Editing Tangier, Virginia (section)

== Language ==
[[File:Monologue with 93 year old white male, Tangier Island, Virginia.ogg|thumb|start=00:16|A recording of a resident of Tangier Island who was born in the late 1800s, showcasing the island's unique accent]]
Many who live on Tangier Island speak a distinctive [[dialect]] of [[Southern American English]], which scholars have disputed as derived from 17th and 18th-century [[British English]] ([[Early Modern English|Early Modern]] and [[Modern English]]) lexicon and phonetics. Historical linguist David Shores has noted that, while it may sound like a British variety of English, the dialect is a creation of its own time and place off the eastern shore of Virginia, preserving certain features of its British origins in part due to isolation, but not unchanged.<ref>Shores (2000), pp. 171-172.</ref> The persistence of this dialectical variety is often attributed to the geographic isolation of the population from the mainland. Many non-scholarly sources (i.e. the popular media and press) report that the unique dialect originated from early European settlers from [[Cornwall]] and [[Devon]] in the [[United Kingdom]],<ref name="PRI">{{cite web |url=https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-07-20/island-chesapeake-bay-disappearing-and-so-british-dialect-and-piece-history| title=An island in Chesapeake Bay is disappearing — and so is a British dialect and a piece of history |publisher=PRI |access-date=September 16, 2017 |date=July 20, 2014}}</ref> but this is disputed by Shores.<ref>Shores (2000), p. 55.</ref> [[BBC Travel]] made a short  film on the dialect.<ref>{{cite web |title=The tiny US island with a British accent |url=http://www.bbc.com/travel/gallery/20180206-the-tiny-us-island-with-a-british-accent}}</ref>

Before bridges were built, the only form of transport between or off the ridges was by boat, allowing the islands to stay isolated from the mainland.

The local accent is sometimes compared to that of the "[[High tider|Hoi Toiders]]" of the [[Outer Banks]] of [[North Carolina]]. There are some similarities, but the dialects are distinct. [[Smith Island, Maryland]], which is near Tangier, has a dialect that is more similar to that of Tangier in terms of phonetics and lexicon.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Schilling-Estes|first=Natalie|date=1997|title=Accommodation versus concentration: dialect death in two post-insular island communities|journal=American Speech|volume=72|issue=1|pages=12–32|doi=10.2307/455606|jstor=455606}}</ref>