American English regional differences

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American English has some regional differences.

[edit] General American English

Written English is standardized across the U.S., and in schools abroad specializing in American English, although it differs slightly from the written British-based English used in many other countries across the globe. By contrast, there is some variation in the spoken language. There are numerous recognizable regional variations (such as New York-New Jersey English), particularly in pronunciation, but also in vernacular vocabulary.

Most traditional sources cite General American English (occasionally referred to as Standard Midwestern) as the unofficial standard accent and dialect of American English. However, many linguists claim California English has become the de facto standard since the 1960s or 1970s due to its central role in the American entertainment industry; others argue that the entertainment industry, despite being in California, uses Midwestern. Certain features which are frequent in speakers of California English, particularly the cot-caught merger, are not often considered as part of the standard.

Regional dialects in North America are most strongly differentiated along the Eastern seaboard. The distinctive speech of important cultural centers like Boston, Massachusetts (see Boston accent); Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Charleston, South Carolina; and New Orleans, Louisiana imposed their marks on the surrounding areas. The Connecticut River is usually regarded as the southern/western extent of New England speech, while the Potomac River generally divides a group of Northern coastal dialects from the beginning of the Coastal Southern dialect area (distinguished from the Highland Southern or South Midland dialect treated below, although outsiders often mistakenly believe that the speech in these two areas is the same); in between these two rivers several local variations exist, chief among them the one that prevails in and around New York City and northern New Jersey.

The sounds of American speech can be identified with a number of public figures: Ted Kennedy speaks with a Boston accent, while Jimmy Carter speaks with a Southern coastal accent. Chuck Schumer speaks with a New York accent. The North Midlands speech is familiar to those who have heard Neil Armstrong, John Glenn and Hillary Clinton, while Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Robert Byrd speak with South Midland accents. Comedians Mel Brooks and Ray Romano retain typical New York accents while Jack Black and Pauly Shore have the standard sound of southern California.

African American Vernacular English (AAVE, colloquially known as Ebonics) contains many distinctive forms.

[edit] Eastern New England

The accents of eastern New England, including those of Boston (see Boston accent), New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Maine (also called Down East), are characterized by a number of phenomena that distinguish them from General American (GenAm). Traditionally, these accents (with the exception of Martha's Vineyard) are non-rhotic, but this feature is slowly losing ground, especially with the vowel [ɝ]. Further, most accents in this region have not merged the vowels of father and bother, that is, the two do not rhyme, as they do in GenAm.

In general, these accents undergo the cot-caught merger, making cot and caught homophonous as /kɒt/. They also have a dwindling group of words with broad A, such as past, half, aunt, can't. Among non-rhotic speakers, the broad A is identical to the sound usually spelled ar, so that past/parsed and aunt/aren't can be homophonous pairs.

The distinction between the vowels of horse and hoarse is maintained in traditional non-rhotic New England accents as [hɒs] (with the same vowel as cot and caught) vs. [hoəs].

Words that have [ɒɹV] in RP (where V stands for any vowel), such as origin, Florida, horrible, quarrel, warren, borrow, tomorrow, sorry, sorrow, all have [ɒɹV] in eastern New England, unlike GenAm where most have [ɔɹV] (except the last four in the list, which have [ɑɹV] in GenAm as well).

The eastern New England accents have not undergone many of the vowel mergers before intervocalic [ɹ] found in General American. For example, many accents in this region preserve the distinction between [ɪəɹ] (as in nearer /nɪəɹə/) and [ɪɹ] (as in mirror /mɪɹə/), as well as the distinction between [ʌɹ] (as in hurry /hʌɹi/) and [ɜ] (as in furry /fɜɹi/).

Like some other east-coast accents as well as AAVE, some accents of eastern New England merge [oɹ] and [ʊɹ], making homophones of pairs like pour/poor, more/moor, tore/tour, cores/Coors etc.

[edit] New York City and northern New Jersey

Main article: New York-New Jersey English

As in Eastern New England, the accents of New York City and northern New Jersey are traditionally non-rhotic. But the vowels of cot ([kɑt]) and caught ([kɔət]) are distinct; the former is distinct from that of cart (/kɑət/) only by being short and monophthongal.

