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Dialects of English
Dialects of English
Dr. C. George Boeree
English is actually an unusual language. Already a blend of
early
Frisian and Saxon, it absorbed Danish and Norman French, and later
added many Latin and Greek technical terms. In the US, Canada,
Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and elsewhere, it
absorbed terms for indigenous plants, animals, foodstuffs, clothing,
housing, and other items from native and immigrant languages.
Plus, the various dialects, from Cockney to Jamaican, and
innumerable
sources of slang, from Polari to hip hop, continue to add novel
terms
and expressions to the mix. It is no surprise to hear from
people
learning English what a student once told me: English just has
too many words!
Pronunciation (for our purposes):
i: as in beet
i as in bit
ei as in bait
e as in bet
æ as in bat
a: as in father
å as in pot (RP)
o as in paw
ou as in coat
u as in cook
u: as in kook
œ as in but
' as in ago
yu: as in cute
ai as in kite
oi as in coy
au as in cow
c as in church
j as in judge
th as in thin
dh as in then
sh as in shush
zh as in azure
ng as in ring
hw as in whale
hy as in huge
ü as in German
ö as in French
kh as in Scottish loch (lokh)
gh as in Dutch
ñ as in Spanish
? as t in Cockney bottle (bo?'l)
British English
Map from Pictures of England (http://www.picturesofengland.com)
Southern
Southern English engages in r-dropping, that is, r's are not
pronounced after vowels, unless
followed by another vowel. Instead, vowels are lengthened
or have
an /'/ off-glide, so fire becomes /fai'/, far becomes /fa:/, and
so on.
regular use of "broad a" (/a:/), where GA (General
American)
would
use /æ/.
"long o" is pronounced /'u/, where GA uses /ou/.
final unstressed i is pronounced /i/, where GA uses /i:).
t between vowels retained as /t/ (or a glottal stop, in
its
variants), where GA changes it to /d/.
The English of well-bred Londoners, especially graduates of the
public
schools (e.g. Eton and Harrow) and "Oxbridge" universities, was
the
origin of "the Queen's
English," also known as Received Pronunciation (RP),
BBC, or "posh."
Cockney
Originally the dialect of the working class of East End
London.
initial h is dropped, so house becomes /aus/ (or even
/a:s/).
/th/ and /dh/ become /f/ and /v/ respectively: think
>
/fingk/, brother > /brœv'/.
t between vowels becomes a glottal stop: water >
/wo?'/.
diphthongs change, sometimes dramatically: time >
/toim/,
brave > /braiv/, etc.
Besides the accent, it includes a large number of slang words,
including the famous rhyming slang:
have a butchers -- take a look [from butcher's hook =
look]
north and south -- mouth
plates -- feet [from plates of meat = feet]
boat race -- face
skin and blister -- sister
trouble -- wife [from trouble and strife = wife]
dustbin lids -- kids / children
whistle -- suit [from whistle and flute = suit]
oily rag -- fag = cigarette
jam jar -- car
mince pies -- eyes
pen and ink -- stink
porkies -- lies [from pork pies = lies]
titfer -- hat [from tit for tat = hat]
apples and pears -- stairs
Jimmy -- urinate [from Jimmy Riddle = piddle]
Bertie Woofter -- gay man [from Bertie Woofter =
poofter]
China -- mate / friend [from China plate =
mate]
Khyber -- buttocks [from Khyber Pass = ass]
rabbit and pork -- talk
tea leaf -- thief
taters -- cold [from potato mold = cold]
dog and bone -- phone
loaf -- head [from loaf of bread =
head]
brown bread -- dead
elbows and knees -- trees
gold watch -- Scotch
pride and joy -- boy
current bun -- Sun
dicky -- shirt [from dicky dirt = shirt]
pots and pans -- hands
jugs -- ears [from jugs of beers = ears]
ones and twos -- shoes
daisies -- boots [from daisy roots = boots]
bird -- prison [from bird lime = time, as in doing
time]
(from Kryss Katsiavriades at
http://www.krysstal.com/cockney.html)
Estuary English
From London down the Thames and into Essex, Sussex, and even
Kent, a
new working and middle class dialect has evolved and is
rapidly become
"the" southern dialect. It combines
some of the characteristics of Cockney with RP, but makes much
less use
of Cockney slang.
East Anglian
This dialect is very similar to the Southern:
t between vowels usually becomes a glottal stop.
