- Hi, Erik Singer again, dialect coach.
I'm doing a map tour of North American accents.
If you missed part one, check it out here.
I'm starting part two from the South.
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Picking up where we left off,
we were talking about rhotic accents,
where the /r/ sound is always pronounced
in the Piney Woods Belt.
But down in the Southern part of Louisiana,
it is one of the few areas that's still
pretty reliably non-rhotic.
Even though many historically non-rhotic areas of the South
have gotten their r’s back, this one's hanging on.
This is also one of the places in the South,
the Appalachians, the Ozarks, are a few of the others,
some parts of Texas, where you still hear a /M/ sound.
Words like, which, what, where.
You also get [F] for final TH sounds here.
As in both, bath.
Something I think is really interesting is that
there used to be a non-rhotic pronunciation
of NURSE words in the South.
So, words like nurse, early, work,
used by Black and White Southerners alike.
That was a kind of a diphthong, early, nurse.
It's actually pretty similar to that old fashioned
New York City thirty third street vowel sound.
You can still hear it
in some African American speakers in Louisiana today.
Though it's mostly gone otherwise.
Before moving on let's circle back to Florida.
So, Megan can tell us
about the Cuban Spanish influence in Miami.
- Hello, again, this time I'm in Miami.
The Latinx population in the U.S.
is 18.5% of the population.
But within that, we're a very diverse group of people.
Before we get into Miami English,
I just wanna make it clear
that not every speaker of Miami English has Latinx.
Not every Latinx person in Miami speaks Miami English
and the same goes for New York Latino English
and the same will go for Chicano English
in the Southwest when we get there.
But we are not a monolith
and neither are the varieties that we speak.
And that's because these varieties are influenced
by different Spanishes.
So, just like the English speaking world
has different varieties, so does the Spanish speaking world.
There's so many different varieties of Spanish.
There's Mexican Spanish, there's Cuban Spanish
there's Puerto Rican Spanish, there's Dominican Spanish.
There's all these other Spanishes.
There are all these varieties
and they all have different features
and we just don't have time to get into that.
Miami English is influenced by Cuban Spanish.
Like take a look at this map.
Cuba is very close to Miami.
One remarkable feature of Miami English is the dark [ɫ].
If you recall from New York,
the dark ɫ is in words like pull and ball.
In Miami English you'll hear that dark ɫ
in places where you wouldn't hear in other varieties.
Listen to the L in this native speaker clip.
- That's what I love about our language, language, language,
and about Miami.
- Okay, back to Erik.
- Thank you Megan.
Okay, back to Louisiana.
So, there's a well-known New Orleans accent
that sounds similar to New York accents in some ways.
It's called YAT, which comes from the phrase "Where y'at?"
Which means how are you?
It's so similar to New York accents in some ways,
it's a bit of a mystery.
Even some really weird little things
like bad and back not having the same vowel sound.
I got a bad back.
New Orleans had a similar mix of immigration
to New York in the 19th century,
but also very close shipping ties to New York city.
So, contact is likely part of the explanation too.
Of course, we can't leave Louisiana
without talking about Cajun.
The Cajuns were a French speaking people.
Originally came down to Louisiana from Nova Scotia
and some still speak Cajun French,
but you can hear the influence French had
on Cajun accents in English and the rhythm and the melody,
the way it has a tendency to stress the final word
of a syllable in a phrase
and also in the way final consonant sounds
can get assimilated,
sort of shlooped up into the sound before them
so that hand could just be hae.
Rent could just be rent.
Hand me the rent there.
So, continuing west to Texas.
Now, one thing that sets a lot of Texans apart
from other Southerners
is that there's a lot less goose fronting.
So, the tongue stays further back
through that whole vowel sound instead of coming forwards.
So, if I go from say somewhere in the Carolinas
and head west and talk about blue moons and soup spoons.
I'll start off with very fronted goose vowels,
blue moons and soup spoons.
But they'll get less and less fronted
the further west I go.
Blue moons and soup spoons, blue moons, and soup spoons.
