North American English regional phonology

Western

The Western dialect, including Californian and New Mexican sub-types (with Pacific Northwest English also, arguably, a sub-type), is defined by:

• Cot–caught merger to [ɑ] ^ⓘ
• GOAT is [oʊ]
• GOOSE is [ü~ʉ]

North Central

The North Central ("Upper Midwest") dialect, including an Upper Michigan sub-type, is defined by:

• Cot–caught merger to [ɑ̈] ^ⓘ[16]
• GOAT is [oʊ] (and may even monophthongize to [o])^[16]
• GOOSE is [u]^[16]

Inland Northern

The Inland Northern ("Great Lakes") dialect is defined by:

• No cot–caught merger: the cot vowel is [ɑ̈~a] and caught vowel is [ɒ]
• /æ/ is universally [ɛə], the triggering event for the
  Northern Cities Vowel Shift in more advanced sub-types ([ɛə] ← /æ/ ← /ɑ/ ← /ɔ/ ← /ʌ/ ← /ɛ/)^[8]
• GOAT is [oʊ~ʌo]

Midland

The Midland dialect is defined by:

• Cot–caught merger is in transition^[17]
• /aɪ/ may be [a], often only before /l/, /m/, /n/, or /ɹ/
• /aʊ/ is [æɵ~æo]^[18]
• /oʊ/ is [əʊ~ɵʊ]

WPA

The Western Pennsylvania dialect, including its advanced Pittsburgh sub-type, is defined by:

• Cot–caught merger to [ɒ~ɔ], the triggering event for the Pittsburgh Chain Shift in the city itself ([ɒ~ɔ] ← /ɑ/ ← /ʌ/) but no trace of the Canadian Shift^[19]
• /oʊ/ is [əʊ~ɞʊ]^[20]
• Full–fool–foal merger
  to [ʊl~ʊw]
• Specifically in Greater Pittsburgh, /aʊ/ is [aʊ~a], particularly before /l/ and /r/, and in unstressed function words^[14]

Southern

The Southern dialects, including several sub-types, are defined by:

• Variable rhoticity (parts of Louisiana are still non-rhotic, even among younger people )
• No cot–caught merger: the cot vowel is [ɑ] and caught vowel is [ɑɒ]
• /aɪ/ is [a] at least before /b/, /d/, /ɡ/, /v/, or /z/, or word-finally, and potentially elsewhere, the triggering event for the Southern Shift ([a] ← /aɪ/ ← /eɪ/ ← /i/)
• "Southern drawl" may break short
  gliding vowels: /æ/ → [ɛ(j)ə]; /ɛ/ → [ɪ(j)ə]; /ɪ/ → [i(j)ə]^[21]
• MOUTH is [æo], the triggering event for the Back Upglide Shift in more advanced sub-types ([æo] ← /aʊ/ ← /ɔ/ ← /ɔɪ/)[13]
• GOAT is [əʉ~əʊ]

Mid-Atlantic

The Mid-Atlantic ("Delaware Valley") dialect, including Philadelphia and Baltimore sub-types, is defined by:

• No cot–caught merger: the cot vowel is [ɑ̈~ɑ] and caught vowel is [ɔə~ʊə]; this severe distinction is the triggering event for the Back Vowel Shift before /r/ (ʊr ← /ɔ(r)/ ← /ɑr/)^[22][23]
• Unique Mid-Atlantic /æ/ split system: the bad vowel is [eə] and sad vowel is [æ]
• GOAT is [əʊ]
• MOUTH is [ɛɔ]^[18]
• No
  Mary–marry–merry merger

NYC

The New York City dialect (with New Orleans English an intermediate sub-type between NYC and Southern) is defined by:

• No cot–caught merger: the cot vowel is [ɑ̈~ɑ] and caught vowel is [ɔə~ʊə]; this severe distinction is the triggering event for the Back Vowel Shift before /r/ (/ʊə/ ← /ɔ(r)/ ← /ɑr/)^[22]
• Non-rhoticity or variable rhoticity
• Unique New York City /æ/ split system: the bad vowel is [eə] and bat vowel is [æ]
• GOAT is [oʊ~ʌʊ]
• No Mary–marry–merry merger
• father–bother
  not necessarily merged

