More southern Maryland or Missouri?? (distance, single, African-American)

[EddieOlSkool]

Originally Posted by U146

Both states' speech patterns are more in line with Northern ones than they are with Southern ones. It's true that sometimes the speech is southern influenced but they still have a much stronger relationship to the North than to the South. The Midland dialect has always been more Northern than Southern.

That's very selective reasoning. What is this based on? The Midland accent is primarily the most "Generalized" because its features don't align strongly with either region.

But let's consider these phonological features of Maryland and Missouri accents:

O fronting (heard in the South)
U fronting (heard in the South)
Glide deletion (heard in the South)
L-vocalization (heard in the South)
Ow fronting (heard in the South)

Now let's look at their Northern characteristics and see what features they share with the North (which you claimed isn't even a consistent accent region, so I don't know how you can now say the Midland aligns more with the North)

Northern Cities Vowel Shift (heard only in St. Louis and nowhere else in these states )
Rhoticity (not unique to the North)
Caught-cot distinction (not unique to the North)
Tense-lax split (heard around Baltimore only and this is only a Philly feature not heard elsewhere in the North)
Canadian Raising (not unique to the North and this feature is even stronger in the Tidewater region )
Working class th-stopping (OK, you can make a case this is unique to the North. There, ya got ONE )

If you or someone else can list phonological reasons why Maryland and Missouri have more Northern influenced accents than Southern ones, I will be waiting.

So far, it seems that the phonological features favor more the Southeast than anywhere up North.

There is a reason why the South Midland accent region is classified with the Southeast super region in terms of dialects. Essentially, these features are shared from as far as Central Jersey to Florida. So just how "Northern" sounding is this part of the Midlands?

[EddieOlSkool]

For those doubting, here is a linguistic map of the Southeastern super region. The Southeastern super region entails most of Missouri and Maryland. Notice it does not entail any part of New York State. Also, notice it is grouped with the green Southern accent range, to imply that Southern characteristics definitely exist even in "accent neutral" areas. This is why the South Midland accents are where the transition truly is.



Also:

Headed by William Labov, the 2006 Atlas of North American English (ANAE) identifies the South itself, as well a large area of states bordering all along the South, as constituting a "Southeastern super-region,"[14] with even remote (including arguably Northern) areas that phonologically exhibit some noticeable "Southern character."[14] Essentially all of the modern-day Southern dialects, plus dialects marginal to the South, are thus considered a subset of this super-region.[note 1] Thus, a modern Southeastern dialectal super-region is defined by essentially the whole American South, including all of the Gulf region (even Florida), the Mid- and South Atlantic regions, and a transitional Midland dialect area between the South and the North, lying above the strict Southern region and comprising most of Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, southeastern Nebraska, Southern Illinois, Southern Indiana, and Southern Ohio.[15] Put perhaps in clearer terms, the Southeastern super-dialect region encompasses all of these most general regional American dialects:

Southern dialect(s)
Midland dialect
Mid-Atlantic dialect
English of the areas inside or just outside the Southern region, but without yet any well-studied "unique defining character," such as northern Florida.[16]

[CookieSkoon]

Originally Posted by EddieOlSkool

I don't know what you are referring to. You sure about that? Let's go over phonology.

Most accents in Maryland have a presence of the following features:

O fronting
Glide deletion before liquid consonants (l and r)
Fronting of the "ow" vowel (down = dayown, house = hayouse)
L-vocalization and intrusive L consonant (middle = middo, "saw a" = sawl a)
U fronting (dude = dyuuude)
Canadian Raising on the long I Vowel in some environments (life = luif, wife = wuif)
Rhoticity (except the old Tidewater folk and Blacks whose speech is coastal influenced)
Caught/cot distinction (caught is more closed in the mouth whereas cot and similar vowels are open OR caught is pronounced with a drawl)

Now let's look at Upstate New York features:
Northern Cities Vowel Shift
Rhotic
Canadian Raising before voiced and voiceless stops (most environments)
Rhoticity
Working class th-stopping
No O or U fronting to be heard, rather those are pronounced further back than in Maryland
All tense short a vowels (whereas in Maryland most short a vowels are more lax)
Same caught-cot distinction, but no drawl to be found here
No ow fronting

Honestly, while Maryland and NY State share a few similarities, these are similarities heard in most General American accents. There is no NCVS in Maryland to the slightest extent, and there is no O-fronting or U fronting in Upstate New York to any degree. Whatever similarities are there between Maryland and Upstate New York are also heard in Missouri. In fact, thanks to Northern Cities Vowel Shift, you're more likely to hear similarities between Missouri and Upstate New York than Maryland and Upstate New York. Missouri has more Northern accent proximity, anyway, thanks to the Chicago connection.

