Inland Northern American English

Last updated

This map shows, with red circles, the exact cities identified within the Inland North dialect region, according to Labov et al.'s (2006) ANAE. Inland North Map.jpg
This map shows, with red circles, the exact cities identified within the Inland North dialect region, according to Labov et al.'s (2006) ANAE .
Audio-input-microphone.svg
Speech example
An example of a female speaker from the Milwaukee area.
Problems playing this file? See media help.
Audio-input-microphone.svg
Speech example
An example of a male speaker from the Buffalo area.
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Inland Northern (American) English, [1] also known in American linguistics as the Inland North or Great Lakes dialect, [2] is an American English dialect spoken primarily by White Americans throughout much of the U.S. Great Lakes region. The most distinctive Inland Northern accents are spoken in Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse. [3] The dialect can be heard as far east as Upstate New York and as far west as eastern Iowa and even among certain demographics in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. [4] Some of its features have also infiltrated a geographic corridor from Chicago southwest along historic Route 66 into St. Louis, Missouri; today, the corridor shows a mixture of both Inland North and Midland American accents. [5] Linguists often characterize the northwestern Great Lakes region's dialect separately as North-Central American English.

Contents

The early 20th-century accent of the Inland North was the basis for the term "General American", [6] [7] though the regional accent has since altered, due to the Northern Cities Vowel Shift: its now-defining chain shift of vowels that began in the 1930s or possibly earlier. [8] A 1969 study first formally showed lower-middle-class women leading the regional population in the first two stages (raising of the TRAP vowel and fronting of the LOT/PALM vowel) of this shift, documented since the 1970s as comprising five distinct stages. [6] However, evidence since the mid-2010s suggests a retreat away from the Northern Cities Shift in many Inland Northern cities and toward a less marked American accent. [9] [10] [11] Various common names for the Inland Northern accent exist, often based on city, for example: Chicago accent, Detroit accent, Milwaukee accent, etc.

Geographic distribution

Three isoglosses identifying the NCVS. In the brown areas STRUT is more retracted than LOT. The blue line encloses areas in which DRESS is backed. The red line encloses areas in which TRAP is diphthongized to [e@] even before oral consonants. The areas enclosed by all three lines may be considered the "core" of the NCVS; it is most consistently present in Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Detroit, and Chicago. Adapted from Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 204. Northern Cities Vowel Shift.svg
Three isoglosses identifying the NCVS. In the brown areas STRUT is more retracted than LOT. The blue line encloses areas in which DRESS is backed. The red line encloses areas in which TRAP is diphthongized to [eə] even before oral consonants. The areas enclosed by all three lines may be considered the "core" of the NCVS; it is most consistently present in Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Detroit, and Chicago. Adapted from Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006) , p. 204.

The dialect region called the "Inland North" consists of western and central New York State (Utica, Ithaca, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Binghamton, Jamestown, Fredonia, Olean); northern Ohio (Akron, Cleveland, Toledo), Michigan's Lower Peninsula (Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Lansing); northern Indiana (Gary, South Bend); northern Illinois (Chicago, Rockford); southeastern Wisconsin (Kenosha, Racine, Milwaukee); and, largely, northeastern Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley/Coal Region (Scranton and Wilkes-Barre). This is the dialect spoken in part of America's chief industrial region, an area sometimes known as the Rust Belt. Northern Iowa and southern Minnesota may also variably fall within the Inland North dialect region; in the Twin Cities, educated middle-aged men in particular have been documented as aligning to the accent, though this is not necessarily the case among other demographics of that urban area. [4]

Linguists identify the "St. Louis Corridor", extending from Chicago down into St. Louis, as a dialectally remarkable area, because young and old speakers alike have a Midland accent, except for a single middle generation born between the 1920s and 1940s, who have an Inland Northern accent diffused into the area from Chicago. [12]

Erie, Pennsylvania, though in the geographic area of the "Inland North" and featuring some speakers of this dialect, never underwent the Northern Cities Shift and often shares more features with Western Pennsylvania English due to contact with Pittsburghers, particularly with Erie as their choice of city for summer vacations. [13] Many African Americans in Detroit and other Northern cities are multidialectal and also or exclusively use African-American Vernacular English rather than Inland Northern English, but some do use the Inland Northern dialect.

