Tell me about Chicago regional dialect! (Springfield, Bloomington: areas, place, accent)

[EddieOlSkool]

Originally Posted by Lodestar

I am recalling what the Chicagoans, their relatives, neighbors and friends I knew, sounded like in the Fifties of the last century. They all had a very distinct Chicago accent which was markedly different from the pronunciation I learned as a child growing up in southern MN at that time.


This is undeniable and I recall quite vividly the laughs and comments made when my cousins would come to visit MN for the summer. I would suffer the same when I'd go to visit them. We spoke distinctly different versions of English.


I suspect that the mobility of the population these days has left very few of those (older) people in Chicago. And I wonder how many people who write here are old enough to remember that accent.

I have heard old Chicagoans and young alike. After all I lived there almost 30 years. There was little to no difference. Transplants are another story. Many are from the corn belt so they speak General American and of course the Minnesotans have their own thing going.

There is no documentation of older Chicago people speaking a different dialect than young ones. Chicago is one of those places without accent stigma just like Philly or Los Angeles. Doesn't mean we don't speak distinctly; we just aren't aware we do. Most Chicago people will deny an accent even exists and think they sound like Walter Cronkite.

[Lodestar]

I misunderstood your post, I guess.


Now I'm pondering. You're telling me most of the country pronounces the "au" as a short a? It sounds like poor pronunciation to me.


I'm going to have to start polling people. Actually this will hant me until I do.


It's almost as though Chicagoans put the au sound into the town name and then leave it out of aunt.


Like my Norwegian great-grandmother who said Y for V. It wasn't that she couldn't say the V sound; that's the sound she used for Y.

[EddieOlSkool]

Originally Posted by Lodestar

I misunderstood your post, I guess.


Now I'm pondering. You're telling me most of the country pronounces the "au" as a short a? It sounds like poor pronunciation to me.


I'm going to have to start polling people. Actually this will hant me until I do.


It's almost as though Chicagoans put the au sound into the town name and then leave it out of aunt.


Like my Norwegian great-grandmother who said Y for V. It wasn't that she couldn't say the V sound; that's the sound she used for Y.

That's absolutely right. The country does not use the AW sound for aunt. Chicago does use the AW sound for the name of the city however.

Now in most of the US, aunt = ant in that the same rule that is used to pronounce ant (tense the A before a nasal consonant), is also used when aunt is pronounced. It's called a tense vowel vs a lax vowel in a word like cat or bag.

On a side note, the way most Americans pronounce A before M or N is how Chicago pronounces short A before all vowels except R.

[EddieOlSkool]

Chicago follows NCVS rules on most words but usually NCVS only affects short vowels. NCVS meaning Northern Cities Vowel Shift. NCVS can cause other pronunciations to shift in various directions and this is how you can have different accents from St. Louis to Chicago to Minneapolis. They're all NCVS affected but vary in pronunciation rules.

An interesting fact is that our "base" dialect is New England English. To this day we share our long vowels with Boston (and so does every Northern dialect from Maine to Washington state). This is why our dialect has some remaining East Coast features. But make no mistake, it is a dialect that evolved with its own unique circumstances.

It is like a Boston/Minnesota hybrid. I wonder if Minnesotans say aunt the way Boston does (and Blacks).

[EddieOlSkool]

Anyone notice this weird thing about Black Chicagoans?

Some sound distinctively Black Southern. Like from the Mississippi Delta. I get it. It was their home before they came here.

But does anyone also notice an odd phenomenon of Black Chicagoans who could vocally pass for White Southerners? Like I wouldn't be able to tell some apart from Louisville East End residents (who are White). This one I don't get as they don't have a point of reference for sounding like White Southerners. I notice this trend more in the suburbs and far reaches of the city. I met a Black guy from Evanston who sounded like a regular White Texan. And then there was this Hyde Park Black woman who sounded like a White Nashville girl. It is weird phenomenon.

[NoVA2016]

I am from Springfield, IL. I basically have "no accent". At least I thought I didn't. We moved to northern VA a few years ago and people say I have a Chicago accent. What? There is no way anyone from Illinois, Chicago especially, would ever think I have a Chicago accent. Honestly, you probably think I sound like I am from the south or at least Southen Illinois. I am still bewildered by that. My father was born in Chicago and raised there until middle school when he moved to Bloomington-Normal (by the way, that seems to be the invisible dividing line between "pop and soda"; everyone south of that town says soda and north says pop. Anyway, my dad does not have an accent by any means but perhaps I picked up a few things and not aware. Who knows. Just funny how different regions assume different things.

[EddieOlSkool]

Originally Posted by NoVA2016

I am from Springfield, IL. I basically have "no accent". At least I thought I didn't. We moved to northern VA a few years ago and people say I have a Chicago accent. What? There is no way anyone from Illinois, Chicago especially, would ever think I have a Chicago accent. Honestly, you probably think I sound like I am from the south or at least Southen Illinois. I am still bewildered by that. My father was born in Chicago and raised there until middle school when he moved to Bloomington-Normal (by the way, that seems to be the invisible dividing line between "pop and soda"; everyone south of that town says soda and north says pop. Anyway, my dad does not have an accent by any means but perhaps I picked up a few things and not aware. Who knows. Just funny how different regions assume different things.

I would say Springfield follows the 55 corridor where Chicago traits make their way down to St. Louis. But not all Chicago accent traits do. Just some. Otherwise the Springfield accent is a Midland (Midwest standard) with a Chicago influence. Definitely no Southern drawl whatsoever.

It is also a myth that Chicagoans only say pop. Our proximity to Wisconsin leaves a split between pop and soda. Pop is however more preferred. We also say soda with a Northern accent like "sawwda" and not "seohda" like the rest of the Midwest. But I do think the 55 corridor preserves the Northern pronunciation because I never met someone from St. Louis who had that country sounding long O.

Edit: I realize you meant Chicagoans would think you have a Southern accent. To many in Chicago a standard Midwest accent sounds twangy and that's because of how nasal we sound. I once knew a woman who said that one of our friends from Matoon sounded Southern. I literally told her "stop speaking through your nose and then you will no longer think everyone south of Beecher is from the South". The man had no distinguishable accent whatsoever. But because he wasn't nasal he came off as Southern for some reason. Probably because outside of the Great Lakes people speak gutturally vs nasal like us from the North.

[Lud Kissel]

I grew up in the southwest suburbs and always have said soda. My wife who grew up 10 miles away always says pop and laughs at me when I say soda.. I even remember my dad using the word cola. I never say pop.

[EddieOlSkool]

Originally Posted by Lud Kissel

I grew up in the southwest suburbs and always have said soda. My wife who grew up 10 miles away always says pop and laughs at me when I say soda.. I even remember my dad using the word cola. I never say pop.

Exactly. I mean are still in Illinois lol

I wonder why the Great Lakes and Appalachian regions say pop.

[Lud Kissel]

In the 50's you went to the soda fountain at the 5 and dime, when and how did it become pop, maybe from the term "soda pop"??