Pronunciation differences in the United States and Canada
North American English regional phonology
is the study of variations in the pronunciation of spoken
North American English
(English of the United States and Canada)?what are commonly known simply as "regional accents". Though studies of regional
dialects
can be based on multiple characteristics, often including characteristics that are
phonemic
(sound-based, focusing on major word-differentiating patterns and structures in speech),
phonetic
(sound-based, focusing on any more exact and specific details of speech),
lexical
(vocabulary-based), and
syntactic
(grammar-based), this article focuses only on the former two items. North American English includes
American English
, which has several highly developed and distinct regional varieties, along with the closely related
Canadian English
, which is more homogeneous geographically. American English (especially Western dialects) and Canadian English have more in common with each other than with
varieties of English
outside North America.
The most recent work documenting and studying the phonology of North American English dialects as a whole is the 2006
Atlas of North American English
(ANAE) by
William Labov
, Sharon Ash, and
Charles Boberg
, on which much of the description below is based, following on a tradition of
sociolinguistics
dating to the 1960s; earlier large-scale American dialectology focused more on lexicology than on phonology.
Overview
[
edit
]
Regional
dialects
in North America are historically the most strongly differentiated along the
Eastern seaboard
, due to distinctive speech patterns of urban centers of the American East Coast like
Boston
,
New York City
, and certain Southern cities, all of these accents historically noted by their London-like
r
-dropping (called
non-rhoticity
), a feature gradually receding among younger generations, especially in the South. The
Connecticut River
is now regarded as the southern and western boundary of the
traditional New England accents
, today still centered on Boston and much of Eastern New England. The
Potomac River
generally divides a group of Northeastern coastal dialects from an area of older Southeastern coastal dialects. All
older Southern dialects
, however, have mostly now receded in favor of a strongly rhotic,
more unified accent group
spread throughout the entire Southern United States since the late 1800s and into the early 1900s. In-between the two aforementioned rivers, some other variations exist, most famous among them being
New York City English
.
Outside of the Eastern seaboard, virtually all other North American English (both in the U.S. and Canada) has been firmly rhotic (pronouncing all
r
sounds), since the very first arrival of English-speaking settlers. An exception is the English spoken in the insular and culturally British-associated city of
Victoria, British Columbia
, where non-rhoticity is one of several features in common with British English, and despite the decline of the quasi-British "Van-Isle" accent once spoken throughout southern
Vancouver Island
, this makes it unique as the only distinguishable local dialect of Canadian English spoken west of Quebec.
[1]
Rhoticity in central and western North America is a feature shared today with the English of Ireland, for example, rather than most of the English of England, which has become non-rhotic since the late 1700s. The sound of Western U.S. English, overall, is much more homogeneous than Eastern U.S. English. The interior and western half of the country was settled by people who were no longer closely connected to England, living farther from the British-influenced Atlantic Coast.
Certain particular vowel sounds are the best defining characteristics of regional North American English including any given speaker's presence, absence, or transitional state of the so-called
cot
?
caught
merger
.
Northeastern New England
,
Canadian
, and
Western Pennsylvania accents
, as well as all
accents of the Western U.S.
have a merger of these
/?/
and
/?/
vowels, so that pairs of words like
mock
and
talk
,
rod
and
clawed
, or
slot
and
bought
rhyme. On the contrary,
Baltimore
,
Philadelphia
and
New York metropolitan accents
, plus inland accents of the
Northern
and
Southern U.S.
, all strongly resist this merger, keeping the two sounds separate and thus maintaining an extra distinct vowel sound. The rest of the U.S. largely shows a transitional state of the merger, particularly the
Midland dialect region
, from Ohio to eastern Kansas.
Another prominent differentiating feature in regional North American English is
fronting
of the
/o?/
in words like
goat
,
home
, and
toe
and
/u/
in words like
goose
,
two
, and
glue
. This fronting characterizes Midland, Mid-Atlantic, and Southern U.S. accents; these accents also front and raise the
/a?/
vowel (of words like
house
,
now
, and
loud
), making
yowl
sound something like
yeah-wool
or even
yale
. Northern U.S. English, however, tends to keep all these vowels more backed. Southern and some Midland U.S. accents are often most quickly recognized by the weakening or deleting of the "glide" sound of the
/a?/
vowel in words like
thyme
,
mile
, and
fine
, making the word
spy
sound something like
spa
.
One phenomenon apparently unique to North American U.S. accents is the irregular behavior of words that in the British English standard,
Received Pronunciation
, have
/?rV/
(where V stands for any vowel). Words of this class include, among others:
origin, Florida, horrible, quarrel, warren, borrow, tomorrow, sorry
, and
sorrow
. In General American there is a split: the majority of these words have
/?r/
(the sound of the word
or
), but the last four words of the list above have
/?r/
(the sound of the words
are
). In Canada, all of these words are pronounced as
/o?r/
(same as General American
/?r/
but analyzed differently). In the accents of
Greater New York City
,
Philadelphia
,
the Carolinas
and
older Southern
, most or all of these words are pronounced
/?r/
(Shitara 1993).
Classification of regional accents
[
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]
Hierarchy of regional accents
[
edit
]
The findings and categorizations of the 2006
The Atlas of North American English
(or
ANAE
), use one well-supported way to hierarchically classify North American English accents at the level of broad geographic regions, sub-regions, etc. The North American regional accent represented by each branch, in addition to each of its own features, also contains all the features of the branch it extends from.
Maps of regional accents
[
edit
]
The map above shows the major regional dialects of
American English
(each designated in all capital letters), as demarcated primarily by Labov et al.'s
The Atlas of North American English
,
[15]
as well as the related Telsur Project's
regional maps
. Any region may also contain speakers of "
General American
," the notional accent ascribed to American English speakers who have receded away from the marked sounds of their region. Furthermore, this map does not account for speakers of ethnic, cultural, or other not-strictly-regional varieties (such as
African-American Vernacular English
,
Chicano English
,
Cajun English
, etc.). All regional American English dialects, unless specifically stated otherwise, are
rhotic
, with the
father
?
bother
merger
,
Mary
?
marry
?
merry
merger
, and
pre-nasal "short
a
" tensing
.
[note 1]
- Western
- The Western dialect, including Californian and New Mexican sub-types (with Pacific Northwest English also, arguably, a sub-type), is defined by:
- Cot
?
caught
merger to
[
?
]
ⓘ
- GOAT
is
[o?]
- GOOSE
is
[u~?]
- North Central
- The North Central ("Upper Midwest") dialect, including an Upper Michigan sub-type, is defined by:
- Inland Northern
- The Inland Northern ("Great Lakes") dialect is defined by:
- No
cot
?
caught
merger: the
cot
vowel is
[??~a]
and
caught
vowel is
[?]
- /æ/
is universally
[??]
, the triggering event for the
Northern Cities Vowel Shift
in more advanced sub-types (
[??]