Social factors

The dialect's progression across the Midwest has stopped at a general boundary line traveling through central Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois and then western Wisconsin, on the other sides of which speakers have continued to maintain their Midland and North Central accents. Sociolinguist William Labov theorizes that this separation reflects a political divide and a controlled study of his shows that Inland Northern speakers tend to be more associated with liberal politics than those of the other dialects, especially as Americans continue to self-segregate in residence based on ideological concerns. [14] Former President Barack Obama, for example, has a mild Inland Northern accent despite not living in the dialect region until young adulthood. [14]

Phonology and phonetics

The monophthongs of Southern Michigan on a vowel chart, typical of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, though not to the extreme. Adapted from Hillenbrand (2003). Southern Michigan English monophthongs chart.svg
The monophthongs of Southern Michigan on a vowel chart, typical of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, though not to the extreme. Adapted from Hillenbrand (2003).
The diphthongs of Southern Michigan on a vowel chart, adapted from Hillenbrand (2003). Southern Michigan English diphthongs chart.svg
The diphthongs of Southern Michigan on a vowel chart, adapted from Hillenbrand (2003).
Vocalic phonemes of INAE
Front Central Back
tenselaxlaxtense
Close i ɪ ʊ u
Close-mid eɪ ə oʊ
Open-mid æ ɛ ʌ
Open ɑ ɔ
Diphthongs aɪ ɔɪ aʊ
All vowels of the Inland Northern dialect
Pure vowels (Monophthongs)
English diaphoneme Inland Northern realizationExample words
/æ/æə~eə~ɪəbath, trap, man
/ɑː/a~äblah, father, spa
/ɒ/†lot, bother, wasp
/ɔː/ɒ~ɑdog, loss, off
all, bought, saw
/ɛ/ɛ~ɜ~ɐdress, met, bread
/ə/əabout, syrup, arena
/ɪ/ɪ~ɪ̈hit, skim, tip
/iː/ɪi~ibeam, chic, fleet
/ʌ/ʌ~ɔbus, flood, what
/ʊ/ʊbook, put, should
/uː/u~ɵufood, glue, new
Diphthongs
/aɪ/ae~aɪ~æɪride, shine, try
ɐɪ~əɪ~ʌɪ bright, dice, fire
/aʊ/äʊ~ɐʊnow, ouch, scout
/eɪ/eɪlame, rein, stain
/ɔɪ/ɔɪboy, choice, moist
/oʊ/ʌo~oʊ~ogoat, oh, show
R-colored vowels
/ɑːr/aɻ~ɐɻbarn, car, park
/ɪər/iɻ~iɚfear, peer, tier
/ɛər/eəɻ~eɻbare, bear, there
/ɜːr/əɻ~ɚburn, doctor, first,
herd, learn, murder
/ər/
/ɔːr/ɔɻ~oɻhoarse, horse, war
/ʊər/uɻ~oɻpoor, tour, lure
/jʊər/jɚcure, Europe, pure
† Footnotes
When followed by /r/, the historic /ɒ/ is pronounced entirely differently by Inland North speakers as [ɔ~o], for example, in the words orange, forest, and torrent. The only exceptions to this are the words tomorrow, sorry, sorrow, borrow and, for some speakers, morrow, which use the sound [a~ä̈]. This is all true of General American speakers too.
Based on Labov et al.; averaged F1/F2 means for speakers from the Inland North. /ae/ is higher and fronter than /e/ , while /^/ is more retracted than /a/. Inland North IPA.PNG
Based on Labov et al.; averaged F1/F2 means for speakers from the Inland North. /æ/ is higher and fronter than /ɛ/, while /ʌ/ is more retracted than /ɑ/.

A Midwestern accent (which may refer to other dialectal accents as well), Chicago accent, or Great Lakes accent are all common names in the United States for the sound quality produced by speakers of this dialect. Many of the characteristics listed here are not necessarily unique to the region and are oftentimes found elsewhere in the Midwest.

Northern Cities Vowel Shift

Northern Cities Shift as a vowel chart, based on image in Labov, Ash, and Boberg (1997)'s "A national map of the regional dialects of American English". Northern Cities shift.svg
Northern Cities Shift as a vowel chart, based on image in Labov, Ash, and Boberg (1997)'s "A national map of the regional dialects of American English".

The Northern Cities Vowel Shift or simply Northern Cities Shift is a chain shift of vowels and the defining accent feature of the Inland North dialect region, though it can also be found, variably, in the neighboring Upper Midwest and Western New England accent regions.

