Do we talk funny?
Is there a Rocky Mountain Accent?
By Jenny Shank, 11-10-05
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Professor William Labov, who directs the linguistics lab at the University of Pennsylvania, recently completed his masterwork, The Atlas of North American English, as reported by John Seabrook in the November 14 issue of The New Yorker. Seabrook writes that the atlas “constitutes the first coast-to-coast charting of all the major dialects spoken in the continental United States and Canada.� I went to Labov’s website to see what he had to say on the subject of Rocky Mountain accents, but unfortunately the free demo version of the project features linguistic samples only from Canada. If I want to satisfy my curiosity, I’d have to cough up $515.20 for the book and DVD, according to Amazon.com.
Update: The free online demo is now available here.
The free online demo of the atlas offers only this tantalizing tidbit about Western speech: “The West represents a dialect region in formation, without the sharply defined features and boundaries of other sections. It may be defined as the area with fronting of /uw/ but not fronting of /ow/, along with the low back merger of /o/ and /oh/.� Ah, well, that makes everything clear.
I’d always thought that Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West generally lacked an accent, because national news anchors seemed to sound like we did (except for Peter Jennings, who never did eliminate the occasional Canadian “aboot� for “about). But, according to this article in Wikipedia, Colorado is not the template for standard American speech—Iowa holds that distinction. “General American is the name given to the accent used by most TV network announcers; it is most similar to the local accents of Iowa and adjacent parts of Nebraska, Northern Ohio, and Illinois.� My parents grew up in Eastern Nebraska, so perhaps that’s why I thought Coloradoans lacked an accent.
Still, I can’t say I hear any differences between the speech of Nebraskans and Coloradoans. I’ve never noticed an accent when listening to speakers from Montana, Wyoming, or New Mexico the way I do with people from Minnesota, New York or Chicago. Either I’m deaf to the particular speech quirks of our region, or the region is fairly quirk free. Apart from the sound of our speech, while some regions boast an entire lexicon of specialized vocabulary, we don’t seem to have very many particular words that are used here that are not found elsewhere. According to one dialect website, “some words that came from [the Rocky Mountain] dialect are kick off (to die), cache (hiding place), and bushed (tired). They also call jelly doughnuts bismarks.� That’s news to me—I’ve never heard anyone order a “bismark� for breakfast.
The only accent I’ve ever noticed in Colorado was among people who lived in the north and west side of Denver where I went to school growing up. Some people from these neighborhoods substitute an “ah� sound for some e’s, so that “yellow� is pronounced “yallow� and 7-Eleven is pronounced “Sahven Elaven.� Occasionally I’ve heard a bit of an added twang in the speech of rural Coloradoans, but I haven’t heard anything consistent across the state.
Since Colorado’s population has doubled in the past ten years, attracting new residents from all over the country, it might become increasingly difficult to sort out what the native speech sounds of our region are. So until someone explains to me what Professor Labov’s linguistic notations about our region means, I’ll keep on believing that Rocky Mountain people speak the purest form of American English.
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Comments
And how about Racoon? I say Rah-coon but I think easterners say Ruh-coon.
I've often heard that the reason there are so many call centers set up in Iowa and Nebraska is because they don't have a distinct accent.
These are speech patterns -- how and where the tongue touches the roof of the mouth and so forth, not variations on coyote or racoon or whatever.
Spanish coyote is mor like Ko-YO-te, but it's a Native American adoption anyway, I think, so why split hairs, right?
The singsongy N. Mex. accent also breaks into southern colorado, like around San Luis.
And of course, as David Cross once noted, the redneck accent is native to everywhere.
"F__ you, maan, Ahm from Statesburuh, Jorja."
"Well, F__ you, maan, this's how we do it in Bozeman, Montanah."
"Hey,F__ all y'all, this's how we do it in Ankradge, Alaaskuh!"
-> It may be defined as the area with fronting of /uw/ but not fronting of /ow/... Ah, well, that makes everything clear. <-
It does actually :) That means that the sounds "uw" (as in "do") is pronounced in the front of the mouth before "t" and "d", and "ow" (as in "go"), is pronounced in the back of the mouth with rounded lips. This distinguishes the West from, for example, the North Central dialect. To hear what an extremely rounded and back "ow" sounds like, watch the movie "Fargo" set in North Dakota, and Minnesota (the North Central region), where "o" is *extremely* back and rounded. Watch a Valley Girl/surfer dude movie set in California, to hear an *extremely* fronted and unrounded version of both /uw/ and /ow/. Compare how the actors in both of those movies pronounce those vowels.
