Northern cities vowel shift
Encyclopedia
lang=en
The Northern cities vowel shift is a chain shift
in the sounds of some vowel
s in the dialect
region of American English
known as the Inland North
.
around the Great Lakes
, beginning some 50 miles (80.5 km) west of Albany
and extending west through Syracuse
, Rochester
, Buffalo
, Cleveland
, Detroit, Chicago
, Madison
, and north to Green Bay
; the shift also affects a corridor of cities along Interstate 55
southwest of Chicago as far as St. Louis
.
William Labov
, a linguist at the University of Pennsylvania
, believes that the trend may have started in the early 19th century during the construction of the Erie Canal
. Migration of workers from the East Coast to the Great Lakes area brought together speakers of different varieties of English, a situation in which language change can be expected to proceed quickly.
/æ/. Inland Northern /æ/ comes to be articulated so that the tongue starts from a position that is higher and fronter than it used to be, and then often glides back toward the center of the mouth, thus producing a centering diphthong of the type [ɛə] or [eə] or at its most extreme [ɪə], which is the vowel heard in England
in words like pier and beer. Thus cat and that as pronounced by a Rochesterian
may sound like "kee-at" and "thee-at" to a visitor.
; for some advanced speakers, it may be close or even identical to [æ]—that is, the vowel of cat for speakers without the shift.
and as far West as Cedar Rapids, Iowa
, and the diphthongization of /æ/ before most consonants is found in parts of Minnesota
, such as St. James
, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Brainerd
. Accents in which /ʌ/ is more retracted than /ɑ/ are encountered as far East as Providence, Rhode Island
, as far South as St. Louis, as far North as Bemidji, Minnesota
, and as far West as Aberdeen, South Dakota
. The shift is in progress throughout the Great Lakes cities; thus some speakers might have, for instance, the first two stages only, but none have only the last stage.
The shift is mainly found in European American
speakers. Speakers of African American Vernacular English
show little to no evidence of adopting the shift. It has also not been adopted by Canadian
speakers, despite the geographic proximity of millions of Canadians living near the United States border in the Great Lakes
region and along the Saint Lawrence River
.
Chain shift
In phonology, a chain shift is a phenomenon in which several sounds move stepwise along a phonetic scale. The sounds involved in a chain shift can be ordered into a "chain" in such a way that, after the change is complete, each phoneme ends up sounding like what the phoneme before it in the chain...
in the sounds of some vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s in the dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
region of American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
known as the Inland North
Inland Northern American English
The Inland North dialect of American English is spoken in a region that includes most of the cities along the Erie Canal and on the U.S. side of Great Lakes region, reaching approximately from Utica, New York to Green Bay, Wisconsin, as well as a corridor extending down across central Illinois from...
.
Geography
The name of the shift comes from the region where it occurs, a broad swath of the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
around the Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
, beginning some 50 miles (80.5 km) west of Albany
Albany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
and extending west through Syracuse
Syracuse, New York
Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...
, Rochester
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
, Buffalo
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
, Cleveland
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
, Detroit, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Madison
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....
, and north to Green Bay
Green Bay, Wisconsin
Green Bay is a city in and the county seat of Brown County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, located at the head of Green Bay, a sub-basin of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Fox River. It has an elevation of above sea level and is located north of Milwaukee. As of the 2010 United States Census,...
; the shift also affects a corridor of cities along Interstate 55
Interstate 55
Interstate 55 is an Interstate Highway in the central United States. Its odd number indicates that it is a north–south Interstate Highway. I-55 goes from LaPlace, Louisiana at Interstate 10 to Chicago at U.S. Route 41 , at McCormick Place. A common nickname for the highway is "double...
southwest of Chicago as far as St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
.
William Labov
William Labov
William Labov born December 4, 1927) is an American linguist, widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of the methodology" of sociolinguistics...
, a linguist at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, believes that the trend may have started in the early 19th century during the construction of the Erie Canal
Erie Canal
The Erie Canal is a waterway in New York that runs about from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, completing a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The canal contains 36 locks and encompasses a total elevation differential of...
. Migration of workers from the East Coast to the Great Lakes area brought together speakers of different varieties of English, a situation in which language change can be expected to proceed quickly.
Details
Raising and tensing of /æ/
The first sound change in the shift, which was identified in the Northern states as early as the 1960s by Fasold, was the general raising, tensing, and lengthening of the "short a", that is, the vowel of cat: IPAInternational Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
/æ/. Inland Northern /æ/ comes to be articulated so that the tongue starts from a position that is higher and fronter than it used to be, and then often glides back toward the center of the mouth, thus producing a centering diphthong of the type [ɛə] or [eə] or at its most extreme [ɪə], which is the vowel heard in England
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English, Oxford English or BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms...
in words like pier and beer. Thus cat and that as pronounced by a Rochesterian
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
may sound like "kee-at" and "thee-at" to a visitor.