The accent is well attested in American movies and television shows, especially ones about American mobsters. Bugs Bunny and Groucho Marx both had a Brooklyn accent. The accent is often exaggerated, but it still does exist to some degree with many Brooklyn natives. A more contemporary version of this can be found on the popular television show The Sopranos, which is set in Essex County, New Jersey. However, it is important to note that the dialect portrayed on this television show does not apply to citizens of the entire state; it is a particular socio-ethnic accent.

[edit] Mid-Atlantic Region

[edit] Northeastern Pennsylvania

The dialect of the Wyoming Valley (including Scranton and Wilkes-Barre) is Northeast Pennsylvania English.

[edit] Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley

Main article: Philadelphia accent

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The accent of Philadelphia and nearby parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, is probably the original ancestor of General American. It is one of the few coastal accents that is rhotic, and one of the first to merge the historical [oɹ] of hoarse, mourning with the [ɔɹ] of horse, morning. It also maintains the cot-caught contrast, unlike New England and western Pennsylvania. Nevertheless there are differences between modern Philadelphia speech and General American, some of which will be outlined here.

"Water" is sometimes pronounced /wʊdɚ/, that is, with the vowel of wood
As in New York-New Jersey English, but unlike General American, words like orange, horrible, etc., are pronounced with [-ɑɹ-]. See English-language vowel changes before historic r: "Tory-torrent merger".
On is pronounced [ɔn], so that, as in the South and Midland (and unlike New York and the North) it rhymes with dawn rather than don.
The [oʊ] of goat and boat is fronted, so it is pronounced [ɞʊ], as in the Midland and South.
The phoneme [æ] undergoes æ-tensing in some words; fewer words have the tense [eə] in Philadelphia than in New York City.
As in New York City and Boston, there is a three-way distinction between Mary, marry, and merry. A recent development is a merger of the vowel of merry with Murray.
Canadian raising occurs for [aɪ] (price) but not for /aʊ/ (mouth)
There is a split of [eɪ] (face) so at the end of a word (for example, day) it sounds like it does in Australia, while in any other position (for example, date) it is pronounced more like [i]. Commonly confused words include eight and eat, snake and sneak, slave and sleeve.
South Philadelphia has been known for r-dropping, even though it has never been a characteristic of the rest of the region.

[edit] Baltimore, Maryland

See the separate article on Baltimorese

[edit] Pittsburgh

The Pittsburgh English has a number of distinctive features. Please refer to that article for more information.

[edit] Buffalo, New York

The city of Buffalo has some very distinct patterns in english. Please refer to this article, Buffalo English

[edit] South

Main article: Southern American English

monophthongization of [aɪ] as [aː], for example, most dialects' "I" → "Ah" in the South.
Coastal Southern speech (also some East Coast) is non-rhotic.
[e] and [i] merged before nasal consonants, for example "Wendy" becomes "Windy", "pen" becomes "pin", and so forth.
Unlike most American English, but like British English, [j] (the y sound) is retained before [u] after the consonants [t], [d], [θ], [s], [z], [n], and [l].
In the Deep South, vowels tend to take the hard sound more often, for example, "on" and "own" are similar; "can't" and "ain't" and "glass" and "face" also might rhyme.
Some verbs have alternate meanings not found in other regions. For example, 'cut' the light off, or 'mash' the buttons

[edit] Greater Houston

In Greater Houston most words beginning with the letters H-u (sounding like "hyoo") are pronounced with a y in place of the h:
- Houston becomes "youston"
- Humid becomes "yumid" ("yumidity", etc.)
- Human becomes "yuman" ("yumanity", "yumankind")
- Huge becomes "youge"

[edit] New Orleans

While including such characteristics of the Southern U.S. English as using "y'all" for second person plural, the New Orleans accent is so unlike the rest of the South and so similar to that of New York City that New Orleanians traveling in other parts of the USA are often mistaken for New Yorkers.

Many pronunciations are surprisingly similar to that found in New York City and northern New Jersey, presumably arising from a similar mix of immigrants. Parallels include the split of the historic short-a class into tense [eə] and lax [æ] versions, as well as pronunciation of cot and caught as [kɑt] and [kɔt]. The stereotypical New York curl-coil merger of "toity-toid street" (33rd Street) used to be a common New Orleans feature, though it has mostly receded today.