←
/æ/
←
/?/
←
/?/
←
/?/
←
/?/
)
[8]
- GOAT
is
[o?~?o]
- Midland
- The Midland dialect is defined by:
- Cot
?
caught
merger is in transition
[17]
- /a?/
may be
[a]
, often only before
/l/
,
/m/
,
/n/
, or
/?/
- /a?/
is
[æ?~æo]
[18]
- /o?/
is
[??~??]
- WPA
- The Western Pennsylvania dialect, including its advanced Pittsburgh sub-type, is defined by:
- Cot
?
caught
merger to
[?~?]
, the triggering event for the Pittsburgh Chain Shift in the city itself (
[?~?]
←
/?/
←
/?/
) but no trace of the Canadian Shift
[19]
- /o?/
is
[??~??]
[20]
- Full
?
fool
?
foal
merger
to
[?l~?w]
- Specifically in
Greater Pittsburgh
,
/a?/
is
[a?~a]
, particularly before
/l/
and
/r/
, and in unstressed
function words
[14]
- Southern
- The Southern dialects, including several sub-types, are defined by:
- Variable rhoticity (parts of Louisiana are still non-rhotic, even among younger people )
- No
cot
?
caught
merger: the
cot
vowel is
[?]
and
caught
vowel is
[??]
- /a?/
is
[a]
at least before
/b/
,
/d/
,
/?/
,
/v/
, or
/z/
, or word-finally, and potentially elsewhere, the triggering event for the Southern Shift (
[a]
←
/a?/
←
/e?/
←
/i/
)
- "Southern drawl" may break short
front vowels
into
gliding vowels
:
/æ/
→
[?(j)?]
;
/?/
→
[?(j)?]
;
/?/
→
[i(j)?]
[21]
- MOUTH
is
[æo]
, the triggering event for the Back Upglide Shift in more advanced sub-types (
[æo]
←
/a?/
←
/?/
←
/??/
)
[13]
- GOAT
is
[??~??]
- Mid-Atlantic
- The Mid-Atlantic ("Delaware Valley") dialect, including Philadelphia and Baltimore sub-types, is defined by:
- No
cot
?
caught
merger: the
cot
vowel is
[??~?]
and
caught
vowel is
[??~??]
; this severe distinction is the triggering event for the Back Vowel Shift before
/r/
(
?r
←
/?(r)/
←
/?r/
)
[22]
[23]
- Unique Mid-Atlantic
/æ/
split system: the
bad
vowel is
[e?]
and
sad
vowel is
[æ]
- GOAT
is
[??]
- MOUTH
is
[??]
[18]
- No
Mary
?
marry
?
merry
merger
- NYC
- The New York City dialect (with New Orleans English an intermediate sub-type between NYC and Southern) is defined by:
- No
cot
?
caught
merger: the
cot
vowel is
[??~?]
and
caught
vowel is
[??~??]
; this severe distinction is the triggering event for the Back Vowel Shift before
/r/
(
/??/
←
/?(r)/
←
/?r/
)
[22]
- Non-rhoticity
or variable rhoticity
- Unique New York City
/æ/
split system: the
bad
vowel is
[e?]
and
bat
vowel is
[æ]
- GOAT
is
[o?~??]
- No
Mary
?
marry
?
merry
merger
- father
?
bother
not necessarily merged
- ENE
- Eastern New England dialect, including Maine and Boston sub-types (with Rhode Island English an intermediate sub-type between ENE and NYC), is defined by:
- Cot
?
caught
merger to
[?~?]
(lacking only in Rhode Island)
- Non-rhoticity
or variable rhoticity
[16]
[24]
- MOUTH
is
[??~a?]
[25]
- GOAT
is
[o?~??]
- GOOSE
is
[u]
- Commonly, the starting points of
/a?/
and
/a?/
in a
raised position
when before
voiceless consonants
:
[??~??]
and
[??~??]
, respectively
- Possibly no
Mary
?
marry
?
merry
merger
- No
father
?
bother
merger
(except in Rhode Island): the
father
vowel is
[a~??]
and
bother
vowel is
[?~?]
[26]
All regional Canadian English dialects, unless specifically stated otherwise, are
rhotic
, with the
father
?
bother
merger
,
cot
?
caught
merger
, and
pre-nasal "short
a
" tensing
. The broadest regional dialects include:
- Standard Canadian
- The Standard Canadian dialect, including its most advanced Inland Canadian sub-type and others, is defined by:
- Cot
?
caught
merger
to
[?]
, the triggering event for the Canadian Shift in more advanced sub-types (
[?]
←
/?/
←
/æ/
←
/?/
)
[20]
- /æ/
is raised to
[?]
or even
[e(?)]
when before
/?/
[10]
- Especially in Inland Canadian, beginnings of
/a?/
and
/a?/
in a
raised position
when before
voiceless consonants
:
[??~??]
and
[??~??]
, respectively;
[27]
/a?/
is otherwise
[a?~??]
; and
/e?/
approaches
[e]
[28]
- START
is
[??~??]
[29]
- GOAT
is
[o?]
- GOOSE
is
[?u]
, except before /l/ where it is
[u]
.
[30]
- Atlantic Canadian
- The Atlantic Canadian ("Maritimer") dialect, including Cape Breton, Lunenburg, and Newfoundland sub-types, is defined by:
Chart of regional accents
[
edit
]
Accent
|
Most populous urban center
|
Strong
/a?/
fronting
|
Strong
/o?/
fronting
|
Strong
/u/
fronting
|
Strong
/?/
fronting before
/r/
|
Cot
?
caught
merger
|
Mary
?
marry
?
merry
merger
|
Pin
?
pen
merger
|
/æ/ raising system
|
Chain shift
|
Atlantic Canadian
|
Halifax, NS
|
Mixed
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Pre-nasal (mixed)
|
none
|
Inland Northern
|
Chicago, IL
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
No
|
General or Pre-nasal
[6]
[7]
|
Northern Cities
|
Mid-Atlantic
|
Philadelphia, PA
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
Split
|
Back Vowel
|
Midland
|
Columbus, OH
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Mixed
|
Yes
|
Mixed
|
Pre-nasal
|
none
|
New York City
|
New York City, NY
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
[32]
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
Split
|
Back Vowel
|
North-Central
|
Minneapolis, MN
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Pre-nasal &
-velar
|
none
|
Eastern New England
|
Boston, MA
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
Pre-nasal
|
none
|
Southern
|
San Antonio, TX
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Mixed
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Southern
|
Southern & Back Upglide
|
Standard Canadian
|
Toronto, ON
|
No
|
No
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Pre-nasal &
-velar
|
Canadian
|
Western
|
Los Angeles, CA
|
No
|
No
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Pre-nasal
|
none (
California
)
|
Western Pennsylvania
|
Pittsburgh, PA
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Mixed
|
Pre-nasal
|
Pittsburgh
|
Alternative classifications
[
edit
]
Combining information from the phonetic research through interviews of Labov et al. in the
ANAE
(2006) and the phonological research through surveys of Vaux (2004), Hedges (2017) performed a
latent class analysis
(
cluster analysis
) to generate six clusters, each with American English features that naturally occurred together and each expected to match up with one of these six broad U.S. accent regions: the North, the South, the West, New England, the Midland, and the Mid-Atlantic (including New York City). The results showed that the accent regions/clusters were largely consistent with those outlined in the
ANAE
.
