My sister moved to Texas about three years ago from Oklahoma. Recently, my sister and I were speaking on the phone and she made a reference to soda, otherwise known as pop. My kids and I call any carbonated beverage pop, as a matter of fact, everyone I know calls it pop, except now for my sister. She said that everyone she knows in Texas calls it soda. I began to wonder how differently English is spoken among the different regions of the United States.
             The Southern dialect was formed primarily from English and Black English. In 1607 more than half of the people who settled in Jamestown, Virginia came from southern England. Proper London of the eighteenth century influenced southern speech the most. The southern seaport and plantation owner were in close contact with the London English. The people who lived inland did not have the London English influence largely due to cultural isolation.
             Early southern dialect also mimics some early Black English speech patterns. As early as 1677 southern started saying "tote" instead of carry. Tote came from "tota" meaning "to pick up" in western Africa. The south had a larger population of blacks than the north so it makes sense that Black English would help form the southern way of speaking.
             The New England dialect comes from eastern and southern countries near London. Two-thirds of the fifteen thousand people who came to the United States from England were Puritans from East Anglia. In the mid sixteen hundreds the pilgrims began to migrate and live in the New England area. The pilgrims brought their own words, but New Englanders mainly adhered to the speech and culture of old England. The New England way of speaking is the first to be recognized by visitors and the first to be honored with a name, "The New England Dialect", in 1788. More so in New England than anywhere else in the United States, New Englanders way of speaking is...