The Erie Accent: What is It, and How has It Changed Over the Past Century? || Doris Becker Lecture Series at the Jefferson Educational Society
Wednesday June 25th, 2025 | 7:00 PM EDT
Linguist and researcher Dr. Keelan Evanini will describe the dialect of North American English spoken in and around Erie, Pennsylvania, and trace the history of how it changed over the course of the 20th century.
Based on early dialect research with speakers born in the late-19th century, the dialect features in Erie pattern with other cities in the North dialect region, such as Buffalo. These features included vocabulary words such as "string beans" (instead of "snap beans") and pronunciation patterns such as pronouncing "cot" and "caught" differently. However, the Atlas of North American English, which was published in 2006, showed that the speakers from Erie shared many of their dialect features with other cities in the Midland dialect region, such as Pittsburgh. But Erie is unique, since it is the only city to have changed its dialect patterns from the North to the Midland.
Evanini will provide examples for these patterns drawn from the field work conducted with over 100 residents of the geographical region around Erie in an attempt to track down the current location of the border between the North and Midland dialect regions.
Evanini grew up in New Jersey, but he has Erie roots: his mother was born and raised in Erie. He visited Erie frequently as a child and has fond memories of the water slides at Waldameer & Water World Amusement Park and eating sponge candy from Romolo Chocolates. He stayed in Erie for an extended period of time during his PhD studies in order to conduct the interviews for his field work. Several members of his extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) still live in Erie, and Evanini has come back to visit as an adult with family.
The Hagen History Center Doris Becker Lecture is a free event thanks to Mark Becker, who underwrites the series in honor of his late mother, Doris Becker.