The defining particular pronunciations of particular words that have more than an 86% likelihood of occurring in a particular cluster are:
pajamas
with either the phoneme
/æ/
or the phoneme
/?/
;
coupon
with either
/ju/
or
/u/
;
Monday
with either
/e?/
or
/i/
;
Florida
with either
/?/
or other possibilities (such as
/?/
);
caramel
with either two or three syllables;
handkerchief
with either
/?/
or
/i/
;
lawyer
as either
/?l??.?r/
or
/?l?.j?r/
;
poem
with either one or two syllables;
route
with either
/u/
or
/a?/
;
mayonnaise
with either two or three syllables; and
been
with either
/?/
or other possibilities (such as
/?/
). The parenthetical words indicate that the likelihood of their pronunciation occurs overwhelmingly in a particular region (well over 50% likelihood) but does not meet the >86% threshold set by Hedges (2017) for what necessarily defines one of the six regional accents. Blank boxes in the chart indicate regions where neither pronunciation variant particularly dominates over the other; in some of these instances, the data simply may be inconclusive or unclear.
[33]
Presumed accent region
(cluster)
|
pajamas
|
coupon
|
Monday
|
Florida
|
caramel
|
handkerchief
|
lawyer
|
poem
|
route
|
mayonnaise
|
been
|
North
|
/æ/
|
/ju/
|
/e?/
|
/?/
|
2 syll.
|
(
/?/
)
|
(
/??/
)
|
|
|
|
|
South
|
/?/
|
(
/ju/
)
|
(
/e?/
)
|
(
/?/
)
|
3 syll.
|
/?/
|
/?j/
|
2 syll.
|
|
|
(
/?/
)
|
West
|
/?/
★
|
(
/u/
)
|
/e?/
|
/?/
|
|
/?/
|
/??/
|
(2 syll.)
|
|
|
(
/?/
)
|
New England
|
|
(
/u/
)
|
/e?/
|
(
/?/
)
|
3 syll.
|
|
/??/
|
(2 syll.)
|
/u/
|
3 syll.
|
|
Midland
|
/æ/
|
/u/
|
/e?/
|
/?/
|
2 syll.
|
|
/??/
★
|
(2 syll.)
|
|
|
|
Mid-Atlantic
and NYC
|
/?/
|
/u/
|
/e?/
|
|
3 syll.
|
/?/
|
/??/
|
(2 syll.)
|
/u/
|
(3 syll.)
|
/?/
|
★ Hedges (2017) acknowledges that the two pronunciations marked by this star are discrepancies of her latent class analysis, since they conflict with Vaux (2004)'s surveys. Conversely, the surveys show that
/æ/
is the much more common vowel for
pajamas
in the West, and
/??/
and
/?j/
are in fact both common variants for
lawyer
in the Midland.
General American
[
edit
]
General American is an umbrella accent of American English perceived by many Americans to be "neutral" and free of regional characteristics. A General American accent is not a specific well-defined
standard English
in the way that
Received Pronunciation
(RP) has historically been the standard prestigious variant of the
English language
in
England
; rather, accents with a variety of features can all be perceived by Americans as "General American" so long as they lack certain sociolinguistically salient features: namely, that is, lacking regional features (such as
R
-dropping
, which usually identifies an American speaker as being from the East Coast or South), ethnic features (such as the "clear
L
" sound, which often identifies speakers as being
Hispanic
), or socioeconomic features (such as
th
-stopping
, which often identifies speakers of a lower-class background).
[34]
[35]
Canada and Western United States
[
edit
]
The English dialect region encompassing the
Western United States
and
Canada
is the largest one in North America and also the one with the fewest distinctive phonological features. This can be attributed to the fact that the West is the region most recently settled by English speakers, and so there has not been sufficient time for the region either to develop highly distinctive innovations or to split into strongly distinct dialectological subregions.
[
citation needed
]
The main phonological features of the Western U.S. and Canada are a completed
cot
-
caught
merger
, a backed
GOAT
vowel (like the Northern U.S.), and a fronted
GOOSE
vowel (like the Southern U.S.).
Atlantic Canada
[
edit
]
The accents of
Atlantic Canada
are more
marked
than the accents of the whole rest of English-speaking Canada. English of this region broadly includes
/?/
fronting before
/r/
and full
Canadian raising
, but no
Canadian Shift
(the vowel shift documented in Standard Canadian English).
Inland Canada
[
edit
]
All of Canada, except the Atlantic Provinces and French-speaking Quebec, speaks Standard Canadian English: the relatively uniform variety of North American English native to inland and western Canada. The vowel
[?]
is raised and diphthongized to
[??]
or
[e?]
and
[æ]
as
[e?]
all before
/?/
and
/ŋ/
, merging words like
leg
and
lag
[le??]
;
tang
is pronounced
[te?ŋ]
.
The
cot
?
caught
merger
to
[?]
creates a hole in the short vowel sub-system
[36]
and triggers a sound change known as the
Canadian Shift
, mainly found in Ontario, English-speaking Montreal, and further west, and led by Ontarians and women; it involves the front lax vowels
/æ/
,
/?/
,
/?/
. The
/æ/
of
TRAP
is retracted to
[a]
(except before nasals, where it is raised and diphthongized to
[e?]
), then
/?/
(
DRESS
) and
/?/
(
KIT
) are lowered in the direction of
[æ]
and
[?]
and/or retracted; the exact trajectory of the shift is still disputed.
[37]
Increasing numbers of Canadians have a feature called "
Canadian raising
", in which the nucleus of the
diphthongs
/a?/
and
/a?/
are more "raised" before
voiceless consonants
. Thus for Canadians, word pairs like
pouter
/
powder
(
[?p????]
versus
[?pa???]
) and
rider
/
writer
are pronounced differently.
Pacific Northwest
[
edit
]
The English of the Pacific Northwest, a region extending from British Columbia south into the Northwestern United States (particularly Washington and Oregon), is closely linguistically related to that of Inland Canada and that of California.
Like in Inland Canada, before
/g/
,
/?/
and
/æ/
are raised, and
/e?/
is lowered, sometimes leading to three-way merger. Canadian raising of
/a?/
exists throughout the region, but the raising of
/a?/
is more restricted to Canadian part.
[38]
The Canadian shift was observed in Vancouver independently of the shift further east,
[39]
and has now spread throughout the region.
[40]
In Oregon, a split in
/o?/
occurs where it fronts except before /l/ and nasals, similar to California.
[41]
California
[
edit
]
California, the most populated U.S. state, has been documented as having some notable new subsets of Western U.S. English. Some youthful urban Californians possess a vowel shift partly identical to the
Canadian shift
in its backing or lowering of each front vowel one space in the mouth. Before
/ŋ/
,
/?/
is raised to
[i]
, so
king
has the same vowel as
keen
rather than
kin
.
