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Do You Speak American?
2005 · TV series · documentary · 1 season
Why is the English spoken by Maine lobstermen so different from thatscene from the broadcast spoken by cowboys in Texas? Does Spanish pose a threat to English as the dominant language in America? And what on earth do yins, wickety wack, ayuh, catty whompus, and stomping it clean mean? Robert MacNeil travels cross-country to answer these questions and examine the dynamic state of American English – a language rich with regional variety, strong global impact and cultural controversy.
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4 comments on Hacker News
The 3-part documentary Do You Speak American? (2005) is also interesting on the evolution of English (and non-English) accents.
There's an interesting documentary on American accents.
Do You Speak American?
https://www.pbs.org/speak/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_You_Speak_American%3F
There was a book and multipart PBS documentary by Robert MacNeil where he traveled and interviewed Americans about how they spoke and the evolution of accents.
Do You Speak American? (2005)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_You_Speak_American%3F
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443484/
There was a more general 2005 documentary with interviews by Robert MacNeil of the NewsHour called Do You Speak American?
http://www.pbs.org/speak/
Also, I have serious doubts about the "differences" in SF Bay Area upper and lower peninsula pronouncing "on." Source: 40 year resident.