A Conversation with Dave Huxtable about the Origins of US and UK English

[@villalactea]

As a Chicana from the US myself, I jumped at the mention of Chicano English! I’m no linguist expert, but a lot of what is called Chicano English is a result of recent migration from Mexico from the last and this century, rather than all the way back from the annexation of all that land back during the Mex-American war. Although there are very small communities that still retain the Spanish influence (in New Mexico/Colorado region) from that time period. Chicano English also has different variations that can depend on what American English dialect is spoken around Chicano communities. Texan Chicano English, for example, where American Southern English is spoken, sounds a bit different to me than Californian Chicano English, where Western American English is spoken. Also of course big cities will have their own flavor, of course (Los Angeles Area, San Francisco Bay Area, San Antonio (TX), etc). Love your videos, Simon! 🌸

[@barghast]

Ooh a brilliant meeting of minds. Thanks for the video!

[@mwflanagan1]

Thanks, guys. Always love an interesting collab.

[@amandachapman4708]

My family is generally northern English but with an approximately RP accent. My father, from Leeds, said plaster with the long "a", which my mother, who had originally a Liverpudlian accent but had elocution lessons as a teenager, used to rib him for it. All our other "a"s were trap-type as far as I can think. One sister and I have the northern "cup" pronunciation, due to extended periods of living around others who also have it. And I have some rhotic "r" but it's not consistent, again as a result of living around people with it.

[@daveesons196]

Simon, always a pleasure to listen to you discuss unique subjects related to linguistics. Dave had some really thoughtful and interesting commentary on this subject as well. 🙂

[@user-td4do3op2d]

As a middle class northerner, I was always taught (to no avail) to say ‘master’ and ‘plaster’ in the southern way… even though the family members trying to teach this would never have said ‘bath’ and ‘grass’ the same way.

[@Lancastrian501]

That's interesting that you say that. I remember my mum, who spoke as Lancastrian as it was possible to do so, used to pronounce "master" the southern way, which I thought at the time was quite odd. Her pronunciation hasn't filtered down to mine or the younger generation though!

[@tidaljunk]

As a middle-class Northerner (Peak District/Pennines), we thought the southern way of adulterating pronunciation as being pretentious! It was mAster, bAth, (garrije for garage), and so on. But even we struggled with the Scone vs. Skon debate 😂😂

[@lamudri]

All of my dad's working class rural family would use the long vowel in “master” and “plaster” (precisely those two words, I think), but it seems to be completely lost in my generation (including myself).

[@overlordnat]

When I worked for a call centre calling workmen all around GB it was very common for people from the NE of England and North Yorkshire, even the broadest Geordies, to say they were ‘mahster plahsterers’ but I rarely heard it from people elsewhere in the North.

[@TheJamesM]

​@@tidaljunk Down South there's a fair amount of "garridge", and by my own estimation that's the way pronunciation is moving. Somehow "garahj" sounds pretentious given what the thing is. I remember saying to someone at school that it would sound ridiculous to talk about "garahj" music. I think perhaps the reason it has some traction in the South is that it isn't a trap/bath thing; the alternative vowel is more /ɪ/ than any kind of A.

[@gedgar]

vietnamese children in the poor part of my city have begun speaking chicano english due to living together in a neighborhood with mexicans

[@vvvvaaaacccc]

San Diego, by chance?

[@azazelssprachen]

[Ethnically] Vietnamese people in Sydney often have a rather broad 'bogan' type accent because they've been here for multiple generations. I think the open vowel sounds in Vietnamese also contribute to it.

[@yes_head]

The SF-NY accent connection is real. There was a guy doing sports talk radio in SF who was a native from an Italian family that went back to the 1800s, and he had a classic east coast urban accent.

[@jeff__w]

I _do_ recall hearing something about that San Francisco/East Coast [New York] connection, too. Up until maybe the 1970s/1980s, the Noe/Eureka Valley (Castro) and Mission District areas were working-class Italian and Irish-heritage families (perhaps respectively but I’m not sure) and I’d surmise that they _did_ carry on something of that East Coast/New York accent.

[@lrye-xyz]

Great seeing you together

[@morvil73]

I don’t thin was in the “lot” set. It came from a long rounded vowel, added a [ə] before /r/, then levelled and eventually dropped /r/.

[@Libertaro-i2u]

To some, 'more' falls into the "goat" set.

[@ryanwani216]

Yup simon needs to learn about the 'north-force' lexical set and the 'horse-hoarse' merger.

[@Angellady11]

I enjoy this

[@oakstrong1]

I don't know why these videos fascinate me so much? I'm not a native speaker, I'm not a scholar or even taught IPA beyond the roughly (inadequate) 44 sounds of received pronunciation. Mind, you, I have similar curiosity towards another language I was trying to learn.

[@frankharr9466]

This was interesting. Thank you.

[@WGGplant]

There actually was at some point a trap/bath split in the costal southern US. Although the realization was supposedly different and less obvious from the standard Southern English one at the time, in the "plantation accent". they were also non-rhotic. Just looking into wikipedia, which has the definitive say for all things ever, the split was something like 'trap' [æ̈ɛ~æ̈e] and 'bath' [æ~æ̈ɛæ̈]. Which sounds rather silly nowadays.

[@ryanwani216]

There is also (still) a trap bath split on the east coast of the US today. But instead of having an 'ah' sound for bath, it is a tensed sound. So in new York trap is pronounced with /æ/ but bath is pronounced with /ɛə/.