/ai/ becomes /oi/: time > /toim/.
RP yu becomes u: after n, t, d... as in American English.
East Midlands
The dialect of the East Midlands, once filled with interesting
variations from county to county, is now predominantly RP.
R's
are dropped, but h's are pronounced. The only signs that
differentiate it from RP:
ou > u: (so go becomes /gu:/).
RP yu; becomes u: after n, t, d... as in American
English.
The West Country
r's are not dropped.
initial s often becomes z (singer > zinger).
initial f often becomes v (finger > vinger).
vowels are lengthened.
West Midlands
This is the dialect of Ozzie Osbourne! While
pronunciation is
not
that different from RP, some of the vocabulary is:
are > am
am, are (with a continuous sense) > bin
is not > ay
are not > bay
Brummie is the version of West Midlands
spoken in
Birmingham.
Lancashire
This dialect, spoken north and east of Liverpool, has the
southern
habit of dropping r's. Other features:
/œ/ > /u/, as in luck (/luk/).
/ou/ > /oi/, as in hole (/hoil/)
Scouse is the very distinctive Liverpool
accent, a
version of the
Lancashire dialect, that
the Beatles made famous.
the tongue is drawn back.
/th/ and /dh/ > /t/ and /d/ respectively.
final k sounds like the Arabic q.
for is pronounced to rhyme with fur.
Yorkshire
The Yorkshire dialect is known for its sing-song quality, a
little like
Swedish, and retains its r's.
/œ/ > /u/, as in luck (/luk/).
the is reduced to t'.
initial h is dropped.
was > were.
still use thou (pronounced /tha/) and thee.
aught and naught (pronounced /aut/ or /out/ and /naut/ or
/nout/)
are used for anything and nothing.
Northern
The Northern dialect closely resembles the southern-most
Scottish
dialects. It retains many old Scandinavian words, such as
bairn
for child, and not only keeps its r's, but often rolls
them. The
most outstanding version is Geordie, the
dialect
of the Newcastle area.
-er > /æ/, so father > /fædhæ/.
/ou/ > /o:'/, so that boat sounds like each letter is
pronounced.
talk > /ta:k/
work > /work/
book > /bu:k/
my > me
me > us
our > wor
you plural > youse
Wales
Welsh English is characterized by a sing-song quality and
lightly
rolled r's. It has been strongly influenced by the Welsh
language, although it is increasingly influenced today by
standard
English, due to the large number of English people vacationing
and
retiring there.
Scotland
Scotland actually has more variation in dialects than
England!
The variations do have a few things in common, though, besides a
large
particularly Scottish vocabulary:
rolled r's.
"pure" vowels (/e:/ rather than /ei/, /o:/ rather than
/ou/)
/u:/ is often fronted to /ö/ or /ü/, e.g. boot, good,
muin (moon), poor...
There are several "layers" of Scottish English. Most
people today
speak standard English with little more than the changes just
mentioned, plus a few particular words that they themselves view
as
normal English, such as to jag (to prick) and burn
(brook). In
rural areas, many older words and grammatical forms, as well as
further
phonetic variations, still survive, but are being rapidly
replaced with
more standard forms. But when a Scotsman (or woman) wants
to show
his pride
in his heritage, he may resort to quite a few traditional
variations in his speech. First, the phonetics:
/oi/, /ai/, and final /ei/ > /'i/, e.g. oil, wife,
tide...
final /ai/ > /i/, e.g. ee (eye), dee (die), lee
(lie)...
/ou/ > /ei/, e.g. ake (oak), bate (boat), hame (home),
stane
(stone), gae (go)...
/au/ > /u:/, e.g. about, house, cow, now... (often
spelled oo
or u)
/o/ > /a:/, e.g. saut (salt), law, aw (all)...
/ou/ > /a:/, e.g. auld (old), cauld (cold), snaw
(snow)...
/æ/ > /a/, e.g. man, lad, sat...
also: pronounce the ch's and gh's that are silent in
standard English as /kh/: nicht, licht, loch...
Plus, the grammar:
Present tense: often, all forms follow the third
person
singular (they wis, instead of they were).
Past tense (weak verbs): -it after plosives (big
>
biggit); -t after n, l, r, and all other unvoiced consonants
(ken >
kent); -ed after vowels and all other voiced consonants (luv
>
luved).
Past tense (strong verbs): come > cam, gang > gaed
and many
more.