When I cross the Mississippi
I don't have very fronted goose vowels anymore,
but by the time I'm in Texas blue moons and soup spoons
it's not coming forward hardly at all now.
Now, one thing that separates
the Eastern part of the state from the Western part
is how far the price smoothing goes.
Remember when we talked about
how Piney Woods Belt accents have full on price smoothing.
So, it affects ride and right, live and life.
We'll see that kind of full on version
in Western and Central Texas.
All those words are smoothed out just like that.
But in the Eastern part,
it's only on words like high, ride and live.
Words like right and life will have a diphthong.
Why is it this way?
Well, again, because of the history of settlement patterns.
The white people who settled in the Western part,
in great plains part of Texas,
the Western and Central parts mostly came from Tennessee
and the Appalachians.
Full price smoothened areas.
As we hit up into Oklahoma
I'm gonna turn it over to Kalina Newmark again.
- Hello again, Oklahoma is a home
to nearly 40 Native American nations
including the Cherokee and the Comanche.
Before jumping into the local Native American
dialect features here in Oklahoma,
I'm going to share a little bit
about the history of Native American English.
Native American English is also known as a Rez Accent,
a Reservation Accent.
It occurs in First Nations and Native American communities
across the United States and Canada,
regardless of whether or not a Heritage Language is spoken.
Native American English is often identifiable
because of its prosody.
Sometimes it's described as monotone,
other times it's described as sing-songy.
Within Oklahoma community members
describe native American English both ways.
And that makes sense.
There are different varieties within the state.
In Western Oklahoma,
the Anadarko accent has been described as monotone.
Contrast that with Cherokee English in Eastern Oklahoma
which is more sing-songy.
- [Dennis] Sometimes we can forget
where we come from you know it.
- With that let's go back to Erik on the map tour.
- Thank you Kalina.
Quick stop in the Ozarks where we can hear some accents
that are real close to Southern Appalachian accents.
Little bit different goat vowels and some others,
but real close in a lot of ways
which is because again of settlement patterns.
The original European settlers of the Ozarks,
came from Southern Appalachia
and we hear some of those same constructions
like a goin' and a huntin'
as well as a lot of shared specific dialect words.
Now, up in Chicago
and in fact, in the whole Great Lakes area,
we have one of the most significant ongoing changes
happening anywhere in English speaking world today.
It's called the Northern cities shift
or the Northern cities vowel shift.
And it may be the biggest change in English pronunciation
anywhere since the great vowel shift
right up to and through Shakespeare's time.
Now, it's a change shift
which is kind of a merry-go-round of changes.
Here's how it goes.
So, in most accents of English,
the vowel sound in words like a cat, bag,
what we call the trap vowel is something like [Ae], right?
We make it with the tongue cupped down low
and towards the front of the mouth like this.
[Ae], okay, ready for this?
Here's the first move in the Northern cities change shift.
This value unit moves up in this direction.
So, it's pronounced with a little bit tenser tongue
and sounds like cat, bag up here.
Put the cat in the bag.
Now, that leaves an open space
in terms of available vowel real estate
where that trap vowel used to be.
Now, it turns out that vowel sounds
like they space themselves out in our mouths.
They uphold a vowel vacuum, if you will.
And so, what happens is that the lot vowel
which normally lives back here
your tongue cupping low down
in the back for an open [a] sound
moves forwards towards where trap used to be.
So, in Chicago it's not a hot pot, it's a hot pot.
Now, those are just the first two moves in the change shift.
The thing about a change shift
is each move makes the next one happen.
So, trap moving up higher
pushes the dress vowel back in the mouth.
So, words like bed, next sound like bed, next.
And then the vowel sound that was back there
to begin with the [A] sound in strut, bus, lucky
has to move back further.
Bus, lucky, so, now, cot sounds like cat,
bat sounds like bet,
bet sounds like but and but sounds like bought.
Pretty dramatic shift.
At this whole area around the Great Lakes
is affected by the Northern cities shift.
Though not every part of it has it to the same extent.
Besides Chicago is strongest than the Syracuse, Rochester,
Buffalo and Detroit.
Let's head over to St. Louis.
