Inland Northern American English - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Inland North dialect of American English

American English

American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....

is spoken in a region that includes most of the cities along the Erie Canal

Erie Canal

The Erie Canal is a waterway in New York that runs about from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, completing a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The canal contains 36 locks and encompasses a total elevation differential of...

and on the U.S. side of Great Lakes region

Great Lakes region (North America)

The Great Lakes region of North America, occasionally known as the Third Coast or the Fresh Coast , includes the eight U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as well as the Canadian province of Ontario...

, reaching approximately from Utica, New York

Utica, New York

Utica is a city in and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The population was 62,235 at the 2010 census, an increase of 2.6% from the 2000 census....

to Green Bay, Wisconsin

Green Bay, Wisconsin

Green Bay is a city in and the county seat of Brown County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, located at the head of Green Bay, a sub-basin of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Fox River. It has an elevation of above sea level and is located north of Milwaukee. As of the 2010 United States Census,...

, as well as a corridor extending down across central Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

from Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

to St. Louis

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

.

This dialect used to be the Standard Midwestern speech that is traditionally regarded as the basis for General American

General American

General American , also known as Standard American English , is a major accent of American English. The accent is not restricted to the United States...

in the mid-20th century, though it has been since modified by an innovative vowel shift

Vowel shift

A vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language.The best-known example in the English language is the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the 15th century...

known as the Northern Cities Shift

Northern cities vowel shift

The Northern cities vowel shift is a chain shift in the sounds of some vowels in the dialect region of American English known as the Inland North.-Geography:...

, which has altered its character.

Notable speakers of the Inland North Dialect include US President Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

, former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney

Willard Mitt Romney is an American businessman and politician. He was the 70th Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 and is a candidate for the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination.The son of George W...

, actors, Dennis Farina

Dennis Farina

Dennis Farina is an American actor of film and television and former Chicago police officer. He is a character actor, often typecast as a mobster or police officer. His most known film roles are those of mobster Jimmy Serrano in the comedy Midnight Run and Ray "Bones" Barboni in Get Shorty...

, Dennis Franz

Dennis Franz

Dennis Franz is an American actor best known for his role as Andy Sipowicz, a hard-boiled police detective in the television series NYPD Blue. He previously appeared as Lt...

, Gene Wilder

Gene Wilder

Gene Wilder is an American stage and screen actor, director, screenwriter, and author.Wilder began his career on stage, making his screen debut in the film Bonnie and Clyde in 1967. His first major role was as Leopold Bloom in the 1968 film The Producers...

, as well as the late John Belushi

John Belushi

John Adam Belushi was an American comedian, actor, and musician, best known as one of the original cast members of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, The Star of the Films National Lampoon's Animal House and the The Blues Brothers and for fronting the American blues and soul...

and Chris Farley

Chris Farley

Christopher Crosby "Chris" Farley was an American comedian and actor. Farley was a member of Chicago's Second City Theatre and cast member of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live from 1990 to 1995....

; US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; actresses Bonnie Hunt

Bonnie Hunt

Bonnie Lynne Hunt is an American actress, comedian, writer, director, television producer and daytime television host.- Early life :...

and Jami Gertz

Jami Gertz

Jami Beth Gertz is an American actress. Gertz is known for her early roles in the films Sixteen Candles, Crossroads, The Lost Boys, Less Than Zero, the 1980s TV series Square Pegs with Sarah Jessica Parker, and 1996's Twister, as well as for her role as Judy Miller in the CBS sitcom Still Standing...

; filmmaker Michael Moore

Michael Moore

Michael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...

; financial adviser Suze Orman

Suze Orman

Susan "Suze" Lynn Orman is an American financial advisor, author, motivational speaker, and television host.Orman was born in Chicago and received her B.A. in social work. She worked as a waitress in Berkeley, California before becoming a financial advisor for Merrill Lynch...

; talk show host Steve Wilkos

Steve Wilkos

Steven John "Steve" Wilkos is an American television personality, a former U.S. Marine and officer with the Chicago police. He currently hosts his own talk show, The Steve Wilkos Show, but is best known as the former director of security on The Jerry Springer Show...

