Includes bibliographical references.

Language evolution or dying traditions? : the state of American dialects / Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes -- Sounds of the South / Guy Bailey and Jan Tillery -- Defining Appalachian English / Kirk Hazen and Ellen Fluharty -- If these hills could talk (Smoky Mountains) / Christine Mallinson ... [et al.] -- Doing the Charleston (South Carolina) / Maciej Baranowski -- The Lone Star State of speech (Texas) / Guy Bailey and Jan Tillery -- Speaking the Big Easy (New Orleans, LA) / Connie Eble -- Sounds of Ole Man River (Memphis, TN) / Valerie Fridland -- Yakking with the Yankees (New England) / Julie Roberts, Naomi Nagy, and Charles Boberg -- Beantown babble (Boston, MA) / Jim Fitzpatrick -- Mainely English / Jane S. Smith -- Steel town speak (Pittsburgh, PA) / Barbara Johnstone and Scott Kiesling -- New York tawk (New York City, NY) / Michael Newman -- Expressions of brotherly love (Philadelphia, PA) / Claudio Salvucci -- Maple leaf rap (Canada) / J.K. Chambers -- An introduction to Midwest English / Timothy C. Frazer -- Straight talking from the heartland (Midwest) / Matthew J. Gordon -- Words of the Windy City (Chicago, IL) / Richard Cameron -- Different ways of talking in the Buckeye State (Ohio) / Beverly Olson Flanigan -- Spirited speech (St. Louis, MO) / Thomas E. Murray -- Saying ya to the yoopers (Michigan's Upper Peninsula) / Beth Simon -- Getting real in the Golden State (California) / Penelope Eckert and Norma Mendoza-Denton -- Desert dialect (Utah) / David Bowie and Wendy Morkel -- Dialects in the mist (Portland, OR) / Jeff Conn -- Arizona's not so standard / Lauren Hall-Lew -- Topics from the tropics (Hawai'i) / Miriam Meyerhoff -- Speaking strictly roots (West Indies) / Renee Blake -- Gullah Gullah islands (Sea Island, SC, GA) / Tracey L. Weldon -- Islands of diversity (Bahamas) / Walt Wolfram ... [et al.] -- Dialect in danger (Outer Banks, NC) / Walt Wolfram -- Fighting the tide (Smith Island, MD) / Natalie Schilling-Estes -- From cod to cool (Newfoundland, Canada) / Sandra Clarke -- The world's loneliest dialect (Tristan da Cunha) / Daniel Schreier -- Bridging the great divide (African American English) / John Baugh -- When languages collide (African American English) / Walt Wolfram and Benjamin Torbert -- Talkin' with mi gente (Chicano English) / Carmen Fought -- Stirring the linguistic gumbo (Cajun English) / Megan Melancon -- From the brickhouse to the swamp (Lumbee vernacular English) / Walt Wolfram -- More than just yada, yada, yada (Jewish English) / Cynthia Bernstein -- Fading future for ferhoodled English (Pennsylvania German) / Marion Lois Huffines.