English in the United States

Blog post #141 of 365

I always thought I spoke English. I grew up in the United States where English is the official language. When Facebook asked what language I spoke it listed American English. I wondered how many kinds of English there were. After further thought I wondered how many dialects there are of American English. All across America there are different cultures, accents, and slang.

I lived in Utah in the late 80's and grew up with relatives from Utah as well. There is a slight accent. The Predominantly religious culture brings many alternatives to crude curse words and frankly it is a little endearing.

I lived in Oklahoma in the 1990's and had the opportunity to visit surrounding states Like Arkansas, Texas, Kansas and Missouri. The accent is much stronger and although in the Bible belt the occurrence of cussing is greater in those states than Utah. There isn't as much slang as much as laziness in speech. Sentences are sometimes strung into one very foreign word. Like "fewanto" is the same as saying "if you want to" in hyper speed.

My sister lived in Pennsylvania for nearly a decade. I don't even want to get into how different the accents, people and slang are there. Lets just say her kids picked up the accent and some still have it even though none have lived there in years...