Regional Patterns of American Speech

The Southern Pattern Where the planters extended their operations north and west, as in upper Louisiana, western Tennessee, Arkansas, and eastern Texas, Lower Southern features outline the area. The Coastal and Gulf plains were settled from the east, but the deltas of the Mississippi, Atchafalaya, Red, Yazoo, and St. Francis rivers received their populations from other areas of the South. As a result, interior Southern areas do not show the predictable gradations, the departures from uniformity, from east to west that are found in the North and North Midland regions. 32 Instead, the pattern extends from north to south, from the Piedmont at the southern fringe of eastern Appalachia, through the Coastal Plains and Piney Woods, to the Atlantic and Gulf coastal regions. In the Piney Woods dialects of the interior lower plains of Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, as well as in the dialects of upper East Texas below the plains and above the coastal strip, a striking configuration emerges. Piney Woods pronunciation includes three systematic features: constricted postvocalic r, as in beard, bird, and butter; epenthetic constriction, yielding "Chicargo" (Chicago), croker sack (crocus sack), skeeter hawk (mosquito hawk), and "tomaters" (tomatoes); and vocalized l in hotel, hospital, and bulge. These forms mark the regional vocabulary: piney-woods rooter (range hog), smut (soot), mantelboard (mantelpiece), corndodger (cornmeal dumpling), pinders (peanuts), press peach (cling peach), and fat lighterd (resinous kindling). 33 Lower Southern dialects are distinguished by coastal forms and by the distinctive contributions of the New Orleans focal area. Coastal Southern pronunciation includes the loss of constricted r after vowels, the contrast between the stressed vowels of Mary, merry, and marry, a "clear l" in Billy and Nelly, and vocabulary items such as mosquito hawk, crocus sack, hoghead cheese (or hog’s head cheese), and red bug (instead of chigger). Besides locker (closet) and flambeau (makeshift lamp), the domain of New Orleans is marked by the pervasiveness of gallery (porch), lagniappe (something extra), pirogue (dugout canoe), cream cheese (cottage cheese), wishbone (instead of South Midland and Southern pulley bone), and (h)armonica (instead of South Midland French harp or Southern harp). Such forms appear as far north as Lake Providence and Monroe, Louisiana; Yazoo City, Mississippi; and along the Gulf Coast beyond the Sabine River into Texas and eastward to Mobile Bay. 34 The Western Pattern Western dialects begin beyond the 98th meridian, 40 miles west of the Red River in North Dakota and 50 miles west of Fort Worth in Texas, where annual rainfall usually fails to exceed the 22 inches required for traditional Midwestern farming. Modern agricultural methods such as dry farming and irrigation through reservoirs and modern tools such as the Oliver moldboard plow and the springtooth harrow opened the West for general settlement only after the Civil War. Before that, pioneers followed the Oregon and Mormon trails into the Upper Rockies and the Pacific Northwest, and the Santa Fe and Old Spanish trails into the Lower Rockies and California. Today, Western dialects divide primarily south to north, marked by the extent of the Spanish influence through Texas, New Mexico, and southern California, at least as far north as lower Colorado or even Montana among ranchers. 35 History complicates the speech of the West through the blending of Northern, Midland, and Southern forms, as well as through the heavy Spanish influence from Texas to California. The North Midland boundary extends over Iowa and cuts across South Dakota in a northwesterly direction. In Montana and Idaho the presence of North and South Midland features reflects the history of the frontier and the enterprises of cattle, agriculture, and mining. Throughout the Rocky Mountains and the urban West Coast, the dialects of early settlers determined the pattern. 36 Inland Northern/Midland Influence Seattle and San Francisco speech grew from an Inland Northern base similar to old-fashioned Chicago speech. Denver and Los Angeles also developed from the same source, although the Hispanic influence in both places and the successive waves of newcomers from the East, especially in Los Angeles, have obscured the regional pattern that endures with greater stability in Seattle and San Francisco. 37 The Midland influence is strongest west of the Rockies, from Idaho to Arizona, and especially in the conservative speech of Boise, Salt Lake City, and Phoenix. American English in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, for example, includes old-fashioned Inland Northern features, such as (

) in creek; fully constricted postvocalic r; [hw] in wheel, whip, and similar words; homophony in marry, Mary, and merry; and use of the word teeter-totter (seesaw); Midlands green beans, gunnysack, and anymore (meaning "nowadays" in positive statements); and Southern roasting ears (corn on the cob), slop bucket, and clabber. Beside these, are the distinctive Interior Western pronunciations (

) instead of (ä) in Colorado and Nevada, [i] instead of [e] in rodeo, and widespread replacement of (ä) for (ô) in automobile, log, and Utah. 38

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