English questions

[anteallach]

I found that sit and Sid were about the same length as syllables, with a slightly longer vowel before /d/ cancelled out by the consonant itself being shorter.

OTOH seed is considerably longer than seat (which is similar to Sid).

[alice]

In my idiolect the vowels in "bid", "bead", "bit", and "beat" are all the same length.

[Travis B.]

For me I have only two lengths in these words -- short in bit and beat, and long in bid and bead.

[Travis B.]

Note that I have an overlong vowel in bidding when pronounced with /ŋ/, i.e. [b̥ɪ̈ːːŋ].

[Lērisama]

In my idiolect the vowels in "bid", "bead", "bit", and "beat" are all the same length.

I tried this and I sounded Scottish to myself, so I assume I did it right.

[jal]

No I'm not. I've sadly not yet joined the ZBB English dialedt praat club.

I saw a comment by you in the first page of that topic, hence my remark.


JAL

[Lērisama]

No I'm not. I've sadly not yet joined the ZBB English dialedt praat club.

I saw a comment by you in the first page of that topic, hence my remark.

It seems my wish to praat myself dates back quite a while…

[jcb]

I have a question about the Northern Cities Vowels Shift, especially for the people that live in these areas:

How common is the accent? I assume there's many transplants in a city like Chicago, so there's probably many without it? But how common is it in people that grew up in the area? Is it still associated with working class identity?

[Travis B.]

I have a question about the Northern Cities Vowels Shift, especially for the people that live in these areas:

How common is the accent? I assume there's many transplants in a city like Chicago, so there's probably many without it? But how common is it in people that grew up in the area? Is it still associated with working class identity?

The NCVS is extremely common here in Milwaukee and in Chicago. It is a classic feature of both Milwaukee and Chicago dialects, and is even found in more GA-adjacent speech here.

For instance, I did not even really realize that [a(ː)] was not the 'default' pronunciation of LOT/FATHER in NAE until I was an adult. I also did not realize that TRAP in GA is lower than my native TRAP, and DRESS in GA is more fronted than my native DRESS, because I really had no clear idea of how GA differed vowel system-wise from my native speech as I did not really hear GA in Real Life. (Note, however, that the NCVS is slightly modified here in Milwaukee, in that TRAP doesn't typically diphthongize except before /m n/ even though it is clearly raised except before /d/.)

Also, I don't really perceive the NCVS as being 'working class' -- for instance, in the typical American scheme of things (not the socialist scheme of things) I am 'middle class', and I do not perceive the NCVS as being out of place at all as such.

There are features which are definitely class-marked, in contrast, such as the use of ain't -- there are people here who use it, but I never grew up around it and never knew anyone growing up who really used it.

[Travis B.]

One thing that should be remembered, though, is that the NCVS at least here in Milwaukee is definitely marked for race -- a classic feature of English as spoken by Black people here is the lack of the NCVS even when one completely excludes AAVE from consideration. This is to the point that I cannot help but think that people I hear on the radio are Black simply because they speak plain GA (and in many cases when I realize who they are they turn out to be White). (This is in contrast with White local DJ's and radio personalities who do speak with degrees of the NCVS even when their speech is otherwise rather GA-adjacent.)

[jal]

I did not really hear GA in Real Life

Not even on TV or in movies?


JAL

[Starbeam]

I have a question about the Northern Cities Vowels Shift, especially for the people that live in these areas:

How common is the accent? I assume there's many transplants in a city like Chicago, so there's probably many without it? But how common is it in people that grew up in the area? Is it still associated with working class identity?

No, not everyone has the accent, but it's a lot more common than you think. I'm a transplant and I'm so used to hearing it at my job that it's started rubbing off into my speech. The general thing that forces outsiders to develop the NCVS is speaking another accent with a caught-cot distinction, even a non-native one. I do try to distinguish caught and cot despite the fact i grew up only (slightly) distinguishing lot and cloth. The people who have it generally live in white or hispanic areas that are somewhat removed from any "old country" and live in the city with families. So think Lincoln Park or Bridgeport, not Rogers Park or Streeterville. It's also common deep into the suburbs, most of which aren't as rich as i've been told they are.

That said, I have not been able to spot any associations with individual politics or social class.

I did not really hear GA in Real Life

Not even on TV or in movies?


JAL

Those aren't real life. But I do hear it often because I don't hang out with a lot of Chicago locals.

One thing that should be remembered, though, is that the NCVS at least here in Milwaukee is definitely marked for race -- a classic feature of English as spoken by Black people here is the lack of the NCVS even when one completely excludes AAVE from consideration. This is to the point that I cannot help but think that people I hear on the radio are Black simply because they speak plain GA (and in many cases when I realize who they are they turn out to be White). (This is in contrast with White local DJ's and radio personalities who do speak with degrees of the NCVS even when their speech is otherwise rather GA-adjacent.)

I can easily tell a faint AAVE accent, but most black people in Chicago still use Great Lakes dialectal vocabulary like "pop" or "carmel". I haven't met a lot of black people even code-switch with Great Lakes accents tho.

[jal]

I did not really hear GA in Real Life

Not even on TV or in movies?

Those aren't real life. But I do hear it often because I don't hang out with a lot of Chicago locals.

Well, he didn't say "real life", he said "not really", which imho includes the media.


JAL

[Starbeam]

Not even on TV or in movies?

Those aren't real life. But I do hear it often because I don't hang out with a lot of Chicago locals.

Well, he didn't say "real life", he said "not really", which imho includes the media.


