Western New England English

Last updated

Western New England English refers to the varieties of New England English native to Vermont, Connecticut, and the western half of Massachusetts; [1] New York State's Hudson Valley (from Albany to Poughkeepsie) also aligns to this classification. [2] [3] Sound patterns historically associated with Western New England English include the features of rhoticity (full pronunciation of all r sounds), the horse–hoarse merger, and the father–bother merger, none of which are features traditionally shared in neighboring Eastern New England English. [4] 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 (southern Connecticut), [5] with a "cot–caught approximation" in the middle area (primarily, western Massachusetts). [6]

Contents

Western New England English is relatively difficult for most American laypersons and even dialectologists to identify by any "distinct" accent when compared to its popularly recognized neighbors (Eastern New England English, New York City English, and Inland Northern U.S. English), [7] meaning that its accents are typically perceived as unmarked "General American" varieties. [8] Linguistic research, however, reveals that Western New England English is not simply one single or uniform dialect. [9] Linguist Charles Boberg proposes that it be most generally divided into a Northwestern New England English (a standalone "Vermont" accent) and a Southwestern New England English (a less advanced subdialect of Inland Northern English); [10] however, even Boberg lists the possibilities of several distinct accent divisions of Western New England. [11]

Vocabulary

Vocabulary features that predominate in Western New England English include grinder for sub (submarine sandwich), [12] and tag sale for garage sale (predominant in Connecticut and Western Massachusetts). [13]

Overview of phonology

Some Western New England speakers show the "generating conditions" [10] for the Northern Cities Vowel Shift (or NCVS: the defining feature of the Great Lakes region's modern dialect) in backing of /ɛ/ (to [ɛ~ɜ]), possible fronting of /ɑ/ to [ɑ̈], and tensing all instances of /æ/ to something like [ɛə]. Though actually variable, these features occur among Western New England speakers just enough to suggest that they may be the "pivot conditions"[ vague ] that influenced the NCVS in the Inland North, likely beginning in the early twentieth century. [14] [15]

The English of Western New England in fact shows many sharp differences throughout rather than one uniform accent. [9] In 2001, Charles Boberg, discussing that Western New England English was a likely direct influence on the Inland Northern English of the Great Lakes region, still identified as many as four or five English sub-regional accents within Western New England itself, based on data from the late 1990s: [11]

Charles Boberg argues that Northwestern New England (Vermont) English, due to its cot–caught merger but failure to demonstrate other features of the Eastern New England dialect, must be considered as its own separate dialect. On the other hand, in discussing Southwestern New England English as its own unique dialect, he instead proposed that it be regarded as a "subtype" of the Inland North dialect, based on the aforementioned commonalities, even if variable, such as the universal raising of the short a and no cot–caught merger. [16] However, some younger Southwestern New England speakers have diverged away from both of these features, which Boberg at least partly foresaw; [17] such variables are discussed in greater detail below.

Northwestern New England English

Northwestern New England English, sometimes labeled as a Vermont accent, is the most complete or advanced Western New England English variety in terms of the cot–caught merger, occurring largely everywhere north of Northampton, Massachusetts, towards [ɑ]. [18] Today, speakers documented in Burlington (northwestern Vermont) and Rutland (southwestern Vermont) show consistent fronting of /ɑ/ before /r/, therefore towards [ɑ̈~a], in words like car or barn. The first element of /oʊ/ (e.g. in "goat") is similar to [o̞ʊ~ɔʊ] with a low and lax first element, and sometimes with no glide as monophthongal [o̞]. [19]

Burlington

Northwestern Vermont (centered on Burlington) shows no raising of /æ/ (except before nasal consonants), and therefore /ɑ/ stays back in the mouth, leading to a cot–caught merger to [ɑ]; this whole process follows the logic of the Canadian Shift of Standard Canadian English.

