Hi All!
I love collecting accents and dialects when I travel, and at home, it adds to the fun of conversing with any stranger. I have a pretty good ear for American accents and can generally pinpoint a region pretty easily and occasionally a state.
An interactive map has been produced by an amateur linguist showing the dialects of Americans and Canadians:
http://aschmann.net/AmEng/#LargeMap4LeftSome of this struck me as expected, while other findings surprised me. For example, Massachusetts has four distinct dialects, and Pennsylvania is very diverse linguistically. My accent as a native Oregonian is classically West, but some people in rural areas of the state speak with an almost-Southern twang my family has always known as "backwoods Oregonese". The study mentions this in sample No. 613, and I agree with the observations posted there. Similarly, when I lived for a year in Oxford, Mississippi, nearly anyone could distinguish the accent of an Olive Branch resident, or one from Columbus or Batesville -- dialects varied by community.
If you'd like to try listening to samples of the various dialects, the author has linked samples from YouTube videos, interviews, and audio sources on the page below the map.
Best,
Dan.