Perhaps the most distinctive New Orleans accent is locally nicknamed "yat", from a traditional greeting "Where y'at" ("Where are you at?", meaning "How are you?"). 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. While such extreme "yat" accents are no longer so common in the city, they can still be found in parts of Mid-City and the 9th ward, as well as in St. Bernard Parish, just east of New Orleans.

The novel A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole is generally considered the best depiction of New Orleans accents in literature.

[edit] Central and South Florida

The speech used in the urban and coastal areas of Central and South Florida (everything south of and including Orlando) is noticeable for not being a typical southern accent, because a large proportion of the inhabitants of the area are either natives of the Northeast (and therefore speakers of accents like New York-New Jersey English) or else native Spanish speakers (predominantly from Cuba.) The accents heard in some parts of this region, especially in older communities such as Aventura, Boca Raton, or West Palm Beach, are that of the typical New Yorker. However the southern dialect is still predominantly spoken in the rural and inland areas of Central and South Florida.

In Miami, a unique accent, commonly called the "Miami accent", is widely spoken. It developed by second- or third-generation Hispanics whose first language was English. It is very similar to accents in the Northeast, but contains a rhythm and pronunciation heavily influenced by Spanish. However, a Miami accent is not Spanish-accented English, as many Miami residents who are not Hispanic or do not speak Spanish speak with the Miami accent as well. Although many Miami natives will deny that they have an accent, those outside South Florida will identify a unique accent spoken by Miami residents.

[edit] Inland North

Main article: Inland Northern American English

A distinctive speech pattern is centered on the Great Lakes region. This is the Inland North dialect - the "standard Midwestern" speech that was the basis for General American in the mid-20th Century, though it has been recently modified by the northern cities vowel shift.

This area consists of western New York State (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse), parts of Michigan's Lower Peninsula (Detroit, Ann Arbor, etc.), Cleveland, Chicago, Gary, and Southeastern Wisconsin (Milwaukee, Racine).

By the Northern cities vowel shift, cad, cod, cawed, Ked, and cut are pronounced [keəd], [kad], [kɑd], [kʌd], and [kɔt], respectively.
The starting point of /aʊ/ (for example, mouse, down) is pronounced noticeably in the back of the mouth ([mɑʊs], [dɑʊn]), while /aɪ/ (mice, dine) is much further front: ([maɪs], [daɪn]). Standard American diphthongal glide /ɪ/ and word- or morph-final /ɪ/ are pronounced as a shortened /i/.
The long-o of "bone" and "goat" is rounded and pronounced far back.
The word "on" rhymes with "don," not with "dawn."
Canadian raising is found in areas close to the Canadian border.

[edit] The Midland

West of the Appalachian Mountains begins the broad zone of what is generally called "Midland" speech. This is divided into two discrete subdivisions, the North Midland that begins north of the Ohio River valley area, and the South Midland speech; sometimes the former is designated simply Midland and the latter is reckoned as Highland Southern. The North Midland speech continues to expand westward until it becomes the closely related speech of California, although in the immediate San Francisco area the speech more closely resembles that of the mid-Atlantic region.

The South Midland dialect follows the Ohio River in a generally southwesterly direction, moves across Arkansas and Oklahoma west of the Mississippi, and peters out in West Texas. It is a version of the Midland speech that has assimilated some coastal Southern forms, most noticeably the loss of the diphthong [ɑɪ], , which becomes [ɑː], and the second person plural pronoun "you-all" or "y'all." Unlike Coastal Southern, however, South Midland is a rhotic dialect, pronouncing /r/ wherever it has historically occurred.

Midland dialects cover of the larger parts of Ohio, Indiana, and central Illinois which are not in the Inland North, as well as Missouri, southern Iowa, northern Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska where it begins to blend into the West, and extends into extreme southern parts of Michigan's lower peninsula.[1]

In some rural areas, words like "roof" and "root" get the vowel of "book" and "hoof"
People who pronounce "don" and "dawn" differently pronounce "on" to rhyme with "dawn" and not "don"
St. Louis has a distinctive accent, see the section on it below.
South Indiana has a distinctive accent, locally known as the "Hoosier Twang" (a well-known speaker is actor Jim Nabors, who played Gomer Pyle on TV and has for many years sung "Back Home In Indiana" before the Indy 500 race).