ENE

Eastern New England dialect, including Maine and Boston sub-types (with Rhode Island English an intermediate sub-type between ENE and NYC), is defined by:

• Cot–caught merger to [ɒ~ɑ] (lacking only in Rhode Island)
• Non-rhoticity or variable rhoticity^[16][24]
• MOUTH is [ɑʊ~äʊ]^[25]
• GOAT is [oʊ~ɔʊ]
• GOOSE is [u]
• Commonly, the starting points of /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ in a
  voiceless consonants
  : [əɪ~ʌɪ] and [əʊ~ʌʊ], respectively
• Possibly no Mary–marry–merry merger
• No
  father–bother merger (except in Rhode Island): the father vowel is [a~ɑ̈] and bother vowel is [ɒ~ɑ]^[26]

STANDARD CANADIAN

Pacific Northwest

Aboriginal Canadian

Quebec

Ottawa
Valley

ATLANTIC CANADIAN

Lunenburg

Newfoundland

The major regional dialects of Canadian English (each designated in all capital letters), as demarcated primarily by Labov et al.'s The Atlas of North American English,^[15] as well as the related Telsur Project's regional maps.

All regional Canadian English dialects, unless specifically stated otherwise, are

Standard Canadian

The Standard Canadian dialect, including its most advanced Inland Canadian sub-type and others, is defined by:

• Cot–caught merger to [ɒ], the triggering event for the Canadian Shift in more advanced sub-types ([ɒ] ← /ɑ/ ← /æ/ ← /ɛ/)^[20]
• /æ/ is raised to [ɛ] or even [e(ɪ)] when before /ɡ/^[10]
• Especially in Inland Canadian, beginnings of /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ in a
  voiceless consonants: [əɪ~ʌɪ] and [əʊ~ʌʊ], respectively;^[27] /aʊ/ is otherwise [äʊ~ɑʊ]; and /eɪ/ approaches [e]^[28]
• START is [ɑɹ~ʌɹ][29]
• GOAT is [oʊ]
• GOOSE is [ʉu], except before /l/ where it is [u].^[30]

Atlantic Canadian

The Atlantic Canadian ("Maritimer") dialect, including Cape Breton, Lunenburg, and Newfoundland sub-types, is defined by:

• Cot–caught merger to [ɑ̈], but with no trace of the
  Canadian Shift^[27][31]
• START is [ɐɹ~əɹ][31]
• GOAT is [oʊ]

Chart of regional accents

Alternative classifications

Combining information from the phonetic research through interviews of Labov et al. in the ANAE (2006) and the phonological research through surveys of Vaux (2004), Hedges (2017) performed a

The defining particular pronunciations of particular words that have more than an 86% likelihood of occurring in a particular cluster are: pajamas with either the phoneme /æ/ or the phoneme /ɑ/; coupon with either /ju/ or /u/; Monday with either /eɪ/ or /i/; Florida with either /ɔ/ or other possibilities (such as /ɑ/); caramel with either two or three syllables; handkerchief with either /ɪ/ or /i/; lawyer as either /ˈlɔɪ.ər/ or /ˈlɔ.jər/; poem with either one or two syllables; route with either /u/ or /aʊ/; mayonnaise with either two or three syllables; and been with either /ɪ/ or other possibilities (such as /ɛ/). The parenthetical words indicate that the likelihood of their pronunciation occurs overwhelmingly in a particular region (well over 50% likelihood) but does not meet the >86% threshold set by Hedges (2017) for what necessarily defines one of the six regional accents. Blank boxes in the chart indicate regions where neither pronunciation variant particularly dominates over the other; in some of these instances, the data simply may be inconclusive or unclear.[33]

★ Hedges (2017) acknowledges that the two pronunciations marked by this star are discrepancies of her latent class analysis, since they conflict with Vaux (2004)'s surveys. Conversely, the surveys show that /æ/ is the much more common vowel for pajamas in the West, and /ɔɪ/ and /ɔj/ are in fact both common variants for lawyer in the Midland.