On the other hand, many verbs that are strong in standard
English
are weak in Scottish English: sell > sellt, tell
> tellt,
mak > makkit, see > seed, etc.
Past participle is usually the same as the past (except
for many
strong verbs, as in standard English)
Present participle: -in (ken > kennin)
The negative of many auxiliary verbs is formed with
-na: am
> amna, hae (have) > hinna, dae (do) > dinna, can
> canna,
etc.
Irregular plurals: ee > een (eyes), shae >
shuin
(shoes), coo > kye (cows).
Common diminutives in -ie: lass > lassie, hoose
>
hoosie...
Common adjective ending: -lik (= -ish)
Demonstratives come in four pairs (singular/plural):
this/thir, that/thae, thon/thon, yon/yon.
And finally, the many unique words: lass, bairn (child),
kirk
(church), big (build), bonny, greet (weep), ingle (household
fire), aye
(yes), hame (home)... As you can see, Scottish English in
its
original glory is as near to being different language as one can
get,
rather than
simply another dialect of English. See Clive P L Young's
Scots
Haunbuik at http://www.electricscotland.com/tourist/sh_gram.htm
for
more detail.
There are also several urban dialects, particularly in Glasgow
and
Edinburgh. The thick dialect of the working class of
Edinburgh
can be heard in the
movie Trainspotting.
In the Highlands, especially the Western Islands, English
is often people's
second language, the first being Scottish Gaelic. Highland
English is
pronounced in a lilting fashion with pure vowels. It is,
actually, one of the prettiest varieties of English I have ever
heard.
Ireland
English was imposed upon the Irish, but they have made it their
own and
have contributed some of our finest literature. Irish
English is
strongly influenced by Irish Gaelic:
r after vowels is retained
"pure" vowels (/e:/ rather than /ei/, /o:/ rather than
/ou/)
/th/ and /dh/ > /t/ and /d/ respectively.
The sentence structure of Irish English often borrows from the
Gaelic:
Use of be or do in place of usually:
I do write... (I usually write)
Use of after for the progressive perfect and
pluperfect:
I was after getting married (I had just gotten
married)
Use of progressive beyond what is possible in standard
English:
I was thinking it was in the drawer
Use of the present or past for perfect and pluperfect:
She’s dead these ten years (she has been dead...)
Use of let you be and don’t be as the
imperative:
Don’t be troubling yourself
Use of it is and it was at the beginning
of a
sentence:
it was John has the good looks in the family
Is it marrying her you want?
Substitute and for when or as:
It only struck me and you going out of the door
Substitute the infinitive verb for that or if:
Imagine such a thing to be seen here!
Drop if, that, or whether:
Tell me did you see them
Statements phrased as rhetorical questions:
Isn’t he the fine-looking fellow?
Extra uses of the definite article:
He was sick with the jaundice
Unusual use of prepositions:
Sure there’s no daylight in it at all now
As with the English of the Scottish Highlands, the English of
the west
coast of Ireland, where Gaelic is still spoken, is lilting, with
pure
vowels. It, too, is particularly pretty.
Australian English
Australian English is predominantly British English, and
especially
from the London area. R’s are dropped after vowels, but
are often
inserted between two words ending and beginning with vowels.
The vowels reflect a strong “Cockney” influence: The long
a
(/ei/) tends towards a long i (/ai/), so pay sounds like pie to
an
American ear. The long i (/ai/), in turn, tends towards oi, so
cry
sounds like croy. Ow sounds like it starts with a short a
(/æ/). Other vowels are less dramatically shifted.
Even some rhyming slang has survived into Australlian
English:
Butcher’s means look (butcher’s hook); hit and miss means piss;
loaf
means head (loaf of bread); Noah’s ark means shark; Richard the
third
means turd, and so on.
Like American English has absorbed numerous American Indian
words,
Australian English has absorbed many Aboriginal words:
billibong -- watering hole
coolabah -- a type of tree
corroboree -- a ceremony
nulla-nulla -- a club
wallaby -- small kangaroo
wombat -- a small marsupial
woomera -- a weapon
wurley -- a simple shelter
...not to mention such ubiquitous words as kangaroo, boomerang,
and
koala!
Aborigine and colonialist myths blended easily, and there are a
number
of fearsome creatures. For example, the bunyip lives near
bilibongs and eats children. Also living in bilibongs is the
mindi, a
hairy snake. A yowie is the Australian version of
Sasquatch. And the min-min light is their version of a
will-o-the-wisp.
