dialects

What is the meaning of “whin”?

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I am reading the book “1100 words you need to know” and I face with a strange sentence: “A little drummer boy grinned in me face whin I had admonished him wid the buckle av my belt for riotin’ all over the place.” Also, I have another problem with some words such as “wid” and … Read more

“Frit” as dialect for “frightened” – which dialects, especially as simple past?

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Out walking the other day I came across a lovely West-Country-ism from a local walking her dog – frit, meaning frightened, in “you frit him” (referring to a startled dog). The speaker sounded local (Bristol / Gloucestershire). Oxford online gives it as an adjective, with the origin: “Early 19th century: dialect past participle of fright.” … Read more

In African American dialect, is it “I like” or “I likes”?

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Following the rules of African American dialect, one rule is to drop the ‘s’ on a verb when using third person singular, i.e. “she like, he like” – my question is – for the first person singular, would “I likes” be correct in dialect, or should it be “I like”? without the ‘s’? Answer In … Read more

I pronounce question as kweshtin. Is my pronunciation wrong?

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I’ve lived in Houston,TX for about 10 years and after that I moved to the ME and I’ve made friends since then. Whenever they heard me say kweshtin they told me my pronunciation was weird. I told them that it’s the American pronunciation, but when I googled it I found nothing to back me up. … Read more

Is there a linguistic term for pronouncing card as “kerd” or hard as “herd”?

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I notice this in some people from Northern Illinois and Iowa and am wondering if this is a well documented phenomenon. What most Americans would pronounce as “ar” is instead pronounced as something like “err” or “ærr”. This applies to words like are, car, card, hard, barn, yard, etc. Edit: I do not mean to … Read more

“Git ‘er done”—use of “her” as dummy subject

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This site has a number of questions and answers (e.g. this question) on the use of the third-person feminine pronoun (“she” or “her”) as a substitute for specific things like ships and hurricanes and even whales (“thar she blows!”). In certain rural dialects in the United States, however, one hears the third-person feminine pronoun her … Read more

What is the meaning and use of “seh” in Caribbean dialects of English?

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I have heard “seh” used in Jamaican English but I think it’s probably used in other parts of the Caribbean too. I know that in many cases, it is simply the equivalent of standard English “say”. However, it is also used in sentences like: “Mi know seh dem nuh like mi”, meaning “I know that … Read more

Is there a word for when fictional media makes non-English speaking characters from the past speak in an old-timey English dialect?

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There are many movies and TV shows that depict characters from historical eras who would not speak English, but do for the sake of the show’s audience. In those cases, they tend to use an old English dialect to mimic how the characters would have spoken in their own language. For instance, if a movie … Read more