Inland Northern American English

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The Inland North Dialect of American English was the "standard Midwestern" speech that was the basis for General American in the mid-20th Century, though it has been recently modified by the northern cities vowel shift.

This area is centered on the Great Lakes, and consists of western New York State (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse), much of Michigan's Lower Peninsula (Detroit, Grand Rapids), Cleveland, Toledo, Chicago, Gary, and Southeastern Wisconsin (Milwaukee, Racine).

This map shows the approximate extent of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, and thus the approximate area where the Inland North dialect predominates. Note that the region surrounding Erie, Pennsylvania is excluded; the dialect spoken there more closely resembles that of Pittsburgh.

Characteristics

Many of the characteristics listed here are not unique to the region, but are found elsewhere in the United States, especially in the Midwest. Many of the characteristic pronunciations of this accent derive from the accents of the region's original immigrants. For example, the stereotypical Chicago pronunciation of "The [Chicago] Bears" is "Da Baers". Neither German nor Polish contains the consonant /ð/, so the large number of speakers of those languages who immigrated to the area approximated the sound as /d/. Note, however, that the pronunciation of "bear" is due to the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, discussed below. The Chicago accent in particular is much stronger within the city than the accent of the surrounding metropolitan region.

Phonology

As in General American, which was based on this accent, Northern Inland speech is rhotic. Also, the words "roof" and "root" may be variously pronounced with either [ʊ] or [u]; that is, with the vowel of "foot" or "boot", respectively. This is highly variable, however, and these words are pronounced both ways in other parts of the country.

• The Northern Cities Vowel Shift

Main article: Northern Cities Vowel Shift

Perhaps the most distinctive feature of Inland Northern dialects, this chain shift has been occurring in six stages:

1. The first stage of the shift is the diphthongization of [æ] to [ɪə]. This results in words like "candy" being pronounced more like "kyandy."
2. The second stage is the fronting of [ɑ], which then sounds similar to the former [æ]. "Not" then sounds like "naht."
3. In the third stage, [ɔ] lowers towards [ɑ], causing "stalk" to sound more like "stock".
4. The fourth stage, the lowering of [ɛ], is not unique to this particular vowel shift.
5. During the fifth stage, [ʌ] is backed towards [ɔ]. "Stuck" sounds like "stalk".
6. In the sixth stage, [ɪ] is lowered and backed, although it is kept distinct from [ɛ]. This means that the pin-pen merger does not occur.

Note that this merger is in progress across the region, but that each subsequent stage is a result of the previous one(s), so that an individual speaker may not display all of these shifts, but no speaker will display the last without also showing the ones before it.

• The Mary-Marry-Merry Merger

Main article: Mary-marry-merry merger

This merger is widespread throughout the Midwest, West, and Canada. Words containing /æ/, /ɛ/, or /eɪ/ before an "r" and a vowel are all pronounced "[eɪ]-r-vowel," so that Mary, marry, and merry all rhyme with each other, and have the same first vowel as Sharon, Sarah, and bearing.

Vocabulary

Note that not all of these are specific to the region.

• Faucet vs. Southern spigot.
• (Peach) Pit vs. Southern stone or seed.
• Pop for soft drink, vs. East-Coastal and Californian soda and Southern coke. In parts of Eastern Wisconsin, soda is more common.
• Shopping cart vs. Southern buggy.
• Teeter totter vs. Southern seesaw.
• Tennis shoes vs. New England sneakers.
• Water fountain vs. drinking fountain.

Individual cities and regions also have their own vocabularies. For example, in Eastern Wisconsin, drinking fountains are known as bubblers, and in Cleveland the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street is called a tree lawn.

Notable Speakers of the Inland North Dialect

U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who grew up in Park Ridge, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago) prior to attending college, demonstrates this Mid-Western accent in her vowel pronunciation.

As she currently represents New York State, this accent endears her to upstate voters who are more likely to speak like her than Senator Charles Schumer, who is from Brooklyn.

See also

• American English regional differences
• Midwest
• Buffalo English
• North Central American English
• General American

External links

• The Northern Cities Vowel Shift
• Telsur Project Maps