Many common words refer to the traditions of the bushman or
bushie --
the early explorers and settlers of the outback
(wilderness). You
can find many of these in Australia’s national song, Waltzing
Matilda.
billy -- tin pot for making tea
cooee -- call used in the outback
dingo -- native dog
jackeroo -- young station hand
joey -- young kangaroo
jumbuck -- sheep
matilda -- backpack
never-never -- the far outback
squatter -- rancher
station -- ranch
swagman -- bushman or tramp
tucker -- food
Colorful expressions also abound:
Like a greasespot -- hot and sweaty
Like a stunned mullet -- in a daze
Like a dog’s breakfast -- a mess
Up a gumtree -- in trouble
Mad as a gumtree full of galahs -- insane
Happy as a bastard on Fathers’ Day -- very happy
Dry as a dead dingo’s donger -- very dry indeed
Another characteristic of Australian English is abbreviated
words,
often ending in -y, -ie, or -o:
aussie -- Australian
chalky -- teacher
chewie -- chewing gum
chockie -- chocoloate
coldie -- a cold beer
cossie -- swimming costume (swimsuit)
footy -- football (Australian rules, of course)
frenchie -- condom
frostie -- a cold beer
garbo -- garbage man
lavvy -- lavatory
lippie -- lipstick
lollies -- sweets
mossie -- mosquito
mushies -- mushrooms
oldies -- one’s parents
rellies -- one’s relatives
sammie -- sandwich
sickie -- sick day
smoko -- cigarette break
sunnies -- sunglasses
And, of course, there are those peculiarly Australian words and
expressions, such
as g’day (guhdoy to American ears), crikey, fair dinkum, no
worries,
Oz, Pavlova, and Vegemite!
New Zealand
New Zealand English is heard by Americans as "Ozzie Light." The
characteristics of Australian English are there to some degree,
but not
as intensely. The effect for Americans is uncertainty as
to
whether the person is from England or Australia. One clue
is that
New Zealand English sounds "flatter" (less modulated) than
either
Australian or British English and more like western American
English.
South Africa
South African English is close to RP but often with a Dutch
influence. English as spoken by Afrikaaners is more
clearly
influenced by Dutch pronunciation. Just like Australian
and
American English, there are numberous words adopted from the
surrounding African languages, especially for native species of
animals
and plants. As spoken by black South
Africans for whom it is not their first language, it often
reflects the
pronunciation of their Bantu languages, with purer vowels.
Listen, for example, to Nelson Mandela or Bishop Tutu.
Alan Millar of South Africa wrote me with some additional
information:
i - as in bit is pronounced 'uh'
long /a:/ in words like 'past', 'dance'
t in middle of words pronounced as d's ('pretty' becomes
'/pridi:/')
donga - ditch, from Xhosa
dagga - marijuana, from Xhoixhoi (?)
kak - bullshit, from Afrikaans
fundi - expert, from Xhosa and Zulu umfundi (student).
Dialects also varies slightly from east to west: In Natal
(in
western South Africa), /ai/ is pronounced /a:/, so that why is
pronounced /wa:/.
On top of all this, the dialects of the ethnic group referred to
in
South Africa as "Coloured" (i.e. of mixed racial backgrounds)
have a
dialect quite distinct from the dialects of "white" South
Africans.
Alan also suggests that South African has a "flatter" (less
modulated)
sound, similar to that of New Zealand as contrasted with
Australian
English.
Canada
Canadian English is generally similar to northern and western
American
English. The one outstanding characteristic is called
Canadian
rising:
/ai/ and /au/ become /œi/ and /œu/, respectively.
Americans can listen to the newscaster Peter Jennings -- one of
the
best voices on the telly! -- for these sounds.
One unusual characteristic found in much Canadian casual speech
is the
use of sentence final "eh?" even in declarative sentences.
Most Canadians retain r's after vowels, but in the Maritimes,
they drop
their r's, just like their New England neighbors to the south.
Newfoundland has a very different dialect, called Newfie, that
seems to
be strongly influenced by Irish immigrants:
/th/ and /dh/ > /t/ and /d/ respectively.
am, is, are > be's
I like, we like, etc. > I likes, we likes, etc.
American English
American English derives from 17th century British English.
Virginia and Massachusetts, the “original” colonies, were settled
mostly by people from the south of England, especially London.
