Dialect Areas of the USA

Northern Dialects
- North Central
 /uː/ and /oʊ/ are "conservative" in this region. In other words, these vowels don't undergo the fronting that is common in
some other regions of the United States.
 /oʊ/ may be monophthongal, sometimes with lengthening: [o] ~ [oː] like in coat, road
 /eɪ/ has variants like [e] or [eː], though these monophthongal variants are more common for /oʊ/ than for /eɪ/
 sometimes raising of /æ/ before voiced velars (/ɡ/ and /ŋ/), with an up-glide rather than an in-glide, so that bag sounds close
to beg or the first syllable of bagel in other dialects
 Canadian raising of /aɪ/ is found in this region; it occurs before some voiced consonants, e.g., fire, tiger, and spider with the
raised vowel
 The words roof and root, foot and boot  may be variously pronounced with either /ʊ/ or /u/;
 speech is rhotic

- the Inland North
the "standard Midwestern" speech that was the basis for General American n the mid-20th century.

The Northern Cities Shift

1. The first stage of the shift is the raising, tensing, and diphthongization
of /æ/ towards [ɪə], e.g. cat /kyat/ This change occurs for the phoneme /æ/ in
all contexts.
2. The second stage is the fronting of /ɑ/ to [aː]. In some speakers this fronting
is so extreme that their /ɑ/ phoneme can be mistaken for /æ/ by speakers of
other dialects; thus for example block approaches the way other dialects
pronounce black.
3. In the third stage, /ɔ/ lowers towards [ɑ], causing stalk to sound more like
other dialects' stock. The lowering of the phoneme /ɔ/ is not unique to this
region. However, in other regions where such a lowering occurs, it results in
 the cot–caught merger. The merger does not occur in the Inland North because NCVS speakers front the /ɑ/ phoneme to [a],
thus maintaining the distinction between /ɑ/ and /ɔ/.
4. The fourth stage is the backing and sometimes lowering of /ɛ/, toward either [ə] or [æ].
5. In the fifth stage, /ʌ/ is backed towards [ɔ], so that stuck sounds like stalk in dialects that maintain a [ɔ] sound in the word
stalk. In this regard, a sound change occurs in the Inland North that is the reverse of most other American dialects (including
the Midland): /ʌ/ is backer than /ɑ/ rather than fronter.
6. In the sixth stage, /ɪ/ is lowered and backed. However, it is kept distinct from [ɛ] in all contexts, so, the pin–pen merger does
not occur.
This shift is in progress across the region, though not necessarily completed. So, any individual speaker may display some of these
six shifts without displaying the others. On the whole, the shifts occur in the order, so speakers who display advanced forms of the
later changes will generally be advanced in the earlier changes as well.

- Boston and E.N.E. (Eastern New England)

 the merger of /o/ and /oh/ in cot and caught, Don and dawn, etc.
 the vocalization of postvocalic /r/ is eroding under the influence of the post-World War II convention that constricted /r/ is the
appropriate standard for careful speech
 most of Western New England shows consistent [r], Providence shares the vocalization of /r/ under the same conditions as
the rest of Eastern New England. In this respect, the relations of Eastern New England to its neighbours are stable.

- New York
 the stable peripheral position of the high and mid vowels /iy, ey, uw, ow/ characteristic of the North
 the everyday speech of the city exhibits consistent vocalization of postvocalic /r/ except for the mid-central vowel in bird, and
when a final /r/ is followed by a vowel in the next word
 the short a word class is split into lax /æ/ and tense /æh/ sets local to New York City, and /oh/ is raised to mid and high
position. As a result, the Cartesian distance between /oh/ and /o/ is maximal, a feature shared with Philadelphia
Midland and West Dialects

- North Midland
 influenced by Scotch-Irish, German, and English Quaker settlers
 a vowel merger of the "short o" /ɑ/ (as in cot) and 'aw' /ɔ/ (as in caught) phonemes
  /æ/ phoneme (as in cat) shows most commonly a so-called "continuous" distribution: /æ/ is raised and tensed
toward [eə] before nasal consonants and remains low [æ] before voiceless stop consonants.

Pittsburgh
 unique sound change: the monophthongization of /aʊ/ to [aː]
This is the source of the stereotypical Pittsburgh pronunciation of downtown as "dahntahn".
 an unusually low allophone of /ʌ/ (as in cut); it approaches [ɑ] (/ɑ/ itself having moved out of the way and become a rounded
vowel in its merger with /ɔ/)
St Louis
St. Louis, Missouri is historically one among several (North) Midland cities, but it has developed some unique features of its own
distinguishing it from the rest of the Midland.

 a historical feature of the St. Louis dialect is the merger of the phonemes /ɔɹ/ (as in for) and /ɑɹ/ (as in far), while leaving
distinct /oɹ/ (as in four).
 some speakers, usually older generations, have /eɪ/ instead of Standard English /ɛ/ before /ʒ/: thus measure is pronounced /
ˈmeɪʒ.ɚ/. Wash (as well as Washington) gains a /ɹ/, becoming /wɔɹʃ/ ("warsh").
 the diphthong /ɔɪ/ in standard English becomes more like [ɑːɪ], e.g., words oil and joint are commonly pronounced awyul and
jawynt.
 the phoneme /ð/ is often replaced with /d/, especially among the white working-class urban population

- the South Midland

 this region shows dialectal features that are now more similar to the rest of the South than the Midland
 the smoothing of the diphthong /ɑɪ/ to [aː], and the second person plural pronoun "you-all" or "y'all"
 unlike the coastal South, the South Midland has always been a rhotic dialect
Philadelphia – Northernmore extension of Southern Shift

- the West
the Low Back Merger
A sound change cot–caught merger and lot–thought merger, the phonemes involved are /ɒ/ and /ɔ/, respectively. These vowels
are both low and back and is sometimes referred to as the low back merger.

South Dialects
- the South
the Southern Shift

1. The monophthongization of /ay/, opening the way for the

2nd stage.
2. The complete lowering of the nucleus of /ey/ along a non-
peripheral track.
3. IN some areas – a similar movement of /iy/.
4. The relative reversing of the position of the nuclei of the
long and short vowels, as the short vowel nuclei assume
peripheral positions and develop inglides.
5. (is appearing variably) and 6. involve the fronting of /uw/
and /ow/.
7. and 8. constitute a chain shift before /r/ in the back vowels,
which is not part of the discussion of this paper.

The monophthongization of /ay/ is not found in any speaker north

of the Southern line, and it is found for all speakers South of the
line, almost all of the elements of the Southern Shift enter into the
solid configuration.

- the Coastal Southeast

 Charleston and Savannah retention of tense high and mid low vowels