What about 'Chicago Accent'?

Travis   Thu Dec 27, 2007 6:37 pm GMT
The big problem I see with such descriptions is that the FATHER vowel is usually not shifted all the way to [{], but rather is only shifted to [a] in most dialects with the NCVS. Also, not all dialects with it unround the COUGHT vowel so that it is identical with the old FATHER vowel, despite what such descriptions generally say
Milton   Sat Dec 29, 2007 10:41 am GMT
We cannot generalize. Women and teenagers seem to lead the process of change, so they are most likely to have the most advanced form of the NCVS (with the /{/). The same is true of any change. (Can/Cali VS, cot-caught merger in the Midwest). It seems that, at least in Chicago, NCVS is related to white, (upper) middle class people, so it can be used as a separation mark from people who resist the shift (most Black people in Chicago, that is 40 % of population)...Furthermore, there is a geographic shift: Southern parts of Chicago seem to have more advanced NCVS than the Northern parts of Chicago...
Don't Ask   Wed Jan 02, 2008 8:53 pm GMT
We chicago peeps just talk fast...
Marie   Sat Jan 05, 2008 5:40 am GMT
I am a native Chicagoan living abroad and I know a Chicago accent when I hear it and I am never wrong and love to hear it. Yes, Michigan shares a similar sound and having lived for a number of years in east-central Illinois and Kansas, and spending a lot of time in Wisconsin, there are variations in all these places. I think the Chicago accent is thicker in that it uses more of a "th" in many places where folks from around the upper mid-west have a longer drawn out sound-especially in Wisconsin that as a whole (excluding some of the southeast) is more similar to its western neighbor, Minnesota. In Chicago itself certainly there are various dialects as well. I'd say (and many might disagree) the north-siders have an even more pronounced shortening of the vowels and drawl than the famous south-siders though as a six-year-old in the mid '70's we moved from the north side just near Calvary Cemetery to the west-side and I was teased for saying "Sorry" to sound like "Door" rather like "sob". Needless to say at that age it marked me for life and I still rhyme it with "sob". I live in Australia now and I miss the accent and try to preserve what I have. It keeps me aware of where I came from and where my family still lives and it's part of who I am. There are some good accents here:

http://www.yorku.ca/earmstro/speech/dialects/chicago/index.html

that have a good range of Chicago and its suburbs. Can't forget those "burbs. I mean, you meet folks from Palatine, Rockford or Aurora and you'd swear they just walked out of Beverly.
Travis   Sat Jan 05, 2008 8:14 am GMT
>>I think the Chicago accent is thicker in that it uses more of a "th" in many places where folks from around the upper mid-west have a longer drawn out sound-especially in Wisconsin that as a whole (excluding some of the southeast) is more similar to its western neighbor, Minnesota.<<

What do you mean by "uses more of a 'th'" here, by the way?

>>I'd say (and many might disagree) the north-siders have an even more pronounced shortening of the vowels and drawl than the famous south-siders though as a six-year-old in the mid '70's we moved from the north side just near Calvary Cemetery to the west-side and I was teased for saying "Sorry" to sound like "Door" rather like "sob". Needless to say at that age it marked me for life and I still rhyme it with "sob".<<

The pronunciation of "sorry" seems to vary significantly from north to south. For instance, I am from a western suburb of Milwaukee, and I have ["sO:Ri:] for "sorry", and that is the only pronunciation of "sorry" that I knew of until I got older and came into frequent contact with people outside said suburb. However, my girlfriend, who is from the south side of Milwaukee has ["sQ:Ri:] for "sorry"; to me such is not the pronunciation of "sorry" that I perceive as normal, but it still is not all too strange. On the other hand, pronunciations of "sorry" with [A] or [a] seem almost foreign to me intuitively, even though I now know that such are most common within North American English as a whole, and even though I do sporadically hear such here.
Milton   Sat Jan 05, 2008 5:20 pm GMT
One thing we know: Chicago is far away from the so-called GeneralAmerican newscasters' accent...I'd say Columbus (OH) is the only city in that region with the newscasters-like accent (even though it's a low back merged city)...

One more thing to notice, in Chicago, Conservative GA accent can be found in black people that avoid the African American accent...But they are ''proud'' enough to avoid the Northern Cities shift white people like...Oprah is an example of that accent.
Travis   Sat Jan 05, 2008 11:28 pm GMT
>>One more thing to notice, in Chicago, Conservative GA accent can be found in black people that avoid the African American accent...But they are ''proud'' enough to avoid the Northern Cities shift white people like...Oprah is an example of that accent.<<

That is something that I have specifically noticed here. Less lower or working class blacks here in Milwaukee will often speak something that approximates more conservative GA, but will practically never speak with even a whiff of any local white dialect pronunciation. This results in a weird situation where middle-class blacks may very well speak noticably more "standard" than many younger middle-class whites (mind you that younger whites generally speak far less conservatively than middle-aged whites here).
'cago burbs.   Tue Feb 05, 2008 8:41 am GMT
how the hell do mary merry and marry sound different?! I seriously cannot comprehend this.
Jasper   Tue Feb 05, 2008 5:32 pm GMT
'cago burbs, mary/merry/marry is unmerged in Southern States.

