My Accent

>> There's something in the way Francis pronounces the "oo" in "zoo" and a few other words with that vowel sound that seemed "different" to me. <<

Maybe because in Los Angeles the vowel is fronted and unrounded because of the California vowel shift. That could be why it sounds different to you. It sounds perfectly normal to me.

>>> Easy! You're from Hartford, Connecticut! :) <<<

>What makes you say that? What features does a Hartford accent have?<

I don't really have any reason, other than intuition. I imagine I will turn out to be wrong. I'm British, but lived in America for some time. I was just trying to imagine who he sounded like from people I knew. I imagined New England/East coast, somewhere a bit posh to be honest, but it's not based on anything.

I hope this isn't too cheeky to say, but if it's so hard to tell, doesn't that mean he just has a General American accent? I don't really have a regional accent, but if you listen to me talk for five minutes, then you would hear a couple of features that would indicate my home county. All the same, I would just say I spoke RP. If a group of people can't agree, then it's not sufficiently noticeable.

-Maybe because in Los Angeles the vowel is fronted and unrounded because of the California vowel shift. That could be why it sounds different to you. It sounds perfectly normal to me.-

you vowel is fronted in most of the US

>> [the] "you" vowel is fronted in most of the US <<

No it's not. A little bit more than 50 years ago, yes, but only the South and (parts of) the Midlands have a really fronted u. The West does have extreme fronting but only after consonants like "d" or "t". The California vowel shift makes the "u" really front in all instances. The northern part of the West tends to have the least fronting overall (except for after certain consonants), and the southern part of the West has the most fronting.

>>>> [the] "you" vowel is fronted in most of the US <<

No it's not. A little bit more than 50 years ago, yes, but only the South and (parts of) the Midlands have a really fronted u. The West does have extreme fronting but only after consonants like "d" or "t". The California vowel shift makes the "u" really front in all instances. The northern part of the West tends to have the least fronting overall (except for after certain consonants), and the southern part of the West has the most fronting.<<

Well, depends. The matter is that in practically all NAE dialects other than those which have experienced significant outside substratum influence (such as those in the Upper Midwest), there are no truly fully backed mid and high vowels; rather, such vowels are normally somewhat centralized in most NAE dialects. The case of Californian dialects is probably just the most extreme case of such, with actual rounded front vowels being reacquired in some of them through such being taken to its final conclusion.

Even here in southeastern Wisconsin, while mid and high back vowels are normally fully backed, /ʊ/ is normally still at least somewhat centralized, and all mid and high back vowels form center-to-back or, in the case of /u/, even sometimes front-to-back rising diphthongs after coronals. Furthermore, for some younger people there has been a fronting and marked diphthongization of /o/ as something between [ɵʉ̯] and [œy̯], with there being a further shift of such to [y] in "hello"; I myself suspect that this might be a case of dialect borrowing combined with the amplification of such due to the noticable difference between such and the fully backed monophthong [o] used here traditionally (except after coronals, where normally [ɵ̯o] is used here).

Travis, I assume you have heard the speech sample. I'd qualify myself as an amateur, however talented with good listening ears, while you are assessed as a professional.

Coming from your stratum of knowledge, where do you think Francis might be from? I won't hold you to it but am really interested in hearing your opinion.

>> Coming from your stratum of knowledge, where do you think Francis might be from? I won't hold you to it but am really interested in hearing your opinion. <<

In my considered opinion, I would have to say he is most likely from Charleston, South Carolina. However I cannot be 100% certain.

Just so you know, the above is not by the real Travis...

(Why can't an actual account system be added to this forum, even if it use were optional?)

And that said, I really am not *that* familiar with the particulars of English dialects overall to pin it down that closely (especially away from the Upper Midwest)...

