Midland American English
The Midland dialect of American English was first defined by Hans Kurath (A Word Geography of the Eastern United States, 1949) as being the dialect spoken in an area centered on central Pennsylvania and expanding westward to include most of Pennsylvania and part of the Appalachian Mountains. Kurath and McDavid (The Pronunciation of English in the Atlantic States, 1961) later divided this region into two discrete subdivisions: the "North Midland" beginning north of the Ohio River valley area, and the "South Midland". Craig M. Carver (American Regional Dialects: A Word Geography, 1987) essentially renamed the North Midland the Lower North and the South Midland the Upper South. All these classifications were mostly based on lexical features.
Labov, Ash, and Boberg (The Atlas of North American English, 2006), based solely on phonology and phonetics, defined the Midland area as a buffer zone between the Inland North and the South; this area essentially coincides with Kurath and McDavid's North Midland, the "South Midland" being now reckoned as part of the South. Indeed, while the lexical and grammatical isoglosses follow the Appalachian Mountains, the accent boundary follows the Ohio River.
The (North) Midland is arguably the major region whose speech most closely approximates General American.
Read more about Midland American English: (North) Midland, Western Pennsylvania, South Midland, St. Louis and Vicinity, Cincinnati
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