However, let's go over Missouri accents. Like Maryland, they have

Degrees of O fronting
Glide deletion
Ow fronting
L-vocalization

If you ask me, outside of St. Louis, Missouri and Maryland have more accent similarities to each other than to Upstate New York anywhere.

Or how about this:

I'm from New York.

I work in a winery and meet people from all over on a regular basis.

People from Maryland either sound Virginian, or generally northern. I've met both.

I've met people in real life to my face and to my ears which frankly trumps your study here. The human experience trumps any arm chair study. Always.

The fact of life is that no matter how much a map says so there is always a different experience in meet space. Always an exception to the rule.

Studies and maps are black and white, cut and dry; reality isn't.

Whether you like it or not we get a ton of people from Maryland at our wineries. Maryland, Pennsylvania and Ohio are the three most common sources of visitor in our store. Sometimes, sure, they are originally from here; but far less often than you'd think.

When I lived in Louisiana my room mate had a friend move nearby from Maryland, Baltimore specifically, and he sounded as northern as snow in March.

I come from the personal experience on this one. And that's just from Maryland coming to me, not even counting the times I've been there.

And again, I emphasize that I said similar, not exact. Sure there are some vowel differences or whatever, study anything hard enough and you'll split hairs down to the atom, especially if you want to find a difference.

I'm getting tired of people trying to lord assumption and hands-off research over real personal experience.

[EddieOlSkool]

Originally Posted by CookieSkoon

Or how about this:

I'm from New York.

I work in a winery and meet people from all over on a regular basis.

People from Maryland either sound Virginian, or generally northern. I've met both.

I've met people in real life to my face and to my ears which frankly trumps your study here. The human experience trumps any arm chair study. Always.

The fact of life is that no matter how much a map says so there is always a different experience in meet space. Always an exception to the rule.

Studies and maps are black and white, cut and dry; reality isn't.

Whether you like it or not we get a ton of people from Maryland at our wineries. Maryland, Pennsylvania and Ohio are the three most common sources of visitor in our store. Sometimes, sure, they are originally from here; but far less often than you'd think.

When I lived in Louisiana my room mate had a friend move nearby from Maryland, Baltimore specifically, and he sounded as northern as snow in March.

I come from the personal experience on this one. And that's just from Maryland coming to me, not even counting the times I've been there.

And again, I emphasize that I said similar, not exact. Sure there are some vowel differences or whatever, study anything hard enough and you'll split hairs down to the atom, especially if you want to find a difference.

I'm getting tired of people trying to lord assumption and hands-off research over real personal experience.

The problem with your anecdote is that it's not objecrive, and it's simply one person's opinion.

Is MY anecdote greater than yours because I think all Marylanders I met sound like Kentucky people? I've lived in both places.

[the resident09]

Originally Posted by EddieOlSkool

The most populous counties in Maryland tend to be very Black. Doesn't exactly help your case.

Also, you know where in the country you can find counties that have many Blue voting Whites. The Northeast. Places like Vermont, NH, and MA can have counties that are very Blue and very White. Maryland has not that.

It's similar to Missouri in that regard. Both Maryland and Missouri would lean Red if you removed Bmore, DC, STL, and KC. The difference is that Missouri is a larger state with many more counties so the comparison then has to be made on the voting habits of the native Whites. In which case, both states have a heavier Republican White base. If you took away Boston and other big cities from the Northeast it would still be blue. Even in the interior Northeast "Rust Belt" area, the Whites lean Blue Dog Democrat and are heavily pro Union and labor.

I'd say MD and MO are the same when it comes to their White populations when it comes to voting. I will say though that this doesn't make either more Southern, though. Middle America Whites tend to be more on the Red side, anyway. Places like Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois have a lot of Republican Whites and they ain't Southern.

So, I don't think having more Republican Whites makes either state more Southern.

Montgomery County, Md (largest in MD) - population 1,030,447, 70.9% Democrat, 17.2% Black

Baltimore County 3rd largest in MD - population 826,000, 60% Democrat, 65% white, 26% Black

Howard County population 309,000, 60% Democrat, 74% White, 14% Black

Anne Arundel County population 560,000 49% Democrat, 75% White, 15% Black.