I'm curious, though--in what Northern or Western States is mary/merry/mary unmerged?
Lazar   Tue Feb 05, 2008 6:14 pm GMT
<<mary/merry/marry is unmerged in Southern States.>>

Are you sure? I thought that most Southerners either merged all 3, or at least merged 2 of them. The Dialect Survey ( http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/maps.html ) gives these results:

South Carolina

all 3 merged: 49%
all 3 unmerged: 10%
marry unmerged: 25%
merry unmerged: 13%

Mississippi

all 3 merged: 80%
all 3 unmerged: 3%
marry unmerged: 3%
merry unmerged: 13%

Virginia

all 3 merged: 60%
all 3 unmerged: 9%
marry unmerged: 9%
merry unmerged: 21%

<<I'm curious, though--in what Northern or Western States is mary/merry/mary unmerged?>>

The main region of 3M distinction is the Northeast (most prototypically in the traditional urban accents: Boston, Worcester, Providence, New York, Philadelphia). I'm from Massachusetts and I pronounce them unmerged. In these states, a plurality or majority is fully unmerged:

Massachusetts: 49%
New Jersey: 58%
New York: 48%
Rhode Island: 62%

Whereas in these states, a plurality is partially or fully merged:

Connecticut: 14%
Maine: 15%
Pennsylvania: 26%
New Hampshire: 19%
Vermont: 3%

The Western and Midwestern states are overwhelmingly merged, with around 70%-80% having the full merger (and many of the remainder probably being migrants).

<<how the hell do mary merry and marry sound different?! I seriously cannot comprehend this.>>

I pronounce "Mary" as ['mɛɚi] or "mair-ee", with the exact same vowel as in "mare"; I pronounce "merry" as [ˈmɛɹi] or "meh-ree", with the exact same vowel as in "met"; and I pronounce "marry" as [ˈmæɹi], with the exact same vowel as in "mat".
Jasper   Tue Feb 05, 2008 7:36 pm GMT
Lazar, thanks a bunch for an absorbing post.

In my statement about Southern mary/merry/marry merged, I was relying too much on my own accent and those around me; this would be age-restricted, no doubt.

I pronounce "Mary" and "marry" the same, with a strong distinction of "merry"; we were middle-class Southerners. Hillbillies are all-three unmerged, with the sound in "marry" a little difficult to describe; I can hear it in my head but don't have the linguistic vocabulary to describe it.

Maybe my mentor Travis knows.
Jasper   Tue Feb 05, 2008 8:24 pm GMT
Lazar, one thing that strikes me the most about that website is how dramatically Southern English is changing. I believe that mass migration and mass media are the catalysts.

Briefly put, a whole lot of General American influence is being felt; some of the expressions I used to hear are almost completely dying out, while other usages that I never heard have become commonplace.

I see that mary/merry/marry has become merged, while the cot/caught merger is spreading rapidly; those mergers used to be rare. Moreover, such usages as "you'uns", which was, even then, restricted to the hillbillies, have died out almost completely.

I'd recommend every Antimoon forum-user peruse that website for some fascinating data. If you're over 40, the changes in your local dialect will absorb you.
Jasper   Tue Feb 05, 2008 8:26 pm GMT
THis thread was about Chicago speech. I apologize for highjacking the thread...
Travis   Wed Feb 06, 2008 4:10 am GMT
>>Maybe my mentor Travis knows. <<

I really do not know enough about the specifics of individual Southern dialects, but it seems that the overall degree/likelihood of merger increases the further southwest one gets from approximately the area of Virginia, where I would guess one would have the least degree of merger here. Considering that the Appalachians actually pretty close to the far northeastern corner of the South, it would not be surprising that many people from the Appalachians would lack the complete Mary-merry-marry merger.
Jasper   Wed Feb 06, 2008 4:58 am GMT
Hillbilly speech pronounces (or, at least, DID pronounce) "marry" with a sound somewhere a short-a, as in "bat", and a long-a, as in "bar"; odd, huh?

This is in contrast to the middle class version, which speaks "marry" and "mary" with a short-a, and "merry" with a short-e, as in "bet"...

But NOW, as I see on Lazar's website, "mary/merry/marry" is heavily merged, at least in Tennessee....