If you travel around the United States, you’ll find that Americans sound different everywhere you go. If you go from Boston to Birmingham, you’ll hear a big contrast in dialects and accents. Going from Seattle to San Diego, the differences would be much smaller, but they’d still be there.
Some people don’t think they have an accent at all. It’s common for Americans outside the South and Northeast to believe they speak “normally,” unaware of the geographic “tells” in how they pronounce certain words. But as linguist Carson Woody demonstrates, sometimes just a single word can reveal where in the U.S. a person is from.
A woman shared a social media trend in which people say three words that supposedly indicate where they’re from. She said she didn’t think she had an accent, but she only got as far as saying “bagel.” That’s okay, Woody said, because that was all he needed to clock her hometown.
“Baby girl, you sound like the Pope,” Woody said. Sure enough, like Pope Leo XIV, she’s from Chicago.
Woody said he understood what she meant when she said she didn’t think she had an accent.
“A lot of people use the term ‘accent’ when referring to someone who has a distinct accent from them,” he said. “Like, ‘You have an accent, I don’t. Because you’re not from here and I am.’ You’re saying you don’t think you have an identifiable, regional accent. But linguistically, when we say, ‘an accent,’ what we’re talking about is just how you pronounce things. If you speak, you have an accent.”
He explained that the way she pronounced the “a” in “bagel” gave away her location. He also shared that none of the various pronunciations of words are right or wrong.
“Every accent, every dialect, every language, the way everybody speaks around the world are all equally valid and beautiful,” he said.
What’s the difference between an accent and a dialect?
As Woody said, an accent is the way words are pronounced. A dialect is broader, encompassing not only pronunciation but also grammar and vocabulary.
So just how many dialects are there in American English? More than you might think. It’s hard to pin down an exact number because it depends on how broad or specific you want to get. Linguists recognize somewhere between three and 24 (or more) distinct American English dialects in the U.S. Within those dialects, there are hyperlocal pronunciation variations as well.
For instance, there are some commonalities among Midwestern accents, but someone from Chicago will pronounce certain words differently than someone from northern Minnesota.
Woody even shared how a dialect can practically—and in some cases actually—become a totally different language:
Everybody has one
As Woody pointed out, everyone has an accent. People in the comments even shared some metaphors that help illustrate this point:
“Saying, ‘I don’t speak with an accent’ is like saying ‘I don’t type with a font.’”
“Someone told me once to think of accents like fonts, you can’t really write or type without a font lol, everyone has their own accent that shows your heritage, family, origins, or even sometimes your personality. Humans are pretty cool.”
“‘I don’t have an accent, everyone else does.’ ‘I don’t have a location, everyone else does.’ Same energy.”
“If you eat you have a diet, and if you speak you have an accent.”
“I had a professor years ago (ASL grammar) who could tell what part of the country someone was from or where they went to college by how they signed or finger spelled words. Even sign languages have accents!”
And if you’re wondering what the other two words were that supposedly help indicate where you’re from, they’re “milk” and “eggs.” Apparently, ordering breakfast gives a lot away. Isn’t language fun?
You can follow Carson Woody on YouTube for more linguistics fun.
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