[42]
Before
/ŋ/
/æ/
may be identified with the phoneme
/e?/
, so
rang
is pronounced with the same vowel as
ray
. Elsewhere
/æ/
is
lowered
in the direction of
[a]
,
/?/
is lowered towards
[æ]
(to someone without the shift,
pet
can sound like
pat
), and
/?/
is lowered towards
[?]
, (
pit
can sound like
pet
), identically to the Canadian shift. In addition,
/?/
is moving towards
[?]
, so
put
sounds more like
putt
.
/?/
is fronted towards
[?]
, so
putt
can sound slightly similar to
pet
. The vowels
/u/
and
/o?/
(
GOOSE
and
GOAT
) may be more fronted, i.e.
[?]
and
[??]
. The
pin
?
pen
merger
is complete in
Bakersfield
and rural areas of the Central Valley, and speakers in
Sacramento
either perceive or produce an approximation of this merger.
[43]
Greater New York City
[
edit
]
As in Eastern
New England
, the accents of
New York City
,
Long Island
, and adjoining
New Jersey
cities are traditionally
non-rhotic
, while other greater New York area varieties falling under the same sweeping dialect are usually rhotic or variably rhotic. Metropolitan New York shows the back
GOAT
and
GOOSE
vowels of the North, but a fronted
MOUTH
vowel. The vowels of
cot
[k??t]
and
caught
[k??t]
are distinct; in fact the New York dialect has perhaps the highest realizations of
/?/
in North American English, even approaching
[o?]
or
[??]
. Furthermore, the
father
vowel is traditionally kept distinct from either vowel, resulting in a three "lot-palm-father distinction".
[5]
The r-colored vowel of
cart
is back and often rounded
[k?t]
, and not fronted as it famously is in Boston. New York City and its surrounding areas are also known for a complicated
[
citation needed
]
short-
a
split
into lax
[æ]
versus tense
[e?]
, so that words, for example, like
cast
,
calf
, and
cab
have a different, higher, tenser vowel sound than
cat
,
catch
, and
cap
. The New York accent is well attested in American movies and television shows, often exaggerated, particularly in movies and shows about American
mobsters
from the area. Though it is sometimes known as a "Bronx" or "Brooklyn accent", no research has confirmed differences of accent between the city's
boroughs
.
Northern and North-Central United States
[
edit
]
One vast super-dialectal area commonly identified by linguists is "the North", usually meaning New England, inland areas of the
Mid-Atlantic states
, and the North-Central States. There is no
cot
?
caught
merger
in the North around the Great Lakes and southern New England, although the merger is in progress in the North-bordering Midland and is completed in northern New England, including as far down the Atlantic coast as Boston. The western portions of the North may also show a transitioning or completing
cot
-
caught
merger. The diphthong
/a?/
is
[a?~a?]
, and
/o?/
remains a back vowel, as does
/u/
after non-
coronal consonants
(unlike the rest of the country). Indeed, in part of the North (much of
Wisconsin
and
Minnesota
),
/u/
remains back in all environments. Where the Southeast has
/?/
the single word
on
, the North has
/?/
. The
Canadian raising
of
/a?/
(to
[??]
) before
voiceless consonants
occurs is common in the North, and is becoming more common elsewhere in North America.
North
[
edit
]
The traditional and linguistically conservative North (as defined by the
Atlas of North American English
) includes
/?/
being often raised or fronted before
/r/
, or both, as well as a firm resistance to the
cot
-
caught
merger (though possibly weakening in dialects reversing the fronting of
/?/
[6]
). Maintaining these two features, but also developing several new ones, a younger accent of the North is now predominating at its center, around the Great Lakes and away from the Atlantic coast: the Inland North.
Inland North
[
edit
]
The Inland North is a dialect region once considered the home of "standard Midwestern" speech that was the basis for
General American
in the mid-20th century. However, the Inland North dialect has been modified in the mid-1900s by the
Northern Cities Vowel Shift
(NCS), which is now the region's main outstanding feature, though it has been observed to be reversing at least in some areas, in particular with regards to
/æ/
raising before non-nasal consonants and
/?/
fronting.
[6]
[7]
The Inland North is centered on the area on the U.S. side of the
Great Lakes
, most prominently including central and western
New York State
(including
Syracuse
,
Binghamton
,
Rochester
, and
Buffalo
), much of
Michigan
's Lower Peninsula (
Detroit
,
Grand Rapids
),
Toledo
,
Cleveland
,
Chicago
,
Gary
, and southeastern
Wisconsin
(
Milwaukee
,
Racine
,
Kenosha
), but broken up by the city of
Erie
, whose accent today is non-Inland Northern and even Midland-like. The NCS itself is not uniform throughout the Inland North; it is most advanced in Western New York and Michigan, and less developed elsewhere. The NCS is a
chain shift
involving movements of six vowel
phonemes
: the raising, tensing, and
diphthongization
of
/æ/
towards
[??]
in all environments (
cat
being pronounced more like "kyat"), then the
fronting
of
/?/
to
[a]
(
cot
sounding like
cat
), then the lowering of
/?/
towards
[?]
(
caught
sounding like
cot
, but without the two merging due to the previous step), then the backing and sometimes lowering of
/?/
, toward either
[?]
or
[æ]
, then the backing and rounding of
/?/
towards
[?]
, so that (
cut
sounding like
caught
), then lastly the lowering and backing of
/?/
(but without any
pin
?
pen
merger
).
New England
[
edit
]
New England does not form a single unified dialect region, but rather houses as few as four native varieties of English, with some linguists identifying even more. Only Southwestern New England (Connecticut and western Massachusetts) neatly fits under the aforementioned definition of "the North". Otherwise, speakers, namely of Eastern New England, show very unusual other qualities. All of New England has a
nasal short-
a
system
, meaning that the short-
a
vowel most strongly raises before nasal consonants, as in much of the rest of the country.
Northeastern New England
[
edit
]
The local and historical dialect of the coastal portions of New England, sometimes called
Eastern New England English
, now only encompasses Northeastern New England:
Maine
,
New Hampshire
(some of whose urban speakers are retreating from this local accent), and eastern
Massachusetts
(including
Greater Boston
). The accents spoken here share the
Canadian raising
of
/a?/
as well as often
/a?/
, but they also possess the
cot
-
caught
merger, which is not associated with rest of "the North". Most famously, Northern New England accents (with the exception of Northwestern New England, much of southern New Hampshire, and
Martha's Vineyard
) are often
non-rhotic
. Some Northeastern New England accents are unique in North America for having resisted what is known as
father
?
bother
merger
: in other words, the stressed vowel phonemes of
father
and
bother
remain distinct as
/a/
and
/?/
, so that the two words do not rhyme as they do in most American accents. Many Eastern New England speakers also once had a class of words with "
broad
a
"?that is,
/a/
as in
father
in words that in most accents contain
/æ/
, such as
bath
,
half
, and
can't
, similar to their pronunciation in London and
southern England
. The distinction between the vowels of
horse
and
hoarse
is maintained in traditional non-rhotic New England accents as
[h?s]
for
horse
(with the same vowel as
cot
and
caught
) vs.
