The “Y’all Line” – Maps of Regional Linguistic Differences

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Like I’ve mentioned before, I love maps and the way they display data.  So I came across this group of maps that display linguistic differences across the country on varying words and phrases.  Joshua Katz, a Ph. D student in statistics at North  Carolina State University, takes stuff like “how do you pronounce ‘crayon’?” and “how do you pronounce the second syllable in ‘pajamas’?” and maps the results on a map of the U.S. The first thing I thought about was how institutions of higher education are melting pots of language styles (among other things), and how all of this comes together in a place like an on-campus residence hall.  If you’ve ever worked in a residence hall, I’m sure you’ve heard all of the variances in every one of those phrases.  But these maps will give you some idea of where those differences come from. Click here to see the whole article, including all 22 of these maps.