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^Well it is believed the Ohio Valley is very high in allergens.
Anyway, back to what I said. If one thinks about it, out of all Anglophone nations, the US is the most nasal even in the Standard American dialect category. The way we say "man", "lamb" and other A's before M or N is very distinct and nasal especially compared to English of England and everywhere else. Only Canada comes close but not to the degree we do.
California and the West Coast IMO have some of the least nasal sounds in many ways.
I was raised in the STL area (Metro East to be exact i.e., Illinois side of river) and I think that, in terms of dialect, STL is very much a mixed bag. I am not a language expert, but it seem like you get everything from the neutral dialect (which is very common in places like Clayton and West County), to the northern shift dialect (which you hear alot of in the city itself esp. the South City old timers), to a fairly strong southern dialect (which you hear alot of in many rural and working class towns on both sides of the river). Being a so called "border city", it seems like this is what you tend to get. I noticed the same thing in Cincinnati and, to a certain extent, Louisville. Although many people in Louisville seem to have a more pronounced southern dilect than either Cincy or STL.
Because maybe just maybe Louisville is actually in the South and those other cities aren't? And what does St. Louis border? It's a Midwestern city bordering a Midwestern state.
But back to the thread...
I just read the whole thing and it is very evident that Chicagoans get butthurt at the mention that there might be a distinctive accent there. Like it physically bothers people from Chicago to be told they sound distinctive. Literally hurts their feelings. Strange and a bit sad. Or seead. And that coldwine character...I know this was many years ago but WOW I didn't think people actually could be that convinced of their own ignorance.
If you're wondering why I am on this thread, well I needed something to do while sitting waiting for my next uber ping. Fun thread, though! I learned that apparently people with no linguistic interest or knowledge can cancel out decades of research just by their own thought process. Kudos, Chicago!
Last edited by EddieOlSkool; 04-04-2017 at 11:09 PM..
No way. You may as well take out most of the coastal Northeast for this thread as a small but significant portion of the population still have thick and distinctive accent(s). For more subtle differences, In Rhode Island, most have the the mary/marry/merry split which is only shared by 17% of the nation, there is also the word "Aunt", where the vowel is more like "Ah" than like ant(said this way by over 75% of the nation). The last seems to be a mostly New England thing(above 30% in all New England states). Those are subtle, but important pronunciations differences that eliminates most of New England from the neutral category.
^Well it is believed the Ohio Valley is very high in allergens.
Anyway, back to what I said. If one thinks about it, out of all Anglophone nations, the US is the most nasal even in the Standard American dialect category. The way we say "man", "lamb" and other A's before M or N is very distinct and nasal especially compared to English of England and everywhere else. Only Canada comes close but not to the degree we do.
California and the West Coast IMO have some of the least nasal sounds in many ways.
I've heard this described as one of the worst feature in American speech. I remember as a teen wondering why Canadians sounded a bit more pleasing to my ears compared to Americans, I think its that nasal sound that makes the difference. Although, I oddly like it on NYC/Northern NJ and MN accents. On general American though, its sounds very grating to the ears. I've noticed Aussies occasionally do in on some vowels, usually on words that begin with an f.
I've heard this described as one of the worst feature in American speech. I remember as a teen wondering why Canadians sounded a bit more pleasing to my ears compared to Americans, I think its that nasal sound that makes the difference. Although, I oddly like it on NYC/Northern NJ and MN accents. On general American though, its sounds very grating to the ears. I've noticed Aussies occasionally do in on some vowels, usually on words that begin with an f.
What? Any examples of Aussies doing this? I thought Aussies either had short A lax or r-colored short A "broad". I didn't think anyone not American tensed the short A.
I did watch a video though of an East Anglian speaker who *seemingly* tensed it. I will post it shortly.
What? Any examples of Aussies doing this? I thought Aussies either had short A lax or r-colored short A "broad". I didn't think anyone not American tensed the short A.
I did watch a video though of an East Anglian speaker who *seemingly* tensed it. I will post it shortly.
I'm not on expert on linguistics or anything, so I may be confusing it for something else, but here are a few examples:
The girl in this video say "fan" around .37 - 0.38 that sounds very similar to how I hear Americans say it, though not quite as nasal. She seemingly does it again when saying "fantastic" around 0.59 - 1:00 mark:
I'd be very interested in seeing that vid you mentioned, I can't imagine hearing an Englishmen do this, lol. Especially where(imo) it doesn't appear a lot of people from region have much of an accent(by that I mean they sound similar to generic Southeast speakers).
I'm not on expert on linguistics or anything, so I may be confusing it for something else, but here are a few examples:
The girl in this video say "fan" around .37 - 0.38 that sounds very similar to how I hear Americans say it, though not quite as nasal. She seemingly does it again when saying "fantastic" around 0.59 - 1:00 mark:
I'd be very interested in seeing that vid you mentioned, I can't imagine hearing an Englishmen do this, lol. Especially where(imo) it doesn't appear a lot of people from region have much of an accent(by that I mean they sound similar to generic Southeast speakers).
0:55
Dude said "where did you go LEEAST night?"
Or maybe that wasn't the word he used but if he did say "last" it certainly had quite the Chicagoan /Northern US quality to it. If he didn't say that word then disregard what I noticed.
But your Aussies examples clarified it for me. I wonder if this at one point was an English trait that largely fell out of favor in England where Americans embraced it. It certainly is one of the worst qualities of American English and the Chicago dialect (which people here think is apparently perfect dictionary English) has it the worst because every single short A gets tensed unless before an R. See we pronounce start, car, and hard with the same vowel as the Irish, Northern English, East Anglians, Australians, and of course Bostonians.
Except, of course, they have essentially the same "accent" with only minor, and rapidly disappearing, differences that only a trained linguist studying very minute phonemic differences that 99.9% of native english speakers would not register as different.
Other than that...yes, Kansas City accents are is IN NO WAY NEUTRAL, they are just "almost identical to neutral".
Definitely not in my experience, there are easily identifiable differences.
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