The Northern Cities Vowel Shift

SpaceFlight   Tue Jul 19, 2005 1:31 am GMT
I've read that in the areas where the Northern Cities Vowel Shift occur, the African Americans show no signs of having it. Is that true?
Tom K.   Tue Jul 19, 2005 3:05 am GMT
Pretty much. In fact you could say the same about any US regional accent (except the South, probably).
Kirk   Tue Jul 19, 2005 3:53 am GMT
<<I've read that in the areas where the Northern Cities Vowel Shift occur, the African Americans show no signs of having it. Is that true?>>

But of course you're probably referring to African Americans who speak AAVE. I know AAVE has, at least up to this point, not been demonstrably affected by the California Vowel Shift, for example, yet I've certainly known black Californians who had clear examples of the California Shift in their speech, as either they don't speak AAVE at all or when they code-switch out of AAVE they acquire the characteristics of Californian speech as seen in other groups.
Trawick   Tue Jul 19, 2005 1:38 pm GMT
"Pretty much. In fact you could say the same about any US regional accent (except the South, probably)."

I'm not sure I quite agree with that, since I notice that many Black New Yorkers show features of New York English as well as AAVE. I'd say that Denzel Washington, for instance, is recognizably from the New York area.

However, this is a lot different from Detroit, where there's almost no overlap at all.
Ryan   Fri Jul 22, 2005 9:56 pm GMT
If an African American grows up in a very white neighborhood without other African Americans around, he or she might pick up the NCVS. I've heard it before among "rich Blacks." On the other hand, a white person who has grown up in a Black neighborhood will most likely speak in some kind of version of AAVE, although I haven't heard a white person speak this way before in person. It all has to do with what neighborhood one grows up in, not some factor that has to do with the race of the person.
andre in usa   Sat Jul 23, 2005 3:00 am GMT
I used to have traces of AAVE in my accent even though I'm white because I lived in a primarily black neighborhood as a small child. I would say "milk" as "meelk," for example. And I've heard some black New Yorkers speak with a strong NYC influence.
Trawick   Sat Jul 23, 2005 6:35 pm GMT
In a similar vein, I met a guy who grew up in Los Angeles the other day who speak with a slightly Spanish-influence accent, even though both his parents were Jewish. I also know a guy who grew up in the Bronx, who speaks with a very strong AAVE influenced dialect, even though he's 100% Irish. So it's really not a race issue as much anymore.
Kirk   Wed Jul 27, 2005 8:14 am GMT
On this site I found recordings of people from Michigan. One of the guys is black, and he doesn't seem to have any hint of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift in his speech.

http://www.ku.edu/~idea/northamerica/usa/michigan/michigan.htm

I listened to the last two, the white guy born in 1978 and the black guy born in 1984 (my year!). The white guy obviously has a pretty progressive NCVS in his natural speech.
Crystal   Fri Nov 02, 2007 12:29 pm GMT
I don't think it is so much NCVS as it is a Yooper accent. I don't think the NCVS has even effected that part of Michigan.
Milton   Fri Nov 02, 2007 7:50 pm GMT
Oprah is from Chicago but she does not have NCVS.
She has a mixture of General American and Californian (I guess she lived in Hollywood for a while)
Lo   Fri Nov 02, 2007 8:27 pm GMT
Josh Lalonde said:
<<You do realize that this thread has been dead for two years, right?>>

And I was wondering what the heck was wrong with the dates!