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I was wondering what are the characteristics of the accent in Seattle. How does it differ from other cities? Is it true that this is the newscaster's accent?
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-Is it true that this is the newscaster's accent? -
No, these are newscasters-like cities:
1. Omaha
2. Columbus
3. Denver
National newscasters don't pronounce bag as [beig], and they don't use a rounded vowel in words like dOllar, pOlitics, cOllege.
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Word that end in -ing are pronounced as -een by some. Such as running --> runneen; driving --> driveen (but king == king).
I think some other places do something similar. Like in like California running --> runneeng; king --> keeng, etc.
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In my opinion the Seattle accent sounds just like a newscaster accent--a Canadian newscaster accent--where they do have -ag raising, a rounded cot-caught vowel, etc.
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It's a little hard to define a Seattle accent, for the same reason it's hard to define an Atlanta or Dallas or San Francisco accent--all the transplants tend to drown out whatever vestiges of a "local accent" there may have once been.
Bill Gates is a native of Seattle, and he uses a rounded vowel for the COT-CAUGHT phoneme. This is generally the case with most natives of the Pacific Northwest, from Northern California upward. But like I said, the metropolitan nature of a lot of US urban centers makes it pretty hard to pin them down dialectically. You can often find people who grew up in a large US city who have accents totally unlike the traditional "local" speech.
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At the present time, Seattle still pretty much speaks what is often called "General American" or "Broadcaster English." This is a variety of English spoken across most of the central and western United States from Delaware to Pittsburg and from Pittsburg to the Pacific Coast.
However, every language and dialect is in a constant state of flux and the changes that will someday characterize a "Seattle" or "Pacific Northwest" English are probably slowly developing somewhere in the population right now. The only problem is that it will probably take another seventy-five to one hundred years before they start to become really noticeable.
There are people in Seattle from other parts of the country who still speak with their characteristic New York, Chicago, Valley Girl and Texan accents too. However, these will almost certainly disappear as their future descendants merge with the native Pacific Northwest population.
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Yes, it's amazing how future descendants are not affected by their parents' accent.
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Does the accent in Seattle stick out to people from different areas? Is it easy to pick out a Seattle accent, like it is to pick out, say, a Chicago accent, or a California accent? Or is it often confused for a different accent, like say a California accent?
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To me, this Seattle newscaster sounds like someone from Denver CO or St. John's Canada or Tucson AZ because she uses the unrounded vowel /A/ in Paula [pAl@]...I guess the local accent would prefer the rounded vowel here /Q/: [pQl@]. So I guess, Seattle newscaster's accent is different from the Seattle local accent: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSZsZdwVa9s
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Seattle-born Amy Walker, 25, posted a clever video on the Internet of her performing 21 English-language accents not long after moving to Philadelphia recently. Last weekend, someone put the video on the Web site Break.com and it has since generated 1 million views across the Internet and mainstream media interest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBIrfnvv0pE
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Is it jarring when people pronounce "cot" as "caught", and "tot" as "taught"?
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What's the correct pronunciation of the word "sorry". I pronounce it as "sari", but my grandpa pronounces it as "sohrry". Is he just weird, or is that really the correct pronunciation? We are both from Washington state.
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[sQri] (sohrry, sawry) is more Canadian, [sAri] is more (General) American.
I've never heard a Canadian pronounce it as ['sAri], but I've heard [t@'mAro(U)] pronounced by Canadians many times...
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I don't know about BORROW. Let's wait for a Canadian answer. )
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