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.
