The Pacific Northwest Accent (US)

Future dialects of American English in the western United States are possible, even probable, but I don't see anything yet that linguists can pinpoint as signs of new emerging dialects even though you are welcome to try if you think you see some.

Part of the problem is that it usually takes about 200 years for one to notice that a language has changed and that makes it hard to discern potential changes.

Linguists have noticed many signs of emerging US dialects even in the relatively recent past, Brennus. Things such as the Northern Cities or California Vowel shifts were unheard of a generation ago, or even if they had begun to take root then, had not spread widely and had not started to receive academic attention until recently. The researchers in the article are doing the exact same thing--documenting and analyzing data showing consistent dialectal trends emerging today in the Northwest.

As I said before, besides all the technical evidence explaining these emerging dialects, popular perceptions about accents are an interesting (and, while not scientific, certainly telling) way to note the emergence of dialects. The fact that people here consistently perceive people from the Midwest to have "accents" is indicative of the fact that speech patterns in California and the Midwest have changed, as, say, 50 years ago it would've been largely unheard of (tho probably not impossible) for a typical Californian to perceive noticeable accent differences in a typical Midwestern accent (also largely due to the fact that a huge amount of Midwesterners moved to California about 50 years ago, so there had been little time for differences to emerge on a wide scale).

I agree with Kirk - it really does not take centuries for new dialects to emerge.

It usually only takes a generation or two for differences to appear. I surely don't speak the way my grandmother does, for example, even though we are from the same linguistical zone.

I think many people really understate differences within North American English overall, Northern Atlantic American English, Southern American English, and AAVE aside. I myself can hear distinct differences in the speech of people from say, northern Wisconsin or Minnesota, and those're easily within a day's driving range from where I live. Mind you that Wisconsin and Minnesota are a small chunk of the country as a whole, so if there are distinct differences just within said area, if such extends to the entirety of the country, there probably is far more dialectal variation throughout its whole.

The weird thing though is that from some studies conducted by UW Madison, if I recall correctly, that have been done here in Wisconsin, much of the characteristics of how people about my age speak here is not "new" per se phonologically, but rather is "old", in that it's less like how our parents speak, in many ways, and more like how our grandparents speak. One must remember that my parents' generation here is probably the first truly monolingual generation in this area, which likely indicates that with that was probably a move towards trying to "correctly" speak English, whereas on the other hand, English was not necessarily the native language of many people from my grandparents' generation, and hence they likely didn't quite learn English "perfectly" (at least from what my mom has said about some of her aunts, who clearly were not quite fully fluent in English).

On the other hand, though, the reason why on a local level, much of the speech of people my age may be phonologically conservative, is that it's not attempting to try to approximate some "standard", but rather is amplifying preexisting phonological differences and such, in how, say, our grandparents and like had learned English, well, "imperfectly". Another thing that would help increase such preexisting variation is unconsciously trying to preserve locally distinctive forms, as a way of putting apart ones local area's English from other areas' English. Of course, this could explain a few things such as the nature of /D/ here and the tendency for /s/ here to palatalize if stared at too hard. To paraphrase someone that I know, there's sort of the view that German somewhat fucked up the English here a bit, even though few people who aren't quite old or aren't from Germany itself speak it natively here anymore.

Kirk, Andre, Travis, et al.,

Some linguists I've talked too make a distinction between "dialects" and "varieties" and would probably call the regional American English of California and the Pacific Northwest, perhaps the whole United States simply varieties. The majority of them also claim that there are really only three dialects of English: Cockney, Scots and Queen's (sometimes called King's). Most authorities on the English language would argue that you have to go back to the time of Samuel Johnson or Henry Fielding (who wrote "Tom Jones") before you really notice that people in the English speaking world talked differently than they do today. That's a little over 200 years.

When I listen to people who have moved up to Seattle from California the most salient difference I notice with them, especially the younger ones, is their slang like lobsterized for 'sunburned'; cool your jets for 'calm down', retarded for 'backward; old fashioned' ; slacking as in "I just keep like, slacking (not working) even though I need the money." and mahambo-jambo "event; occasion" as in "Ya gotta see Franz Ferdinand and Modest Mouse at the Crocodile Cafe this Saturday everybody. This is the great mahabo-jambo". However, I don't notice any differences in accent, inflection or pronunciation from Seattle. Rather Pacific Northwest people have become a little more conservative and just aren't picking up California slang like the way they did in the 1960's and 70's.

