The British Library has assembled a unique digital collection that allows researchers and students to examine the evolution of spoken English. The collection includes 288 pairs of digital recordings ...

A smartphone app capable of differentiating between regional English dialects for the first time has been launched by linguistics experts. English Dialects, available on iOS and Android, aims to ...

Conditions in rural England around the turn of the 20th century offer a case study for cultural evolution researchers. Heritage Images/Hulton Archive via Getty Images If you need to hit a nail, what ...

A man I know recently spent several weeks visiting his native South Africa. Upon his return to the United States, he found himself one day passing through a certain section of Oakland. Everyone on the ...

A new book on American English in the Midwest makes Chicago seem exotic. It’s certainly not the title: “Language Variation and Change in the American Midland: A New Look at `Heartland’ English” (John ...

American English dialects and pronunciation have been a point of interest from coast to coast among linguists for years. In 1999, the Harvard Dialect Survey, a research project conducted by Professor ...

A British Library collection of regional words and phrases shows that language is still evolving. If you’re shilpit, you’ll be able to shuck on your dead ronking kecks as far as your oxters. It could ...

“Ey oop! Ey oop!”, says comedian Michael McIntyre to his audience in Leeds. “That’s supposed to be ‘hello’, according to you.” He sticks with his Yorkshire theme for a couple of minutes, mocking nowt, ...

Later, I emigrated to the U.S. to teach linguistics at Wayne State University and began researching and teaching what academics call African American Vernacular English, or the everyday speech of ...