Portage, Indiana
The Portage Accent
Portage sits inside the Chicago dialect area, which covers Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo, United States. The nearest other area is Midland, about 48km away.
Take the quiz and see how close your accent is →
What people in Portage sound like
- Raised “trap” vowel — “cat” towards “kee-at”.
- Fronted “lot” vowel — “block” towards “black”.
- “Cot” and “caught” stay distinct.
- Chicago-specific vocabulary: “gym shoes”, “pop”, “the expressway”.
These are the markers of the Chicago accent as a whole. No survey claims every speaker in Portage has all of them — the full Chicago profile sets out where the region varies.
Portage against Midland
Portage is close enough to the Midland area that the two get confused. These are the questions where the survey expects a different answer on each side.
| Question | Portage | Midland |
|---|---|---|
| Do “cot” and “caught” rhyme in your natural accent? | “cot” and “caught” stay distinct | “cot” and “caught” rhyme |
How Indiana 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 Indiana’s answers, most common first.
| Question | Answers in Indiana |
|---|---|
| Soda, Pop or Coke? The Map of How America Orders a Fizzy Drink | pop 40% · coke 27% · soda 19% |
| Traffic Circle, Roundabout or Rotary? | roundabout 38% · traffic circle 18% · rotary 7% |
| Water Fountain, Drinking Fountain or Bubbler? | water fountain 52% · drinking fountain 46% · bubbler 0% |
| Lightning Bug or Firefly? | lightning bug 65% · firefly 3% |
| Crawfish, Crawdad or Crayfish? | crawdad 47% · crawfish 35% · crayfish 10% |
| Roly Poly or Potato Bug? | roly poly 34% · potato bug 7% |
| You Guys, Y'all or You All? | you guys 50% · you all 16% · y'all 9% |
| Kitty-Corner or Catty-Corner? | catty-corner 56% · kitty-corner 29% |
| Garage Sale or Yard Sale? | garage sale 58% · yard sale 31% |
| Tennis Shoes or Sneakers? | tennis shoes 65% · sneakers 16% |
| Trash Can or Garbage Can? | trash can 50% · garbage can 15% |
| Scratch Paper or Scrap Paper? | scrap paper 42% · scratch paper 23% |
| Frontage Road, Service Road or Access Road? | frontage road 31% · access road 26% · service road 20% |
| Does “Route” Rhyme With “Out” or “Hoot”? | rhymes with "out" 38% · rhymes with "hoot" 19% |
| Caramel: Two Syllables or Three? | with 2 syllables ("car-ml") 57% · with 3 syllables ("carra-mel") 18% |
| Mischievous or Mischievious? | mischievous (3 syllables) 36% · mischievious (4 syllables) 35% |
| Rubber Band, Hair Tie or Elastic? | rubber band 36% · hair tie 21% · (hair) elastic 5% |
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 Portage
Is your accent from Portage?
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 Chicago / Inland North English profile and every other profile in the survey, and shows you where people who answer the way you do actually live.