Language Quiz

[sms001]

I know a lot of us are language junkies, so thought you might find this interesting.

Kinda curious about where the non-US folk will land.

Wtf is up with "the wolf is giving birth, the devil is beating his wife, monkey's wedding?" Who uses those?

(btw, the questions differ based on responses, apparently.)

Dialect Quiz Map

[jedimaster91]

I've heard "devil beating his wife" before. That's when it's raining, but the sun's out. I call it a sunshower, but I've heard the other from my grandfather.

In any case, it got me pretty dead on. Two cities in the state I live in (one of which is my actual residence), and Wichita, KS. I'm impressed.

[EricKei]

Took this one the other day It nailed my speech pattern exactly -- New Orleans. Then again, my responses didn't really leave room for error, as some of the terms I use are either very region-specific ("Coke" instead of "soda/pop/etc") or really definitely New Orleans-exclusive (such as "neutral ground" instead of "median").

[mathnerd]

I took that quiz a few days ago. It was pretty dead on, showing primarily the city I was born and raised in (Miami), with a smattering of some of the linguistic quirks I picked up for the few years I lived in the upper midwest. One of my closest friends is actually a linguist and says the same thing about my accent. It's mostly what she would expect out of somebody born where I was with the random upper midwest vowel sounds thrown in here and there (particularly the "ou" sound in words like "out" and "about").

[Jay 2K Winger]

I just took this quiz. It pinned my dialect as being closest to St. Louis/Aurora, IL/Fort Wayne, IN.

I grew up in Columbia, MD, spent three years in Plano, TX, and now live in Fairfax County, Virginia. I've never been to those three places...

HOWEVER: My Mom's family lives in the Midwest. Mom grew up in South Bend, Indiana. Her sister, my aunt, lives in Chicago. Her aunt, my great-aunt, lives in St. Louis.

Go figure. I guess my dialect was formed based on them.

[flybye023]

I took this quiz the other day and it put me in the Nebraska, Indiana area which is waaaay wrong.

Taking it just now:
1. some of the questions I got were different than the other day.
2. this time I changed a couple of the answers on repeat questions where maybe I used a couple of words interchangeably (for instance, I use mountain lion and cougar pretty much equally as well as crawfish/crawdad) but that wasn't an option in the quiz and it got me dead on (Idaho-Utah).

[Chromatix]

Being British, it stuck me pretty firmly in the New York / New Jersey area. Apparently that's the only part of America which has distinct pronunciations for "Mary", "merry" and "marry".

[MoonCat]

It thinks I picked up my speech patterns in Little Rock, Louisville and Pittsburgh---three places I've never even passed through, let alone lived in. My grandparents lived here since they came from Poland & Germany. My parents were born in this town.

Interesting fact: My sisters and I have long noted that we don't have certain speech patterns that are common here. For ex., most people here pronounce words like "trailer" or "sail" with a flat "a" sound (as in cat). We don't - we say tray-ler and sayle. There are other things like that. We just have a thing about accuracy, or what seems like accuracy to us. We learned to read and spell with phonetics, so maybe that explains it.

Also, people who say "car-mul" drive me nuts!! It's car-a-mel! That's how it's spelled!! (See what I mean? )

[Greenday]

http://nyti.ms/JdYSF1

So basically two cities from New Jersey and Baltimore. No surprises there.

[Sunshine]

I got ft worth, arlington and.....shreveport la. Well ok

[EricKei]

Being British, it stuck me pretty firmly in the New York / New Jersey area. Apparently that's the only part of America which has distinct pronunciations for "Mary", "merry" and "marry".

I'm from New Orleans and I say those all differently o_O Then again, I've often been told (and even asked "Why Not?" once) that I don't seem to have an accent at all, unless I intentionally drop into a dialect.

[Lyse]

Tucson, Denver and Salt Lake City - three cities that I've never lived in or near.

[Teysa]

I got Brownsville, Fort Worth, and Arlington. I live in Fort Worth and Arlington isn't very far but I've never been anywhere near Brownsville. Funny thing is, I have a pretty neutral accent. The Texas drawl tends to come out more when I'm over tired or getting irritated.

[Teefies2]

Jackson MS, NO, and Brownsville TX

Spent 1 day in Jackson, was in NO at the age of 5 for a couple of days, and never been to Brownsville. Huh???

[Cia]

I got Boise, Reno and Santa Rosa. I was born in California but moved to South Dakota when I was three. I've lived here ever since except for the three years my hubby was in the Army. So yeah, not even close.

The roly-polys live kitty-corner from the mountain lions just off the unnamed strip of land between the sidewalk and street. Caramels are pronounced carmels unless you're in a candy commercial.