General American

General American is an umbrella accent of American English perceived by many Americans to be "neutral" and free of regional characteristics. A General American accent is not a specific well-defined

The English dialect region encompassing the

Atlantic Canada

The accents of

Inland Canada

All of Canada, except the Atlantic Provinces and French-speaking Québec, speaks Standard Canadian English: the relatively uniform variety of North American English native to inland and western Canada. The vowel [ɛ] is raised and diphthongized to [ɛɪ] or [eɪ] and [æ] as [eɪ] all before /ɡ/ and /ŋ/, merging words like leg and lag [leɪɡ]; tang is pronounced [teɪŋ].

The

The English of the Pacific Northwest, a region extending from British Columbia south into the Northwestern United States (particularly Washington and Oregon), is closely linguistically related to that of Inland Canada and that of California.

Like in Inland Canada, before /g/, /ɛ/ and /æ/ are raised, and /eɪ/ is lowered, sometimes leading to three-way merger. Canadian raising of /aɪ/ exists throughout the region, but the raising of /aʊ/ is more restricted to Canadian part.^[38] The Canadian shift was observed in Vancouver independently of the shift further east,^[39] and has now spread throughout the region. ^[40] In Oregon, a split in /oʊ/ occurs where it fronts except before /l/ and nasals, similar to California.^[41]

California

California, the most populated U.S. state, has been documented as having some notable new subsets of Western U.S. English. Some youthful urban Californians possess a vowel shift partly identical to the

As in Eastern New England, the accents of New York City, Long Island, and adjoining New Jersey cities are traditionally non-rhotic, while other greater New York area varieties falling under the same sweeping dialect are usually rhotic or variably rhotic. Metropolitan New York shows the back GOAT and GOOSE vowels of the North, but a fronted MOUTH vowel. The vowels of cot [kɑ̈t] and caught [kɔət] are distinct; in fact the New York dialect has perhaps the highest realizations of /ɔ/ in North American English, even approaching [oə] or [ʊə]. Furthermore, the father vowel is traditionally kept distinct from either vowel, resulting in a three "lot-palm-father distinction".^[5]

The r-colored vowel of cart is back and often rounded [kɒt], and not fronted as it famously is in Boston. New York City and its surrounding areas are also known for a complicated^[

.

Northern and North-Central United States

One vast super-dialectal area commonly identified by linguists is "the North", usually meaning New England, inland areas of the

voiceless consonants

occurs is common in the North, and is becoming more common elsewhere in North America.

North

Main article: Northern American English

The traditional and linguistically conservative North (as defined by the Atlas of North American English) includes /ɑ/ being often raised or fronted before /r/, or both, as well as a firm resistance to the cot-caught merger (though possibly weakening in dialects reversing the fronting of /ɑ/^[6]). Maintaining these two features, but also developing several new ones, a younger accent of the North is now predominating at its center, around the Great Lakes and away from the Atlantic coast: the Inland North.

Inland North

Main article: Inland Northern American English

The Inland North is a dialect region once considered the home of "standard Midwestern" speech that was the basis for

pin–pen merger

).

New England

New England does not form a single unified dialect region, but rather houses as few as four native varieties of English, with some linguists identifying even more. Only Southwestern New England (Connecticut and western Massachusetts) neatly fits under the aforementioned definition of "the North". Otherwise, speakers, namely of Eastern New England, show very unusual other qualities. All of New England has a

nasal short-a system

, meaning that the short-a vowel most strongly raises before nasal consonants, as in much of the rest of the country.

Northeastern New England

Main article: Eastern New England English

Further information: Boston accent and Maine accent

The local and historical dialect of the coastal portions of New England, sometimes called

nasal consonants

. /ɑ/ fronting is usual before /r/.

