Dialects of the USA
#1
Where do you sound like in the US? This is an entertaining test, and especially funny for those of us not even from the US.

Take the quiz!

There's a 25 question version which takes about 10 minutes, and a 140 that takes about an hour.

According to the 25 version, I'm very clearly from Boston, or less likely, Minnesota. (Since I'm from Edmonton, AB, that's probably the closest to the actual truth.)

[Image: 1379868_10202298825980742_1655781555_n.jpg]

According to the 140, I'm from every big city in the US, and definitely not from the South.

Where do you sound like? People totally not from the US are extra encouraged to try and post their results. :-)

-Jester
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#2
The link did not work for me, however I was intrigued by the map: more or less similar to what?
"I may be old, but I'm not dead."
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#3
Had some trouble connecting to the site. I was able to take the 25 question version, and it pegged me as being near Michigan, which is pretty accurate since I grew up in northwest Ohio. Toledo was listed as fourth most likely city. Not bad, considering I wasn't even sure which answer to choose for many of the questions.

English dialects and accents have actually been an area of interest to me recently, because I've been experimenting with some Vocaloid (computer software as singer) software. Working with phonemes really made me think about how I pronounce things. One of the software products I bought contains a "pronunciation guide" which I find unintentionally humorous. Almost all of them are correct options according to the dictionary, but it is really news to me! Here are some examples from that guide which do not match my dialect (the unofficial phoneme labels are my own because the international ones aren't on my keyboard, the examples are from the guide):

(short a): pat, cat, bag. 2 for 3. I use long a for bag.

(short o): lot, dog, soft. 1 for 3. I use an "au" sound for dog and soft.

(ur): poor, sure. 0 for 2! My "poor" is the same as "pour" which is the same as "pore". My "sure" nearly rhymes with "were" or "fur". Two very different sounds, and neither is the one they are trying to demonstrate. I had to really think about whether I ever use a distinct "ur" sound. I came up with "lure".

Maybe I'm just the weird one though. But I'd bet most people from Michigan and Toledo will agree with me!

(09-28-2013, 06:41 PM)LavCat Wrote: The link did not work for me, however I was intrigued by the map: more or less similar to what?

More or less similar to the dialect of the test taker (map colors generated based on the test).
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#4
(09-28-2013, 06:41 PM)LavCat Wrote: more or less similar to what?

More or less similar to how I said I pronounce things. There are also heat maps that show relative similarity by place. Also, breakdowns for each individual question.

The site seems to be having issues. Not sure what's up there. I just got in, but it was agonizingly slow.

-Jester
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#5
I'm from southern Ontario. I live closer to Michigan and Ohio than I do to the extreme north-east of the US.

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#6
(09-28-2013, 08:41 PM)DeeBye Wrote: I'm from southern Ontario. I live closer to Michigan and Ohio than I do to the extreme north-east of the US.

That looks more like the results of my 140 test. In the Maine, anyway. ;-)

-Jester
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#7
(09-28-2013, 09:50 PM)Jester Wrote:
(09-28-2013, 08:41 PM)DeeBye Wrote: I'm from southern Ontario. I live closer to Michigan and Ohio than I do to the extreme north-east of the US.

That looks more like the results of my 140 test. In the Maine, anyway. ;-)

-Jester

This is fantastic......most likely New Orleans!! And least likely NJ, NY and those regions.

I had to leave blank quite a lot of answers and the pronunciation ones were closest to British English I thought.
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#8
I got Boston MA as closest in the 25 question. Weird because I don't paahk the caah at haaahvaahd yaaahd.

Hard to get to the website though.
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#9
[Image: 60d7.png]

My results are quite similar to Jester's.
"What contemptible scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch?"

-W.C. Fields
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#10
The site is indeed unbearably slow to load. Probably it is set up for people who speak slowly.Wink
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#11
(09-29-2013, 12:41 PM)LennyLen Wrote: My results are quite similar to Jester's.

On the surface, yes. But if you look closely, your nugget of red on the east coast is in the NY area, whereas mine is by Boston. Remarkable profusion of dialects there!

-Jester
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#12
Dialects and pronunciation:




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[Image: images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQtmlWbJ-1vgb3aJmW4DJ7...NntmKgW8Cp]
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#13
(09-30-2013, 12:07 AM)Jester Wrote:
(09-29-2013, 12:41 PM)LennyLen Wrote: My results are quite similar to Jester's.

On the surface, yes. But if you look closely, your nugget of red on the east coast is in the NY area, whereas mine is by Boston. Remarkable profusion of dialects there!

-Jester

I can only identify two types of Americans by speech. Those from the "South" and everyone else.
"What contemptible scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch?"

-W.C. Fields
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#14
I got what I thought I would get, though i didn't realize how.... "Southern" my dialect would spread. From Mid Ohio down into Tennessee. Though I guess... Accent and Dialect can be mutually exclusive?
nobody ever slaughtered an entire school with a smart phone and a twitter account – they have, however, toppled governments. - Jim Wright
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#15
I did get to the site (once) but I received the following error, so no joy as yet...

The dialect quiz/survey requires JavaScript to run. If you can see this message, it means that some of the required scripts did not load properly, which can happen if the connection was lost before the scripts could load. Please be sure that JavaScript is enabled in your browser and try loading the app again.


Edit: I finally got in and got one question answered, and then it died. Very frustrating.


Edit 2: Still trying. This time I got to question 94 before it died. Jester, I hate you forever.
"I may be old, but I'm not dead."
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#16
(09-30-2013, 07:47 PM)LavCat Wrote: Still trying. This time I got to question 94 before it died. Jester, I hate you forever.

As my girlfriend said to me: Why not just do the 25 question one, like a sane person?

-Jester
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#17
Few people would accuse me of being sane. And besides, I never got the 25 question one to work at all. It took more than a few tries, and I was so afraid one misclick would land me in New Zealand.

Here finally is my full result, nothing that qualifies as news:


[Image: dialect.png]
"I may be old, but I'm not dead."
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#18
No one has yet posted a result showing the vast homogeneous West, so here you go. I grew up in eastern Washington State and now live in Colorado. It pegged me closely.

edit: image expired
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#19
(10-01-2013, 01:38 PM)vor_lord Wrote: No one has yet posted a result showing the vast homogeneous West, so here you go. I grew up in eastern Washington State and now live in Colorado. It pegged me closely.

We must sound almost exactly opposite.

Oh, wait. We know how we sound. Good old teamspeak/ventrilo/mumble. Can't say I ever noticed a big difference. But then, I'm pretty sure that I sound more like someone from Montana or Oregon than Boston, and it's the test that's being weird.

-Jester
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#20
I had issues with some of the questions as there were a few of the questions where I used several of the words but that wasn't an option, so I gave thought to what I use the most now. Some of them were because I have changed a few from what was more common when I was growing up to now. If the site were quicker I'd do the longer form to see what that might say.

It appears that I would fit in down in Florida. I've never been so I have no idea.

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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
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