American regional dialects

This text describes the dialect areas of the United States. Focusing on some 2,000 dialect expressions, it traces cultural and historical forces that have shaped these speech regions and given them their characteristic vocabularies. The author not only explains the genesis and character of the dialects, but also explores the geographical and etymological origins of many unique words and phrases in the various dialects. Nearly 100 maps help define the dialect boundaries and individual isoglosses.