| Western American English | |
| Also Known As: | Western U.S. English |
| Region: | Western United States |
| Familycolor: | Indo-European |
| Fam2: | Germanic |
| Fam3: | West Germanic |
| Fam4: | North Sea Germanic |
| Fam5: | Anglo–Frisian |
| Fam6: | Anglic |
| Fam7: | English |
| Fam8: | North American English |
| Fam9: | American English |
| Ancestor: | Old English |
| Ancestor2: | Middle English |
| Ancestor3: | Early Modern English |
| Dia1: | California English |
| Dia2: | Pacific Northwest English |
| Isoexception: | dialect |
| Glotto: | west2920 |
| Glottoname: | Western American English |
| Map: | File:Map of USA highlighting West.png |
| Notice: | IPA |
Western American English (also known as Western U.S. English) is a variety of American English that largely unites the entire Western United States as a single dialect region, including the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. It also generally encompasses Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, some of whose speakers are classified additionally under Pacific Northwest English.
The West was the last area in the United States to be reached during the gradual westward expansion of settlement by English speakers and its history shows considerable mixing and leveling of the linguistic patterns of other regions. Therefore, since the settlement populations are relatively young when compared with other regions, the American West continues to be a dialect region in formation.[1] According to the 2006 Atlas of North American English, as a very broad generalization, Western U.S. accents are differentiated from Southern U.S. accents in maintaining pronounced as //aɪ// as a diphthong, from Northern U.S. accents by fronting pronounced as //u// (the vowel), and from both by consistently showing the low back merger (the merger of the vowel sounds in words like cot and caught). Furthermore, in speakers born since the 1980s, the related low-back-merger shift has been spreading throughout the Western States.[2] The standard Canadian accent also aligns with these defining features, though it typically includes certain additional vowel differences.
The Western regional accent of American English is somewhat variable and not necessarily distinct from "General American" or from the speech of younger or educated Americans nationwide. Western American English is defined primarily by two phonological features: the cot-caught merger (as distinct from most traditional Northern and Southern U.S. English) and the fronting of the pronounced as //u// () vowel but not the pronounced as //oʊ// vowel. This fronting is distinct from most Southern and Mid-Atlantic American English, in which both of those vowels are fronted, as well as from most Northern U.S. English, in which both of these remain backed.
Like most Canadian dialects and younger General American, pronounced as //ɑ// allophones remain back and may be either rounded or unrounded due to the low back merger: the merger between the sounds pronounced as //ɑ// and pronounced as //ɔ//, commonly represented as words like cot and caught, or pod and pawed, becoming perfect homophones. Linguists believe this is the cause of, or at least related to, more and more Western speakers in general lowering or retracting the vowel and the vowel in a chain shift first associated with California and led by young women: the low-back-merger shift.[3] [4] This shift is also documented in mainland Canadian English. However, unlike in Canada, the raising before voiceless consonants of pronounced as //aʊ// does not exist in Western American English and of pronounced as //aɪ// is not as consistent and pronounced. Like General American, the West is entirely rhotic, and the Mary–marry–merry merger is complete, so that words like Mary, marry, and merry are all pronounced identically because of the merger of all three of those vowels' sounds when before r.
Notably, though, there are still regions of the West where some speakers do not have a complete merger, most notably San Francisco, California,[5] where younger speakers exhibit the merger more often than older speakers, but also Portland, Oregon[6] and Cowlitz County, Washington,[7] where an incomplete merger exists for some speakers and where merging is not any more advanced among younger speakers than among older ones.
Although it occurs at least occasionally nationwide, T-glottalization at word boundaries, as in "right ankle", is more common in Western dialects, particularly among younger speakers and women.[8] The use of a full (orally released) rather than syllabic pronunciation of pronounced as //ən// in the sequence pronounced as //-tən//, in words like "kitten" or "mountain", is a minor but noted variant reported in the West, for example among some Californians and younger, female Utah speakers; thus, kitten as pronounced as /[ˈkʰɪʔən]/ in addition to more General American pronounced as /[ˈkʰɪʔn̩]/; however, this feature has also been reported elsewhere in the country, like New Jersey.[9] Men and teenage girls from Utah are also slightly more likely than average to elide the pronounced as //t// altogether in these words, and Utahns as a whole are slightly less likely to glottalize the pronounced as //t// in general.[10]
A trend evident particularly in some speakers from the Salt Lake City, Utah, and Flagstaff, Arizona, areas, as well as in some Californian and New Mexican English, is the completion of, or transition towards, a full–fool merger. This may be related to scatterings of Western speakers, such as some Utah speakers, generally producing lax pronunciations of the tense front vowels before pronounced as //l//, such as pronouncing "sale" as "sell" pronounced as //sɛl//. Southern twang-like monophthongization of pronounced as //aɪ// has been sporadically reported in the Southwest, for example in some speakers before pronounced as //l// in southern Arizona and Utah.[11] A significant minority of Western speakers have the pin–pen merger or a closeness to the merger, especially around Bakersfield, California, though it is a sound typically associated with Southern American English, which influenced Bakersfield settlers. Another recognizable though nonstandard trait, particularly in California and the Pacific Northwest, is raising of the short i pronounced as //ɪ// sound to an almost long ee pronounced as /[i]/ sound before ng, even when the g is dropped, such that the local pronunciation of -ing pronounced as /[iŋ]/, even with G-dropping (pronounced as /[in]/), takes on the same vowel quality as, but remains shorter than, the rime of bean or the traditional British pronunciation of been when stressed (pronounced as /[iːn]/).[12]
a large stuffed pastry[14]
a service or access road[17]
very (adverb), much, or many (adjective); originated in the San Francisco Bay Area and now used throughout Northern California
Several sub-types of the Western dialect appear to be currently in formation, and the West, being an area of especially recent English-speaking settlement, shows relatively low homogeneity and internal consistency. Additionally, most Mexican-American English is spoken within, and arguably falls under the regional dialect of, the Western United States.