Here's Nicole.
- There's a feature in African American English
in places like St. Louis and Memphis
called the near/square/nurse merger
or I centralization.
If you know the song by the rapper Nelly, "Hot in Herre,"
you have seen an example of this.
It is hurr for here or r centralization
and you can also hear it in this clip.
- Bro, I told you I need to get my hair done,
hair done, hair done.
- Okay, let's go back to Erik.
- Thank you, Nicole.
Can we talk about Minnesota for a minute?
You know, people from Minnesota often complain
about overbroad stereotypical Minnesota accents
just going too far.
Two really identifiable features of that
are monophthongal [e] and [o] in your face and goat vowels.
But you know, there are definitely places
in Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, and yep,
Fargo, North Dakota where you can still hear
some pretty pronounced accents
with some really monophthongal [e] and [o[ vowels.
Now, but even in much less pronounced accents
from this region, there will still be a bit of that.
You'll also still get this fairly closed oral posture.
So, there's a contrast between lips that are pretty mobile
and move around a lot
and a jaw that stays pretty fixed in place.
Now, let's stop over in the Dakotas
and I'll hand it off to Kalina.
- Hi, again, from the traditional homelands of the Lakota,
Dakota and Nakota peoples.
Continuing on our conversation
of Native American English,
I'm going to talk about two shared features.
One, timing and rhythm and two intonation and pitch.
In regards to timing and rhythm,
Native American English is syllable timed
where syllables are more uniform and even in length.
You can hear that feature in this clip.
- [Reg] You see a piece of trash, you pick it up.
- For the second feature, intonation and pitch,
the stress syllable starts lower rather than higher.
- [Reg] And I would watch them.
- In this clip, from the movie "Smoke Signals,"
this actor is speaking in a Native American English accent.
You can hear that on Thomas here.
- [Actor] Hey Thomas.
- There are several theories
of where this dialect came from.
One theory is that it developed
because of Native American boarding schools.
Established in the late 19th and mid 20th century,
Native American boarding schools were designed
to assimilate Native American children into white society.
They did this by forcibly removing Native American children
from their families and communities
and forbidding them from speaking their languages.
At the time of European contact in North America
there were approximately 300 distinct Indigenous Languages.
Since then 113 of these languages have been lost
and many more are in danger
as fewer and fewer Native American children
are learning our languages.
Despite all of this
we have created a dialect of English that is uniquely ours.
A dialect that helps us to create
and recreate our identities as Native American people.
Let's go back to Erik for the next stop on the map tour.
- Thank you Kalina.
Quick detour to Iowa.
So, remember that on line that runs through New Jersey
where above it most people say on rhymes with dawn
and south of it most people say on rhymes with don
and it runs right along a really major dialect boundary
between the North linguistically speaking and the Midlands.
And it runs through all of these states
and through Iowa too.
Now, people don't necessarily think of Iowa
having a lot of dialect variety,
but here's a major division right here.
So, Sioux City and Cedar Rapids are above the on line.
So, most people in those places say on
and the Des Moines below it.
So, most people there will say on.
Alright, so, heading west now over towards the Rockies,
one of the things that we start to hear in the Mountain West
generally is -ing endings pronounced as 'een.'
So, playing, going, singing.
The whole Western part of the country.
So, these 11 states is usually considered
one big dialect area.
Now, that's not to say that there aren't any differences.
Of course there are, but broadly speaking
it's one area with a lot of common features.
There just hasn't been enough time
for really distinctive features to develop over here.
Here's something interesting in some Utah accents though.
Some front vowels get lowered before /l/ sounds.
So, we get milk, for instance.
The word sale might sound like sell.
Is this milk on sale?
You'll also hear mountain and button.
Mountain and button a lot in Utah
especially among younger speakers
with just a pure glottal stop [ʔ]
for that /t/ sound in the middle of the word.
It's not the only place in the U.S. that does that.
Not at all, but apart from some California speakers
it seems to be the only place in the West
where you hear those pronunciations.
We're gonna end this segment here.
Please join us for part three
where we'll pick up in sunny Southern California.
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