South Midlands speech is characterized by:

monophthongization of as [aː], for example, most dialects' "I" → "Ah" in the South.
raising of initial vowel of [au] to [æu]; the initial vowel is often lengthened and prolonged, yielding [æːw].
nasalization of vowels, esp. diphthongs, before [n].
raising of [æ] to [e]; can't → cain't, etc.
Unlike most American English, but like British English, glides ([j], the y sound) are inserted before [u] after the consonants [t], [d], [θ], [s], [z], [n], and [l].
South Midlands speech is rhotic. This is the principal feature that distinguishes South Midland speech from the non-rhotic coastal Southern varieties.

[edit] Midwest

[edit] North Central American English

(Northern Minnesota (esp. rural), Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Wisconsin, North Dakota)

As in most North American accents, [ɒ] is merged with [ɑ], so that father rhymes with bother.
Canadian raising: see section on Canada.
"roof", "book", and "root" all use the same vowel [ʊ]); "root" may be pronounced as rhyming with "scoot," however
Use of German/Scandinavian "ja", pronounced as either /jaː/ or /jæː/, as an affirmative filler or emphatic; Standard U.S. English "yes" is used in formal settings to answer questions and to start an explanation.
The word "school" has two syllables, pronounced: "Skoo-ehl".
Tendency towards a "sing-songy" intonation (the area's earliest European settlers were primarily Scandinavian, and this has influenced the local dialect). More recently, this has been reinforced by an influx of Asians, most of whom speak tonal languages. In urban Minnesota, this variation of NCAE is referred to as "Minnewegian," a portmanteau of Minnesota and Norwegian.
For a stereotypical (although very overdone) example, refer to the movie Fargo. For a more normative example, Garrison Keillor speaks with a typical Minnesota accent.(Note: most southern, even rural, Minnesota accents sound more like the northern Iowan accent. More distinct accents up in the northern areas are still much less defined than in Fargo.) Accents in the Twin Cities will sound like other midwestern urban centers, and are similar to Milwaukee and Chicago (though the accent is more noticeable in Twin Cities residents born prior to 1950, which had more rural area influences, than those born in the 1980's, which had more influences via television, popular music, and other forms of popular culture). People from other parts of Wisconsin can usually recognize that a person is from the Milwaukee area and vice-versa.
final /t/ is replaced in the speech of most individuals by /ʔ/, including after nasals, to the extent that a clearly enunciated "can" /kæːn/ in otherwise rapid speech is likely to be confused with "can't." ("Can" is normally pronounced as /kən/, or even with the vowel reduced to a syllabification of the /n/ itself, while "can't" is normally pronounced /kæ̃ːʔ/.)
collapse of /ð/ with /d/ and /θ/ with /t/: a humorous example would be:
- - "Yozef? Are you done cleaning da barn?"
  - "No, but it's about two turds [two thirds] done."
This phoneme collapse is far more prevalent in rural areas. This characteristic is likely due to the large immigrant population (in most cases notably less than a century removed from "the old country"), comprised in great part of speakers of Germanic, Slavic and Finnic languages. One notable exception, giving weight to this theory, is that it is peculiarly absent on Washington Island, in Wisconsin, in the very heart of the prevalence of this trait. Washington Island is home to the most homogeneous Icelander (over 90% of the population) immigrant community in the U.S., and unlike most non-English Germanic languages, the Icelandic language differentiates between the phonemes /ð/ and /d/ and between /θ/ and /t/.
Older speakers in the region may merge /w/ and/v/ making well sound like vell.
Perhaps to a greater degree than other parts of the United States, standard American English pronunciation is replacing the regional accent, probably because there is less cultural identity wrapped up in the language than elsewhere

This regional variety has been much popularized, in somewhat satirical fashion, by the popular music group "Da Yoopers" (From "Yooper", a person from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan), singing such songs as Second Week Of Deer Camp, Grandpa Got Run Over By A Beer Truck and Rusty Chevrolet. In addition, it has also been satirized in the form of Coach Z, a character on the Homestar Runner web site, and in numerous skits and sketches by the cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