It's true, that very small changes in a language can occur within a lifetime. For example, I don't hear people using the exclamative "Shucks!" or "Ah, shucks!" anymore like they did in the 1940's and 50's. I've been told that this is probably because "Shucks" is a country-type word and as the United States has become more urbanized "countryisms" are disappearing. However, most professional scholars or linguists (I am neither) are going to insist on more evidence before they are willing to agree that a new dialect or language is emerging. Presenting evidence in academia works just like presenting evidence in a court room.

William Labov, is one linguist who has studied alleged vowel changes in eastern U.S. cities (Chicago, Detroit Philadelphia etc.) and has written about them. Mr. Labov may be right to some extent but I've noticed that he doesn't seem to have any allies or supporters in the linguistic community which says that most of them have not yet bought into his study.

Anyhow, this is basically, how I see it however I'm not going to say "end of story" or "discussion" . If any of you wish to comment further, by all means do. So far, Linguistics is not an exact science the way Biology and Physics are.

Some linguists I've talked TO. Thank God this is Antimoon!

Wow, Brennus, I don't know where to begin.

<<Some linguists I've talked too make a distinction between "dialects" and "varieties" and would probably call the regional American English of California and the Pacific Northwest, perhaps the whole United States simply varieties.>>

You can call them what you want but either way they're not homogenous, as you stated earlier.

<<The majority of them also claim that there are really only three dialects of English: Cockney, Scots and Queen's (sometimes called King's). Most authorities on the English language would argue that you have to go back to the time of Samuel Johnson or Henry Fielding (who wrote "Tom Jones") before you really notice that people in the English speaking world talked differently than they do today. That's a little over 200 years.>>

.....!!!??! Almost everything in that section is completely untrue. No linguist, much less a "majority," would ever say such a thing. Also I have no idea where you get that second part. Language change is constantly occurring and significant changes can occur within a generation.

<<When I listen to people who have moved up to Seattle from California the most salient difference I notice with them, especially the younger ones, is their slang like lobsterized for 'sunburned'; cool your jets for 'calm down', retarded for 'backward; old fashioned' ; slacking as in "I just keep like, slacking (not working) even though I need the money." and mahambo-jambo "event; occasion" as in "Ya gotta see Franz Ferdinand and Modest Mouse at the Crocodile Cafe this Saturday everybody. This is the great mahabo-jambo">>

I've lived in various parts of California and been practically all over the state, and I've never heard or used "lobsterized" or "mahambo-jambo." "cool your jets" sounds like something someone over 50 would say (and doesn't sound region-specific to my ears). At least here, "retarded" was a trendy word for junior-highers in the mid 90s (so, when I was in junior high) but its popularity has diminished since. I do say "slacking" from time to time but that's hardly a regional word. Also, you're majorly missing the point of the article. The article and what I referred to in my post wasn't about a few lexical items, but specifically about significant phonological trends in Northwestern US English.

<<I don't notice any differences in accent, inflection or pronunciation from Seattle. Rather Pacific Northwest people have become a little more conservative and just aren't picking up California slang like the way they did in the 1960's and 70's.>>

Ok. That's fine. In many ways there may not be that many differences. But researchers who are experts in the area have noticed differences and trends in language change. At least from some of the recordings I can hear some very clear differences from the way I or many other Americans would say certain words or sound combinations as compared to the speakers from the recordings.

<<William Labov, is one linguist who has studied alleged vowel changes in eastern U.S. cities (Chicago, Detroit Philadelphia etc.) and has written about them. Mr. Labov may be right to some extent but I've noticed that he doesn't seem to have any allies or supporters in the linguistic community which says that most of them have not yet bought into his study.>>

Labov's work is actually very widely accepted in the linguistic community--in fact he's basically considered the father of sociolinguistics and has contributed majorly to studies in dialectology. If he weren't that respected I wouldn't've been hearing about him in nearly every class in my major (linguistics), and wouldn't've read countless linguistics-related texts citing famous findings of his. He knows what he's talking about. Also, the things he's looked at, such as what you call "alleged" vowel changes, are really not "alleged," but very real and backed up by substantial evidence from a wide variety of scholarly research.

