there is a really fascinating book called Albion's Seed by David Hackett Fischer that has oodles of information about the vagaries of American speechways and how they are connected to who got off the boats first, and where they went when they did.
Also I love those quizzes, not least because I end up all over the spectrum (I grew up in the DC suburbs, which is our accent-less location) but was raised by parents who are from the north-east, and I've lived in both Western and Central Pennyslvania (I still have the Penna-dutch up-lilt, it is the linguistic equivalent of a permanent sticking charm), the South (North Carolina) as well as in England (London) and Scotland (Glasgow). I always have to stop and *think* about how I talk when I take these quizzes.
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there is a really fascinating book called Albion's Seed by David Hackett Fischer that has oodles of information about the vagaries of American speechways and how they are connected to who got off the boats first, and where they went when they did.
Also I love those quizzes, not least because I end up all over the spectrum (I grew up in the DC suburbs, which is our accent-less location) but was raised by parents who are from the north-east, and I've lived in both Western and Central Pennyslvania (I still have the Penna-dutch up-lilt, it is the linguistic equivalent of a permanent sticking charm), the South (North Carolina) as well as in England (London) and Scotland (Glasgow). I always have to stop and *think* about how I talk when I take these quizzes.
skee language geekery!