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The New York Dialect The most famous of English dialects would have to be the New Yorker (which gets confused with a few New England-are accents). Due to Hollywood films, most can detect the New Yorker accent quite quickly. But where does it come from? A sociolinguistics professor out of NY says it is a knockoff of British English. That’s why New Yorkers drop the R sound at the end of words and leave an H there instead. Also in Boston and Rhode island, there is a similar happening. When I was living in Boston, some of my Massachusetts and Rhode Island friends would call me Miker, instead of Micah, because they were dropping the H sound at the end and adding an R. So H and R are opposite of each other when at the end of the word. Water becomes wahdah, and Micah becomes Miker.

A Combination of Southern Dialects The Southern accent (which is actually about 7 distinct accents) is also very well-known in the United States and one of the more obvious dialects. It can be hard to differentiate which Southern accent someone might have, unless you’re actually from this area. When my mother came to visit me in Boston (we’re from Oklahoma City), the waitress immediately said, “Oh cute, where are you from?” The funny thing is, my mother was thinking the same thing about her! Most prominent in these areas is dropping the ‘g’ at the end of words ending in -ing. I’m goin’. I’m eatin’. I’m listenin’. Another feature is long, drawn-out vowels.

Do Dialects Keep Us from Understanding Each Other? For the most part, dialects do not necessarily keep us from understanding each other, seeing as two-thirds of Americans speak, what is known as, Standard American or General American, also known as non-regional American accent. Here are some recordings of those non-regional accents at play. But, they can throw a wrench in the conversation if you encounter someone who has a strong propensity for their own dialect. For example, I had a hard time understanding my friend’s grandmother in Lafayette, LA. I do not know if it was purely accent, or if it was slang and idioms that confused me, but I honestly did not follow what was being said. I was shocked, as this was the first time I could not understand someone speaking English.