Tensing of TRAP and fronting of LOT/PALM

The first two sound changes in the shift, with some debate about which one led to the other or came first, [16] are the general raising and lengthening (tensing) of the "short a" (the vowel sound of TRAP, typically rendered /æ/ in American transcriptions), as well as the fronting of the sound of LOT or PALM in this accent (typically transcribed /ɑ/) toward [ ä ] or [ a ]. Inland Northern TRAP raising was first identified in the 1960s, [17] with that vowel becoming articulated with the tongue raised and then gliding back toward the center of the mouth, thus producing a centering diphthong of the type [ɛə], [eə], or at its most extreme [ɪə]; e.g. naturally [ˈneətʃɹəli] ⓘ . As for LOT/PALM fronting, it can go beyond [ ä ] to the front [ a ], and may, for the most advanced speakers, even be close to [ æ ]—so that pot or sod come to be pronounced how a mainstream American speaker would say pat or sad; e.g. coupon [ˈkʰupan] ⓘ .

Lowering of THOUGHT

The fronting of the LOT/PALM vowel leaves a blank space that is filled by lowering the "aw" vowel in THOUGHT[ ɔ ], which itself comes to be pronounced with the tongue in a lower position, closer to [ɑ] or [ɒ]. As a result, for example, people with the shift pronounce caught the way speakers without the shift say cot; thus, shifted speakers pronounce caught as [kʰɑt] (and cot as [kʰat], as explained above). [18] In defiance of the shift, however, there is a well-documented scattering of Inland North speakers who are in a state of transition toward a cot-caught merger; this is particularly evident in northeastern Pennsylvania. [19] [20] Younger speakers reversing the fronting of /ɑ/, for example in Lansing, Michigan, also approach a merger. [9]

Backing or lowering of DRESS

The movement of /æ/ to [ɛə], in order to avoid overlap with the now-fronted /ɑ/ vowel, presumably initiates the consequent shifting of /ɛ/ (the "short e" in DRESS, [ ɛ ] in General American) away from its original position. Thus, /ɛ/ demonstrates backing, lowering, or a combination of both toward [ɐ], the near-open central vowel, or almost [æ]. [9]

Backing of STRUT

The next change is the movement of /ʌ/ (the STRUT vowel) from a central or back position toward a very far back position [ɔ]. People with the shift pronounce bus so that it sounds more like boss to people without the shift.

Backing or lowering of KIT

The final change is the backing and lowering of /ɪ/, the "short i" vowel in KIT, toward the schwa /ə/. Alternatively, KIT is lowered to [ e ], without backing. This results in a considerable phonetic overlap between /ɪ/ and /ə/, although there is no phonemic KIT–COMMA merger because the weak vowel merger is not complete ("Rosa's" /ˈroʊzəz/, with a morpheme-final mid schwa [ ə ] is distinct from "roses" /ˈroʊzɪz/, with an unstressed allophone of KIT that is phonetically near-close central [ ɨ ]). [21]

Vowels before /r/

Before /r/, only /ɑ/ undergoes the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, so that the vowel in start/stɑrt/ varies much like the one in lot/lɑt/ described above. The remaining /ɔ/, /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ retain values similar to General American (GA) in this position, so that north/nɔrθ/, merry/ˈmɛri/ and near/nɪr/ are pronounced [noɹθ,ˈmɛɹi,niɹ], with unshifted THOUGHT (though somewhat closer than in GA), DRESS and KIT (as close as in GA). Inland Northern American English features the north-force merger, the Mary-marry-merry merger, the mirror–nearer and /ʊr/–/ur/ mergers, the hurry-furry merger, and the nurse-letter merger, all of which are also typical of GA varieties. [22]

History of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift

William Labov et al.'s Atlas of North American English (2006) presents the first historical understanding of the order in which the Inland North's vowels shifted. Speakers around the Great Lakes began to pronounce the short a sound, /æ/ as in TRAP, as more of a diphthong and with a higher starting point in the mouth, causing the same word to sound more like "tray-ap" or "tray-up"; Labov et al. assume that this began by the middle of the 19th century. [23] After roughly a century following this first vowel change—general /æ/ raising—the region's speakers, around the 1960s, then began to use the newly opened vowel space, previously occupied by /æ/, for /ɑ/ (as in LOT and PALM); therefore, words like bot, gosh, or lock came to be pronounced with the tongue extended farther forward, thus making these words sound more like how bat, gash, and lack sound in dialects without the shift. These two vowel changes were first recognized and reported in 1967. [6] While these were certainly the first two vowel shifts of this accent, and Labov et al. assume that /æ/ raising occurred first, they also admit that the specifics of time and place are unclear. [24] In fact, real-time evidence of a small number of Chicagoans born between 1890 and 1920 suggests that /ɑ/ fronting occurred first, starting by 1900 at the latest, and was followed by /æ/ raising sometime in the 1920s. [16]