Rural Vermont

Since the mid-twentieth century, Vermont speakers have largely avoided stigmatized local features, and now follow the rhotic r of the rest of Western New England. However, before this time, the eastern edge of Vermont spoke Eastern New England English, even dropping the r sound everywhere except before vowels, just like in traditional Boston or Maine accents. [20] [21] These speakers may retain vestigial elements of Eastern New England's trap-bath split, backing and lowering /æ/ in certain environments. [22] Today, a dwindling, generally rural, older, and male segment of the northern Vermont population, best studied in the Northeast Kingdom, uniquely pronounces /aʊ/ with a raised starting point as [ɛʊ] (e.g. in "cows"; pronunciations by a female and male speaker ⓘ ) and /aɪ/ (e.g. in "lie") with a backer, raised, or somewhat more rounded starting point as [ɒɪ~əɪ]. [23] A deep retroflex approximant for "r" may be noted among rural northern speakers, perhaps inherited from West Country or Scots-Irish ancestors, [24] [22] [25] due to such immigrants largely settling in western New England (though not as much in eastern New England). [24] One notable lifelong native speaker of the rural Vermont accent was Fred Tuttle. [26]

Rutland

Southwestern Vermont (centered on Rutland) shows a universal /æ/ raising to [ɛə] and /ɑ/ fronting to [ɑ̈], but then oversteps and defies the logical direction of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift by producing a cot–caught merger to [ɑ̈]. [27] The universal /æ/ raising is most consistently recorded in speakers born before 1950; those born since 1960 show somewhat less raising. [28]

Southwestern New England English

Southwestern New England English is centered primarily around Hartford, CT and Springfield, MA. Its older speakers show more instances of universal tensing of the short a/æ/, while younger speakers show the more General American feature of tensing this vowel only before nasal consonants. [28] [29] The Atlas of North American English confirms that this raising phenomenon is highly variable in the region, though studies agree that raising always occurs strongest before nasal consonants.

Regarding the cot–caught merger, Southwestern New England speech has historically lacked the merger, before entering a transitional state of the merger in the mid-1900s. [30] A "cot–caught approximation" now prevails especially in Springfield and western Massachusetts, but is variable from one speaker to the next with no apparent age-based correlation, except that the youngest speakers now are tending to demonstrate a full merger. [31] Local, especially working-class speakers of southwestern Connecticut (especially Greater Bridgeport and New Haven) and the Albany area of New York State, strongly influenced by nearby New York City dialect, continue to resist the cot–caught merger.

Hudson Valley

Though not belonging geographically to New England, New York State's Hudson Valley speaks a sub-type of Southwestern New England English (best studied in Albany, New York), demonstrating additional influence from New York City English. Albany English shows Southwestern New England English's slight backing of /ɛ/ (to [ɛ~ɜ]) and possible fronting of /ɑ/ to [ɑ̈], [3] but New York City's caught vowel [ɔə] and, though having a continuous short-a system, still shows influence from New York City's short-a split system. [32] Also, Albany starts /aɪ/ fairly back [ɑɪ~äɪ] and /aʊ/ somewhat forward in the mouth [aʊ]. [33]