[ho?s]
for hoarse, though the
horse
?
hoarse
merger
is certainly on the rise in the region today. The
/æ/
phoneme has highly distinct
allophones
before
nasal consonants
.
/?/
fronting is usual before
/r/
.
Rhode Island
[
edit
]
Rhode Island
, dialectally identified as "Southeastern New England", is sometimes grouped with the Eastern New England dialect region, both by the dialectologists of the mid?20th century and in certain situations by the
Atlas of North American English
; it shares Eastern New England's traditional non-rhoticity (or "R Dropping"). A key linguistic difference between Rhode Island and the rest of the Eastern New England, however, is that Rhode Island is subject to the
father
?
bother
merger and yet neither the
cot
?
caught
merger nor
/?/
fronting before
/r/
. Indeed, Rhode Island shares with New York and Philadelphia an unusually high and back allophone of
/?/
(as in
caught
), even compared to other communities that do not have the
cot
?
caught
merger. In the
Atlas of North American English
, the city of
Providence
(the only Rhode Island community sampled by the
Atlas
) is also distinguished by having the backest realizations of
/u/
,
/o?/
, and
/a?/
in North America. Therefore, Rhode Island English aligns in some features more with Boston English and other features more with New York City English.
Western New England
[
edit
]
Recognized by research since the 1940s is the linguistic boundary between Eastern and Western New England, the latter settled from the
Connecticut
and
New Haven
colonies, rather than the
Massachusetts Bay
and
Plymouth
colonies. Western New Englanders settled most of
upstate New York
and the Inland North. Dialectological research has revealed some phonological nuances separating a Northwestern and Southwestern New England accent.
Vermont
, sometimes dialectally identified as "Northwestern New England", has the full
cot
-
caught
merger
and
/?/
fronting before
/r/
of Boston or Maine English, and yet none of the other marked features of Eastern New England, nor much evidence of the NCS, which is more robustly documented, though still variable, in Southwestern New England. Rhoticity predominates in all of Western New England, as does the
father
?
bother
merger
of the rest of the nation. Southwestern New England merely forms a "less strong" extension of the Inland North dialect region, and it centers on Connecticut and western Massachusetts. It shows the same general phonological system as the Inland North, including variable elements of Northern Cities Vowel Shift (NCS)?for instance, an
/æ/
that is somewhat higher and tenser than average, an
/?/
that is fronter than
/?/
, and so on. The
cot
?
caught
merger is approximated in western Massachusetts but usually still resisted in Connecticut. The "tail" of Connecticut may have some character diffused from New York City English.
North Central
[
edit
]
The North Central or Upper Midwest dialect region of the United States extends from the
Upper Peninsula of Michigan
westward across northern
Minnesota
and
North Dakota
into the middle of
Montana
.
[
citation needed
]
Although the
Atlas of North American English
does not include the North Central region as part of the North proper, it shares all of the features listed above as properties of the North as a whole. The North Central is a linguistically conservative region; it participates in few of the major ongoing sound changes of North American English. Its
/o?/
(
GOAT
) and
/e?/
(
FACE
) vowels are frequently even
monophthongs
:
[o]
and
[e]
, respectively. The movie
Fargo
, which takes place in the North Central region, famously features strong versions of this accent.
[44]
Unlike most of the rest of the North, the
cot
?
caught
merger
is prevalent in the North Central region. Like in Canada,
/æ/
TRAP
is raised before /g/. In addition, some speakers will show NCS features, like
/æ/
TRAP
raising towards
[??]
and
/?/
LOT
fronting towards
[a]
.
Southeastern United States
[
edit
]
The 2006
Atlas of North American English
identifies a "Southeastern super-region", in which all accents of the Southern States, as well as accents all along their regional margins, constitute a vast area of recent linguistic unity in certain respects:
[46]
namely, the movement of four vowel sounds (those in the words
GOOSE
,
STRUT
,
GOAT
, and
MOUTH
) towards the center or front of the mouth, all of which is notably different from the accents of the Northern United States.
Essentially all of the modern-day Southern dialects, plus dialects marginal to the South (some even in geographically and culturally "Northern" states), are thus considered a subset of this super-region:
[note 2]
the whole
American South
, the southern half of the
Mid-
and
South Atlantic regions
, and a transitional Midland dialect area between the South and the North, comprising parts of
Oklahoma
,
Kansas
,
Missouri
, southeastern
Nebraska
,
southern Illinois
,
southern Indiana
, and
southern Ohio
.
[47]
These are the minimal necessary features that identify a speaker from the Southeastern super-region:
- Fronting of
/a?/
and
/o?/
: The
gliding vowels
/a?/
(as in
cow
or
ouch
) and
/o?/
(as in
goat
or
bone
) both start considerably forward in the mouth, approximately
[??~æ?]
and
[?u]
, respectively.
/o?/
may even end in a very forward position
[48]
?something like
[?y~œ?]
. However, this fronting does not occur in younger speakers before
/l/
(as in
goal
or
colt
) or before a
syllable break between two vowels
(as in
going
or
poet
), in which
/o?/
remains back in the mouth as
[?u~?u]
.
[49]
- Lacking or transitioning
cot
?
caught
merger: The historical distinction between the two vowels sounds
/?/
and
/?/
, in words like
caught
and
cot
or
stalk
and
stock
is mainly preserved.
[46]
In much of the South during the 1900s, there was a trend to lower the vowel found in words like
stalk
and
caught
, often with an upglide, so that the most common result today is the gliding vowel
[??]
. However, the
cot
?
caught
merger
is becoming increasingly common throughout the United States, thus affecting Southeastern (even some Southern) dialects, towards a merged vowel
[?]
.
[50]
In the South, this merger, or a transition towards this merger, is especially documented in central, northern, and (particularly) western Texas.
[51]
- Pin
?
pen
merger
in transition: The vowels
[?]
and
[?]
often merge when before
nasal consonants
, so that
pen
and
pin
, for instance, or
hem
and
him
, are pronounced the same, as
pin
or
him
, respectively.
[46]
The merger is towards the sound
[?]
. This merger is now firmly completed throughout the Southern dialect region; however, it is not found in some vestigial
varieties of the older South
, and other geographically Southern U.S. varieties that have eluded the Southern Vowel Shift, such as the
Yat dialect
of
New Orleans
or the anomalous dialect of
Savannah, Georgia
. The
pin
?
pen
merger has also spread beyond the South in recent decades and is now found in isolated parts of the
West
and the southern
Midwest
as well.
- Rhoticity
: Dropping of
postvocalic
r
(and, in some dialects,
intervocalic
r
) was historically widespread in the South, particularly in former plantation areas.
[52]
This phenomenon, non-rhoticity, was considered prestigious across the nation before World War II, after which the social perception reversed. Rhoticity (sometimes called
r
-fulness), in which all or most
r
sounds are pronounced, historically found only in the Midland, Appalachia, and some other Southeastern regions, has now become dominant throughout almost the entire Southeastern super-region, as in most American English, and even more so among younger and female white Southerners; major exceptions are among Black or African American Southerners, whose modern
vernacular dialect
continues to be mostly non-rhotic as well as most of southern Louisiana, where non-rhotic accents still dominate.