During the 1960s, several more vowels followed suit in rapid succession, each filling in the space left by the last, including the lowering of /ɔ/ as in THOUGHT, the backing and lowering of /ɛ/ as in DRESS, the backing of /ʌ/ as in STRUT (first reported in 1986), [25] and the backing and lowering of /ɪ/ as in KIT, often but not always in that exact order. Altogether, this constitutes the Northern Cities Shift, identified by linguists as such in 1972. [14]

Possible motivations for the Shift

Migrants from all over the Northeastern U.S. traveled west to the rapidly industrializing Great Lakes area in the decades after the Erie Canal opened in 1825, and Labov suggests that the Inland North's general /æ/ raising originated from the diverse and incompatible /æ/ raising patterns of these various migrants mixing into a new, simpler pattern. [26] He posits that this hypothetical dialect-mixing event, which initiated the larger Northern Cities Shift (NCS), occurred by about 1860 in upstate New York, [27] and the later stages of the NCS are merely those that logically followed (a "pull chain"). More recent evidence suggests that German-accented English helped to greatly influence the Shift, because German speakers tend to pronounce the English TRAP vowel as [ɛ] and the LOT/PALM vowel as [ä~a], both of which resemble NCS vowels, and there were more speakers of German in the Erie Canal region of upstate New York in 1850 than there were of any single variety of English. [28] There is also evidence for an alternative theory, according to which the Great Lakes area—settled primarily by western New Englanders—simply inherited Western New England English and developed that dialect's vowel shifts further. 20th-century Western New England English variably showed NCS-like TRAP and LOT/PALM pronunciations, which may have already existed among 19th-century New England settlers, though this has been contested. [28] Another theory, not mutually exclusive with the others, is that the Great Migration of African Americans intensified White Northerners' participation in the NCS in order to differentiate their accents from Black ones. [29]

Reversals of the Shift

Recent evidence suggests that the Shift has largely begun to reverse in many cities of the Inland North, [9] [10] such as Lansing, [9] Ogdensburg, Rochester, Syracuse, [10] [30] [31] Detroit, Buffalo, Chicago, and Eau Claire. [11] In particular, /ɑ/ fronting and /æ/ raising (though raising is persisting before nasal consonants, as is the General American norm) have now reversed among younger speakers in these areas. Several possible reasons have been proposed for the reversal, including growing stigma connected with the accent and the working-class identity it represents. [32]

Other phonetics

Vocabulary

Not all of these terms, here compared with their counterparts in other regions, are necessarily unique only to the Inland North, though they appear most strongly in this region: [40]

Individual cities and sub-regions also have their own terms; for example:

Notable lifelong native speakers

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American English</span> Varieties of English native to the United States

American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States; the de facto common language used in government, education, and commerce; and an official language in 32 of the 50 U.S. states. Since the late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canadian raising</span> Allophonic rule of vowels prominent in Canada, also found in N. American English dialects

Canadian raising is an allophonic rule of phonology in many varieties of North American English that changes the pronunciation of diphthongs with open-vowel starting points. Most commonly, the shift affects or, or both, when they are pronounced before voiceless consonants. In North American English, and usually begin in an open vowel [~], but through raising they shift to, or. Canadian English often has raising in words with both and, while a number of American English varieties have this feature in but not. It is thought to have originated in Canada in the late 19th century.

General American English, known in linguistics simply as General American, is the umbrella accent of American English spoken by a majority of Americans, encompassing a continuum rather than a single unified accent. It is often perceived by Americans themselves as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or socioeconomic characteristics, though Americans with high education, or from the (North) Midland, Western New England, and Western regions of the country are the most likely to be perceived as using General American speech. The precise definition and usefulness of the term continue to be debated, and the scholars who use it today admittedly do so as a convenient basis for comparison rather than for exactness. Some scholars prefer other names, such as Standard American English.

The phonology of the open back vowels of the English language has undergone changes both overall and with regional variations, through Old and Middle English to the present. The sounds heard in modern English were significantly influenced by the Great Vowel Shift, as well as more recent developments in some dialects such as the cot–caught merger.

