North Carolina

Although most of the original Cherokee Indians were removed to Indian Territory around 1838, descendants of those who resisted and remained have formed a strong Indian community in the Appalachian foothills. Among Indian place-names are Pamlico, Nantahala, and Cullasaja.

Many regional language features are widespread, but others sharply distinguish two subregions: the western half, including the piedmont and the Appalachian Highlands, and the eastern coastal plain. Terms common to South Midland and Southern speech occur throughout the state: both dog irons and firedogs (andirons), bucket (pail), spicket (spigot), seesaw, comfort (tied and filled bedcover), pullybone (wishbone), ground squirrel (chipmunk), branch (small stream), light bread (white bread), polecat (skunk), and carry (escort). Also common are greasy with the /z/ sound, new as /nyoo/ and due as /dyoo/, swallow it as / swaller it/, can't rhyming with paint, poor with the vowel sound /aw/, and horse and hoarse with different vowels.

Distinct to the western region are snake feeder (dragonfly), blinds (roller shades), poke (paper bag), redworm (earthworm), a little piece (a short distance), plum peach (clingstone peach), sick on the stomach (also found in the Pee Dee River Valley), boiled as /bawrld/, fog as /fawg/, Mary sounding like merry and bulge with the vowel of good . Setting off eastern North Carolina are lightwood (kindling), mosquito hawk (dragonfly), earthworm, press peach (instead of plum peach), you-all as second-person plural, and sick in the stomach . Distinctive eastern pronunciations include the loss of /r/ after a vowel, fog as /fagh/, scarce and Mary with the vowel of gate, bulge with the vowel sound /ah/. Along the coast, peanuts are goobers and a screech owl is a shivering owl.

In 2000, 6,909,648 North Carolinians—92% of the population five years of age and older—spoke only English at home, down from 96.1% in 1990.

The following table gives selected statistics from the 2000 census for language spoken at home by persons five years old and over. The category "African languages" includes Amharic, Ibo, Twi, Yoruba, Bantu, Swahili, and Somali.