[53]
The sound quality of the Southeastern
r
is the distinctive "bunch-tongued
r
", produced by strongly constricting the root and/or midsection of the tongue.
[54]
Midland
[
edit
]
A band of the United States from Pennsylvania west to the
Great Plains
is what twentieth-century linguists identified as the "Midland" dialect region, though this dialect's same features are now reported in certain other pockets of the country too (for example, some major cities in Texas, all in Central and South Florida, and particular cities that are otherwise Southern).
[
citation needed
]
In older and traditional dialectological research, focused on lexicology (vocabulary) rather than phonology (accent), the Midland was divided into two discrete geographical subdivisions: the "North Midland" that begins north of the
Ohio River
valley area and, south of that, the "South Midland" dialect area. The North Midland region stretches from east-to-west across central and southern
Ohio
,
central Indiana
,
central Illinois
,
Iowa
, and northern
Missouri
, as well as
Nebraska
and
Kansas
where it begins to blend into the West. The South Midland dialect region follows the
Ohio River
in a generally southwesterly direction, moving across from
Kentucky
, southern Indiana, and southern Illinois to southern Missouri,
Arkansas
, southeastern Kansas, and
Oklahoma
, west of the
Mississippi River
. The distinction between a "North" versus "South Midland" was discarded in the 2006
Atlas of North American English
, in which the former "North Midland" is now simply called "the Midland" (and argued to have a "stronger claim" to a
General American
accent than any other region) and the "South Midland" is considered merely as the upper portion of "the South"; this ANAE reevaluation is primarily on the basis of phonology. The Midland is characterized by having a distinctly fronter realization of the
/o?/
phoneme (as in
boat
) than many other American accents, particularly those of the North; the phoneme is frequently realized with a central nucleus, approximating
[??]
. Likewise,
/a?/
has a fronter nucleus than
/a?/
, approaching
[æ?]
. Another feature distinguishing the Midland from the North is that the word
on
contains the phoneme
/?/
(as in
caught
) rather than
/?/
(as in
cot
). For this reason, one of the names for the North-Midland boundary is the "
on
line". However, since the twentieth century, this area is currently undergoing a vowel
merger
of the "short o"
/?/
(as in
cot
) and 'aw'
/?/
(as in
caught
) phonemes, known as the
cot
-
caught
merger
. Many speakers show transitional forms of the merger. The
/æ/
phoneme (as in
cat
) shows most commonly a so-called "
continuous
" distribution:
/æ/
is raised and tensed toward
[e?]
before
nasal consonants
, as in much of the country.
Midland outside the Midland
[
edit
]
Atlanta, Georgia
has been characterized by a massive movement of non-Southerners into the area during the 1990s, leading the city to becoming hugely mixed in terms of dialect.
[55]
Currently,
/a?/
is variably
monophthongized
(as in the Southern U.S.); no complete
cot
-
caught
merger is reported; and the
pin
?
pen
merger
is variable.
Charleston, South Carolina
is an area where, today, most speakers have clearly conformed to a Midland regional accent, rather than any Southern accent. Charleston was once home to its own very locally-unique accent that encompassed elements of older British English while resisting Southern regional accent trends, perhaps with additional linguistic influence from
French
Huguenots
,
Sephardi Jews
, and, due to Charleston's high concentration of African-Americans that spoke the
Gullah
language, Gullah African Americans. The most distinguishing feature of this now-dying accent is the way speakers pronounce the name of the city, to which a standard listener would hear "Chahlston", with a silent "r". Unlike Southern regional accents, Charlestonian speakers have never exhibited inglide long mid vowels, such as those found in typical Southern
/a?/
and
/a?/
.
[
citation needed
]
Central and South Florida
show no evidence of any type of
/a?/
glide deletion, Central Florida shows a
pin
?
pen
merger, and South Florida does not. Otherwise, Central and South Florida easily fit under the definition of the Midland dialect, including the
cot
-
caught
merger being transitional. In
South Florida
, particularly in and around
Miami-Dade
,
Broward
, and
Monroe
counties, a unique dialect, commonly called the "Miami accent", is widely spoken. The dialect first developed among second- or third-generation
Hispanics
, including
Cuban-Americans
, whose first language was English.
[56]
Unlike the older
Florida Cracker
dialect, "Miami accent" is
rhotic
. It also incorporates a rhythm and pronunciation heavily influenced by Spanish (wherein rhythm is
syllable-timed
).
[57]
Mid-Atlantic States
[
edit
]
The cities of the
Mid-Atlantic States
around the
Delaware Valley
(South Jersey, southeastern Pennsylvania, northern Delaware, and eastern Maryland) are typically classified together, their speakers most popularly labelled as having a
Philadelphia accent
or a
Baltimore accent
. While Labov et al. state that the dialect could potentially be included in the Midland super-region, the dialect is not included in Midland proper as a result of distinct phonological features defining the dialect.
[58]
The Mid-Atlantic
split of
/æ/
into two separate phonemes
, similar to but not exactly the same as New York City English, is one major defining feature of the dialect region, as is a resistance to the
Mary
?
marry
?
merry
merger
and
cot
-
caught
merger
(a raising and diphthongizing of the "caught" vowel), and a maintained distinction between historical short
o
and long
o
before intervocalic
/r/
, so that, for example,
orange
,
Florida
, and
horrible
have a different stressed vowel than
story
and
chorus
; all of these features are shared between Mid-Atlantic American and New York City English. Other features include that
water
is sometimes pronounced
[?w???]
, that is, with the vowel of
wood
; the single word
on
is pronounced
/?n/
not
/?n/
, so that, as in the South and Midland (and unlike New York and the North) it rhymes with
dawn
rather than
don
; the
/o?/
of
goat
and
boat
is fronted, so it is pronounced
[??]
, as in the advanced accents of the Midland and South.
Canadian raising
occurs for
/a?/
(
price
) but not for
/a?/
(
mouth
).
According to linguist Barbara Johnstone, migration patterns and geography affected the Philadelphia dialect's development, which was especially influenced by immigrants from
Northern England
,
Scotland
, and
Northern Ireland
.
[59]
South
[
edit
]
The Southern United States is often dialectally identified as "The South," as in ANAE. There is still great variation between sub-regions in the South (see
here
for more information) and between older and younger generations. Southern American English as Americans popularly imagine began to take its current shape only after the beginning of the twentieth century. Some generalizations include: the conditional merger of
[?]
and
[?]
before nasal consonants, the
pin
?
pen
merger
; the diphthong
/a?/
becomes monophthongized to
[a]
; lax and tense vowels often merge before
/l/
. The South Midland dialect (now considered the upper portion of the Southern U.S. dialect and often not distinguished phonologically) follows the
Ohio River
in a generally southwesterly direction, moves across
Arkansas
and some of
Oklahoma
west of the
Mississippi
, and peters out in
West Texas
; it also includes some of North Florida, namely around Jacksonville. It most noticeably has the loss of the diphthong
[a?]
