If you love true crime, you'll love this week's Grammar Girl interview with Natalie Schilling, a forensic linguist, talking about what she calls "the case of the mystery dialect." 🧵
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A girl disappears and a woman turns up years later when the father comes under suspicion. She claims to be the missing girl — but she has an unusual accent that doesn't fit. The investigators are skeptical.
She says she lived most of her life in CA and AZ but has a strong southern accent.
We talked about how a linguist approaches a puzzle like this and tries to help investigators figure out whether this is really the missing girl or an imposter.
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She says she lived most of her life in CA and AZ but has a strong southern accent.
And it's not just a broad southern accent, but an Appalachian accent, like pronouncing "sit" as "see-it."
But then she doesn't use pronunciations that are common, like pronouncing "I" as "ah."
It's an odd mix.
Read: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/schilling-bonus/transcript
Watch: https://youtu.be/MF745suxwEQ
Listen: Read: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/schilling-bonus/transcript