It seems you have an interest in learning more about linguistics, Brennus, so I don't want to be rude. It's fine (and welcomed) to be interested in and to make comments about linguistics-related topics, but you might want to be more careful about making such outlandish comments about linguistics-related topics and then arguing with people (or not accepting the research of peer-reviewed experts) who are more familiar with linguistics, because then it clearly becomes obvious that you don't know what you're talking about.

Okay, Brennus, where did you get that idea from anyways, or get the idea that somehow most linguists believe in it (which they don't)? And who are these "most authorities" that you speak of, anyways? For starters, Scots is *not* a dialect of English, and to say that it is is like saying that Dutch or Low Saxon just happen to be dialects of German, or that West Frisian is a dialect of Dutch. Scottish English is not the same thing as Scots, period. And what do you mean by "dialect" versus "variety" anyways, as I've heard of no real linguist making such a kind of distinction at all?

I’ve got no competence whatsoever in US-English dialectology but I can make some commonplace observations based on subjectivity and prejudice, that is founded on TV exposure or brief contacts with US tourists or expats, not on linguistic knowledge or reasoned views.

US English is affected by phonetic variation. You don’t need to know if such variability derives from accentual variety, dialectal geography, social-class divide or generational particularities to appreciate the actual spectrum of US-English oral communication. That said, whatever the variant considered, it is obvious it’s still US English, as opposed to British English and American French or Spanish. A nuance, though : I may confuse Irish English with US English (or at least a similarly sounding variant of it) if I’m not aware of the context.

The way I understand US English is not affected by variation. It may sound paradoxical, but what makes US English difficult to me is, above all, the exotic, ‘underlying’ phonology, intonation and articulation that all variants have ‘in common’, not the specificities of Southern-US or Californian English. This means my foreignness level will remain broadly identical if I have to speak to a New Yorker or an Alaskan.

So I perceive US English as a consistent system that I can identify rather easily and, at the same time, it is manifest that some US-English variants are extremely contrasted. So much so that I’m able to build my little ‘classification’ without anything vaguely resembling accuracy, though. I can spot the variants I like and dislike rapidly. I guess I’m influenced by RP because the variants I prefer sound ‘European’ (I couldn’t define what I mean with much precision). One variant I can’t get round to sounds (to me) much ‘metallic’, over-nasal, monotonous with ‘painful’ final phonemes in such words as <mother>, <labour>, <architecture>. That said, I’m unable to tell if the variants I like or dislike are geographical, class-marked, individual or generational. I just perceive them.

Well, anyway I have to admit my knowledge of US English is minuscule and I could perhaps change my mind if I were to spend a week with an Alabaman countryman or had to speak Ebonics in my everyday life.

Again, the subjective point I was making from my partial perception is that US English hasn’t yet reached the situation of Latin when this language was branching off into Romance.

The word "cot" appears to adopt the New England/Canadian pronunciation (kQt or kOt) in the Pacific Northwest. I've also noticed there are some definite "Canadianisms" creeping into the speech of certain parts of Washington state, particularly a slight TENDENCY toward Canadian rasiing.

hot dog [ha:t da:g]
Greetz from Toronto

Ben, I think most Canadians have the "cot-caught" merger with [A]. I have relatives who were born and raised in BC (not too far from the Washington border, in fact) and they're "cot-caught" merged with [A], as I am.

Kirk,

Whoa! Wait a minute. Don't assume things that you know nothing about. I've been reading books and articles on linguistics for over 40 years and I assure you that William Labov's works get scant, if any, attention in any of the the literature that I've read even though he may be one of your gurus. I am familiar with him mainly because of two linguistcs programs shown on TV by PBS.

Brennus, that's great you've been reading about linguistics for so long. As I said before, I really wasn't trying to be rude but I wanted to point out that many of the things you wrote wouldn't be said by any linguists and aren't supported by any findings in linguistics. Several other posters also pointed out some problems with your post. Also, about Labov particularly, he's not a "guru" of mine or anything--I'm pretty neutral on him, but I am aware of his widely acknowledged contributions to linguistics (and not just thru my classes, in the off chance my particular linguistics department happened to be gung-ho for Labov for some reason).