27 fascinating maps that show how Americans speak English differently across the US

Joshua Katz

In a country as vast as the United States, you're hardly ever going to find a consensus on how to say something.

Do you drink soda, or do you call it pop? Do you wear sneakers, or tennis shoes? The answers vary depending on where you ask the question.

Linguists Bert Vaux and Scott Golder surveyed more than 30,000 people from all 50 states in the early 2000s to compile some of the starkest regional divisions in American English, from vocabulary to pronunciation.

Graphic artist Josh Katz eventually turned the results into a series of maps, and updated them for his 2016 book "Speaking American." The surprising data illuminate the linguistic quirks that make American English such a fascinating dialect.

Take a look at 27 of his maps that show how differently Americans speak: