen's.

 

[surferboy]

Originally posted by DoubleMeatWhopper@Apr 16 2005, 01:40 PM
45% General American English
30% Yankee
20% Dixie
5% Upper Midwestern
0% Midwestern

...or so it says. In actuality, my English tends to be a touch more British than the test allows for. By the way, the accepted linguistic term for English dialects (including American) is Anglo-American. That is, in theory, inclusive of all varieties of English, but I wonder if it extends to patois like Gullah and Scots Doric.

[post=301135]Quoted post[/post]​

Meh, I still say I speak American

 

[B_DoubleMeatWhopper]

Originally posted by Pecker@Apr 16 2005, 04:13 PM
I'm from Texas - it's pronounced "A-mur-kin."

In central Louisiana, is "uh-MAIR-k'n".

 

[B_DoubleMeatWhopper]

Originally posted by hung_big@Apr 16 2005, 07:04 PM
EWW....20% Dixie? *vomits*

Dontcha make me whoop up on ya, boy!

 

[surferboy]

Speakin of Dixie...Where the Hell did I pick mine up from? I live in South Florida. Everyone's from like, Jersey or New York.