Sunday, March 26, 2006

What kind of American English do you speak?

An interesting test that asks only twenty key questions. It's funny just to see what questions they ask. Here are my results. I had to fess up on the "y'all" question, so there's your Dixie component. Not sure how I got any Yankee at all, maybe "caramel."

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

7 comments:

Major Rakal said...

Predictably, I scored considerably higher on Yankee:

45% General American English
35% Yankee
10% Dixie
10% Upper Midwestern
0% Midwestern

Neat test, Shocho. Thanks for the tip.

Mkae said...

Ha! I cannot believe I scored Midwestern the same as Dixie. Ugh. Of course, I have moved around a bit.

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

Kindralas said...

60% General American English
20% Yankee
10% Dixie
10% Upper Midwestern
0% Midwestern

Very interesting. I have noticed, more often now, that I have developed a somewhat subtle twang in my dialect, which is generally pretty "Yankee." I suspsect that if the poll were more in-depth, that big General American English total would filter off into Dixie more than the other categories.

Odd that I see this poll after noticing the development of a twang...

Kindralas said...

And to double post, I imagine most people will find it very weird that the silver fox there and I score differently. I guess that 800 mile difference is starting to actually make us different...

Shocho said...

Ah tol ya fer years you waznt talkin raht, boy.

Michael J. Hercus said...

As a Canadian, I was interested to see how I rated...

55% General American English
20% Yankee
10% Dixie
10% Upper Midwestern
5% Midwestern

I did find most of the questions confusing however, as I had no cultural reference to about five of them at all. I kept looking for the "None of the Above" selection.

Ah well, you Americans are simply a different breed... ;-)

DrHeimlich said...

70% General American English
10% Dixie
10% Yankee
5% Midwestern
5% Upper Midwestern

I expect my high "General American" score, like mkae's, has to do with the both of us having trained at some point in our lives to perform in a "no accent" voice. Where Kindralas thinks a more detailed test would have filtered him more away from "General," I suspect a more detailed test would have filtered mkae and I MORE General.