Louisville, Kentucky
The Louisville Accent
Louisville sits inside the Midland dialect area, which covers Ohio, Indiana, Missouri and the US Midland, United States. The nearest other area is Southern Appalachian, about 168km away.
Take the quiz and see how close your accent is →
What people in Louisville sound like
- “The car needs washed” — “to be” is dropped.
- “Cot” and “caught” sound the same.
- “Pin” and “pen” stay distinct, unlike Texas and the South.
- Plural “you” is “you guys”, not “y’all”.
These are the markers of the Midland accent as a whole. No survey claims every speaker in Louisville has all of them — the full Midland profile sets out where the region varies.
Louisville against Southern Appalachian
Louisville is close enough to the Southern Appalachian area that the two get confused. These are the questions where the survey expects a different answer on each side.
| Question | Louisville | Southern Appalachian |
|---|---|---|
| Do “cot” and “caught” rhyme in your natural accent? | “cot” and “caught” rhyme | “cot” and “caught” stay distinct |
| Do “pin” and “pen” sound the same in your natural accent? | “pin” and “pen” stay distinct | “pin” and “pen” sound the same |
Dialect areas near Louisville
Is your accent from Louisville?
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 Midland American English profile and every other profile in the survey, and shows you where people who answer the way you do actually live.