Lake Charles, Louisiana
The Lake Charles Accent
Lake Charles sits inside the Texas dialect area, which covers Texas, United States. The nearest other area is New Orleans, about 245km away.
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What people in Lake Charles sound like
- The pin–pen merger — “pin” and “pen” are identical.
- Southern drawl: “bed” stretched towards “bay-ed”.
- Monophthongal “price” in East Texas — “nine” as “nahn”.
- “Y’all” universally, and “fixin’ to” for “about to”.
These are the markers of the Texas accent as a whole. No survey claims every speaker in Lake Charles has all of them — the full Texas profile sets out where the region varies.
Lake Charles against New Orleans
Lake Charles is close enough to the New Orleans area that the two get confused. These are the questions where the survey expects a different answer on each side.
| Question | Lake Charles | New Orleans |
|---|---|---|
| When you say “car” by itself, do you pronounce an R sound at the end? | the R at the end of “car” is pronounced | “car” ends in a vowel, with no R sound |
How Louisiana answered the Harvard Dialect Survey
The Harvard Dialect Survey, collected by Bert Vaux and Scott Golder in 2002–2003, recorded how respondents in every US state answered the same questions. These are Louisiana’s answers, most common first.
| Question | Answers in Louisiana |
|---|---|
| Soda, Pop or Coke? The Map of How America Orders a Fizzy Drink | coke 59% · soda 13% · pop 4% |
| Traffic Circle, Roundabout or Rotary? | traffic circle 57% · roundabout 14% · rotary 1% |
| Water Fountain, Drinking Fountain or Bubbler? | water fountain 95% · drinking fountain 5% · bubbler 0% |
| Lightning Bug or Firefly? | lightning bug 41% · firefly 19% |
| Crawfish, Crawdad or Crayfish? | crawfish 95% · crawdad 2% · crayfish 1% |
| Roly Poly or Potato Bug? | roly poly 51% · potato bug 1% |
| You Guys, Y'all or You All? | y'all 79% · you all 7% · you guys 6% |
| Kitty-Corner or Catty-Corner? | catty-corner 66% · kitty-corner 9% |
| Garage Sale or Yard Sale? | garage sale 75% · yard sale 19% |
| Tennis Shoes or Sneakers? | tennis shoes 82% · sneakers 11% |
| Trash Can or Garbage Can? | trash can 39% · garbage can 29% |
| Frosting or Icing? | icing 50% · frosting 9% |
| Scratch Paper or Scrap Paper? | scratch paper 49% · scrap paper 9% |
| Frontage Road, Service Road or Access Road? | service road 69% · frontage road 17% · access road 6% |
| Does “Route” Rhyme With “Out” or “Hoot”? | rhymes with "out" 37% · rhymes with "hoot" 20% |
| Caramel: Two Syllables or Three? | with 3 syllables ("carra-mel") 69% · with 2 syllables ("car-ml") 13% |
| Mischievous or Mischievious? | mischievious (4 syllables) 39% · mischievous (3 syllables) 35% |
| Rubber Band, Hair Tie or Elastic? | rubber band 50% · hair tie 13% · (hair) elastic 3% |
Data from the Harvard Dialect Survey (Bert Vaux and Scott Golder, 2002–2003), used under the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence. A self-selected sample from two decades ago: how people spoke then, not a census.
Dialect areas near Lake Charles
Is your accent from Lake Charles?
There is no way to answer that from a description. The test asks 29 questions about the words you use and how you say them, scores your answers against the Texas English profile and every other profile in the survey, and shows you where people who answer the way you do actually live.