; and musicians Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...

and Bob Seger

Bob Seger

Robert Clark "Bob" Seger is an American rock and roll singer-songwriter, guitarist and pianist.As a locally successful Detroit-area artist, he performed and recorded as Bob Seger and the Last Heard and Bob Seger System throughout the 1960s...

.

The dialect was used for comedic affect in the Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...

skit Bill Swerski's Superfans

Bill Swerski's Superfans

Bill Swerski's Superfans was a recurring sketch about Chicago sports fans on the American sketch comedy program Saturday Night Live. It was a prominent feature from 1991–1992, and its characters have made various other appearances since its inception....

, and in the film The Blues Brothers

The Blues Brothers (film)

The Blues Brothers is a 1980 musical comedy film directed by John Landis and starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as "Joliet" Jake and Elwood Blues, characters developed from a musical sketch on the NBC variety series Saturday Night Live. It features musical numbers by R&B and soul singers James...

Distribution

The Inland North consists of western and central New York State (Syracuse

Syracuse, New York

Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...

, Rochester

Rochester, New York

Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...

, Buffalo

Buffalo, New York

Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...

, Binghamton

Binghamton, New York

Binghamton is a city in the Southern Tier of New York in the United States. It is near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the confluence of the Susquehanna and Chenango Rivers...

, Jamestown

Jamestown, New York

Jamestown is a city in Chautauqua County, New York in the United States. The population was 31,146 at the 2010 census.The City of Jamestown is adjacent to Town of Ellicott and is at the southern tip of Chautauqua Lake...

, Olean

Olean, New York

Olean is a city in Cattaraugus County, New York, United States. Olean is the largest city in Cattaraugus County, and serves as the financial, business, transportation and entertainment center of the county. It is one of the principal cities of the Southern Tier region of New York.The city is...

); northern Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

(Akron

Akron, Ohio

Akron , is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Summit County. It is located in the Great Lakes region approximately south of Lake Erie along the Little Cuyahoga River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 199,110. The Akron Metropolitan...

, Cleveland

Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...

, Toledo

Toledo, Ohio

Toledo is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Lucas County. Toledo is in northwest Ohio, on the western end of Lake Erie, and borders the State of Michigan...

); Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

's Lower Peninsula (Detroit, Flint

Flint, Michigan

Flint is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and is located along the Flint River, northwest of Detroit. The U.S. Census Bureau reports the 2010 population to be placed at 102,434, making Flint the seventh largest city in Michigan. It is the county seat of Genesee County which lies in the...

, Grand Rapids, Lansing

Lansing, Michigan

Lansing is the capital of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located mostly in Ingham County, although small portions of the city extend into Eaton County. The 2010 Census places the city's population at 114,297, making it the fifth largest city in Michigan...

); northwestern Indiana

Indiana

Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

(Gary

Gary, Indiana

Gary is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. The city is in the southeastern portion of the Chicago metropolitan area and is 25 miles from downtown Chicago. The population is 80,294 at the 2010 census, making it the seventh-largest city in the state. It borders Lake Michigan and is known...

); northern Illinois

Illinois

(Chicago

Chicago

, Rockford

Rockford, Illinois

Rockford is a mid-sized city located on both banks of the Rock River in far northern Illinois. Often referred to as "The Forest City", Rockford is the county seat of Winnebago County, Illinois, USA. As reported in the 2010 U.S. census, the city was home to 152,871 people, the third most populated...

); and southeastern Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...

(Kenosha, Racine

Racine, Wisconsin

Racine is a city in and the county seat of Racine County, Wisconsin, United States. According to 2008 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the city had a population of 82,196...

, Milwaukee).