Notes

  1. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 212.
  2. ↑ Dinkin, Aaron (2010). "The Present-Day Dialectological Status of the Hudson Valley". Talk presented at the International Linguistic Association's 55th annual conference, New Paltz, N.Y. Handout.
  3. 1 2 Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 143.
  4. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 227.
  5. ↑ Boberg (2001), pp. 19–20.
  6. ↑ Boberg (2001), p. 23. "All seven of the Springfield speakers showed a reduction in their perceptual distinction between the [cot–caught] vowels."
  7. ↑ Boberg (2001), pp. 3, 12.
  8. ↑ Van Riper, William R. (2014) [1973]. "General American: An Ambiguity". In Allen, Harold B.; Linn, Michael D. (eds.). Dialect and Language Variation. Elsevier. pp. 128, 130. ISBN   978-1-4832-9476-6.
  9. 1 2 Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 210.
  10. 1 2 Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (1997). "Dialects of the United States". A National Map of The Regional Dialects of American English. University of Pennsylvania.
  11. 1 2 Boberg (2001), pp. 24–25.
  12. ↑ Vaux, Bert and Scott Golder. 2003. "What do you call the long sandwich that contains cold cuts, lettuce, and so on?" The Harvard Dialect Survey. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Linguistics Department.
  13. ↑ Vaux, Bert and Scott Golder. 2003. "Which of these terms do you prefer for a sale of unwanted items on your porch, in your yard, etc.?" The Harvard Dialect Survey. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Linguistics Department.
  14. ↑ Boberg (2001), pp. 26–27.
  15. ↑ Labov, William (1991). "The three dialects of English". In Penelope Eckert (ed.). New ways of analyzing sound change. Academic Press.
  16. ↑ Boberg (2001), p. 28.
  17. ↑ Boberg (2001), p. 26.
  18. ↑ Seven of the eight Vermont speakers in a recent study from Labov, Ash, and Boberg fully merged the two vowels: Nagy, Naomi; Roberts, Julie (2004). "New England phonology". In Edgar Schneider; Kate Burridge; Bernd Kortmann; Rajend Mesthrie; Clive Upton (eds.). A handbook of varieties of English. Volume 1: Phonology. Mouton de Gruyter. p. 2591.
  19. ↑ Nagy, Naomi; Roberts, Julie (2004). "New England Phonology". University of Toronto (online). pp. 260–261.
  20. ↑ Stanford, Leddy-Cecere & Baclawski Jr. (2012), p. 161.
  21. ↑ Walsh, Molly. "Vermont Accent: Endangered Species?". Burlington Free Press. Retrieved 2007-11-20.
  22. 1 2 MacQuarrie, Brian (12 February 2004). "Taking bah-k Vermont". The Boston Globe.
  23. ↑ Stanford (2019), pp. 53, 270.
  24. 1 2 Fischer, David Hackett (1989). Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America . Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-506905-1.
  25. ↑ Boberg (2001), p. 9.
  26. ↑ Colton, Michael (1998). "Fred Tuttle for Senate: Why Not?". Washington Post .
  27. ↑ Boberg (2001), p. 17.
  28. 1 2 Boberg (2001), p. 19.
  29. ↑ Boberg (2001), p. 11.
  30. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 25–26, 61.
  31. ↑ Boberg (2001), pp. 25–26. "Springfield, and perhaps western Massachusetts in general, is basically Northern but shows a reduction of contrast between the low-back vowels, which may be tending toward merger among the youngest speakers in that area."
  32. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 123, 261.
  33. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 188.

Related Research Articles

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 and in most circumstances is the de facto common language used in government, education and commerce. It is also the official language of most US states. Since the late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide.

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. Other scholars prefer the term 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, though concentrated increasingly in more rural areas, and spoken primarily by White Southerners. In terms of accent, its most innovative forms include southern varieties of Appalachian English and certain varieties of Texan English. Popularly known in the United States as a Southern accent or simply Southern, Southern American English now comprises the largest American regional accent group by number of speakers. Formal, much more recent terms within American linguistics include Southern White Vernacular English and Rural White Southern English.

A Baltimore accent, also known as Baltimorese, commonly refers to an accent related to Philadelphia English that originates among blue-collar residents of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It extends into the Baltimore metropolitan area and northeastern Maryland.

Eastern New England English, historically known as the Yankee dialect since at least the 19th century, is the traditional regional dialect of Maine, New Hampshire, and the eastern half of Massachusetts. Features of this variety once spanned an even larger dialect area of New England, for example, including the eastern halves of Vermont and Connecticut for those born as late as the early twentieth century. Studies vary as to whether the unique dialect of Rhode Island technically falls within the Eastern New England dialect region.

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, counties of northern Delaware, the northern Eastern Shore of Maryland, and all of South Jersey. Other than Philadelphia and arguably Baltimore, the dialect is spoken in cities such as Wilmington, Atlantic City, Camden, 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, respectively. The merger is typical of most 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inland Northern American English</span> English as spoken in the US Great Lakes region

Inland Northern (American) English, also known in American linguistics as the Inland North or Great Lakes dialect, is an American English dialect spoken primarily by White Americans in a geographic band reaching from the major urban areas of Upstate New York westward along the Erie Canal and through 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. The dialect can be heard as far west as eastern Iowa and even among certain demographics in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. 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. Linguists often characterize the western Great Lakes region's dialect separately as North-Central American English.

<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 super-dialect 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 New York metropolitan accent is one of the most recognizable accents of the United States, largely due to its popular stereotypes and portrayal in radio, film, and television. Several other common names exist for the accent that associate it with more specific locations in the New York City area, such as "Bronx accent", "Brooklyn accent", "Queens accent", "Long Island accent", and "North Jersey accent"; however, no research has demonstrated significant linguistic differences between these locations.

<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 Montréal, 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.

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 words or environments. The most common context for tensing throughout North American English, regardless of dialect, is when this vowel appears before a nasal consonant.

References

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.