Southern American English or Southern U.S. English is a regional dialect or collection of dialects of American English spoken throughout the Southern United States, primarily by White Southerners and increasingly concentrated in more rural areas. As of 2000s research, its most innovative accents include southern Appalachian and certain Texan accents. Such research has described Southern American English as the largest American regional accent group by number of speakers. More formal terms then developed to characterize this dialect within American linguistics include "Southern White Vernacular English" and "Rural White Southern English". However, more commonly in the United States, the variety is known as the Southern accent or simply Southern.

A Baltimore accent, also known as Baltimorese and sometimes humorously spelled Bawlmerese or Ballimorese, is an accent or sub-variety of Delaware Valley English that originates among blue-collar residents of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It extends into the Baltimore metropolitan area and northeastern Maryland.

North-Central American English is an American English dialect, or dialect in formation, native to the Upper Midwestern United States, an area that somewhat overlaps with speakers of the separate Inland Northern dialect situated more in the eastern Great Lakes region. In the United States, it is also known as the Upper Midwestern or North-Central dialect and stereotypically recognized as a Minnesota accent or sometimes Wisconsin accent. It is considered to have developed in a residual dialect region from the neighboring Western, Inland Northern, and Canadian dialect regions.

Philadelphia English or Delaware Valley English is a variety or dialect of American English native to Philadelphia and extending into Philadelphia's metropolitan area throughout the Delaware Valley, including southeastern Pennsylvania, all of South Jersey, counties of northern Delaware, and the northern Eastern Shore of Maryland. Aside from Philadelphia and the surrounding counties and arguably Baltimore, the dialect is spoken in places such as Reading, Camden, Atlantic City, Wilmington, Vineland, and Dover. Philadelphia English is one of the best-studied types of English, as Philadelphia's University of Pennsylvania is the home institution of pioneering sociolinguist William Labov. Philadelphia English shares certain features with New York City English and Midland American English, although it remains a distinct dialect of its own. Philadelphia and Baltimore accents together fall under what Labov describes as a single Mid-Atlantic regional dialect.

North American English regional phonology is the study of variations in the pronunciation of spoken North American English —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, phonetic, 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 and Canadian English have more in common with each other than with varieties of English outside North America.

The cot–caught merger, also known as the LOT–THOUGHT merger or low back merger, is a sound change present in some dialects of English where speakers do not distinguish the vowel phonemes in words like cot versus caught. Cot and caught is an example of a minimal pair that is lost as a result of this sound change. The phonemes involved in the cot–caught merger, the low back vowels, are typically represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet as and or, in North America, as and. The merger is typical of most Indian, Canadian, and Scottish English dialects as well as some Irish and U.S. English dialects.

New England English is, collectively, the various distinct dialects and varieties of American English originating in the New England area. Most of eastern and central New England once spoke the "Yankee dialect", some of whose accent features still remain in Eastern New England today, such as "R-dropping". Accordingly, one linguistic division of New England is into Eastern versus Western New England English, as defined in the 1939 Linguistic Atlas of New England and the 2006 Atlas of North American English (ANAE). The ANAE further argues for a division between Northern versus Southern New England English, especially on the basis of the cot–caught merger and fronting. The ANAE also categorizes the strongest differentiated New England accents into four combinations of the above dichotomies, simply defined as follows:

The Low-Back-Merger Shift is a chain shift of vowel sounds found in several dialects of North American English, beginning in the last quarter of the 20th century and most significantly involving the low back merger accompanied by the lowering and backing of the front lax vowels:, , and.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western American English</span> Dialect of American English

Western American English is a variety of American English that largely unites the entire Western United States as a single dialect region, including the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. It also generally encompasses Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, some of whose speakers are classified additionally under Pacific Northwest English.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Midland American English</span> Variety of English spoken in the United States

Midland American English is a regional dialect or super-dialect of American English, geographically lying between the traditionally-defined Northern and Southern United States. The boundaries of Midland American English are not entirely clear, being revised and reduced by linguists due to definitional changes and several Midland sub-regions undergoing rapid and diverging pronunciation shifts since the early-middle 20th century onwards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern American English</span> Class of historically related American English dialects

Northern American English or Northern U.S. English is a class of historically related American English dialects, spoken by predominantly white Americans, in much of the Great Lakes region and some of the Northeast region within the United States. The North as a superdialect region is best documented by the 2006 Atlas of North American English (ANAE) in the greater metropolitan areas of Connecticut, Western Massachusetts, Western and Central New York, Northwestern New Jersey, Northeastern Pennsylvania, Northern Ohio, Northern Indiana, Northern Illinois, Northeastern Nebraska, and Eastern South Dakota, plus among certain demographics or areas within Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Vermont, and New York's Hudson Valley. The ANAE describes that the North, at its core, consists of the Inland Northern dialect and Southwestern New England dialect.

