the California accent (San Francisco, Glendale, Hermosa Beach: high school, business, mayor)

[Fontucky]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

I'm guessing Fontucky's purer SoCal.

"Purer" and "Fontucky" in the same sentence. That's rare.

[Senno]

Originally Posted by Fontucky

"Purer" and "Fontucky" in the same sentence. That's rare.

Hmm, Distilled Fontucky actually sounds marketable.

[hipcat]

Originally Posted by robertpolyglot

There is no California accent. There are California-isms and voice modulations that are different, and let's leave surfers and ghetto kids out of this, to make it apples to apples.

If "flat lining" it during a business-like conversation, it is virtually impossible to tell if someone is from Phoenix, Denver, Seattle or Los Angeles. The only thing that might be different is that a Californian, especially one from SoCal, will have a more relaxed and/or expressive tone in their voice, as dictated by a situation. They get excited by earthquakes, the ridiculous thing they saw on the morning commute, a sustained period of rainfall, or the atypical crowds found at an event, whereas the people of the Intermountain West and Pacific Northwest will "flat line" it more under varying conditions.

There is only ONE word I've noticed in Northern California that I've never heard in Southern California - "Oh, yeah, you mean that Jack in the Box that's acrost the street from McDonald's?" I've heard that in numerous 3rd and 4th gen Northern Californians, and I think it's a remnant of the Gold Rush or Donner Party days. It definitely does not have a Western origin, not with that subtle "t" at the end.

All of these cities you mentioned have big migrations of Californians, so of course they sound similar as they speak in a Western US Accent. Now compare how White Californians speak to a Midwesterner from Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, St Louis etc, and theres distinct difference in vowel sounds in a Midwestern accent compared to a Western accent thats spoken in California by the native Whites. I was spotted as a Californian in those cities, because my vowels were more drawn out compared to thier local accents.

And you must be talking about the local Whites. Because Los Angeles for sure isn't "Accentless" by any stretch of the imagination, especially considering the Hispanic population here has a distinct Chicano accent and they make up half of the cities population, and add on to the ESL speakers here making "Neutral" American in the minority here.

Accents are relative my man. What sounds accentless to you, sounds accented to someone in the South, Northeast, or Midwest.

Here's the examples I'm talking about explaininig the So Cal accent.

https://soundcloud.com/kqed/californ...t-san-fernando

https://soundcloud.com/michael-flore...nt-travels-los

https://soundcloud.com/kqed/california-accents-los-3

[Count David]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

Do any other places in the country besides California even use the word "freeway"?

I feel weird saying it now. Nobody does here.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by hipcat

Accents are relative my man. What sounds accentless to you, sounds accented to someone in the South, Northeast, or Midwest. Here's the examples I'm talking about explaininig the So Cal accent.

Those audio clips are great! Thanks for posting them.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by robertpolyglot

There is no California accent. The only thing that might be different is that a Californian, especially one from SoCal, will have a more relaxed and/or expressive tone in their voice, as dictated by a situation. They get excited by earthquakes, the ridiculous thing they saw on the morning commute, a sustained period of rainfall...

Now, robert, you know that those fall into the categories of personality types or mannerisms, and aren't considered accents. It's also a generational issue, e.g. no middle aged adult who grew up in So CA will talk the way a 20 year old does, despite an impending earthquake or long morning commute.

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by CA4Now

Now, robert, you know that those fall into the categories of personality types or mannerisms, and aren't considered accents. It's also a generational issue, e.g. no middle aged adult who grew up in So CA will talk the way a 20 year old does, despite an impending earthquake or long morning commute.

Which brings up another question. How much do accents change over time? I wonder how different the average native Californian sounds today versus 30, 60, 90, etc. years ago. It would be interesting to listen to some oral histories of old timers to try and figure that out.

[hipcat]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

Which brings up another question. How much do accents change over time? I wonder how different the average native Californian sounds today versus 30, 60, 90, etc. years ago. It would be interesting to listen to some oral histories of old timers to try and figure that out.

Here's an article about it.

California is the home base of another vowel shift that bears some resemblance to both the Southern Shift and the Northern Cities Shift. In California, as in the South, the vowels of boot and boat are shifting forward in their articulation. This trend is extremely widespread in American English and is heard throughout the Midwest and West as well as the South. The California Shift resembles the Northern Cities Shift in the way that the vowel of bit comes to sound like bet while the vowel of bet sounds like bat. Not to be outdone, the vowel of bat takes on a “broad a” quality and sounds like the “a” of father.
These changes appear to be recent innovations in California speech; they came to the attention of researchers in the 1980s and today are heard primarily from younger speakers. It’s hard to know whether they will have staying power, but the linguistic facts suggest that they will spread in and beyond California. The changes affecting bit, bet, and bat appear to be a coordinated shift among vowel neighbors: bat moves out and bet moves into the position vacated by bat which leads bit to move into the position vacated by bet. The initiating step, the moving of bat, is made possible by a change discussed above, the Low-Back Merger. That merger opens some space next door to bat by collapsing the vowels of cot and caught.

The California Shift
It seems likely, then, that the bat-bet-bit chain reaction will eventually take place wherever the Low-Back Merger is found. Some support for this prediction is found in the fact that the bat-bet-bit changes are also heard in Canadian English, another dialect that has undergone the Low-Back Merger.
Betting/Batting/Bitting on the Future

Predicting whether a particular pronunciation change will endure is risky because these trends may be influenced by a wide range of social and linguistic factors. Nevertheless, the vowel shifts seem to have important factors working in their favor. First, they involve general categories of sound rather than individual words. All words with the same vowel as cot (box, lot, job, Don) are pronounced with a vowel closer to that of cat in the Northern Cities Shift, and all words with the vowel of tame (bake, late, Jane, day) take on a pronunciation closer to the vowel of time in the Southern Shift. In this sense these changes differ from cases limited to particular words such as the replacement of “Missour-uh” with “Missour-ee.”

Most people in California from 1940s-1970s didn't sound that different from the East as many people just recently came from other parts of the US into California and brought thier accents with them. Places like Bakersfield still speak in a Southern influenced accent because of the Okie migration.

Case in point. The Midwestern accent former L.A mayor Sam Yorty had. The average Southern Californian does not sound like him. He sounds very nasally to me.


The Sam Yorty Show with Katina Garner - YouTube

[Fontucky]

I haven't heard anyone since Mayor Sam pronounce LA as "Lawsang Gless."

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by hipcat

Most people in California from 1940s-1970s didn't sound that different from the East as many people just recently came from other parts of the US into California and brought thier accents with them. Places like Bakersfield still speak in a Southern influenced accent because of the Okie migration.

Case in point. The Midwestern accent former L.A mayor Sam Yorty had. The average Southern Californian does not sound like him. He sounds very nasally to me.

That's why I only included natives from 30, 60, or 90 years ago in my question. Of course transplants aren't going to be representative. Yorty's a Johnny come lately and wouldn't count.