Imagine looking at a map of the United States that is divided not into states but into dialects — a map that doesn’t tell you what a state’s capital is, but how a region’s residents pronounce their ...

Why is Christian Science in our name? Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and we’ve always been transparent about that. The church publishes the ...

William Labov, whose innovative research into regional variations in language -- why New Yorkers drink wahtah but Philadelphians drink warter -- won him acclaim as one of the most important linguists ...

Ah, but the issue of dialect is actually much too fascinating to call the whole thing off, according to linguistic research into North American dialects. People commonly assume that regional dialects ...

And I'm Robert Siegel. P: Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change. He calls it a snapshot of our rapidly changing language, mergers of sounds that used to be different, splits of sounds that used to be ...

Our Friday feature Lost and Found Sound™, a collaboration between NPR and independent producers The Kitchen Sisters™: Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva, and Jay Allison continues. This week, All Things ...

Imagine looking at a map of the United States that is divided not into states but into dialects — a map that doesn’t tell you what a state’s capital is, but how a region’s residents pronounce their ...

OK. So the Philly accent isn’t “fading,” per se. “It’s just changing in a different direction from where it was going before,” said Josef Fruehwald, one of the University of Pennsylvania linguistics ...

In the 1960s, Columbia University graduate student William Labov headed into New York City’s department stores in search of something. He scoured Saks, Macy’s, and S. Klein, asking all the employees ...

This story is free to read because readers choose to support LAist. If you find value in independent local reporting, make a donation to power our newsroom today. P: Phonetics, Phonology and Sound ...