This British-Irish Dialect Quiz correctly identified that I am not from Great Britain. I wondered if it might show a particular region of the mother country reflected in my New England usages, either the East Anglian dialect of the New England Puritans or the Scots-Irish who settled the Merrimack Valley. As with everyone else's linguistic history, mine was likely changed because much of my Puritan background filtered through Nova Scotians who were glad to get free land, and hypersensitive Swedes of a century ago and more who wanted to be very American, very quickly. Nothing like this showed up in my answers, and I took the long form.
The whole thing was amusing to learn what terms the British do use now. I chuckled at many of the choices offered.
5 comments:
I was surprised how accurate the NYT dialect quiz of several years back was at locating my origins, to the extent that my hometown was close to the center of the triangle of the three main cities the dialect quiz decided on.
Regarding being able to pick out ancestral British Isles origins from the dialect quiz you linked to, I would believe that Brit slang- like American slang- has changed so much in the several hundred years since our ancestors moved to America to make a comparison impossible. The language our ancestors spoke when they left Great Britain is not the language used today in Great Britain.
I was definitely NOT from there.
Having relatives living in the UK, I could have easily "cheated" on this test. There were a few questions where none of the answers seemed quite right. Overall, I think I'd have still scored "not from Great Britain". The few answers that turned parts of the UK red were areas where I know I do have ancestry -- Scotland, Ireland, and southern UK. These were mostly rhyming questions.
Fun, but nothing I'd be taking to the bank.
Not from the UK but most like people from Galway and Killarney. Which makes sense since I was raised in Scituate, MA whose nickname is the Irish Riveria.
Avi's wife
Southern England with a touch of Wales. Centered on Bath. My people were Scots-Irish, though.
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