My Accent

Travis   Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:10 pm GMT
Actually, I forgot to mention that the very backed realization of historical /A:/ without a comparable lowering of historical /{/ seems to also be a rather conservative feature, as historical /A:/ has been fronted at least somewhat (so as to be at least more central) in most English dialects in the US (and not just those with the NCVS or in New England either) aside from those with the California Vowel Shift (which probably historically had such fronting but has thus reversed it).
Travis   Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:26 pm GMT
(Note that the above is in the context of being cot-caught-unmerged, as it seems that cot-caught-merged NAE dialects in general have more backed realizations of historical /A:/ than cot-caught-unmerged NAE dialects.)
Jasper   Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:56 pm GMT
Travis: so I was right about the vowel-raising the first time, huh? Hmm. It's interesting to note that the second time, I didn't catch it.

The vowel-raising seems to make it a cinch that the speaker is from the Northern Tier of the Western US.
Travis   Wed Jul 23, 2008 7:17 pm GMT
>>Travis: so I was right about the vowel-raising the first time, huh? Hmm. It's interesting to note that the second time, I didn't catch it.

The vowel-raising seems to make it a cinch that the speaker is from the Northern Tier of the Western US.<<

The Canadian Raising of /aI_^/ was not that strong (and was definitely weaker in the degree of raising of the nucleus than that here), but it still was quite apparent to my ears and seemed rather consistent (whereas amongst middle-aged and older people, and even some younger people here, it is not all too consistent). Maybe the reason you did not notice it the second time is the relatively limited degree of the raising involved.

The only thing about Canadian Raising of /aI_^/ is that in the last few decades it seems to have spread pretty far south within the US, and seems to be just as typical of modern northern variants of GA as the cot-caught merger is typical of modern western variants of GA. The thing that really tipped me off to how far north Francis is from was not the Canadian Raising of /aI_^/ but rather the specific pronunciation of "sorry", which is really only found in NAE in Canadian dialects and dialects in the US along the far north of the US. Even here in the Milwaukee area the pronunciation changes significantly as one goes southward just within the city area, with [Q] being found on the South Side rather than the [O] found on the North Side and West Side, which in turn changes to the more GA-like [A] by the time one reaches Kenosha (which is close to the state line with Illinois).
Guest   Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:09 pm GMT
>> Lennon-Lenin-merged <<

How can you tell it's Lennon-Lenin merged? I didn't hear those words in the sample.
Travis   Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:16 pm GMT
You don't need to. What that means is that historical /@n/ and /In/ in non-initial unstressed syllables, along with vowels that would merge with one or the other when reduced in those position, are not distinguished. Most commonly, both end up being realized as [1~n] in such positions, as is the case in Francis's Comma sample.
Guest   Thu Jul 24, 2008 3:09 am GMT
What are the isoglosses for "sorry" in the Western US?
Travis   Thu Jul 24, 2008 4:21 am GMT
>>Travis, I assume you have heard the speech sample. I'd qualify myself as an amateur, however talented with good listening ears, while you are assessed as a professional.

Coming from your stratum of knowledge, where do you think Francis might be from? I won't hold you to it but am really interested in hearing your opinion.<<

One thing I forgot to clarify, though, is that I myself am not a professional linguist; actually, my actual day job is as a software developer, and has nothing to do with linguistics at all. And honestly, I have little formal linguistics training, with most of what I know with respect to linguistics being stuff I have picked up over the years myself.
Travis   Thu Jul 24, 2008 4:26 am GMT
>>What are the isoglosses for "sorry" in the Western US?<<

I can say for certain, but I know that the isogloss for "sorry" with [O] is relatively close to the US-Canada border overall myself (and I would be surprised if it ran much further south than the border between Washington and Oregon)...
ababa   Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:54 am GMT
My first impression was NW/Canadian, but the cot/caught non-merger is not typically Seattle/Portland, so through the process of elimination I'd guess Boise/Helena.
Guest   Thu Jul 24, 2008 8:50 am GMT
Tell you all the truth,that guy is from China.lol.
South Dakota   Thu Jul 24, 2008 3:16 pm GMT
It could be Aberdeen, SD

Listen to this South Dakota sample:
http://web.ku.edu/idea/northamerica/usa/southdakota/southdakota.htm
tu   Sun Jul 27, 2008 8:35 pm GMT
In my opinion, it doesn't sound anything like a Seattle accent at all. Listen to this:
http://web.ku.edu/idea/northamerica/usa/washington/washington.htm

Notice how different the vowels sound.
Jasper   Wed Jul 30, 2008 8:00 pm GMT
I am coming to the conclusion that our revered guest might be right after all, i.e., that Francis is from Boise, ID.

I met a young man from Boise the other day who didn't seem to have a trace of the Rocky Mountain Dialect with which I'm familiar. If the dialect is disappearing and Francis is in his early 20s, like I suspect, Boise is indeed a candidate for his home city.

Francis, a lot of time has passed since you posted your speech sample; won't you please tell us your city of origin?
Helen   Wed Jul 30, 2008 10:35 pm GMT
What does the Helena, Montana accent sound like? Is it similar to Boise and Seattle or is it more like da Nort' Dakowta accent?