A corridor of cities along Interstate 55

Interstate 55

Interstate 55 is an Interstate Highway in the central United States. Its odd number indicates that it is a north–south Interstate Highway. I-55 goes from LaPlace, Louisiana at Interstate 10 to Chicago at U.S. Route 41 , at McCormick Place. A common nickname for the highway is "double...

southwest of Chicago as far as St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

, which historically belong to the Midland

Midland American English

The Midland dialect of American English was first defined by Hans Kurath as being the dialect spoken in an area centered on Philadelphia and expanding westward to include most of Pennsylvania and part of the Appalachian Mountains...

region, have also begun taking on features of the Inland North's Northern Cities Shift in recent decades. On the other hand, Erie, Pennsylvania

Erie, Pennsylvania

Erie is a city located in northwestern Pennsylvania in the United States. Named for the lake and the Native American tribe that resided along its southern shore, Erie is the state's fourth-largest city , with a population of 102,000...

was regarded as an Inland North city by researchers in the first half of the 20th century, but it never underwent the Northern Cities Shift and now shares many features with the rest of Western Pennsylvania.

Many African-Americans in Detroit are multidialectal and also or exclusively use AAVE, but some do use this dialect, as do almost all people of non-African descent in and around the city.

Phonology

Many of the characteristics listed here are not unique to the region, but are found elsewhere in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, especially elsewhere in the Midwest.

As in General American, Inland North speech is rhotic
Rhotic and non-rhotic accents
English pronunciation can be divided into two main accent groups: a rhotic speaker pronounces a rhotic consonant in words like hard; a non-rhotic speaker does not...

.
The Mary–marry–merry merger: Words containing /æ/, /ɛ/, or /eɪ/ before an r and a vowel are all pronounced "[ɛ~eɪ]-r-vowel", so that Mary, marry, and merry all sound the same as each other, and have the same first vowel as Sharon, Sarah, and bearing. This merger is widespread throughout the Midwest, West, and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.
The Inland North does not undergo the cot–caught merger.
Many speakers in the region rhyme the word on with don, not with dawn.

Phonetics

The Northern cities shift

This chain shift

Chain shift

In phonology, a chain shift is a phenomenon in which several sounds move stepwise along a phonetic scale. The sounds involved in a chain shift can be ordered into a "chain" in such a way that, after the change is complete, each phoneme ends up sounding like what the phoneme before it in the chain...

is found only in the Inland North—in fact, it is the feature that defines the Inland North, for modern dialectological purposes. It has been occurring in six stages:

The first stage of the shift is the general raising and fronting of /æ/, which often comes to be realized as a centering diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...

of the type [eə] or [ɪə].
The second stage is the fronting of /ɑ/ to [a], which occupies a place close to the former /æ/.
In the third stage, /ɔ/ lowers towards [ɑ].
The fourth stage is the backing and lowering of /ɛ/.
During the fifth stage, /ʌ/ is backed towards [ɔ].
In the sixth stage, /ɪ/ is lowered and backed, although it is kept distinct from /ɛ/ in all phonetic environments, so the pin–pen merger does not occur.

Note that this shift is in progress across the region, but that each subsequent stage is a result of the previous one(s), so that an individual speaker may not display all of these shifts, but no speaker will display the last without also showing the ones before it.

Other characteristics

Canadian raising
Canadian raising
Canadian raising is a phonetic phenomenon that occurs in varieties of the English language, especially Canadian English, in which certain diphthongs are "raised" before voiceless consonants...

of /aɪ/, though usually not of /aʊ/, is found in this region. It occurs before some voiced consonants. For example, many speakers pronounce fire, tiger, and spider with the raised vowel.
When it is not subject to raising, the nucleus of /aɪ/ is pronounced with the tongue further to the front of the mouth than that of /aʊ/. Relatedly, the nucleus of /aɪ/ may be more fronted than it is in some other North American accents and the nucleus of /aʊ/ may be more backed than in some other North American accents.
Like /aʊ/, the nucleus of /oʊ/ (as in go and boat) remains a back vowel [oʊ], not undergoing the fronting that is common in some other regions. Similarly, the traditionally high back vowel /uː/ tends to be less fronted in the North than in other regions, though it still undergoes some fronting especially after coronal consonant
Coronal consonant
Coronal consonants are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical , laminal , domed , or subapical , as well as a few rarer orientations, because only the front of the tongue has such...

s.
/ɑr/ (as in bar) is fronted for many speakers in this region, resulting in variants like [bäɹ] or even [baɹ].

