File talk:Non rhotic-whites-usa.png

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This graphic is confusing. Are there sea people speaking non-rhotic English? Yes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.188.38.117 (talk) 18:21, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Washington DC[edit]

I've lived in Washington DC for 4 years (having moved here from New Jersey), and there ain't no non-rhotic whites here, except maybe a few from out of town (NYC or new england). Your source doesn't seem to have this data publically available anymore, either. Brianski (talk) 23:55, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You took the (rhotic) words right out of my mouth. I came here to investigate after this image was cited on Quora in a discussion of US English dialects. I've never met a native of the DC area who speaks with a non-rhotic accent, aside from AAVE speakers. —Moxfyre (ǝɹʎℲxoɯ | contrib) 23:09, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've lived my whole life in central MD (Westminster to be exact, my mother and her family are from Highlandtown, Baltimore City and her step father is from Anacostia, Washington D.C.) and I really have a hard time accepting or imagining the classification of non-rhotic speech among Caucasians in Washington D.C. If it does exist at all either historically or at present, it is undoubtedly unique to a small number of upper class individuals educated in private schools, similar to the trans-Atlantic speech of William F. Buckley. I can say from experience, however, that all native white D.C. residents I have known have rhotic speech (note that Washington, due to its status as the capital of the U.S., has an extremely high number of transplants, both immigrants from other countries and Americans born in other cities, as was the case with my paternal grandparents who spoke with non-rhotic accents, being from Mississippi and Boston respectively). It is actually quite rare to meet a white Washington, D.C. resident with family ties in the city extending more than a generation or 2 but all those I have known have prono.unced their R's. Again, these were all working class or lower middle class people and I can't speak for native, upper class, Caucasion accents in Washington, D.C. which may be non-rhotic. More explanation should be added — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.73.21.185 (talk) 17:27, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm...

Looking in the Atlas of North American English's page 48, where this image is attributed, I found a map taking data from fairly recent telephone surveys (also known as Labov's TELSUR data). The only metropolitan areas with at least one docmuented speaker showing over 90% non-rhoticity in his/her speech are:

  • Bangor and Portland, Maine
  • Boston (and, I believe, Worcester), Massachusetts
  • New York City
  • Norfolk, Virginia
  • Savannah, Georgia
  • Montgomery and Mobile, Alabama
  • New Orleans, Louisiana

Here are the only metropolitan areas with at least one documented speaker showing between 50-90% non-rhoticity (and I'm ignoring any metro areas already mentioned in the above list):

  • Washington DC
  • Durham, North Carolina
  • Atlanta, Georgia
  • An unlabelled area in western Alabama

To go into specifics, the TELSUR data documents only two speakers in Washington DC: one who exhibits 50-90% non-rhotic speech (the one mentioned above) and the other who exhibits fully rhotic speech. Perhaps our Wikipedia image should be adjusted to better reflect this level of nuance... Any other solutions? Wolfdog (talk) 02:26, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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