[edit] St. Louis and vicinity

Some St. Louisans (probably born earlier than 1960) tend to merge the [ɔɹ] sound as in for with the [ɑɹ] sound of far. Interstates 40 and 44, are thus farty and farty-far. Similarly, "corn" is pronounced [kɑɹn]. This accent is otherwise a typical north Midland accent.
Some younger speakers are picking up the Northern cities vowel shift heard in Chicago, eastern Wisconsin, and much of Michigan and New York State. This vowel shift causes words like cat /kæt/ to become more like [kɛt] and talent /tælənt/ to be more like /tʲælənt/ or /tʲɛlənt/.
Since this is in the Midland, "on" rhymes with "dawn," and the Northern cities vowel shift makes this more noticeable here than in the rest of the Midland.
Some speakers, usually older generations, pronounce words like measure as /ˈmeɪʒ.ɚ/, and wash as /wɔɹʃ/, for example, /ˈwɔrʃ.ɪŋ.tən/ for Washington.
Some speakers, again older speakers more than the younger generations, mispronounce mostaccioli as /mʌskɑtʃoliː/. This seems ironic, with the presence of The Hill.

[edit] West

[edit] California

Main article: California English

Some characteristics of California English include:

Raising of the front vowels [æ, ɪ] to [e, i] before [ŋ], so that sang and sing are pronounced [seŋ, siŋ]
Fronting of the back vowels [oʊ, u] to [ɵʊ, ʉ]. The [ʉ] may trigger palatalization of a preceding consonant, so that a phrase like too cool is pronounced [t^jʉ k^jʉl], a pronunciation jocularly spelled tew kewl, especially on the Internet and in instant messenger services.
Particularly among young female speakers, high rise terminals in non-question sentences, and laryngealization or "creaky voice" of words in phrase-final position.

[edit] Utah

Main article: Utah English

The regional dialect of Utah is often jocularly referred to as "Utahnics".

The merger of [oʊ] and [ʊ] to [ʊ] before [ɫ], making pairs like the following homophonous:
- bowl / bull
- foal / full
- foley / fully
- Folsom / fulsome
- poll, pole / pull
- polar / puller
diphthongization of [ɛ] as [ɛɪ]: "egg" and "leg" pronounced "ayg" and "layg", "leisure" and "pleasure" pronounced "layzhur" and "playzhur."
in some cases, "ar" and "or" are reversed: "I was barn in a born" (I was born in a barn).
introduction of a "T" into certain words: "teacher" pronounced "teat-chur."
shortening of some words from several syllables to one or two: "coral" as "crall", "probably" to "probly" or "prolly."
Merger of /Ar/ and /Or/ by some speakers so that far and for, card and cord etc. are homonyms.
the use of "fer" in certain expressions, such as "fer cute", meaning "cute" or "fer ignernt": "stupid."
due to the influence of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, unique euphemisms: "oh my heck" and "gol."
introduction of a "T" between the sounds "L" and "S": "Nelsen" and "Wilson" are pronounced "Neltson" and "Wiltson", respectively.
the final "T" is frequently voiced as a glottal stop: "cute" becomes [kjuʔ] and "late" becomes /leɪʔ/. Non-native speakers often have trouble distinguishing between the local pronunciation of words like "can" and "can't".

[edit] References

Rainey, Virginia, (2004) Insiders' Guide: Salt Lake City (4th ed.), The Globe Pequot Press, ISBN 0-7627-2836-1
Article about "Utahnics"

[edit] Washington

The Western Washington accent, notably the Puget Sound region, has more in common with the rest of the west coast, whereas more rural eastern parts of the state have accents closer to that of Idaho and Montana.
[ɪl] is sometimes pronounced as [ɛl]: milk becomes [mɛlk]
There is no pin-pen merger in the western part of the state; in the eastern part of the state it is occasionally and variably present[2].
In the eastern part of the state and some western parts, Washington is often pronounced Warshington, with the "ar" being pronounced as "arr".
For the most part, the accent is General American with the cot-caught merger.

[edit] Hawaii

See main article Hawaiian English.

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