Page 46 - 4952

English: Northern, which was spoken in New England and New
York State, Midland, spoken in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and

Southern, spoken from Maryland to Georgia. The famous dropped
“r” in New England speech was already present at this time,

inherited from pronunciation in the south of England, and this form
was also spoken in the South. Later settlers came from the north of

England, where “r” was still pronounced. Geographic expansion

westward carried along dialects, and American English is still
divided into bands of northern, middle, and southern forms.

However, there was some additional diversification. For

example, the Northern dialect area is split, with an eastern and a
western form with the dividing line in the Connecticut River Valley.

West of this line is further separated into Upper North, including
southern Vermont, parts of New York state, the very uppermost

portions of Pennsylvania and Ohio, Michigan, northern Illinois, and
eastern Wisconsin. Then Upper Midwest includes the rest of

Wisconsin, all of Minnesota, and the northern half of Iowa. Lower

North, which is based upon the old Midland dialect range, includes
New Jersey, most of Pennsylvania and Ohio (excepting the very

northern parts of those states), Indiana, and southern Illinois. The
Upper South includes most of western Maryland, western Virginia,

West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, northern Arkansas, and the
very northernmost parts of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi,

Louisiana, and a tiny bit of east Texas. Lower South includes most

of North Carolina, all of South Carolina, and nearly all of Georgia,
Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, as well as part of southern

Arkansas and east Texas. Within the Lower South, there are

divisions between the Atlantic South, Southern Florida, Alabama,
the Delta South, and Northern and Southern Louisiana. Things get

less clear cut as one moves further west, but there are differences
between Southwest, California, Colorado, the Utah West, and the

Northwest.
Linguists mark these dialect areas by constructing isoglosses

[ais-]: They interview many subjects and record their pronunciations

44