-> , along with the low back merger of /o/ and /oh/.? -<
/o/ is the vowel in the word "cot"; /oh/ is the vowel in the word "caught". The West (as well as several other dialects, such as the North Central) is distinguished from other dialects (such as the Northern dialect: e.g. Wisconsin), because cot and caught are merged. That means that speakers in the West pronounce the vowels in those words (cot/caught; tot-taught; odd-ought) identically, and perceive them to be the same sounds, even when speakers who pronounce them differently sy them. This is in contrast to, for example, southern Wisconsin, where "cot" and "caught" sound completely different--cot is pronounced with unrounded lips; caught with rounded lips (almost sounds like cohaht).
-> (except for Peter Jennings, who never did eliminate the occasional Canadian “aboot? for “about) -<
That's what's known as "Canadian raising". The word "about" in most of the U.S. is pronounced as a "diphthong" consisting of the sounds "ah" and "oo" (as in food). You can hear that it is composed of two vowels if you say "ah" and "oo" very quickly. It sounds like "ow", which is in the word "about". Many speakers in the Western/Central dialect region in Canada produce this sound as "uh" followed by "oo" before the letters, p, t, k, f, and th. The "uh"+"oo" sound is not found in dialects of North American English that do not have "Canadian raising", so it sounds like "aboot" or "aboat" to many Americans--although it is not really aboot/aboat--it is actually "uh-buh-oot" (if you say it really fast.)
>> But, according to this article in Wikipedia, Colorado is not the template for standard American speech—Iowa holds that distinction. “General American is the name given to the accent used by most TV network announcers; it is most similar to the local accents of Iowa and adjacent parts of Nebraska, Northern Ohio, and Illinois <<
Actually that particular article in Wikipedia is not quite that accurate :( There really is no formal standard for "General American". It's pretty much what you try to speak to eliminate your accent. It's actually rather based on the pronunciation in the Great Lakes region in the 1950s. Practically no modern accent (especially not the one in the Great Lakes region, as it has diverged a lot from what it sounded like in the '50s) is exactly "General American". But... many accents come close to it, including the Midlands (e.g. Nebraska), as well as the West/Central Canadian accent AND the Western accent.
-> According to one dialect website, “some words that came from [the Rocky Mountain] dialect are kick off (to die), cache (hiding place), and bushed (tired). They also call jelly doughnuts bismarks.�? That’s news to me—I’ve never heard anyone order a “bismark�? for breakfast. <-
Yeah, it's funny reading old books and websites on dialects, as so many words have died out a long time ago.
-> or the region is fairly quirk free <-
It's pretty similar to the "General American" 1950's midwestern broadcast accent...except for the cot-caught merger. So...that means that people who are used to hearing those vowels pronounced distinct will hear a slight accent. Although the regions that *do* pronounce them differently often have a much stronger accent.
The West itself is fairly homogenous, with a few exceptions. For example many Northwesterners will pronounce the word "bag" to rhyme with "beg". Many Southwesterners (and Northwesterners too) will pronounce (the vowel in) "beg" and "vague" the same way. In other dialect regions the vowels in these words are pronounced differently.
-> “yellow�? is pronounced “yallow <-
That's called the Canadian (vowel) Shift. It affects many speakers in the Western US as well, but is called the "Canadian" shift because the greatest majority of speakers that have it are in Canada. It's the opposite of a shift going on in the Northern Midwest. It shifts the vowel in "kettle" to close to "cattle". It also makes "cat" sound like how Midwesterners say "cot" (midwesterners have an opposite shift: cat -> kee-uht) It can even cause some misunderstandings between Westerners (and Canadians) and Midwesterners :) There is another similar vowel shift in California that is influencing Colorado, as well as Arizona, Oregon, and New Mexico, called the "California vowel shift". It's the same as the Canadian vowel shift, but includes some more features.
"For" is reduced because it is unstressed. It's not limited to the West. All rhotic (r-pronouncing) North American English speakers do that, unless they are trying to speak really carefully.
Just ask us to say mountain
We'll say "mao-in"