Dialect Contours in the Southern States

Wood, Gordon R.

doi:10.2307/453223

Cited by 5 publications

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“…This approach was especially well suited to dialect study in the United States, which is young enough for the settlement patterns to be traced. As dialect surveys began to cover regions west of the Atlantic seaboard, dialectologists attempted to extend westward the dialectal divisions drawn in the East (see, e.g., Davis 1951;marckwardt 1957;Shuy 1962;Wood 1963;Allen 1964Allen , 1973Tarpley 1970;Dakin 1971;Pederson et al 1986-92;Carver 1987;Frazer 1987b). These studies argued that the principal dialect regions of the United States run mostly east-west: the Northern (or Upper North, in Carver's [1987] nomenclature) dialect from New England through the Great Lakes region, the North midland (or Lower North) dialect from Pennsylvania through much of ohio, indiana, and illinois to kansas, the South midland (or Upper South) dialect from the southern Appalachians to northern Texas, and the Southern (or Lower South) in the coastal plain and Piedmont sections of the South Atlantic and Gulf states.…”

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A Longitudinal Analysis of the Durability of the Northern-Midland Dialect Boundary in Ohio

Thomas¹

2010

American Speech

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The boundary between the North and midland dialects in ohio represents an unusually clear opportunity to test how well dialect boundaries can persist. For part of this boundary, the original settlement by European Americans was strongly segregated: the area north of the line was heavily dominated by settlers from a hearth running from western New England through upstate New York, while the area south of it was dominated by settlers from a hearth comprising southern Pennsylvania, western maryland, and northern Virginia and West Virginia. recordings of Dictionary of American Regional English survey subjects, born 1880-1908, were compared with subjects, born 1970-94, from a new survey. A number of variables involving vowel quality or vowel mergers that are known or suspected to differentiate the North and midland were analyzed in these subjects' speech. Eight variables showed statistically significant differences according to dialect region. When these variables were combined quantitatively, the patterns that emerged are that the North and midland remain robustly differentiated but that a transition zone has developed along the boundary.

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confidence: 99%