Language

  • Ain't mine, it's y'alls

    Our friend @Mzkeekz found a language web site http://languagesoftheworld.info/ which turns out to be fun.  It is about English dialects, among other things.  There are also articles about Romance languages, Latvian, Russian, Sanskrit -- the gamut.

    Maps: The Harvard Dialect Survey, conducted by Bert Vaux and Scott Golder, is a compilation of regional American differences.  Researcher Joshua Katz of NC State University used it to construct maps.  [ link ]  Do you say soda or pop?  grosery or groshery (grocery)?  reely or rilly (really)?  law-yer or loy-er?  ant or ahnt (aunt)?  Katz explores these questions.

    yall-map

    you guys 42.53% of respondents
    you 24.82%
    y’all 13.99%, chiefly in the South
    you all 12.63%
    yous or youse 0.67%
    yins 0.37%, chiefly in Appalachia
    you ‘uns 0.20%, also chiefly in Appalachia
    you lot 0.18%
    some other term 4.62%

     

    The deepest divide
    Among the regional differences, the use of y'all is the deepest and most obvious linguistic divide in America.  It separates Southerners from non-Southerners.  I have a gut revulsion when I hear the word y'all.  I can't help it.  I grit my teeth and anticipate something flagrantly anti-science or misogynistic or racist.

    Y'all know Obama is a communist muslim foreigner.

    Y'all know climate change is just a liberal hoax.

    Y'all know homosexuality is a sin.

    I apologize if you belong to the y'all persuasion.  There is nothing stupid or illiterate in the word y'all.  I know that it is a fully grammatical element of language.  But my experience has been reinforced many times.

     

    Take This Quiz
    It is a brief language survey of your regionalisms, grosery or groshery, reely or rilly, and at the end, it will produce a map (poorly designed as the colors red and blue are indistinguishable by one man in twelve) -- a map of everyone in the USA who talks like you.  In my case, it located me exactly:

    speech-map

     

    Again, if you feel offended by my views, sod off.