, which becomes
[a]
. It also shows fronting of initial vowel of
/a?/
to
[æ?]
(often lengthened and prolonged) yielding
[æː?]
; nasalization of vowels, esp. diphthongs, before
[n]
; raising of
/æ/
to
[e]
;
can't
→
cain't
, etc.; fully rhoticity, unlike classical coastal varieties of
older Southern American English
, now mostly declined. In the Southern Vowel Shift of the early 1900s up to the present,
[?]
moves to become a high front vowel, and
[?]
to become a
mid front
unrounded vowel. In a parallel shift, the
/i/
and
/e?/
relax and become less front; the back vowels
/u/
in
boon
and
/o?/
in
code
shift considerably forward to
[?]
and
[?]
, respectively; and, the open back unrounded vowel
/?/
in
card
shifts upward towards
[?]
as in
board
, which in turn moves up towards the old location of
/u/
in
boon
. This particular shift probably does not occur for speakers with the
cot
?
caught
merger. The lowering movement of the Southern Vowel Shift is also accompanied by a raising and "drawling" movement of vowels. The term
Southern drawl
has been used to refer to the diphthongization/
triphthongization
of the traditional short
front vowels
, as in the words
pat
,
pet
, and
pit
. these develop a glide up from their original starting position to
[j]
, and then in some cases back down to
schwa
; thus:
/æ/
→
[æj?]
,
/?/
→
[?j?]
, and
/?/
→
[?j?]
.
Inland South and Texas South
[
edit
]
The ANAE identifies two important, especially advanced subsets of the South in terms of their leading the Southern Vowel Shift (detailed above): the "Inland South" located in the southern half of
Appalachia
and the "Texas South," which only covers the north-central region of Texas (Dallas), Odessa, and Lubbock, but not Abilene, El Paso, or southern Texas (which have accents more like the Midland region). One Texan distinction from the rest of the South is that all Texan accents have been reported as showing a pure, non-gliding
/?/
vowel,
[51]
and the identified "Texas South" accent, specifically, is at a transitional stage of the
cot
-
caught
merger; the "Inland South" accent of Appalachia, however, firmly resists the merger. Pronunciations of the Southern dialect in Texas may also show notable influence derived from an early Spanish-speaking population or from German immigrants.
Marginal Southeast
[
edit
]
The following Southeastern super-regional locations fit cleanly into none of the aforementioned subsets of the Southeast, and may even be marginal-at-best members of the super-region itself:
Chesapeake and the Outer Banks
(North Carolina) islands are enclaves of a traditional "
Hoi Toider
" dialect, in which
/a?/
is typically backed and rounded. Many other features of phonological (and lexical) note exist here too; for example,
Ocracoke, North Carolina
shows no
cot
?
caught
merger and its monophthongs are diphthongized (up-gliding) before /?/ and /t?/ and
Smith Island, Maryland
shows an
/i/
that is diphthongized (like the South) and no
happy tensing
.
[
citation needed
]
New Orleans, Louisiana
has been home to a type of accent with parallels to the New York City accent reported for over a century.
[
citation needed
]
This variety of
New Orleans English
has been locally nicknamed "Yat" since at least the 1980s, from a traditional greeting "Where y'at" ("Where are you at?", meaning "How are you?").
[
citation needed
]
The Yat/NYC parallels include the
split
of the historic short-a class into tense
[e?]
and lax
[æ]
versions, as well as pronunciation of
cot
and
caught
as
[k??t]
and
[k??t]
.
[
citation needed
]
The stereotypical New York
coil
?
curl
merger
of "toity-toid street" (33rd Street) used to be a common New Orleans feature as well, though it has mostly receded today. One of the most detailed phonetic depictions of an extreme "yat" accent of the early 20th century is found in the speech of the character
Krazy Kat
in the
comic strip
of the same name by
George Herriman
.
[
citation needed
]
Such extreme accents still be found in parts of Mid-City and the
9th ward
,
Jefferson Parish
, as well as in
St. Bernard Parish
, just east of New Orleans.
[
citation needed
]
The novel
A Confederacy of Dunces
by
John Kennedy Toole
often employs the Yat accent.
[
citation needed
]
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
, according to the ANAE's research, is not quite a member of the Midland dialect region.
[60]
Rather, its features seem to be a blend of the Western and Midland dialects. The overview of ANAE's studied features for Oklahoma City speakers include a conservative
/a?/
, conservative
/o?/
, transitional
cot
-
caught
merger, and variable
pin
?
pen
merger.
Savannah, Georgia
once had a local accent that is now "giving way to regional patterns" of the Midland.
[60]
According to the ANAE, there is much transition in Savannah, and the following features are reported as inconsistent or highly variable in the city: the Southern phenomenon of
/a?/
being monophthongized, non-rhoticity,
/o?/
fronting, the
cot
?
caught
merger, the
pin
?
pen
merger, and conservative
/a?/
(which is otherwise rarely if ever reported in either the South or the Midland).
St. Louis, Missouri
is historically one among several (North) Midland cities, but it is largely considered by ANAE to classify under blends of
Inland North
accents, with the
Northern Cities Vowel Shift
(NCS), and Midland accents. The "
St. Louis Corridor
" demonstrates this variability in speakers following a line formed by
U.S. Route 66 in Illinois
(now
Interstate 55
), going from Chicago southwest to St. Louis. This corridor of speakers cuts right through the center of what is otherwise the firmly-documented Midland region. Older St. Louisans demonstrate a
card
-
cord
merger
, so that "I-44" is pronounced like "
I farty-four
".
[61]
St. Louis resists the
cot
?
caught
merger and middle-aged speakers show the most advanced stages of the NCS,
[51]
while maintaining many of the other Midland features.
Western Pennsylvania
[
edit
]
The dialect of the
western half of Pennsylvania
is like the Midland proper in many features, including the fronting of
/o?/
and
/a?/
. The chief distinguishing feature of Western Pennsylvania as a whole is that the
cot
?
caught
merger
is noticeably complete here, whereas it is still in progress in most of the Midland. The merger has also spread from Western Pennsylvania into adjacent
West Virginia
, historically in the South Midland dialect region. The city of
Pittsburgh
shows an especially advanced subset of Western Pennsylvania English, additionally characterized by a sound change that is unique in North America: the monophthongization of
/a?/
to
[a]
. This is the source of the stereotypical Pittsburgh pronunciation of
downtown
as "dahntahn". Pittsburgh also features an unusually
low
allophone of
/?/
(as in
cut
); it approaches
[?]
(
/?/
itself having moved out of the way and become a rounded vowel in its merger with
/?/
).
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
Dialects are considered "
rhotic
" if they pronounce the
r
sound in all historical environments, without ever "dropping" this sound. The
father
?
bother
merger
is the pronunciation of
/?/
(as in
cot, lot, bother
, etc.) the same as
/?/
(as in
spa, haha, Ma
), causing words like
con
and
Kahn
and like
sob
and
Saab
to
sound identical
, with the vowel usually realized in the back or middle of the mouth as
[?~??]
