The lead actress of the new film I'm working on is doing some dialect research. She shared this link with me, and I just have to share it here. It's the International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA). From their website, an explanation of the purpose:
The International Dialects of English Archive, IDEA, was created in 1997 as a repository of primary source recordings for actors and other artists in the performing arts. Its home is the Department of Theatre and Film at the University Of Kansas, in Lawrence, KS, USA; while associate editors form a global network. All recordings are in English, are of native speakers, and you will find both English language dialects and English spoken in the accents of other languages. The recordings are downloadable and playable for both PC and Macintosh computers.
It's an amazing audio archive of dialects from around the United States. Maybe this is old news to actors, but it's new to me, and quite exciting.
And, just in case you were wondering, we've been listening to Tennessee Eight.