Pacific Northwest English is a dialect of the English language spoken in the Pacific Northwest. The Pacific Northwest, defined as an area that includes part of the west coast of United States and Canada, is home to a highly diverse populace, which is reflected in the historical and continuing development of the dialect. As is the case of English spoken in any region, not all features are used by all speakers in the region, and not all features are restricted in use only to the region. The dialect is very similar to General American with the cot-caught merger, and some features in common with Prairies and Californian English.
History
Linguists who studied English as spoken in the West before and in the period immediately after World War II tended to find few if any distinct patterns unique to the Western region [1]. However, several decades later, with a more settled population and continued immigration from all over the globe, a noteworthy set of emerging characteristics of Pacific Northwest English had begun to attract notice by linguists of the late 20th century and on.
Phonology
As a variety of North American English, Pacific Northwest English is similar to most other forms of North American speech in being a rhotic accent, which is historically a significant marker in differentiating different English varieties. Notable is the absence of /ɔ/, which has merged with /ɑ/ through the cot-caught merger.
- Some front vowels are raised before velar nasal [ŋ], so that the near-open front unrounded vowel /æ/ is raised to a close-mid front unrounded vowel [e] before[ŋ]. This change makes for minimal pairs such as rang and rain, both having the same vowel [e], differing from rang [ræŋ] in other varieties of English.
- The vowels in words such as Mary, marry, merry are merged to the open-mid front unrounded vowel [ɛ]
- Most speakers do not distinguish between the open-mid back rounded vowel [ɔ] and open back unrounded vowel [ɑ], characteristic of the cot-caught merger. A notable exception occurs with some speakers over the age of 60.
- Traditionally diphthongal vowels such as [oʊ] as in boat and [eɪ], as in bait, have acquired qualities much closer to monophthongs in some speakers. However, the continuing presence of slight offglides (if less salient than those of, say, British Received Pronunciation) and convention in IPA transcription for English account for continuing use of [oʊ] and [eɪ].
- [ɛ] and sometimes [æ] as [e] before g.: "egg" and "leg" pronounced "ayg" and "layg".
- The Pacific Northwest has some of the features of the California vowel shift and the Canadian vowel shift, but to a lesser extent than other dialects.
- /æ/ is raised and diphthongized to [eə] or [ɪə] before nasal consonants in Portland, and in some areas of Southern Oregon. This feature is virtually absent further North, where /æ/ is tense before /g/ only.
- /æ/ is lowered in the direction of [a], although to a much lesser extent than in neighboring regions, and is more common in male speakers. Female speakers may even raise it slightly. Before /g/, in the Northern PNW it is pronounced tense, and in Portland, before /n/ it is also tense.
- /æ/ before /ŋ/ may be identified with the phoneme /e/.
- the Close central rounded vowel [ʉ] or Close back unrounded vowel [ɯ] for [u], is found in Portland, and some areas of Southern Oregon, but is generally not found further North, where the vowel is [u].
- /ɪŋ/ in words of more than two syllables tends to be pronounced as /in/ or /ɪn/.
- Somes speakers have a tendency to slightly raise /ai/ and /aw/ before voiceless consonants. It is strongest in rural areas in British Columbia, and in older and middle aged speakers in Vancouver. In some rural areas in Washington, /ai/ and /aw/ are raised slightly, and in other areas /ai/ is occasionally raised.
- Some speakers in Eastern Washington and Oregon either perceive or produce the pairs /ɛn/ and /ɪn/ close to each other[2]
Notes
- ^ Walt Wolfram and Ben Ward, editors (2006). American Voices: How Dialects Differ from Coast to Coast, p. 140, 234-236, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4051-2108-8.
- ^ Labov, William, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg (2006). The Atlas of North American English, p. 68, Berlin: Mouton-de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-016746-8.
This article uses material from California English.
Further reading
- Vowels and Consonants: An Introduction to the Sounds of Languages. Peter Ladefoged, 2003. Blackwell Publishing.
- Language in Society: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Suzanne Romaine, 2000. Oxford University Press.
- How We Talk: American Regional English Today. Allan Metcalf, 2000. Houghton Mifflin.
See also
External links