Rhode Island

Rhode Island, dialectally identified as "Southeastern New England", is sometimes grouped with the Eastern New England dialect region, both by the dialectologists of the mid–20th century and in certain situations by the Atlas of North American English; it shares Eastern New England's traditional non-rhoticity (or "R Dropping"). A key linguistic difference between Rhode Island and the rest of the Eastern New England, however, is that Rhode Island is subject to the father–bother merger and yet neither the cot–caught merger nor /ɑ/ fronting before /r/. Indeed, Rhode Island shares with New York and Philadelphia an unusually high and back allophone of /ɔ/ (as in caught), even compared to other communities that do not have the cot–caught merger. In the Atlas of North American English, the city of Providence (the only Rhode Island community sampled by the Atlas) is also distinguished by having the backest realizations of /u/, /oʊ/, and /aʊ/ in North America. Therefore, Rhode Island English aligns in some features more with Boston English and other features more with New York City English.

Western New England

Recognized by research since the 1940s is the linguistic boundary between Eastern and Western New England, the latter settled from the

father–bother merger

of the rest of the nation. Southwestern New England merely forms a "less strong" extension of the Inland North dialect region, and it centers on Connecticut and western Massachusetts. It shows the same general phonological system as the Inland North, including variable elements of Northern Cities Vowel Shift (NCS)—for instance, an /æ/ that is somewhat higher and tenser than average, an /ɑ/ that is fronter than /ʌ/, and so on. The cot–caught merger is approximated in western Massachusetts but usually still resisted in Connecticut. The "tail" of Connecticut may have some character diffused from New York City English.

North Central

Main article: North-Central American English

The North Central or Upper Midwest dialect region of the United States extends from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan westward across northern Minnesota and North Dakota into the middle of Montana.^{[citation needed]} Although the Atlas of North American English does not include the North Central region as part of the North proper, it shares all of the features listed above as properties of the North as a whole. The North Central is a linguistically conservative region; it participates in few of the major ongoing sound changes of North American English. Its /oʊ/ (GOAT) and /eɪ/ (FACE) vowels are frequently even monophthongs: [o] and [e], respectively. The movie Fargo, which takes place in the North Central region, famously features strong versions of this accent.^[44] Unlike most of the rest of the North, the cot–caught merger is prevalent in the North Central region. Like in Canada, /æ/ TRAP is raised before /g/. In addition, some speakers will show NCS features, like /æ/ TRAP raising towards [ɛə] and /ɑ/ LOT fronting towards [ä].

Southeastern United States

The 2006

Atlas of North American English identifies a "Southeastern super-region", in which all accents of the Southern States, as well as accents all along their regional margins, constitute a vast area of recent linguistic unity in certain respects:^[46]

namely, the movement of four vowel sounds (those in the words GOOSE, STRUT, GOAT, and MOUTH) towards the center or front of the mouth, all of which is notably different from the accents of the Northern United States.

Essentially all of the modern-day Southern dialects, plus dialects marginal to the South (some even in geographically and culturally "Northern" states), are thus considered a subset of this super-region:

southern Ohio.^[47]

These are the minimal necessary features that identify a speaker from the Southeastern super-region:

• Fronting of /aʊ/ and /oʊ/: The
  syllable break between two vowels (as in going or poet), in which /oʊ/ remains back in the mouth as [ɔu~ɒu].^[49]
• Lacking or transitioning cot–caught merger: The historical distinction between the two vowels sounds /ɔ/ and /ɒ/, in words like caught and cot or stalk and stock is mainly preserved.[46] In much of the South during the 1900s, there was a trend to lower the vowel found in words like stalk and caught, often with an upglide, so that the most common result today is the gliding vowel [ɑɒ]. However, the cot–caught merger is becoming increasingly common throughout the United States, thus affecting Southeastern (even some Southern) dialects, towards a merged vowel [ɑ].^[50] In the South, this merger, or a transition towards this merger, is especially documented in central, northern, and (particularly) western Texas.^[51]

south-central states settled during the Dust Bowl. There is also debate as to whether or not Austin, Texas is an exclusion. Based on Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006

:68).

