A man I know recently spent several weeks visiting his native South Africa. Upon his return to the United States, he found himself one day passing through a certain section of Oakland. Everyone on the ...

A new book on American English in the Midwest makes Chicago seem exotic. It’s certainly not the title: “Language Variation and Change in the American Midland: A New Look at `Heartland’ English” (John ...

In the national conversation taking place about systemic racism in the United States, one important element should not be overlooked: linguistic prejudice. African American English, like other ...

Later, I emigrated to the U.S. to teach linguistics at Wayne State University and began researching and teaching what academics call African American Vernacular English, or the everyday speech of ...

A new dialect has been emerging from certain parts of Miami due to cultural intermingling between Spanish and English speakers. The distinct dialect is a Spanish-influenced dialect of English, born ...

Not everyone in the United States speaks the same English, as a recent American Dialect quiz made very clear. In an essay originally published on her blog, Harmless Drudgery, lexicographer and Merriam ...

Over the past few days a website which maps American English dialects has gone around the blogs (I found it via Kevin Zelnio). Michelle has some suggestions for improvements of the map in Ohio. Here's ...