The Cincinati Accent? (Cincinnati, Kent, Delaware: 2013, gated, to live in)

[buckeyenative01]

Born and raised on the East Side of Cincinnati myself (most of the family is in Clermont County and Northern Kentucky). Never really noticed I had an accent until I moved to Arizona and attended college in California when friends would point it out. Apparently it sounds faintly like southern twang?

Now whenever I go back to Cincinnati I notice it a lot more than I have in the past, especially among family members. My Northern Kentucky relatives in particular have a distinct southern twang, and they've lived in Fort Thomas/Cold Spring their entire lives.

[CincyIU29]

Generally speaking the closer to the river and the farther from downtown you get the more noticeable the twang is, but overall Cincinnati certainly has a unique accent as it is the most Southern influenced midwest city.

While Cincinnati certainly had German and Northeastern influences, areas were also settled by Southerners, whether it be Anderson Twp. in the early 1800's by Virginians or other areas after the Civil War and beyond by people mainly from appalachian KY and TN. In addition throughout Cincinnati's history the city has maintained strong ties with the South. While some, mainly those who want to cast Cincinnati as some bastion of liberal and progressive thought try to sweep any association with country, twang, or anything Southern under the table, Cincinnati certainly has a distinct accent from Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, and even Indianapolis. I don't find the twang surprising at all, though you really don't notice it until you spend some time around people from other places in the Midwest or Northeast.

[13th Alphabet]

The accent I commonly heard while living in Cincinnati definitely had a drawl to my ears. It was certainly surprising. I would routinely interact with people that sounded like they were straight from the hills of Kentucky or Tennessee, yet basically their whole family had been in Cincinnati for several generations.

The rate of speech was noticeably slower yet I appreciated it because the people in the area would fully pronounce words and I hardly had to have someone repeat something. Coming from the east coast, it was annoying at times when I would have people ask me to slow down or repeat something I said since I tend to speak fast and omit or soften certain letters. I also had to make a concerted effort to tone down my accent so I would be taken seriously in meetings and speaking with clients.

It's funny how everyone swears they don't have an accent until they move somewhere. My office had a nice roast session with me when I said I was going to the "wooder" fountain Those who were sharp in linguistics often asked if I was from Philadelphia.

[EddieOlSkool]

The official "Cincinnati accent" apparently is a Midwest accent that is Northern influenced (think the nasal short A sounds heard in Chicago or New York). But like the rest of the Midwest it has a caught-cot merger (this came from Scottish), the use of positive anymore (this came from Irish), and sometimes has some "th stopping" like saying "who dey" (instead of they).

It is a hodgepodge accent with Midland and slight Northern influence but ANYMORE it is just moving to General American because of Ohio's centralized location between the South, the Northeast, and Midwest. It is fair to say that the old school Cincinnati accent was distinctive and somewhat like Mid-Atlantic English (with less pronounced features) but the modern Cincy accent is just "Midwest standard"

Furthermore, there is no drawl in Cincinnati whatsoever. The twangy sound you refer to is honestly due to many Midland features that influenced Southern accents (such as the Long O pronunciation) and not the other way around. True drawls don't begin until Lexington and even then they aren't super strong. Tennessee is where heavy drawls happen as well as parts of Louisville but Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati don't really have them. The accent of Cincinnati is no more twangy than a Southern Pennsylvania accent which I admit to a New Englander sounds country as hell. Heck in Louisville a Pittsburgh accent sounds country and we're actually IN the South!!! That's kind of ironic how perceptions work. But what you are hearing isn't a Southern drawl but a regular Midland accent heard from as far East as South Jersey/Philly area.

Now, the nasal Midwest sound you thought Ohioans had is more of a Rust Belt/Great Lakes accent not heard anywhere else outside of that area except in St. Louis. Cincinnati's sound is more typical of the Midwest and is closer to General American (it has the cot-caught merger and uses fewer vowel variations than the Great Lakes accent)

[EddieOlSkool]

Originally Posted by LiveFreeorDie-NH

At least you guys incorporate the letter "r" into your speech. Lol. My non rhotic speech is not as bad as those in eastern Massachusetts, but I always notice just how bad it is whenever I go to Chicago. Whenever I travel, I always have to force myself to speak flat and standard english. I try to suppress my accent, but whenever I get excited or mad, it always come out in full force. I sort of envy those with a "Great Lakes" accent because they can pretty much travel anywhere without someone asking or wondering where they are from.