If you took Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas out of PA, you certainly would have much more of a red state overall even though it is "in the North". So the point of taking out the most populous areas would apply in states to its North also. Pennsylvania is also still a part of the Rust belt, so no I don't think you've proven anything wrong here. Maryland is 14% Roman Catholic, 3% Southern Baptist, and 5% Evangelical. Missouri's Christian population is 36% evangelicals. Maryland Jewish population is over 238,000 (only 50-60,000 short of even larger NE states like PA and MA), Missouri's is 59,000 total.

Maryland is very much a transition state for sure, but if it leans one way or the other it definitely doesn't lean Southern, very hard to compare to Missouri here. Virginia on the other hand is a much different story.

[U146]

Originally Posted by EddieOlSkool

That's very selective reasoning. What is this based on? The Midland accent is primarily the most "Generalized" because its features don't align strongly with either region.

But let's consider these phonological features of Maryland and Missouri accents:

O fronting (heard in the South)
U fronting (heard in the South)
Glide deletion (heard in the South)
L-vocalization (heard in the South)
Ow fronting (heard in the South)

Now let's look at their Northern characteristics and see what features they share with the North (which you claimed isn't even a consistent accent region, so I don't know how you can now say the Midland aligns more with the North)

Northern Cities Vowel Shift (heard only in St. Louis and nowhere else in these states )
Rhoticity (not unique to the North)
Caught-cot distinction (not unique to the North)
Tense-lax split (heard around Baltimore only and this is only a Philly feature not heard elsewhere in the North)
Canadian Raising (not unique to the North and this feature is even stronger in the Tidewater region )
Working class th-stopping (OK, you can make a case this is unique to the North. There, ya got ONE )

If you or someone else can list phonological reasons why Maryland and Missouri have more Northern influenced accents than Southern ones, I will be waiting.

So far, it seems that the phonological features favor more the Southeast than anywhere up North.

There is a reason why the South Midland accent region is classified with the Southeast super region in terms of dialects. Essentially, these features are shared from as far as Central Jersey to Florida. So just how "Northern" sounding is this part of the Midlands?

Sorry but I've heard both Maryland and Missouri accents. They don't sound more like the South than the North. They are quite distinct from the South. And in any case, both Maryland and Missouri are fort the most part culturally not Southern, so that decisively tips them both in favor of the North. I can tell you that all of the Midland cities...Baltimore, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Baltimore all share more in common with their Northern counterparts (in Baltimore's case Philly) than anywhere in the South. None of these cities speak in accents that are Southern. I'm done having this debate with you it's been going on for so long it's ridiculous. The Southeast super region also includes most of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. You're trying to tell me most of those states speak in the Southern dialect as well? That's the most ridiculous linguistic map I've ever read. Goodbye.

[EddieOlSkool]

Originally Posted by U146

Sorry but I've heard both Maryland and Missouri accents. They don't sound more like the South than the North. They are quite distinct from the South. And in any case, both Maryland and Missouri are fort the most part culturally not Southern, so that decisively tips them both in favor of the North. I can tell you that all of the Midland cities...Baltimore, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Baltimore all share more in common with their Northern counterparts (in Baltimore's case Philly) than anywhere in the South. None of these cities speak in accents that are Southern. I'm done having this debate with you it's been going on for so long it's ridiculous. The Southeast super region also includes most of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. You're trying to tell me most of those states speak in the Southern dialect as well? That's the most ridiculous linguistic map I've ever read. Goodbye.

I don't think you read the post. It did not define the pink area as Southern accent speaking, but with variable Southern qualities. It's still MIDLAND and not Southern. Nobody said it was Southern. You are taking this very personally.

I don't get the point of just writing off a discussion because evidence is posted not in your favor. And then crying and saying "MY FEELINGS AND PERSONAL EXPERIENCE SAY OTHERWISE". Really, isn't the point of learning to drop your feelings and just focus on the objective, not the subjective?

These discussions about being Southern really anger you. Calm down, sonny. No one is saying you're Southern.

[Windy City Polak]

There are two different types of Southern:
1) Hillbilly, mountainous, kind of "white trash"
2) Flat land, plantations, large African-American populations

Maryland (at least Baltimore) is more #2.
Missouri is both. Saint Louis has the large African-American population, and portions of the Southeast region are pretty flat and wet. But there are also the mountainous, hillbilly, Ozarks.

[the resident09]

Most of Maryland is not "flat land", the state has mountains for gods sake. That criteria would also qualify Detroit and Chicago as southern for most of your #2 point.

[Spade]

Originally Posted by Mutiny77

Actually that's exactly what you're doing here and have done elsewhere.

Yeah I don't get that and then I see maps that have Central and South Florida as having the same accents as people in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and St Louis and that's unapologetically laughable. Especially amongst Blacks.