Currently, there is not enough data on the English of Alaska to either include it within Western American English or assign it its own "separate status". Of two documented speakers in Anchorage, their cot-caught merger is completed or transitional, pronounced as //aʊ// is not fronted, pronounced as //oʊ// is centralized, the placement of pronounced as //u// is inconsistent, and ag approaches the sound of egg. Not far from Anchorage, in Alaska's Matanuska-Susitna Valley, is a distinctly Minnesota-like accent due to immigration of Minnesotans to the valley in the 1930s.[19]
See main article: article and California English. A noticeable California Vowel Shift has been observed in the English of some California speakers scattered throughout the state, though especially younger and coastal speakers. This shift involves two elements, including that the vowel in words like toe, rose, and go (though remaining back vowels elsewhere in the Western dialect), and the vowel in words like spoon, move, and rude are both pronounced farther forward in the mouth than most other English dialects; at the same time, a lowering chain movement of the front vowels is occurring (identical to the Canadian Vowel Shift), so that, to listeners of other English dialects, sit may approach the sound of set, set may approach sat, and sat may approach sot. This front-vowel lowering is also reported around Portland, Oregon, the hub of a unique Northwestern variety of American English that demonstrates other similarities with Canadian English.
Studies demonstrate that gender, age, and ability to speak Hawaiian Creole (a language locally called "Pidgin" and spoken by about two-fifths of Hawaii residents) correlate with the recent emergence of different Hawaiian English accents. In a 2013 study of twenty Oʻahu-raised native English speakers, non-Pidgin speakers and males were shown to lower pronounced as //ɪ// and pronounced as //ɛ//; younger speakers of the first group also lowered pronounced as //æ//, and younger participants in general backed pronounced as //æ//.[20] Though this movement of these vowels is superficially similar to the California Vowel Shift, it is not believed to be due to a chain shift, though Hawaii residents do have a cot–caught merger, at least among younger speakers.[20] Unlike most Americans, Hawaii residents may not demonstrate any form of /æ/ tensing (even before nasal consonants, as with most Western Americans).[21]
In New Mexico, the state with the largest Hispanic population by percentage and no Anglo majority population, studies have distinguished the English of English-Spanish bilinguals versus (Anglo) English monolinguals.[22] Research showed the former more likely to participate in monophthongization of and a recently developing Hispanic English vowel shift.[23] [24] However, this same shift failed to appear in a later study, in which Anglo New Mexicans (and particularly young women) were the ones more likely to engage in an innovative California-like vowel shift,[3] whereas Hispanic speakers raised pronounced as //æ// before nasals significantly less, while pronouncing pronounced as //u// higher and further back. Many New Mexicans, both Anglo and Hispanic, pronounce the cluster pronounced as //nj// in the word new (not the yod-dropping after pronounced as //n// of most other Americans).[25] Aside from noting a possible full–fool merger regardless of ethnicity, New Mexican English research has tended to focus on vocabulary: particularly loanwords from New Mexican Spanish, such as the word acequia pronounced as /[ɑˈseɪkjɑ]/ for a ditch;[26] canales pronounced as /[kɑˈnɑleɪs]/ for a type of rain and street gutter; corazón pronounced as /[ˌkʰɔɹɑˈsoʊn]/ for sweetheart, darling, courage, or spirit;[27] nana for one's grandmother (more widely heard than elsewhere in the U.S.);[28] and vigas for rafters. The New Mexican chile pepper has had such a large cultural impact that it has even been entered into the Congressional Record spelled as chile, not chili.[29] [30]
See main article: article and Pacific Northwest English. The states of Oregon and Washington show a mixture of features that vary widely among the local speakers themselves. Overall, these features are strongly similar to both Californian as well as Canadian English. Studies are therefore inconclusive about whether this region constitutes a distinct dialect or not. One feature of many Pacific Northwest dialects is the pre-velar merger, where, before /g/, pronounced as //ɛ// and pronounced as //æ// are raised, and /eɪ/ is lowered, causing beg and vague to rhyme, and sometimes causing bag to sound similar to or rhyme with both of them.[31] Younger speakers may also show signs of the aforementioned California Vowel Shift.
The English of Utah shows great variation, though little overall consistency,[32] making it difficult to classify as either a sub-dialect of Western American English or a separate dialect of its own.[33] [34] [35] Members of the LDS Church may use the propredicate "do" or "done", as in the sentence "I would have done", unlike other Americans, suggesting a more recent British influence within the Church.[36] Some speakers may realize the pronounced as //ɹ// as a flap pronounced as /[ɾ]/ after pronounced as //θ//.[37] One prominent older, declining feature of Utah English is the cord-card merger without a horse-hoarse merger, particularly along the Wasatch Front, which merges pronounced as //ɑɹ// (as in far) and pronounced as //ɔɹ// (as in for), while keeping pronounced as //oʊɹ// distinct (as in four).[34] [38] Utahns may use slightly distinct vowel placement and vowel space area during articulation, particularly with young, female speakers documented as pronouncing pronounced as //æ// as lower than pronounced as //ɑ//, unlike other Western dialects. Throughout the Mormon corridor beyond Utah, practicing members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints tend to lag behind regional dialect changes while maintaining characteristic Utah features.[39]