JAL

"Not really" in that sentence means "infrequently" before "real life", which he absolutely said. And no, the media is not real life. You do not interact with the media and it's made well ahead of time. Travis is referring to talking to people in person or at least online with an active participant.

[Travis B.]

I did not really hear GA in Real Life

Not even on TV or in movies?

Oh, I heard it on TV or in movies, but as Starbeam says that isn't Real Life. I should qualify what I said, though, and state that I did hear GA from the limited number of Black people I knew growing up (in a largely but not solely White suburb), because a key difference between 'middle class' White and Black people here is that 'middle class' White people here will speak with the NCVS while 'middle class' Black people will generally speak non-NCVS GA amongst White people.

[jcb]

No, not everyone has the accent, but it's a lot more common than you think. I'm a transplant and I'm so used to hearing it at my job that it's started rubbing off into my speech.

So, does *not* having the NCVS (as a White person) clearly mark one as an outsider?

The general thing that forces outsiders to develop the NCVS is speaking another accent with a caught-cot distinction, even a non-native one. I do try to distinguish caught and cot despite the fact i grew up only (slightly) distinguishing lot and cloth.

I don't think I could speak with a CAUGHT-COT distinction if I tried. It'd be too hard to quickly remember which word belongs to which category, coming from my CAUGHT-COT merged dialect.

[Starbeam]

No, not everyone has the accent, but it's a lot more common than you think. I'm a transplant and I'm so used to hearing it at my job that it's started rubbing off into my speech.

So, does *not* having the NCVS (as a White person) clearly mark one as an outsider?

I honestly can't tell you. But the reverse is true: all people who have the accent are local.

The general thing that forces outsiders to develop the NCVS is speaking another accent with a caught-cot distinction, even a non-native one. I do try to distinguish caught and cot despite the fact i grew up only (slightly) distinguishing lot and cloth.

I don't think I could speak with a CAUGHT-COT distinction if I tried. It'd be too hard to quickly remember which word belongs to which category, coming from my CAUGHT-COT merged dialect.

The only time I ever was caught (heh) off-guard is when the distinction occurred before l and r. For me, all vowels sorta weaken before liquids, so even people with like thick Phillymore accents would not make it as obvious as somebody from New York or England.

[Travis B.]

No, not everyone has the accent, but it's a lot more common than you think. I'm a transplant and I'm so used to hearing it at my job that it's started rubbing off into my speech.

So, does *not* having the NCVS (as a White person) clearly mark one as an outsider?

Not having the NCVS as a White person to me does mark you as not being a local.

The general thing that forces outsiders to develop the NCVS is speaking another accent with a caught-cot distinction, even a non-native one. I do try to distinguish caught and cot despite the fact i grew up only (slightly) distinguishing lot and cloth.

I don't think I could speak with a CAUGHT-COT distinction if I tried. It'd be too hard to quickly remember which word belongs to which category, coming from my CAUGHT-COT merged dialect.

Conversely, the cot-caught distinction is completely natural -- I did not even realize that there were people who didn't make that distinction until I was an adult.

[Travis B.]

The general thing that forces outsiders to develop the NCVS is speaking another accent with a caught-cot distinction, even a non-native one. I do try to distinguish caught and cot despite the fact i grew up only (slightly) distinguishing lot and cloth.

I don't think I could speak with a CAUGHT-COT distinction if I tried. It'd be too hard to quickly remember which word belongs to which category, coming from my CAUGHT-COT merged dialect.

The only time I ever was caught (heh) off-guard is when the distinction occurred before l and r. For me, all vowels sorta weaken before liquids, so even people with like thick Phillymore accents would not make it as obvious as somebody from New York or England.

The cot-caught distinction is definitely alive and well before /l/ here, while my dialect like GA-adjacent varieties does not distinguish LOT before /r/ from NORTH/FORCE in most cases, except that tomorrow, borrow, and sorrow (but not Florida, horrible, or forest, unlike many East Coast varieties) have [ɑː], but other words with LOT before /r/ have [ɔ(ː)] like NORTH/FORCE (note, however, that while my native sorry has [ɔː], you can hear [ɑː] in sorry here as well, and people do 'split the difference' and pronounce it with [ɒː] (!), which I have caught myself doing).

[Starbeam]

I don't think I could speak with a CAUGHT-COT distinction if I tried. It'd be too hard to quickly remember which word belongs to which category, coming from my CAUGHT-COT merged dialect.

The only time I ever was caught (heh) off-guard is when the distinction occurred before l and r. For me, all vowels sorta weaken before liquids, so even people with like thick Phillymore accents would not make it as obvious as somebody from New York or England.

The cot-caught distinction is definitely alive and well before /l/ here, while my dialect like GA-adjacent varieties does not distinguish LOT before /r/ from NORTH/FORCE in most cases, except that tomorrow, borrow, and sorrow (but not Florida, horrible, or forest, unlike many East Coast varieties) have [ɑː], but other words with LOT before /r/ have [ɔ(ː)] like NORTH/FORCE (note, however, that while my native sorry has [ɔː], you can hear [ɑː] in sorry here as well, and people do 'split the difference' and pronounce it with [ɒː] (!), which I have caught myself doing).

What i meant was that i couldn't recognize it there, even though that falls more into the THOUGHT-LOT split as well. Nowadays i can definitely notice it. I also grew up without the borrow-forest split. I pronounce 'Los' and 'Las' in American placenames the same, but not with a consistent pronounciation: sometimes it has [ɔ(ː)], other times it has [ɑː]. I try to lean toward the former.