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That's because the Chicago accent is identical to the Cleveland, Buffalo etc accent. It is not as unique compared to the Philly accent which is different from the nearby New York, Baltimore and Boston accents (though there are certainly some similarities the accent shares with those three). That is the reason why that there is the "Philadelphia accent" and then there is inland north American or Northern city vowel shift and not a self dedicated "Chicago accent". There is no documented difference between the accents of Chicago, Milwaukee Cleveland etc. Overall this is the reason why the Philadelphia accent is more unique than the Chicago accent.
And who cares if DV English shares certain features with other parts of the country? New York and Boston share features with the American South (namely their non-rhoticity and even that is apparently disappearing among Southern Whites). You can try to pick apart the components of different accents, but the fact remains that only a handful of cities are recognized for having their own accent, and Philadelphia is one of them.
And who cares if DV English shares certain features with other parts of the country? New York and Boston share features with the American South (namely their non-rhoticity and even that is apparently disappearing among Southern Whites). You can try to pick apart the components of different accents, but the fact remains that only a handful of cities are recognized for having their own accent, and Philadelphia is one of them.
If we want to get all technical, there is no Philly accent in the way there is a Boston and New York one. It can be said that DV extends into other states outside of PA. The Boston and NY ones don't.
But the flipside of that, obviously, is that Delaware Valley English doesn't extend far outside of the Delaware Valley. The Inland North extends all the way from Upstate New York to Iowa. So which is more unique by that standard?
You're isolating certain features of Philadelphia speech that are found in other parts of the U.S. (such as rhoticity, for example), but then giving extremely short shrift to the fact that Philadelphia is sufficiently different from the rest of the entire United States of America to have its own, independent dialect classification. The fact is that Labov, who I presume is the basis for every assertion you've ever made with regard to this subject, places Philadelphia in its own special category along with Boston, NYC and Charleston. And that makes sense to me because these cities are older and English has been spoken there longer than it has in the Midwest.
Rhoticity you say as if that is the feature I used to make Philly have more common features.
But you missed:
Standard American short vowel pronunciations
Goat and goose fronting
Glide deletion
Long A stressed and unstressed vowels (take sounding like either teak or tike)
So no, it is not simply just "saying r" that makes Philly have traits that are common across the country. NY and Boston have less of that.
If we want to get all technical, there is no Philly accent in the way there is a Boston and New York one. It can be said that DV extends into other states outside of PA. The Boston and NY ones don't.
Is this sour grapes because Chicago doesn't have its own accent?
Is this sour grapes because Chicago doesn't have its own accent?
At the end of the day, if a random person hears a Chicago accent they will think that the person is from someone in the northern us. If this same person hears a Philly accent, they have no idea where the person is from. They won't guess north, south, east, or west. They will just hear it and think American. The fact that Chicago sounds like it fits only in region and Philly does NOT, well do what you want with that and you know it.
Rhoticity you say as if that is the feature I used to make Philly have more common features.
But you missed:
Standard American short vowel pronunciations
Goat and goose fronting
Glide deletion
Long A stressed and unstressed vowels (take sounding like either teak or tike)
So no, it is not simply just "saying r" that makes Philly have traits that are common across the country. NY and Boston have less of that.
They have "less" of that, which means they still have it. So those accents also share similarities with other American dialects (which makes sense because, ya know, we are in America). This is unlike Chicago, which you say has no features of Midland speech whatsoever.
Since you seem to be enamored with the work of one William Labov, what does it mean to you that Philadelphia gets its own classification while Chicago doesn't?
At the end of the day, if a random person Hears A Chicago accent they will think that t he person is from someone in the northern us. Is this same person who is a Philly accent, they have no idea where the person is from. They won't guess north, south, east, or what. They will just hear it and think American.
And who cares if DV English shares certain features with other parts of the country? New York and Boston share features with the American South (namely their non-rhoticity and even that is apparently disappearing among Southern Whites). You can try to pick apart the components of different accents, but the fact remains that only a handful of cities are recognized for having their own accent, and Philadelphia is one of them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee
But the flipside of that, obviously, is that Delaware Valley English doesn't extend far outside of the Delaware Valley. The Inland North extends all the way from Upstate New York to Iowa. So which is more unique by that standard?
You're isolating certain features of Philadelphia speech that are found in other parts of the U.S. (such as rhoticity, for example), but then giving extremely short shrift to the fact that Philadelphia is sufficiently different from the rest of the entire United States of America to have its own, independent dialect classification. The fact is that Labov, who I presume is the basis for every assertion you've ever made with regard to this subject, places Philadelphia in its own special category along with Boston, NYC and Charleston. And that makes sense to me because these cities are older and English has been spoken there longer than it has in the Midwest.
You beat me to it lol. EddieOlSkool is doing some extreme goal post moving to fit his argument. Also I agree with your assessment that neither accent is extremely identifiable. If you would ask anyone who never visited or is not affiliated with either city they wouldn't be able to identify either of the accents. If you ask a random person where someone with a Philly accent is from they would give an generic answer like "they are from the Northeast", or "east coast"(which is a synonym of the Northeast in real life) or inaccurately say they are from "New York" based off of the dipthongs in words like "cawfee" "tawk" "cawse" in the Philly accent. If they hear someone with the Inland north accent from Chicago they may just say "the midwest" or might just draw blank and couldn't say anything. There are probably only two, maybe three, very identifiable accents in the US and they are the New York, Southern and maybe Boston (the non rhoticity can possibly confuse it with other non rhotoric accents such as the NY accent) accents.
You beat me to it lol. EddieOlSkool is doing some extreme goal post moving to fit his argument. Also I agree with your assessment that neither accent is extremely identifiable. If you would ask anyone who never visited or is not affiliated with either city they wouldn't be able to identify either of the accents. If you ask a random person where someone with a Philly accent is from they would give an generic answer like "they are from the Northeast", or "east coast"(which is a synonym of the Northeast in real life) or inaccurately say they are from "New York" based off of the dipthongs in words like "cawfee" "tawk" "cawse" in the Philly accent. If they hear someone with the Inland north accent from Chicago they may just say "the midwest" or might just draw blank and couldn't say anything. There are probably only two, maybe three, very identifiable accents in the US and they are the New York, Southern and maybe Boston (the non rhoticity can possibly confuse it with other non rhotoric accents such as the NY accent) accents.
According to Eddie, people would hear someone from Chicago and think they were from "somewhere in the North." "Somewhere in the North" includes places like Cedar Rapids, Toledo, Allentown, Scranton, Grand Rapids...you know, places that are SOOOOO far outside of most people's conception of everyday America.
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