Despite popular stereotypes in the media that there is a singular New Jersey accent, there are in fact several distinct accents native to the U.S. state of New Jersey, none being confined only to New Jersey. Therefore, the term New Jersey English is diverse in meaning and often misleading, and it may refer to any of the following dialects of American English or even to intermediate varieties that blend the features of these multiple dialects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York accent</span> Sound system of New York City English

The sound system of New York City English is popularly known as a New York accent. The accent of the New York metropolitan area is one of the most recognizable in the United States, largely due to its popular stereotypes and portrayal in radio, film, and television. Several other common names exist based on more specific locations, such as Bronx accent, Brooklyn accent, Queens accent, Long Island accent, North Jersey accent. Research supports the continued classification of all these under a single label, despite some common assumptions among locals that they meaningfully differ.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Standard Canadian English</span> Variety of Canadian English

Standard Canadian English is the largely homogeneous variety of Canadian English that is spoken particularly across Ontario and Western Canada, as well as throughout Canada among urban middle-class speakers from English-speaking families, excluding the regional dialects of Atlantic Canadian English. Canadian English has a mostly uniform phonology and much less dialectal diversity than neighbouring American English. In particular, Standard Canadian English is defined by the cot–caught merger to and an accompanying chain shift of vowel sounds, which is called the Canadian Shift. A subset of the dialect geographically at its central core, excluding British Columbia to the west and everything east of Montreal, has been called Inland Canadian English. It is further defined by both of the phenomena that are known as Canadian raising : the production of and with back starting points in the mouth and the production of with a front starting point and very little glide that is almost in the Canadian Prairies.

Western New England English refers to the varieties of New England English native to Vermont, Connecticut, and the western half of Massachusetts; New York State's Hudson Valley also aligns to this classification. Sound patterns historically associated with Western New England English include the features of rhoticity, the horse–hoarse merger, and the father–bother merger, none of which are features traditionally shared in neighboring Eastern New England English. The status of the cot–caught merger in Western New England is inconsistent, being complete in the north of this dialect region (Vermont), but incomplete or absent in the south, with a "cot–caught approximation" in the middle area.

In the sociolinguistics of the English language, raising or short-a raising is a phenomenon by which the "short a" vowel, the TRAP/BATH vowel, is pronounced with a raising of the tongue. In most American and many Canadian English accents, raising is specifically tensing: a combination of greater raising, fronting, lengthening, and gliding that occurs only in certain phonological environments or certain words. The most common context for tensing throughout North American English, regardless of dialect, is when this vowel appears before a nasal consonant.