The mid Atlantic area -- Pennsylvania in particular -- was settled
by
people from the north and west of England and by the Scots-Irish
(descendents of Scottish people who settled in Northern
Ireland).
These sources resulted in three dialect areas -- northern, southern,
and midland. Over time, further dialects would develop.
The Boston area and the Richmond and Charleston areas maintained
strong
commercial -- and cultural -- ties to England, and looked to London
for
guidance as to what was “class” and what was not. So, as the
London dialect of the upper classes changed, so did the dialects of
the
upper class Americans in these areas. For example, in the late
1700’s and early 1800’s, r-dropping spread from London to much of
southern England, and to places like Boston and Virginia. New
Yorkers, who looked to Boston for the latest fashion trends, adopted
it
early, and in the south, it spread to wherever the plantation system
was. On the other hand, in Pennsylvania, the Scots-Irish, and
the
Germans as well, kept their heavy r’s.
On the other hand, vocabulary in America was much more open to
change
than back in the old country. From the Indians, we got the
names
for many North American animals
and plants, and thousands of place names. Here is a partial
list
(from an exhaustive list compiled by Mark Rosenfelder
(http://www.zompist.com/indianwd.html):
abalone -- Costanoan aulun
bayou -- Choctaw bayuk
caribou -- Algonquian
caucus -- Algonquian caucauasu 'counselor'
chipmunk -- Algonquian chitmunk
hickory -- Algonquian pawcohiccora
high muckamuck -- Chinook hiu muckamuck
hogan -- Navajo hogan
hominy -- Algonquian
how [greeting] -- Dakota háo, Omaha hau
moccasin -- Natick mohkussin
moose -- Natick moos
mugwump -- Natick mugquomp 'captain'
muskrat -- Natick musquash + 'rat'
opossum -- Powhatan aposoum
papoose -- Algonquian papoos
pecan -- Algonquian paccan
persimmon -- Cree pasiminan 'dried fruit'
potlatch -- Nootka patshatl
powwow -- Algonquian
raccoon -- Algonquian arathkone
sachem -- Narraganset sâchim
sasquatch -- Halkomelem sesqec
skunk -- Massachuset squnck
sockeye [salmon] -- Salish sukkegh, or Northern Straits Salish
seqey'
squash -- Massachuset asko:o:tasquash
squaw -- Massachuset squa
succotash -- Narraganset msíckquatash
tepee -- Dakota thipi
terrapin -- Algonquian *toolepeiwa
toboggan -- Micmac toba:kan
tomahawk -- Algonquian tamahaac
totem -- Ojibwa ninto:te:m
wampum -- Algonquian wampumpeage
wapiti -- Shawnee wapiti 'white rump'
wickiup -- Fox wikiyapi
wigwam -- Abnaki wikewam
woodchuck -- Algonquian otchek
The slave trade brought many new words from the Caribbean:
barbecue -- Carib barbricot
caiman -- Carib acayuman
canoe -- Caribbean
cassava -- Taino caçábi
chigger -- Cariban chigo
guava -- Caribbean
hammock -- Taino
hurricane -- Carib huracan 'his one leg'
iguana -- Arawak iwana
maize -- Carib mahiz
mangrove -- Taino mangle
papaya -- Carib
pawpaw -- Carib (same source as papaya)
potato -- Taino batata
savannah -- Taino zabana
tobacco -- Arawak tzibatl
From the Indians of Mexico, we adopted many other words, some
through
Spanish and others directly:
avocado -- Nahuatl ahuacatl
chile, chili -- Nahuatl chilli
chocolate -- Aztec xocolatl
cigar -- Maya sik'ar 'smoke'
cocoa, cacao -- Nahuatl cacahuatl
coyote -- Nahuatl cóyotl
guacamole -- Nahuatl ahuaca-molli 'avocado sauce'
mescal -- Nahuatl mexcalli
mesquite -- Nahuatl mizquitl
mole -- Nahuatl -molli 'sauce'
ocelot -- Nahuatl ocelotl
peyote -- Nahuatl peyotl
shack -- Nahuatl xacalli 'thatched cabin'
shark -- Maya xoc
tamale -- Nahuatl tamalli
tomato -- Nahuatl tomatl
From slaves, we got another set of
words, all the way from Africa:
goober -- Bantu -guba
gumbo -- Bantu -gombo 'okra'
okra -- Ashante nkru
yam -- Fulani nyami 'to eat'
Speaking of slaves, southern speech in particular was influenced by
slave speech habits, which in turn were based in part on original
African
languages and in part on the creoles which spread from the African
coast and the West Indies. When southerners say “I done lost
it,”
they are using a slave creole construction.