. Finally, most of the U.S. participates in a continuous nasal system of the "short
a
" vowel (in
cat, trap, bath
, etc.), causing
/æ/
to be pronounced with the tongue raised and with a glide quality (typically sounding like
[??]
) particularly when before a
nasal consonant
; thus,
mad
is
[mæd]
, but
man
is more like
[m??n]
.
- ^
The only notable exceptions of the South being a subset of the "Southeastern super-region" are two Southern metropolitan areas, described as such because they participate in Stage 1 of the Southern Vowel Shift, but lack the other defining Southeastern features:
Savannah, Georgia
and
Amarillo, Texas
.
Citations
[
edit
]
- ^
"Why Victoria's English is nearly gone"
.
- ^
Freeman, Valerie (2014).
"Bag, beg, bagel: Prevelar raising and merger in Pacific Northwest English"
(PDF)
.
University of Washington Working Papers in Linguistics
. Retrieved
22 November
2015
.
[
permanent dead link
]
- ^
a
b
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:168)
- ^
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006)
, p. 56
- ^
a
b
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006)
, p. 235
- ^
a
b
c
d
Wagner, S. E.; Mason, A.; Nesbitt, M.; Pevan, E.; Savage, M. (2016).
"Reversal and re-organization of the Northern Cities Shift in Michigan"
(PDF)
.
University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 22.2: Selected Papers from NWAV 44
.
- ^
a
b
c
Driscoll, Anna; Lape, Emma (2015).
"Reversal of the Northern Cities Shift in Syracuse, New York"
.
University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics
.
21
(2).
- ^
a
b
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:123?4)
- ^
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:48)
- ^
a
b
c
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:182)
- ^
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:54, 238)
- ^
Labov, Ash & Boberg (267)
harvp error: no target: CITEREFLabovAshBoberg267 (
help
)
- ^
a
b
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:127, 254)
- ^
a
b
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:133)
- ^
a
b
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:148)
- ^
a
b
c
d
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:141)
- ^
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:135)
- ^
a
b
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:237)
- ^
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:271?2)
- ^
a
b
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:130)
- ^
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:125)
- ^
a
b
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:124)
- ^
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:229)
- ^
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:137)
- ^
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:230)
- ^
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:231)
- ^
a
b
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:217)
- ^
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:223)
- ^
Boberg, Charles (2004). Bernd Kortmann and Edgar W. Schneider (ed.).
A Handbook of Varieties of English Volume 1: Phonology
. De Gruyter. p. 359.
- ^
Boberg, Charles (2004). Bernd Kortmann and Edgar W. Schneider (ed.).
A Handbook of Varieties of English Volume 1: Phonology
. De Gruyter. p. 361.
- ^
a
b
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:221)
- ^
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:107)
- ^
Hedges, Stephanie Nicole (2017). "A Latent Class Analysis of American English Dialects" (2017).
All Theses and Dissertations
. 6480. Brigham Young University.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/6480
- ^
Wells (1982
:10)
- ^
Van Riper (2014
:123)
- ^
Martinet, Andre 1955. Economie des changements phonetiques. Berne: Francke.
- ^
Labov et al. 2006; Charles Boberg, "The Canadian Shift in Montreal"; Robert Hagiwara. "Vowel production in Winnipeg"; Rebecca V. Roeder and Lidia Jarmasz. "The Canadian Shift in Toronto."
- ^
Swan, Julia Thomas (2021-01-01).
"Same PRICE Different HOUSE"
.
Swan
.
- ^
Esling, John H. and Henry J. Warkentyne (1993). "Retracting of
/æ/
in Vancouver English."
- ^
Swan, Julia Thomas.
"Swan Third Dialect Shift-LSA-2018"
.
- ^
Conn, Jeff (2002).
An investigation into the western dialect of Portland Oregon
. Paper presented at
NWAV
31, Stanford, California.
Archived
from the original on 2015-11-21.
- ^
Penny Eckert
,
California vowels
. Retrieved 24 July 2008.
- ^
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:68)
- ^
Robin McMacken (May 9, 2004).
"North Dakota: Where the accent is on friendship"
.
St. Petersburg Times
. Retrieved
2008-02-22
.
- ^
a
b
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:131, 139)
- ^
a
b
c
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:137)
- ^
Southard, Bruce.
"Speech Patterns"
.
Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture
. Oklahoma Historical Society
. Retrieved
October 29,
2015
.
- ^
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:263)
- ^
Thomas (2006
:14)
harvcoltxt error: no target: CITEREFThomas2006 (
help
)
- ^
Thomas (2006
:9)
harvcoltxt error: no target: CITEREFThomas2006 (
help
)
- ^
a
b
c
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:61)
- ^
Thomas
, 2006, p. 16
- ^
Thomas (2006
:16)
harvcoltxt error: no target: CITEREFThomas2006 (
help
)
- ^
Thomas (2006
:15)
harvcoltxt error: no target: CITEREFThomas2006 (
help
)
- ^
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:260?1)
- ^
"Miami Accents: Why Locals Embrace That Heavy "L" Or Not"
. WLRN (
WLRN-TV
and
WLRN-FM
). 27 August 2013
. Retrieved
September 1,
2013
.
- ^
"
'Miami Accent' Takes Speakers By Surprise"
.
Articles -
Sun-Sentinel
.com
. June 13, 2004. Archived from
the original
on 2012-08-20
. Retrieved
2012-10-08
.
- ^
Labov, Ash & Boberg (262)
harvp error: no target: CITEREFLabovAshBoberg262 (
help
)
- ^
Malady, Matthew J.X. (2014-04-29).
"Where Yinz At; Why Pennsylvania is the most linguistically rich state in the country"
.
The Slate Group
. Retrieved
2015-06-12
.
- ^
a
b
Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006
:304)
- ^
Wolfram & Ward (2006
:128)
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Labov, William
; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (2006),
The Atlas of North American English
, Berlin: Mouton-de Gruyter, pp. 187?208,
ISBN
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- Shitara, Yuko (1993). "A survey of American pronunciation preferences".
Speech Hearing and Language
.
7
: 201?32.
- Mencken, H. L.
(1977) [1921].
The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States
(4th ed.). New York: Knopf.
(
"Mencken, H.L. 1921. The American Language"
. Bartleby.com
. Retrieved
February 28,
2017
.
)
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0-7627-2836-1
.
- "Brigham Young University Linguistics Department Research Teams"
. Archived from
the original
on 2007-10-17
. Retrieved
2007-10-25
.
- "BYU "Utah English" Research Team's Homepage"
.
- "Utahnics", segment on
All Things Considered
,
National Public Radio
February 16, 1997.
- Chambers, J. K.
(1973). "Canadian raising".
Canadian Journal of Linguistics
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.
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.
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ISBN
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.
- Walsh, M (February 28, 1995).
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.
- Wolfram, Walt
; Ward, Ben, eds. (2006).
American Voices: How Dialects Differ from Coast to Coast
. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
External links
[
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]
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