>> And that said, I really am not *that* familiar with the particulars of English dialects overall to pin it down that closely (especially away from the Upper Midwest)... <<

Travis, we need you. I think you will probably be able to make a pretty good guess, or at least remove many of places from the list that you know to be impossible--so please at least give it a shot. We won't laugh at you if you get it wrong. So far the guesses have been: Phoneix or Las Vegas or other West coast cities; Canada or the US bordering Canada; San Francisco; Canada; Ottawa; Northwestern US or Canada; Canada; Canada or Valley Girl; Vancouver or Valley Girl; San Fernando Valley. By this point, Francis removed the following places from the list: Canada, San Francisco, San Fernando Valley, Ottawa, Las Vegas. The next cities to be guessed were Harrisburg; Boise; Seattle; Hartford. There seems to be sort of a pattern to the guesses.

Also, you can tell us how the /u/ sounded to you. Bill thought it was weird; Guest thought it sounded normal.

Also, many people have said that Francis has either the California or Canadian vowel shift. You might be able to shed some light on which one you think it is--as I can't here the difference between them. Supposedly the merged cot-caught vowel is somewhat different: see http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~robh/files/CEGC%20handout.pdf
Perhaps you can tell which one.

I actually got around to listening to Francis's Comma sample, and here are the things I noted:

* "Sorry" is ["sOr\i]; this in itself indicates that Francis is probably from somewhere in the far North of the US.
* Canadian Raising is clearly present for historical /aI_^/; I cannot really tell whether it is present or not for historical /aU_^/.
* A very clear back [A] for historical /A:/, but at the same a slightly high but undiphthongized [{] for historical /{/; these indicate that Francis likely has neither the NCVS nor the California Vowel Shift.
* Rather centralized but clearly rounded historical rounded back vowels; however, these are not as fronted, and definitely not as unrounded, as those in many Californian English dialects, and actually, these seem to be relatively typical of more conservative NAE dialects.
* An apparently preserved cot-caught distinction, as while historical /A:/ is very backed compared to that in many NAE dialects, it still does not seem to be merged with historical /O:/, as I can still detect rounding or the lack thereof in the places where I would expect it for a cot-caught-unmerged NAE dialect.

(Note that I am not transcribing vowel length as I really am not familiar enough with Francis's dialect to mark it accurately in a stress-independent manner. Also, I am not using IPA because the X-SAMPA-to-IPA converter at Unilang is not usable right now due to Unilang's server's hard drive crashing.)

With all these in mind, my guess is that the speaker is a relatively conservative speaker from the far north of the western US. A position relatively close to Canada is indicated by the pronunciation of "sorry" and to a lesser degree the presence of Canadian Raising of historical /aI_^/. At the same time, there are no signs at all that the speaker is from anywhere near the Inland North or Upper Midwest, particularly due to the very clear backed realization of historical /A:/. At the same time, Francis is likely not from California or anywhere near it in the southwestern US, not just due to the pronunciation of "sorry" and the presence of Canadian Raising, but also due to the unlowered historical /{/ and the lack of unrounding of historical rounded back vowels. The degree of conservatism is shown by the retention of the distinction between "cot" and "caught", unlike most modern NAE dialects in the western US; this also, though, strongly implies that the individual is not from Canada, which is rather firmly cot-caught-merged (while there are still residual pockets of cot-caught-unmergedness in the western US).

Does not sound Canadian. Definitely not from the Maritimes.

''while there are still residual pockets of cot-caught-unmergedness in the western US''


but only in older people, is this speaker too old?

So, it sounds like the very definition of General American, right?

Travis, it sounds like you and I have reached the same conclusion, viz., Francis is from somewhere in the northern tier of the Pacific Northwest--my personal guess was Seattle, WA.

Your post, which broke Francis's English into tiny linguistic bits, was an absorbing read. :-) Thank you.

Now perhaps Francis will end the suspense and tell us?

>>So, it sounds like the very definition of General American, right?<<

It seemed very GA-like to me aside from the very northern pronunciation of "sorry". It did have some features more typical of more modern than more conservative GA variants, such as being apparently Mary-merry-marry-merged and wine-whine-merged to me (even though I cannot listen to it at the very moment to confirm the former) and being clearly Lennon-Lenin-merged, and it clearly had Canadian Raising of /aI_^/, which seems to be a common feature of modern GA variants; the primary feature that seemed more conservative for an otherwise western US dialect is that it seemed to lack the cot-caught merger, unlike most modern western US dialects.