References

  1. ↑ Gordon (2004), p. xvi.
  2. ↑ Garn-Nunn, Pamela G.; Lynn, James M. (2004). Calvert's Descriptive Phonetics. Thieme. p. 136. ISBN   978-1-60406-617-3.
  3. ↑ Gordon (2004), p. 297.
  4. 1 2 Chapman, Kaila (October 25, 2017). The Northern Cities Shift: Minnesota's Ever-Changing Vowel Space (Thesis). Macalester College. p. 41. The satisfaction of the three NCS measures was found only in the 35-55 year old male speakers. The three male speakers fully participating in the NCS had high levels of education and strong ties to the city
  5. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 276, Chapter 19.
  6. 1 2 3 Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 190.
  7. ↑ "Talking the Tawk". The New Yorker. November 7, 2005. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  8. ↑ "Do You Speak American? - Language Change - Vowel Shifting". PBS. 2005.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 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). Article 19. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-06-23.
  10. 1 2 3 Driscoll, Anna; Lape, Emma (2015). "Reversal of the Northern Cities Shift in Syracuse, New York". University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics. 21 (2).
  11. 1 2 Dinkin, Aaron J. (2022). "Generational Phases: Toward the Low-Back Merger in Cooperstown, New York". Journal of English Linguistics. 50 (3): 219–246. doi:10.1177/00754242221108411. ISSN   0075-4242. S2CID   251892218.
  12. ↑ Friedman, Lauren (2015). "A Convergence of Dialects in the St. Louis Corridor". Selected Papers from New Ways of Analyzing Variation. 21 (2). University of Pennsylvania: 43.
  13. ↑ Evanini, Keelan (2008). "A shift of allegiance: The case of Erie and the North / Midland boundary". University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics. 14 (2).
  14. 1 2 3 Sedivy, Julie (March 28, 2012). "Votes and Vowels: A Changing Accent Shows How Language Parallels Politics". Discover. Archived from the original on 2016-01-25. Retrieved 2016-01-24.
  15. 1 2 Hillenbrand, James M. (2003). "American English: Southern Michigan". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 33 (1): 122. doi: 10.1017/S0025100303001221 .
  16. 1 2 McCarthy, Corrine (2010). "The Northern Cities Shift in Real Time: Evidence from Chicago". University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics. 15 (2). Article 12.
  17. ↑ Fasold, Ralph (1969). A Sociolinguistic Study of the Pronunciation of Three Vowels in Detroit Speech. Washington: Center for Applied Linguistics.
  18. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 189, Chapter 14.
  19. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 61.
  20. ↑ Herold, Ruth (1990). Mechanisms of Merger: The Implementation and Distribution of the Low Back Merger in Eastern Pennsylvania (Ph.D. diss. thesis). Univ. of Pennsylvania.
  21. ↑ Gordon (2004), pp. 294–296.
  22. ↑ Gordon (2004), pp. 294–295.
  23. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 192, 195.
  24. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 191.
  25. ↑ Labov, William (October 20, 2008). Yankee Cultural Imperialism and the Northern Cities Shift (PowerPoint presentation for paper given at Yale University). University of Pennsylvania. Slide 94.
  26. ↑ Labov, William (2007). "Transmission and Diffusion" (PDF). Language. 83 (2): 344–387. doi:10.1353/lan.2007.0082. S2CID   6255506.
  27. ↑ Castro Calle (2017), pp. 34, 48.
  28. 1 2 Castro Calle (2017), p. 49.
  29. ↑ Van Herk, Gerard (2008). "Fear of a Black Phonology: The Northern Cities Shift as Linguistic White Flight". University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics. 14 (2). Article 19.
  30. ↑ Thiel, Anja; Dinkin, Aaron (2020). "Escaping the TRAP: Losing the Northern Cities Shift in Real Time". Language Variation and Change. 32 (3): 373–393. doi:10.1017/S0954394520000137. S2CID   187646349.
  31. ↑ Kapner, J. (October 12, 2019). "Snowy Days and Nasal A's: the Retreat of the Northern Cities Shift in Rochester, New York". New Ways of Analyzing Variation (Poster presentation). 48. Eugene, OR.
  32. ↑ Nesbitt, Monica (August 1, 2021). "The Rise and Fall of the Northern Cities Shift: Social and Linguistic Reorganization of TRAP in Twentieth-Century Lansing, Michigan". American Speech. 96 (3): 332–370. doi:10.1215/00031283-8791754. ISSN   0003-1283. S2CID   228971560.
  33. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 203–204.
  34. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 161.
  35. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 187.
  36. ↑ Boberg, Charles (December 4, 2017). "Dialects of North American English". The Handbook of Dialectology. Wiley. p. 457. doi:10.1002/9781118827628.ch26. ISBN   978-1-118-82755-0.
  37. ↑ Stanley, Joseph A. (August 1, 2022). "Regional Patterns in Prevelar Raising". American Speech. 97 (3). Duke University Press: 374–411. doi:10.1215/00031283-9308384. ISSN   0003-1283. S2CID   237766388.
