My "dialect" : Gene Expression

You'll notice Philadlephia has its own category, which is because the quiz is based on the work of William Labov, who works at the University of Pennsylvania.

You can find out more about how it works here.

Posted by: Oran Kelley | November 29, 2006 4:25 PM

Midland! With the exception of having lived in Tokyo and Hong Kong, I have lived in California my entire life. People can always recognize that I am from California. And yes, I have to confess that I grew up in "the valley" but that was many, many years before there were Valley Girls.

Posted by: Michele | November 29, 2006 6:12 PM

Inland north represent.

Posted by: keil | November 29, 2006 9:02 PM

Inland north here (But I'm a canadian in quebec). I suppose the other accents are less "differentiating". For pretty much every pair or triplet of words, i chose that they sounded different .

Posted by: ogunsiron | November 29, 2006 10:29 PM

are you freezing in kanada?

Posted by: chet snicker | November 29, 2006 10:30 PM

You mean there are different types of American accents?

Dude! Like, totally.

Posted by: Mustafa Mond, FCD | November 30, 2006 9:53 AM

" The Northeast" even though my accent is Irish. Makes some sense, i spose.

Posted by: eoin | November 30, 2006 3:46 PM

They got me!:

Inland North -- You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" [have been asked that] or "Are you from Chicago?" [have been asked that, too!] Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop." [Of course!]

Posted by: Theresa | December 2, 2006 3:04 AM

shut up mickey!

Posted by: chet snicker | December 2, 2006 3:11 AM

13 What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Northeast

Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak.

Interesting, as I'm actually Irish, but have lived in New York City for almost 20 years...

Posted by: pconroy | December 4, 2006 3:48 PM

I was curious to see what the test would say about me, given I'm Canadian (and not American) and here's the result...

""North Central" is what professional linguists call the Minnesota accent. If you saw "Fargo" you probably didn't think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot."

Seems like a reasonable result (given the last sentence).

(I'm a Canadian from Vancouver, BC BTW.)

Posted by: Charles Iliya Krempeaux | November 1, 2009 1:41 AM