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This FIU Professor is telling the world about the Miami dialect

Phillip M. Carter is an Associate Professor of English and Linguistics in the Department of English at Florida and Director of the Center for the Humanities in an Urban Environment at Florida International University
Florida International University
Phillip M. Carter is an Associate Professor of English and Linguistics in the Department of English and Director of the Center for the Humanities in an Urban Environment at Florida International University.

Pero, like, take a minute and tell me if this makes sense to you.

You got to work and got down from the car. You went into your office and put the light. Claro, you had to dim it because it was super bright. Irregardless, it’s ok. Better to see the meat empanada you bought at the gas station while putting gas.

Still with me? If so, you’re probably fluent in the Miami dialect.

Phillip M. Carter studied the way Miamians speak. And what he found was more than Spanglish. More than an accent. He found Miami has developed its own dialect.

The paper he co-published last year recently caught fire. It’s been read hundreds of thousands of times. Phillip has been doing interviews from LA to London. TikTok found it, and now videos of people reproducing the Miami dialect have been viewed millions of times.

He's now the expert in how Miami talks. He’s been studying linguistics in South Florida for more than a decade as a professor at Florida International University.

On the June 22 episode of Sundial, Carter joined us to talk about his research on language diversity and how he’s become an authority on the Miami dialect.

On Sundial's previous episode, Chasten Buttigieg sat down with WLRN's Breaking News Editor, Mike Majchrowicz, to talk about why he made it a point to stop and hear peoples' stories right here in Miami.

Listen to Sundial Monday through Thursday on WLRN, 91.3 FM, live at 1 p.m., rebroadcast at 8 p.m. Missed a show? Find every episode of Sundial on your favorite podcast app, such as Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Spotify.

Carlos Frías is a bilingual writer, a journalist of more than 25 years and the author of an award-winning memoir published by Simon & Schuster.
Leslie Ovalle Atkinson is the former lead producer behind Sundial. As a multimedia producer, she also worked on visual and digital storytelling.
Elisa Baena is a former associate producer for Sundial.
Helen Acevedo, is WLRN's anchor for All Things Considered.