Wisconsin talk
Subtitle: linguistic diversity in the Badger State
By: edited by Thomas Purnell, Eric Raimy, and Joseph Salmons
Series: Languages and folklore of the Upper Midwest; Languages and folklore of the Upper Midwest
Publisher: The University of Wisconsin Press
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Madison
Language: eng
Number of pages: 173
ISBN-13: 9780299293345; 9780299293338
Subjects: Languages; Dialects; English language
Description: Wisconsin is one of the most linguistically rich places in North America. It has the greatest diversity of American Indian languages east of the Mississippi, including Ojibwe and Menominee from the Algonquian language family, Ho-Chunk from the Siouan family, and Oneida from the Iroquoian family. French place names dot the state's map. German, Norwegian, and Polish-the languages of immigrants in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries-are still spoken by tens of thousands of people, and the influx of new immigrants speaking Spanish, Hmong, and Somali continues to enrich the state's cultural landscape. These languages and others (Walloon, Cornish, Finnish, Czech, and more) have shaped the kinds of English spoken around the state. Within Wisconsin's borders are found three different major dialects of American English, and despite the influences of mass media and popular culture, they are not merging-they are dramatically diverging.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-161) and index.