In Monday's Zoom, we talked about updating a survey, the Western Pennsylvania Local Speech Survey, I did in this class two years ago with new questions. Here's a heatmap we were able to generate from that survey, looking at the geographical distribution of the Pittsburghese word jumbo (for 'balogna'):
Here is a link to the questionnaire for that survey:
Anyway, look it over and try to think of new questions we might want to explore this time around. Post your suggestions in the comment section...
Quick Question! Are these supposed to be based off of words and phrases that are unique to Western Pa? For those of us who are not from Western PA, should we be thinking about words that we think might be different for most speakers? What if the words I say differently are different because they are unique to the place I'm from (not because they are significant in Western Pa)?
ReplyDeleteSadly, not a quick reply. I had in mind focusing on WPa because of the difficulty of getting enough responses from outside the area...
DeleteWe could also ask about saying "buggy" vs. "shopping cart," "hoagie" vs. "sub," "crick" vs. "creek."
ReplyDeleteHere are some that I find interesting: "Supper" versus "dinner," "chipped" versus "sliced," "wound up" versus "ended up," and "state store" versus "liquor store."
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if some of these are significant to Western Pa or not, but here are some ideas:
ReplyDelete- Pronunciation of "color" as "keller"/"kuhller"
- "Vacuum" vs. "Sweeper"
- "Sneakers" vs. "Tennis Shoes"
- Pronunciation of "kielbasa" with an "ah"/"ee" at the end