• Yat dialect of New Orleans or the anomalous dialect of Savannah, Georgia. The pin–pen merger has also spread beyond the South in recent decades and is now found in isolated parts of the West and the southern Midwest
  as well.
• vernacular dialect continues to be mostly non-rhotic as well as most of southern Louisiana, where non-rhotic accents still dominate.^[53] The sound quality of the Southeastern r is the distinctive "bunch-tongued r", produced by strongly constricting the root and/or midsection of the tongue.^[54]

Midland

Main article: Midland American English

A band of the United States from Pennsylvania west to the

continuous" distribution: /æ/ is raised and tensed toward [eə] before nasal consonants

, as in much of the country.

Midland outside the Midland

Atlanta, Georgia has been characterized by a massive movement of non-Southerners into the area during the 1990s, leading the city to becoming hugely mixed in terms of dialect.

pin–pen merger

is variable.

Charleston, South Carolina is an area where, today, most speakers have clearly conformed to a Midland regional accent, rather than any Southern accent. Charleston was once home to its own very locally-unique accent that encompassed elements of older British English while resisting Southern regional accent trends, perhaps with additional linguistic influence from

Sephardi Jews, and, due to Charleston's high concentration of African-Americans that spoke the Gullah language, Gullah African Americans. The most distinguishing feature of this now-dying accent is the way speakers pronounce the name of the city, to which a standard listener would hear "Chahlston", with a silent "r". Unlike Southern regional accents, Charlestonian speakers have never exhibited inglide long mid vowels, such as those found in typical Southern /aɪ/ and /aʊ/.^{[citation needed}

]

Central and South Florida show no evidence of any type of /aɪ/ glide deletion, Central Florida shows a pin–pen merger, and South Florida does not. Otherwise, Central and South Florida easily fit under the definition of the Midland dialect, including the cot-caught merger being transitional. In

rhotic. It also incorporates a rhythm and pronunciation heavily influenced by Spanish (wherein rhythm is syllable-timed).^[57]

Mid-Atlantic States

Main article:

Transatlantic accent

.

The cities of the

cot-caught merger (a raising and diphthongizing of the "caught" vowel), and a maintained distinction between historical short o and long o before intervocalic /r/, so that, for example, orange, Florida, and horrible have a different stressed vowel than story and chorus; all of these features are shared between Mid-Atlantic American and New York City English. Other features include that water is sometimes pronounced [ˈwʊɾɚ], that is, with the vowel of wood; the single word on is pronounced /ɔn/ not /ɑn/, so that, as in the South and Midland (and unlike New York and the North) it rhymes with dawn rather than don; the /oʊ/ of goat and boat is fronted, so it is pronounced [əʊ], as in the advanced accents of the Midland and South. Canadian raising

occurs for /aɪ/ (price) but not for /aʊ/ (mouth).

According to linguist Barbara Johnstone, migration patterns and geography affected the Philadelphia dialect's development, which was especially influenced by immigrants from Northern England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.^[59]

South

Main article: Southern American English

The Southern United States is often dialectally identified as "The South," as in ANAE. There is still great variation between sub-regions in the South (see

mid front unrounded vowel. In a parallel shift, the /i/ and /eɪ/ relax and become less front; the back vowels /u/ in boon and /oʊ/ in code shift considerably forward to [ʉ] and [ɞ], respectively; and, the open back unrounded vowel /ɑ/ in card shifts upward towards [ɔ] as in board, which in turn moves up towards the old location of /u/ in boon. This particular shift probably does not occur for speakers with the cot–caught merger. The lowering movement of the Southern Vowel Shift is also accompanied by a raising and "drawling" movement of vowels. The term Southern drawl has been used to refer to the diphthongization/triphthongization of the traditional short front vowels, as in the words pat, pet, and pit. these develop a glide up from their original starting position to [j], and then in some cases back down to schwa

; thus: /æ/ → [æjə], /ɛ/ → [ɛjə], and /ɪ/ → [ɪjə].