Vocabulary

Note that not all of these are specific to the region.

Faucet
Tap (valve)
A tap is a valve controlling release of liquids or gas. In the British Isles and most of the Commonwealth, the word is used for any everyday type of valve, particularly the fittings that control water supply to bathtubs and sinks. In the U.S., the term "tap" is more often used for beer taps,...

vs. Southern spigot.
(Peach) Pit vs. Southern stone or seed.
Pop for soft drink
Soft drink
A soft drink is a non-alcoholic beverage that typically contains water , a sweetener, and a flavoring agent...

, vs. East-Coastal and Californian soda and Southern coke. The "soda/pop line" has been found to run between Western and Central New York State (Buffalo residents say "pop" while Syracuse residents who used to say "pop" until sometime in the 1970s now say "soda." Lollipops are also known as "suckers" in this region.) In parts of eastern Wisconsin and in a huge area centered around St. Louis, soda is more common.
Shopping cart
Shopping cart
A shopping cart is a cart supplied by a shop, especially supermarkets, for use by customers inside the shop for transport of merchandise to the check-out counter during shopping...

vs. Southern buggy.
Teeter totter vs. Southern seesaw
Seesaw
A seesaw is a long, narrow board pivoted in the middle so that, as one end goes up, the other goes down.-Mechanics:Mechanically a seesaw is a lever and fulcrum....

.
Tennis shoes' or 'gym shoes' vs. New England sneakers
Athletic shoe
Athletic shoe is a generic name for the footwear primarily designed for sports or other forms of physical exercise but in recent years has come to be used for casual everyday activities....

.
Drinking fountain vs. Water fountain vs Bubbler.

Individual cities and regions also have their own vocabularies. For example:

in eastern and southern Wisconsin, drinking fountains are known as bubbler
Bubbler
Bubbler is a trademarked name that refers to what some may call a drinking fountain.-History of device:The Bubbler' was developed in 1889 by the then-small Kohler Water Works in Kohler, Wisconsin, which was already well-known for its faucet production...

s
in the Chicago area, sneakers are often known as gym shoes
in Michigan, convenience stores are called party stores
in Detroit, sliding glass door
Sliding glass door
A Sliding glass door or Patio door, a type of sliding door in architecture and construction, is a large glass window opening in a structure that provide door access from a room to the outdoors, fresh air, and copious natural light. A sliding glass door is usually considered a single unit consisting...

s may be called doorwalls
Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, and Binghamton residents say "sneakers
Athletic shoe
Athletic shoe is a generic name for the footwear primarily designed for sports or other forms of physical exercise but in recent years has come to be used for casual everyday activities....

" rather than "tennis shoes"
in Cleveland the road verge (grass between the sidewalk and the street) is called a tree lawn, whereas in nearby Akron
Akron
-Settlements:Canada* Akron, OntarioSouth Africa* Akron, South AfricaUnited States* Akron, Alabama* Akron, Colorado* Akron, Indiana* Akron, Iowa* Akron, Michigan* Akron, New York* Akron, Pennsylvania* Akron, West Virginia* Akron Township, Illinois...

the same space is called a devilstrip.
Automated Teller Machines (ATM) are called Take Your Money Everywhere (TYME) throughout most of Wisconsin, resulting in locals asking, "Where's the nearest Tyme
Tyme
TYME is an ATM/interbank network in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It was organized in 1975 and was the first shared EFT network in the country...

machine?" Used outside of this area people will think they are being asked directions to a time machine
Time Machine
A time machine is a fictional/hypothetical device used to achieve time travel. The term may also refer to:-Novels and films:* The Time Machine, an 1895 novel by H. G...

.

Sources

Labov, William, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg (2006). The Atlas of North American English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-016746-8

External links