Our University embodies diversity through many avenues; however, one side street that most people don’t think about is diversity in dialects.  According to English professor and linguist Walt Wolfram, there is no state with more diversity in dialects than North Carolina.

 ”Dialects are one of the unrecognized resources and treasures of N.C . State,” Wolfram said.

Wolfram is the director of the North Carolina Language and Life Project ( NCLLP ), which aims to do “hardcore” research around the state and then share that research with the public, according to Wolfram.

The variety of North Carolina dialects make it tough to come up with an exact number, according to Wolfram.

“It depends on how you cut the pie,” Wolfram said, “but our [ NCLLP ] dialect map identifies six dialects.”

However, he also said that there are sub-dialects within the six major categories.

“Even within Johnston County, there are different dialects,” Maggie Banks, a freshman in fashion and textile management from Princeton, N.C ., said.

Wolfram said dialects signify cultural links to communities and display a rich history.

Banks said she feels this way about her own Princeton parlance.

“Everybody in Princeton talks like me,” Banks said. “If you are from another part of the country, you aren’t as much of a member of the community.”

So why exactly does dialect link a community? Matthew Watson, an anthropology professor, said dialects set community experiences apart.

“Dialect indexes, or expresses, a common set of social experiences, because one associates language with place,” Watson said.

Furthermore, according to Watson, when people identify speech that sounds similar to their own, people often think that they have similar experiences.

“What is interesting is that we carry that language ideology [dialect is linked to experience], they’re stereotypes in a sense,” Watson said.

This ideology is quite common even if you don’t necessarily think about it. According to Banks, she was in an elevator and noticed that the guy next to her had the same dialect, so she initiated a conversation involving the common dialect, resulting in a discussion of their common hometown.

According to both Wolfram and Watson, the amount of dialects is increasing in the U.S . Wolfram believes this to be a reaction to globalization.

“People want to be from somewhere,” Wolfram said. “We want to belong to something, and dialect is an association to a community.

“[A rise in dialect diversity], I think, is evidence of the importance of language to expressing individual and cultural identities,” Watson said.

According to Amanda King, a sophomore in psychology originally from South Florida, someone’s dialect shows where they came from and, therefore, shows part of their cultural background.

“It [diversity in dialects] makes communication more interesting and gives people a whole other aspect to their persona,” King said.

According to Wolfram, everybody has an accent.

“Some are more noticeable but every time you use a vowel or certain words, you are using your accent,” Wolfram said.

While you may have thought that dialect was only the way in which someone speaks, Wolfram indicates that terminology is also a part of someone’s dialect.

We often recognize our own dialect when we are presented with dialects that are different from our own, Watson said. Banks had this experience when she came to N.C . State.

“I never noticed it [dialect] until I came to college.”

Likewise, when King came to North Carolina, specifically Wilmington, she noticed that she had a hard time understanding some of what people were saying because of their southern drawl. It was then that she realized her dialect was different and, therefore, present.

Wolfram said when meeting new people with different dialects, celebrate the diversity.

“I think dialect is as important, if not more important, than any other cultural artifact,” Wolfram said. “Culture is embodied in language.”