More willing immigrants added to other dialects. The Germans
and
the Irish had a huge impact on the colonies and early states.
The
dialects of central Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and the Dakotas were
strongly influenced by the Germans, while the city dialects of the
north were influenced by the Irish.
New York City became the door to the United States in the 1800’s,
and
we see the impact of other immigrants, such as Jews and
Italians:
words such as spaghetti, pasta, pizza, nosh, schlemiel,
yenta; expressions such as wattsamatta and I should live so
long.
The absence of the th sounds in the original Dutch of NYC, as well
as
in Italian and Yiddish and the English dialect of the Irish, led to
the
distinctive dese and dose of New York -- only now starting to
diminish.
There is also a western dialect, which developed in the late
1800’s. It is literally a blend of all the dialects, although
it
is most influenced by the northern midland dialect. Although
there are certainly differences between the dialects of, say,
Seattle,
San Francisco, Phoenix, and Denver, they are far less distinct than,
for example, the differences between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh!
Out west, there were also the influences of non-English speaking
people, notably the original Spanish speaking populations and the
immigrant Chinese (mostly Cantonese). Although they did not
influence pronunciation or syntax, they provided a huge number of
words. In the domain of food alone, we find tacos, tamales,
frijoles, and burritos, chow mein, lo mein, fu yung, and chop
suey. Many words from Mexico were actually already adopted
from
Mexican Indian languages: tomato and coyote spring to mind.
The dialects of the United States (with approximate areas):
Northern
Northern New England (Maine and New Hampshire)
Boston area (eastern Massachussets, Rhode Island)
Northeastern (Connecticut, western Massachusetts, Vermont,
upstate New York, lower Michigan, northern Illinois)
New York City area (including most of Long Island and
northern
New Jersey)
North central (upper Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the
Dakotas)
Northern midland
Philadelphia area (inc. eastern Pennsylvania, southern New
Jersey, Delaware, and the Baltimore area)
Appalachia (western Virginia, West Virginia, eastern
Kentucky,
eastern Tennessee)
Arkansas-Oklahoma
Southern
Virginia (eastern)
North Carolina (eastern)
South Carolina
Georgia-Florida
Mississippi-Gulf (including Alabama, Louisiana, eastern
Texas,
western Tennessee, western Kentucky)
West Texas
Western (Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado, Utah, New
Mexico,
Arizona, Nevada, California)
Southern and south midland:
"drawl" [lengthening, fronting, and raising vowels]
/ai/ > /æ:/ in find, mind
/oi/ > /o/ in boil, oil
/u:/ > /yu:/ in due, tuesday
au/ > /æu/ in out, doubt
/e/ > /ei/ in bed, head
/e/ > /i/ in pen, ten
greasy > greazy
carry > tote
dragged > drug
you > you all, y’all
Southern:
help, bulb, wolf > /hep/, /bœb/, /wuf/
Southern vs south midland:
drop r’s -- strong, sometimes retroflex, r’s
wash: /wa:sh/ -- /wosh/, /worsh/
think: /thingk/ -- /theingk/
egg: /eg/ -- /eig/
moon: /mu:n/ -- /mü:n/
snake doctor -- snake feeder
snap beans -- green beans
goobers -- peanuts
Northern vs north midland:
fog, hog: /fag/, /hag/ -- /fog/, /hog/
roof: /ruf/, /huf/ -- /ru:f/, /hu:f/
cow, house: /kau/, /haus/ -- /kæu/, /hæus/
wash: /wa:sh/ -- /wosh/, /worsh/
darning needle -- snake feeder
pail -- bucket
teeter-totter -- see-saw
fire-fly -- lightning-bug
Eastern New England, Boston area, NYC area
drop r’s
insert transitional r’s, as in law’r’n awdah
Eastern New England, Boston area, Virginia area
/æ/ frequently becomes /a/, e.g. in aunt,
dance,
glass
Mary-marry-merry (/eir/-/ær/-/er/) distinctions preserved
only in
r-less areas, rapidly disappearing from American speech
NYC and north midland, and spreading rapidly
loss of voiceless w: which > /wic/
loss of voiceless y: human > /yum'n/
A simplified way of differentiating the dialects is based on the
words
for two American favorites: the submarine sandwich and the
soft
drink:
Submarine sandwich
New York: hero
Philadelphia: hoagy
Boston: grinder
Southern: poor-boy
Soft drink
Boston: tonic
Northern and North Midland, east of the Susquehanna: soda
Northern and North Midland, west of the Susquehanna: pop
South and South Midland: cold drink
(not to mention soda pop and soda water, and even coke in Rhode
Island!)