I know your post is old and you might not even reply, but as someone from the Great Lakes I can assure you I get asked where I am from all the time because of how I speak. Most people outside of that region guess I am either from Minnesota or Northern New Jersey. To say Great Lakes people don't sound distinctive just because we pronounce our R's is kind of ignorant.

[Coseau]

The Cincinnati accent is going extinct. The similar St Louis accent is also going extinct. Yogi Berra's dialect is/was a good example of the St Louis dialect. YouTube Yogi Berra and you will hear what was the native St Louis dialect. Here are some examples -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS83HdpzxDU - / -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDlVVl2aNuw . The only people you hear with the Cincinnati dialect are Cincinnatians aged 40 and older whose parents were long time Cincinnatians. When I hear them talk I ask them where they are from and when they reply "from Cincinnati" I am almost shocked because I assuming they are NorthEastern coastal Yankee transplants.

[EddieOlSkool]

Originally Posted by Coseau

The Cincinnati accent is going extinct. The similar St Louis accent is also going extinct. Yogi Berra's dialect is/was a good example of the St Louis dialect. YouTube Yogi Berra and you will hear what was the native St Louis dialect. Here are some examples --
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS83HdpzxDU - / -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDlVVl2aNuw . The only people you hear with the Cincinnati dialect are Cincinnatians aged 40 and older whose parents were long time Cincinnatians. When I hear them talk I ask them where they are from and when they reply "from Cincinnati" I am almost shocked because I assuming they are NorthEastern coastal Yankee transplants.

The features of St. Louis that are dying are the Irish tinge pronunciations of words like "farest", "arange", "starm" and so on BUT younger speakers are moving toward a more Northern/Great Lakes pronunciation of short vowels. It is not dying, just evolving.

Likewise the Cincinnati accent of old which was nasal and kind of a Great Lakes/Lower Midwest hybrid (similar to MODERN St. Louis) is not very common in young folk and in this case, a more Midwest sound is dominating like with the use of the "nasal system" which is very common (tensing the short A before M or N) instead of the tense-lax split that used to happen in older Cincinnati people. They say this was because people from the Mid-Atlantic settled Cincinnati. My theory actually is that any centralized location will pull from each region it is between. So Cincinnati being in a Great Lakes state may take Great Lakes vowels but not fully. Kind of how along the East Coast, the further North you go, the more nasal the accents get especially for the short A vowel. New York has more nasal short A sounds than Baltimore and Connecticut/ Rhode Island have more than New York. Cincinnati had almost as many as Cleveland but not quite. Who knows though. What I do know is the odd process of raising that vowel is unique to America.

[randomparent]

I grew up in southwestern Ohio, and I don't recall anyone ever commenting on my manner of speech. I take that to mean I have an extremely flat vocal affect. Interestingly, though, one of the first people I met after moving to Colorado asked me almost immediately whether or not I was from Ohio. As soon as she said it, I realized that I also identified her as an Ohioan. (She was from Cincinnati.) Must be something very subtle that allowed us to recognize one another, because nobody else has ever picked up on it.

Back to something mentioned early in the thread about wash vs. warsh. My father uses this pronunciation when referring to Washington DC (i.e., Warshington). I don't really think it's a rural Ohio thing with him, but more the standard for federal employees who spend a lot of time at the Pentagon. It's pretty common to hear "Warshington" inside the beltway. As an aside, my father does not warsh his car; he washes it. The pronunciation is unique to our nation's capitol, and I've wondered for years about its derivation.

[EddieOlSkool]

Yogi had a very Northern sounding accent with a tinge of Midland (how he says words like start and part like stort and port) but mostly his long vowels and even some short vowels are very Northern sounding. He could have fit in well in Chicago. I don't think the Cincinnati accent ever had that sound however. The long O sound (the stereotypical British sounding Long O) of Cincinnati always gave it that twangy quality.

[notnamed]

My wife's family is from the Cincinnati and northern Kentucky area. They've definitely got that Cincinnati drawl. It comes out of my wife on odd occasion enough for someone to point it out. I was a military brat that moved every 3-4 years. I've never had anyone say anything about me having an accent. Haven't stuck around in one place long enough to pick one up or just have an amalgamation of them all?