US dialect atlas
You Guys, Y'all or You All?
English lost its plural you and every region built a replacement. You guys leads 35 states, y'all owns 12 across the South, and you all sits between them — the clearest surviving trace of the old North–South line.
- you guys leads 35 states
- y'all leads 12 states
- you all leads 3 states
- no listed answer leads 1 state
Take the quiz and see which accent yours matches →
State by state
Share of respondents in each state giving each answer. Percentages do not sum to 100: the survey offered answers this map does not name, and they are left out rather than folded into one of the three.
| State | you guys | y'all | you all |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 10.5% | 72.8% ◀ | 8.8% |
| Alaska | 57.8% ◀ | 8.9% | 13.3% |
| Arizona | 49.2% ◀ | 7.2% | 15.5% |
| Arkansas | 9.8% | 69.2% ◀ | 12% |
| California | 55% ◀ | 6.8% | 9.6% |
| Colorado | 51.1% ◀ | 6.8% | 15.3% |
| Connecticut | 49.5% ◀ | 3% | 9.3% |
| Delaware | 34.9% ◀ | 20.9% | 16.3% |
| Florida | 27.1% | 41.5% ◀ | 16.4% |
| Georgia | 11.5% | 71.2% ◀ | 9.2% |
| Hawaii | 49.1% ◀ | 12.3% | 10.5% |
| Idaho | 57.3% ◀ | 5.3% | 10.7% |
| Illinois | 50.7% ◀ | 6.1% | 12% |
| Indiana | 50.4% ◀ | 8.8% | 15.6% |
| Iowa | 54.7% ◀ | 5.2% | 10% |
| Kansas | 52.6% ◀ | 9.8% | 17% |
| Kentucky | 13.7% | 39% | 40.3% ◀ |
| Louisiana | 5.7% | 79.3% ◀ | 7.3% |
| Maine | 52% ◀ | 3% | 9.8% |
| Maryland | 35.3% ◀ | 20.5% | 23.9% |
| Massachusetts | 49.5% ◀ | 3.6% | 9.8% |
| Michigan | 56.4% ◀ | 4.5% | 9.9% |
| Minnesota | 59.8% ◀ | 2.8% | 8.6% |
| Mississippi | 6% | 85.5% ◀ | 6.8% |
| Missouri | 42.6% ◀ | 13.5% | 24.5% |
| Montana | 56.8% ◀ | 3.2% | 10.4% |
| Nebraska | 45.8% ◀ | 5.1% | 14.7% |
| Nevada | 62.5% ◀ | 10.9% | 4.7% |
| New Hampshire | 55.8% ◀ | 4.5% | 2.7% |
| New Jersey | 48.8% ◀ | 5.3% | 11% |
| New Mexico | 40.4% ◀ | 19.3% | 14.9% |
| New York | 48% ◀ | 5.3% | 9.1% |
| North Carolina | 14.4% | 66.1% ◀ | 11.2% |
| North Dakota | 59.7% ◀ | 0.9% | 8.8% |
| Ohio | 54.3% ◀ | 6.5% | 11.4% |
| Oklahoma | 18% | 46.4% ◀ | 24.9% |
| Oregon | 56.7% ◀ | 6.4% | 8.5% |
| Pennsylvania | 42.7% ◀ | 4.1% | 11% |
| Rhode Island | 39% | 2% | 5% |
| South Carolina | 12.7% | 71.8% ◀ | 8.5% |
| South Dakota | 59.6% ◀ | 6.3% | 7.7% |
| Tennessee | 14.5% | 62.2% ◀ | 17.9% |
| Texas | 11.4% | 73.1% ◀ | 8.8% |
| Utah | 59.4% ◀ | 3% | 9.1% |
| Vermont | 54% ◀ | 4% | 11.8% |
| Virginia | 25.4% | 44% ◀ | 18.6% |
| Washington | 56.7% ◀ | 4.2% | 8.6% |
| Washington, D.C. | 23.5% | 18.5% | 34.6% ◀ |
| West Virginia | 16.7% | 28.3% | 36.7% ◀ |
| Wisconsin | 56.4% ◀ | 6.3% | 7.4% |
| Wyoming | 50% ◀ | 5.9% | 11.8% |
Where this data comes from
The map above is drawn from the Harvard Dialect Survey, collected by Bert Vaux and Scott Golder in 2002–2003. It asked 122 questions and recorded, for each one, the share of respondents in every US state who gave each answer. It is a large self-selected sample rather than a census, and it is now two decades old — treat it as a well-supported picture of how people spoke then, not a measurement of today.
Data used under the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence: attribution and share-alike, non-commercial. DialectGuessr’s own survey data is separate and is described on the about page.