Inland South and Texas South

Main article: Texan English

See also: Appalachian English

The ANAE identifies two important, especially advanced subsets of the South in terms of their leading the Southern Vowel Shift (detailed above): the "Inland South" located in the southern half of Appalachia and the "Texas South," which only covers the north-central region of Texas (Dallas), Odessa, and Lubbock, but not Abilene, El Paso, or southern Texas (which have accents more like the Midland region). One Texan distinction from the rest of the South is that all Texan accents have been reported as showing a pure, non-gliding /ɔ/ vowel,^[51] and the identified "Texas South" accent, specifically, is at a transitional stage of the cot-caught merger; the "Inland South" accent of Appalachia, however, firmly resists the merger. Pronunciations of the Southern dialect in Texas may also show notable influence derived from an early Spanish-speaking population or from German immigrants.

Marginal Southeast

The following Southeastern super-regional locations fit cleanly into none of the aforementioned subsets of the Southeast, and may even be marginal-at-best members of the super-region itself:

Chesapeake and the Outer Banks (North Carolina) islands are enclaves of a traditional "

happy tensing.^{[citation needed}

]

New Orleans, Louisiana has been home to a type of accent with parallels to the New York City accent reported for over a century.^[

St. Bernard Parish, just east of New Orleans.^{[citation needed]} The novel A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole often employs the Yat accent. ^{[citation needed}

]

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, according to the ANAE's research, is not quite a member of the Midland dialect region.[60] Rather, its features seem to be a blend of the Western and Midland dialects. The overview of ANAE's studied features for Oklahoma City speakers include a conservative /aɪ/, conservative /oʊ/, transitional cot-caught merger, and variable pin–pen merger.

Savannah, Georgia once had a local accent that is now "giving way to regional patterns" of the Midland.^[60] According to the ANAE, there is much transition in Savannah, and the following features are reported as inconsistent or highly variable in the city: the Southern phenomenon of /aɪ/ being monophthongized, non-rhoticity, /oʊ/ fronting, the cot–caught merger, the pin–pen merger, and conservative /aʊ/ (which is otherwise rarely if ever reported in either the South or the Midland).

St. Louis, Missouri is historically one among several (North) Midland cities, but it is largely considered by ANAE to classify under blends of

card-cord merger, so that "I-44" is pronounced like "I farty-four".^[61] St. Louis resists the cot–caught merger and middle-aged speakers show the most advanced stages of the NCS,^[51]

while maintaining many of the other Midland features.

Western Pennsylvania

Main article: Western Pennsylvania English

The dialect of the

low

allophone of /ʌ/ (as in cut); it approaches [ɑ] (/ɑ/ itself having moved out of the way and become a rounded vowel in its merger with /ɔ/).

See also

• Accent (sociolinguistics)
• American English
• American English regional vocabulary
• Boontling
• California English
• Canadian English
• Chicano English
• English in New Mexico
• Hawaiian Pidgin
• Pacific Northwest English

References

Notes

1. father–bother merger is the pronunciation of /ɒ/ (as in cot, lot, bother, etc.) the same as /ɑ/ (as in spa, haha, Ma), causing words like con and Kahn and like sob and Saab to sound identical, with the vowel usually realized in the back or middle of the mouth as [ɑ~ɑ̈]. Finally, most of the U.S. participates in a continuous nasal system of the "short a" vowel (in cat, trap, bath, etc.), causing /æ/ to be pronounced with the tongue raised and with a glide quality (typically sounding like [ɛə]) particularly when before a nasal consonant
   ; thus, mad is [mæd], but man is more like [mɛən].
2. ^ The only notable exceptions of the South being a subset of the "Southeastern super-region" are two Southern metropolitan areas, described as such because they participate in Stage 1 of the Southern Vowel Shift, but lack the other defining Southeastern features: Savannah, Georgia and Amarillo, Texas.

Citations