Exploring Your Local Market Dialect

Traveling from Radio market to Radio market in the U.S. and Canada one of the traits that is always fascinating is the local dialects.  It's the one big key to sounding local and a part of the community for any talent in any market and it's also often very important to the whole staging of a station/brand.

Where did these traits come from?  Why do we have so many different accents, phrases and styles of speech?  I ran into an overwhelming exploration of the various Dialects in North America in a recent link from a Facebook pal.   This is an amazing map and site, complete with You Tube links to illustrate various Dialects, as well as detailed histories on the evolution of the Dialects.

You can take in the whole site here.

The author is Rich Aschmann who is a Christian Minister who does this more or less as a hobby.  As he notes 'some people collect stamps - I collect Dialects.'  It's an amazing site that has way more information than most of us will every use to pick up the Dialect in Minnesota or around Pittsburgh but if you want to really dig in and know your market this is a valuable resource - if you can understand and grasp it all.

Even though we all speak English there is clearly a regional and local influence across both the U.S. and Canada.  It's more than just 'soda' or 'pop.'