Are Dialects Dying in the US?

14 April 2005

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Here are four people, from four parts of the country, saying the same word:

boht... baht... baot... buaht.

So how do you pronounce the vowel in the word spelled B-O-U-G-H-T? Do you pronounce it in one of these ways -- or in a different way?

Is the carbonated beverage you drink pop, soda, tonic, co-cola -- or maybe even the older Appalachian mountain term -- dope? When you take the highway circling the city, do you drive on a beltline, a beltway, a loop, or a perimeter? And do you get cash at a bank machine, an automated teller, a cash machine, or an ATM?

Everyone notices dialects -- we can't help it. But most of the time, we notice them in other people. We don't speak a DIALECT where we live, we speak normal English. Speakers from Boston, Chicago, Birmingham, Alabama, and San Francisco all echo the same sentiment. Of course, they do this while pronouncing the vowel in words like bought and caught in quite different ways. Or, while eating the same sandwich by a different name -- a sub, a grinder, hoagie, or a hero.

Dialects are everywhere -- it's not just the South, New York, or Boston -- regions that seem to get the most dialect press. The fact of the matter is that it's impossible to speak the English language without using SOME dialect when you speak. In other words, everyone has an accent. When you pronounce the vowel in bought or caught -- or was that baht and caht? -- you've made a dialect commitment -- you can't help it. We are all players in the dialect game, whether we like it or not.

But isn't this a different world? -- a global community where people move fluidly, travel frequently, and speak to each other by cell phone? Aren't dialects dying out, thanks to mobility and the media? Think again! Dialectologists counter the popular myth that dialects are dying by showing that major dialect areas like the North, Midland, and South remain very much alive -- as they have for a couple of centuries. But the dialect news is even more startling! Research shows that Northern and Southern speech are actually diverging -- not becoming more similar. Blame those shifty vowels, where the sound of speech in large Northern cities like Buffalo and Chicago is changing in ways that make the vowels different from other regions. So coffee becomes cahffee, lock sounds almost like lack, and bat sounds more like bet. Got it? Don't worry. It's pretty subtle, and a lot of it flies under the impressionistic radar. But it's also very active and real -- and it's making the vowels of Northern Cities quite different from those in the South or West.

How can this be? It seems so illogical for dialects to maintain themselves in today's compressed world. Language is always changing, and sometimes has a mind of its own. Sure, we all watch the same TV programs; but most of us don't model our accent on TV newscasters -- that's way too impersonal. We follow the lead of those we interact with on a daily basis -- they're the ones who judge how well we fit in with the community.

And there remains a strong sense of regional community in the United States that includes dialect. So working class Pittsburghers are proud to speak Pittsburghese -- as they root for the Pittsburgh Stillers -- instead of the Steelers; go dahtahn -- instead of downtown, and put a gumband around their papers -- instead of a rubber band. Part of being a Pittsburgher is speaking Pittsburghese.

But aren't SOME dialects dying? -- like the dialects once spoken in isolated mountain and island communities now flooded by tourists? That's true, though sometimes these communities fight back with their dialect -- just so they won't be confused with "fereigners" -- as they are sometimes referred to in the rural South.

Meanwhile, places gaining momentum -- like Northern California or Seattle -- are starting to portray their new regional identity with dialect traits. So some traditional dialects may be dying out, but they're being replaced by new dialects, like a dialect version of "whack-a-mole." The famous words of Mark Twain apply well to American English dialects: rumors of their death are greatly exaggerated. Dialects remain alive and well -- and an important part of the regional and socio-cultural landscape of the United States.

That's the linguistic thought for today, which comes from Dr. Walt Wolfram, professor of Linguistics at North Carolina State University. And this is the Five-Minute Linguist at the College of Charleston, in cooperation with the National Museum of Language. If you'd like to ask a question about languages, go to our website at www.cofc.edu/linguist. And if we use your question on the air, we'll send you a membership to the Museum of Language. In the meantime, keep in mind that wherever you are, and whatever you do.. language makes a difference.