Missouri

White pioneers found Missouri Indians in the northern part of what is now Missouri Osage in the central portion, and Quapaw in the south. Long after these tribes' removal to Indian Territory, only a few place-names echo their heritage: Missouri itself, Kahoka, Wappapello.

Four westward-flowing language streams met and partly merged in Missouri. Northern and North Midland speakers settled north of the Missouri River and in the western border counties, bringing their Northern pail and sick to the stomach and their North Midland fishworm (earthworm), gunnysack (burlap bag), and sick at the stomach . But sick in the stomach occurs along the Missouri River from St. Louis to Kansas City and along the Mississippi south of St. Louis. South of the Missouri River, and notably in the Ozark Highlands, South Midland dominates, though with a few Southern forms, especially in the cotton-growing floodplain of the extreme southeast. Wait on (wait for), light bread (white bread), and pullybone (wishbone) are critical dialect markers for this area, as are redworm (earthworm), towsack (burlap bag), snap beans (string beans), how and now sounding like /haow/ and /naow/, and Missouri ending with the vowel of me rather than the final vowel of /uh/ heard north of the Missouri. In the extreme southeast are Southern loaf bread, grass sack (burlap bag), and cold drink as a term for a soft drink. In the eastern half of the state, a soft drink is generally soda or sody ; in the western half, pop .

In 2000, 94.9% of state residents five years old or older spoke only English at home, down from 96% 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. The category "Other West Germanic languages" includes Dutch, Pennsylvania Dutch, and Afrikaans.