  38. ↑ van den Doel, Rias (2006). How Friendly Are the Natives? An Evaluation of Native-Speaker Judgements of Foreign-Accented British and American English (PDF). Landelijke onderzoekschool taalwetenschap (Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics). pp. 268–269.
  39. ↑ Salmons, Joseph; Purnell, Thomas (2008). "Contact and the Development of American English" (PDF). In Hickey, Ray (ed.). Handbook of Language Contact. Blackwell.[ permanent dead link ]
  40. 1 2 Vaux, Bert; Golder, Scott (2003). "The Harvard Dialect Survey". Harvard University Linguistics Department. Cambridge, MA. Archived from the original on 2016-04-30.
  41. ↑ Metcalf, A.A. (2000). How We Talk: American Regional English Today. Houghton Mifflin. p. 104. ISBN   978-0-618-04362-0.
  42. ↑ Metcalf, A.A. (2000). How We Talk: American Regional English Today. Houghton Mifflin. p. 97. ISBN   978-0-618-04362-0.
  43. ↑ Feather, Kasey (May 19, 2014). "NEPAisms overlooked in new dictionary entries". The Times-Tribune. Times-Shamrock Communications. Retrieved 2016-11-27.
  44. ↑ Chozick, Amy (December 28, 2015). "How Hillary Clinton Went Undercover to Examine Race in Education". The New York Times . Retrieved 2016-02-02.
  45. ↑ Sun-Times Wire (December 12, 2013). "Ron Coomer headed to Cubs radio booth — report". Chicago Sun-Times . Retrieved 2024-02-23.
  46. ↑ "Joan Cusack on 'Mars Needs Moms,' Raising Kids and Her Famous Brother". Archived from the original on 2022-10-11. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  47. ↑ Stein, Anne (2003). "The über-mayor: what's behind Daley's longevity". Christian Science Monitor.
  48. ↑ Kashian, Jackie. "TDF Ep 6 - Jimmy Dore and Matt Knudsen". Uncut. Archived from the original on 2022-11-27. Retrieved 2022-11-27.
  49. ↑ Wawzenek, Bryan (May 3, 2014). "10 Actors Who Always Show Up on the Best TV Shows". Diffuser.
  50. ↑ "Disturbed? not if you're David Draiman". Today. The Associated Press. June 15, 2006. Retrieved 2016-04-05.
  51. ↑ Moser, Whet (March 29, 2012). "Where the Chicago Accent Comes From and How Politics is Changing It". Chicago Mag. Archived from the original on 2016-01-05. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
  52. ↑ Dennis Farina, 'Law & Order' actor, dies at 69. NBC News. 2013.
  53. ↑ Desowitz, Bill (October 16, 2009). "'Fantastic Mr. Fox' Goes to London". Animation World Network. Archived from the original on 2014-02-27. Retrieved 2016-01-07.
  54. ↑ Moorhead, M.V. (October 31, 2019). "Robert Forster: Recalling a memorable encounter". Wrangler News. Retrieved 2024-02-20.
  55. ↑ "Dennis Franz". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2014.
  56. ↑ Crowder, Courtney (December 9, 2014). "'Normal kid' from Park Ridge lifts 'Goldbergs'". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2018-01-06.
  57. ↑ Mcclelland, Edward (November 15, 2016). "The St. Louis Accent: An Explainer". Bloomberg.com. Citylab. Retrieved 2018-08-29.
  58. ↑ Media Literacy: A Reader. Peter Lang. 2007. p. 55. ISBN   9780820486680.
  59. ↑ "With Coach K, will USA hoops bring its A game and return to golden Olympic glory?". cleveland.com. July 30, 2008. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  60. ↑ McIntyre, Michael K. (January 13, 2017). "Clevelanders probably think they don't have an accent, but we do, and so do others in the Midwest". Cleveland.com . Advance Local. Retrieved 2024-02-23.
  61. ↑ Congress, U. S. (November 2009). Congressional Record, V. 150, Pt. 17, October 9 to November 17, 2004. U.S. Government Printing Office. ISBN   9780160844164 . Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  62. ↑ Newell, Jim (June 8, 2009). "Hillary All Over Again?". The Daily Beast. The Daily Beast Company. Retrieved 2024-02-23.
  63. ↑ Brooks, Jake (2004). "Mr. Skin Invades Sundance". The New York Observer. Observer Media.
  64. ↑ McClelland, Edward (2013). Nothin' but Blue Skies. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 85. ISBN   9781608195459.
  65. ↑ "Bush fears Moore because he speaks to the heart of America". The Independent. 2004.
  66. ↑ Stiernberg, Bonnie (June 21, 2017). "Fargo's Midwestern Accents, Ranked from Worst to Best". pastemagazine.com. Retrieved 2022-07-22.
  67. ↑ Dominus, Susan (2009). "Suze Orman Is Having a Moment". The New York Times.
  68. ↑ AFP (October 14, 2014). "Iggy Pop's advice for young rockers". Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 2016-04-01.
  69. ↑ Landers, Peter (October 11, 2012). "Paul Ryan Sounds Radical to Linguists". The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved 2016-01-24.
  70. ↑ "Michael Symon: 2007 winner of 'The Next Iron Chef'". Chicago Tribune. 2015. Archived from the original on 2023-04-05.
  71. ↑ Maupin, Elizabeth (1997). "'Signs': Still Briming With Intelligent Life". Orlando Sentinel.
  72. ↑ Cohn, Jonathan (November 5, 2022). "Gretchen Whitmer Is Both Loved And Hated In Michigan — And Still 'Fighting Like Hell'". Huffpost. BuzzFeed. Retrieved 2024-02-23.

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.