The old cities of the eastern US each have their own
peculiarities. New York is famous for its addition of central
off-glides: pier becomes /pi:'/, pair becomes /pe'/, poor
becomes /po'/. The aw (/o/) sound is raised and has a central
off-glide as well: ball and coffee approach /bu'l/ and
/cu'fi:/! And her becomes /hö'/!
I live in south-central Pennsylvania, which is a great location for
hearing various eastern accents. There are actually five in
Pennsylvania: In the northern tier, near upstate New York, the
accent is Northern. In Pittsburgh and the
surrounding area they
say
/stil/ and /mil/ instead of steel and meal. In the south, near
West Virginia,
you hear
Appalachian, and people still say you’uns and refer to their
grandparents as Mammaw and Pappy!. And, in the center of the
state is what is called
the Susquehanna accent, which is a variation on the Philadelphia
area
dialect, with a
lot of German and Scots-Irish influences. And we can't forget
the
Philadelphia accent itself:
/i/ often becomes /i:/, as in attitude and gratitude
/i:g/ > /ig/, as in the Philadelphia Eagles, pronounced
/ig'lz/
/eig/ > /eg/, so plague is prnounced /pleg/
/u:r/ > /or/, so sure sounds the same as shore
/aul/ > /al/, e.g. owl
/aur/ > /ar/, so our sounds like are
mayor > /meir/
/æ/ > /iæ/, so Ann sounds like Ian
very and ferry become /vœri:/ and /fœri:/
/st/ > /sht/ at the beginning of words, so street is
/shtri:t/
l is always "dark," that is, pronounced in the back of the
throat
(See Phillyspeak, by Jim Quinn, at
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/081497/article008.shtml for more.)
In the Lancaster area (part of the Susquehanna dialect), the
Pennsylvania German influence is obvious in some of the words and
sentence structure: We red up the room, outen the light, and
throw the cow over the fence some hay. We say that the peanut
butter is all, the road is slippy, and I read that wunst
(once).
A slide is a sliding board, sneakers are all Keds, vacuum cleaners
are
sweepers, little pieces are snibbles, and if you are looking a bit
disheveled, you are furhuddled. And at any local restaurant,
they
will ask you: Can I get you coffee awhile?
Dialects typically vary in their status. In the colonial and
revolutionary times, a Boston, New York, or Virginia accent marked
you
as a gentleman or lady. In the early part of the 1900’s, the
accent of suburban New York was tops: Listen to the recordings
of
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for example. Unlike "General
American" (the radio and television reporter’s accent), FDR
dropped his
r’s and drawled his vowels luxuriously.
General American is a rather innocuous blend of Northern and
Northern
Midland dialect, with none of the peculiar words or pronounciations
of
any particular area. Today, the Western dialect has
established
itself, via the entertainment industry, as equal. Even
Southern
and Southern Midland English, long scorned by Northerners, have
reestablished their status, especially after the presidencies of
Jimmy
Carter and Bill Clinton.
Two dialects are still seen as being substandard by many
Americans: Appalachian and Black English. Unlike other
dialects, they have considerable grammatical differences that make
them
sound to the mainstream as simply horrible English.
In Appalachia, for example, they say us’ns and you’ns. Both
Appalachian dialect and Black English speakers often double
negatives
(he ain’t got
none), double comparatives and superlatives (more bigger, most
biggest,
gooder, bestest), over-regularize the past tense (stoled or
stealed),
and over-regularize plurals (mouses, sheeps, childrens).
Although the prejudice against people from Appalachia is real
enough,
the long
tradition of prejudice against black Americans has been very
difficult
to eliminate, and that includes the disrespect accorded Black
English. Despite some attempts to consider it another language
(the Ebonics movement), it is in fact a variation on the Southern
dialect, with input from Gullah and other slave creoles, plus the
constant creation of slang, especially in northern urban areas ("the
Ghetto").