There is no official language of the United States

As some students know, I was born when my parents were farming rice in Missouri and grew up in a small town in Missouri, but I've spent the last six years teaching in Chicago. So it's pretty obvious I'm not from Pittsburgh, and students can really tell I'm not from here when I speak.

Recently there was a study to find out how people in the United States use different words to say the same thing.

clearly they missed that yinzers say "yinz"

click here to see more of the maps/words we say differently

Hot Tamale Activities - email your responses to bordner@cityhigh.org

• How do you answer each of these questions/say these words? Email me your responses to each question.
• What are some other words that you've heard people pronounce differently than what you are familiar with? (For example my grandpa who lives in Ohio calls the machine that cleans his clothes the "waRsher")
• Why do you think that people who speak the same language and live in the same country say things differently? How does this happen?
• Check out this website about pittsburghese, the people of Pittsburgh have their own way of saying things. Do you use any of these words? Which words have you never heard of before?