Fronting of /ɑ/
The raising of /æ/ leaves an empty space in low front position that allows /ɑ/ to be fronted in the direction of [a]. /ɑ/ was the vowel in Great Lakes residents' pronunciation of both cot and father, often called "short o" (or "broad a"). Therefore, /ɑ/ comes to be pronounced farther forward in the mouth, similar to the vowel of car as pronounced in BostonBoston accent
The Boston dialect is the dialect characteristic of English spoken in the city of Boston and much of eastern Massachusetts. The accent and closely related accents can be heard commonly in an area stretching into much of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and areas of south-western Nova Scotia...
; for some advanced speakers, it may be close or even identical to [æ]—that is, the vowel of cat for speakers without the shift.
Lowering of /ɔ/
The fronting of /ɑ/ leaves a blank space in Northerners' pronunciation that is filled by lowering /ɔ/ (the "aw" vowel, as in saw), which comes to be pronounced with the tongue in a lower position, closer to [ɑ]. As a result, people affected by the shift may pronounce stalk the way speakers without the shift say stock. However, in other regions where such a lowering occurs, it results in the cot–caught merger. The merger does not occur in the Inland North because NCVS speakers front the /ɑ/ phoneme to [a], thus maintaining the distinction between /ɑ/ and /ɔ/. Northerners also typically pronounce "dawn" like "yawn", and "don" like "Ron", while others generally pronounce both "dawn" and "don" as in "Ron".Backing and lowering of /ɛ/
The first stage, æ-tensing, resulted in a vowel that sounded confusingly like [ɛ], similar to the "short e" in bet. To "get out of the way" of /æ/, Northern /ɛ/ moves in the direction of [ɐ], the near-open central vowel. As the vowel [ɐ] is pronounced with the tongue farther back and lower in the mouth than in the sound [ɛ], this change is called "backing and lowering".Backing of /ʌ/
The next change is the movement of /ʌ/ toward [ɔ]. /ʌ/ is the "short u" vowel, as in cut. People with the shift pronounce cut so that it sounds more like caught to people without the shift.Lowering and backing of /ɪ/
The final change is lowering and backing of /ɪ/, the "short i" vowel, as in bit. This makes it sound more like /ɛ/, although the sounds remain distinct.Reach
Like most chain shifts, the Northern cities vowel shift is not complete in all areas at the same time: some but not all aspects of the shift can be found further afield. For example, the backing of /ɛ/ is found as far South as St. LouisSt. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
and as far West as Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Cedar Rapids is the second largest city in Iowa and is the county seat of Linn County. The city lies on both banks of the Cedar River, north of Iowa City and east of Des Moines, the state's capital and largest city...
, and the diphthongization of /æ/ before most consonants is found in parts of Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, such as St. James
St. James, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 4,695 people, 1,845 households, and 1,186 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,050.3 people per square mile . There were 2,006 housing units at an average density of 876.0 per square mile...
, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Brainerd
Brainerd, Minnesota
Brainerd is a city in Crow Wing County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 13,590 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Crow Wing County and one of the largest cities in Central Minnesota...
. Accents in which /ʌ/ is more retracted than /ɑ/ are encountered as far East as Providence, Rhode Island
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
, as far South as St. Louis, as far North as Bemidji, Minnesota
Bemidji, Minnesota
Bemidji is a city in Beltrami County, Minnesota, United States. Its population was at 13,431 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Beltrami County. Bemidji is the most major city in North Central Minnesota and the largest commercial center between Grand Forks, North Dakota and Duluth,...
, and as far West as Aberdeen, South Dakota
Aberdeen, South Dakota
Aberdeen is a city in and the county seat of Brown County, South Dakota, United States, about 125 mi northeast of Pierre. Settled in 1880, it was incorporated in 1882. The city population was 26,091 at the 2010 census. The American News is the local newspaper...
. The shift is in progress throughout the Great Lakes cities; thus some speakers might have, for instance, the first two stages only, but none have only the last stage.
The shift is mainly found in European American
European American
A European American is a citizen or resident of the United States who has origins in any of the original peoples of Europe...
speakers. Speakers of African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English —also called African American English; less precisely Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular , or Black Vernacular English —is an African American variety of American English...
show little to no evidence of adopting the shift. It has also not been adopted by Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
speakers, despite the geographic proximity of millions of Canadians living near the United States border in the Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
region and along the Saint Lawrence River
Saint Lawrence River
The Saint Lawrence is a large river flowing approximately from southwest to northeast in the middle latitudes of North America, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. It is the primary drainage conveyor of the Great Lakes Basin...
.
External links
- Northern Cities Shift
- A National Map of The Regional Dialects of American English
- PBS resource from the show "Do you Speak American?"
- Detroit Area Vowels (bottom part of page) Chart and sound files at Penelope Eckert'sPenelope EckertPenelope "Penny" Eckert is a professor of linguistics at Stanford University in Stanford, California. She is a prominent scholar of variationist sociolinguistics, and is the author of several scholarly works on language and gender....
website - NPR interview with Professor William Labov about the shift