[@Libertaro-i2u]

​@@ryanwani216 That sort of trap-bath split is common in various parts of North America.

[@garygallagher7341]

The Boston 'r' as in 'park the car' is very present in Drogheda, Ireland.

[@ryanwani216]

initially vowels before 'r' were pronounced as they were written so 'park' had the same vowel as 'hat'. This changed in most of England and the US but didnt change in parts of Ireland and New England (including Boston). The same can be said about the vowel about the vowel 'o' before 'r'. Initially the vowel in words like 'for' and 'horse' and 'north' had a 'lot' vowel and still do in Scotland, parts of Ireland and also new England. Meanwhile words like 'four', 'hoarse' and 'force' had a longer /oː/ vowel to distinguish from the former. However over time the 'lot' vowel in words like 'for' 'horse' elongated and merged with the /oː/ vowel in words like 'four', 'hoarse' and 'force'. This is called the horse- hoarse merger and has occured in most of England and America, but has not occured in parts of Ireland, Scotland, New England and India. Interestingly even though India still has a 'lot' vowel for 'horse' and 'for', and therefore does not have the 'horse-hoarse' merger, words like 'car' and 'park' dont have the 'hat' vowel and instead they have an English style /ɑː/. A major difference between the New England accent and the Scottish or Irish accent is that the New England accent is non- rhotic

[@garygallagher7341]

@@ryanwani216 interesting. What's mad about pronunciation from Drogheda is that it is markedly non-rhotic.

[@leod-sigefast]

No evidence of a link but I sometimes find a strong Mancunian accent has similarities to a Boston accent. There is a local historian (Manchester) I watch on KZbin (Martin Zero) who when he says car park really reminds me of the Boston car pronunciation. Maybe it is just the way accents go in all big urban industrial cities?

[@pio4362]

@@ryanwani216 Oh bourgeois, highly anglicised people in Ireland absolutely do have the horse/hoarse merger. Hoarse and horse are the same word to them, as are for and four. They are de-facto in the process of creating an RP for Ireland, very sadly, all the while Britain is progressing by dropping its pretentious accent. The fact that the Massachusetts accent is non-rhothic is a surprise when one thinks of the waves of Irish people who fled and immigrated to there in the 19th century. It shows they had very little impact on the accent, for they would have been very rhotic, including a thrilled r on those who were native Irish speakers.

[@localbod]

As an eleven year old at school in a secondary comprehensive in southern England I had the mickey taken out of me because I would say one instead of won for the number 1. My parents were both from Northern England but we moved about a lot due to my father being in the forces at the time before settling down south.

[@joriskbos1115]

The plaster thing reminded me. In my Dutch accent, I usually pronounce final -r /ɹ/, whereas my father usually pronounces it /ɾ/ before a consonant, inserting a schwa in between. I remember that I used to pronounce it that way too, but when I first learned to spell in primary school, a lot of kids would insert an extra vowel in spelling, so we were told off, but the way they explained it was that the words "markt" and "elf" should be [mɑɹkt] and [ɛɤˤf], not [mɑɾəkt] and [ɛləf], so I actually ended up changing my pronunciation at an early age. The thing is that with some specific words I picked up from my father later on and don't otherwise use much on a daily basis I do use the tapped r with a schwa, such as in the word "stern" (a bird name). I also tend to use the tapped r in words like "hoorn", "doorn" and "lantaarn". (I actually only found out embarrassingly late that the last word is not spelled "lantaren".)

[@joriskbos1115]

I can also think of some people who pronounce "aftermath" as /ɑːftəmæθ/.

[@overlordnat]

@@joriskbos1115I’ve noticed the living legend Jeremy Corbyn says ‘telegraph’ rather than ‘telegrahph’ despite being Southern. He did live in Shropshire as a child though and I have even heard an occasional Northern ‘u’ come from his lips, especially when he says ‘just’ as ‘joost’.

[@FluentBlueEnglish]

I highly recommend you look into the accents found in the Appalachian areas of Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. There are some really interesting things, linguistically speaking, going on there.

[@the7th494]

here in yorkshire, some places have fronting of the START vowel instead of retraction

[@DaveHuxtableLanguages]

Indeed they do. And in Manchester, and someone else mentioned Hull.

[@ellen4956]

I was born, and raised just across the bay from San Francisco. As a young adult I lived in Oregon and a few years ago moved back to the San Francisco Bay area, with my daughter. There definitely is an accent here. I've always called it the California accent. I can't think of a way to describe it, but I can tell when a person speaks to me if they're from here. Tom Hanks definitely has it. One example is how we pronounce Concord (the city I grew up in), as "kon kerd" and maybe even a sort of soft "g" at the end of kon, at the back of the throat. I think that might be from running the syllables together. If someone pronounces it kon kord we can tell they aren't from there. It's the same with Oregon though. People from there pronounce it "or a gun" and other people say "or a gone." It might be from the same phenomenon of people coming to California from all over the world in the 1800s during the gold rush, and people coming to New York, Boston, and Rhode Island, all of which have distinctly different accents.

[@JamesEGray]

The Boston, 'park the car', sounds quite like the Hull accent

[@fromchomleystreet]

As an Australian, listening to Bostonians with old-school non-rhotic Boston accents is quite discombobulating. You’re hearing this American speak in an American accent, but every now and then they’ll say a particular phrase (usually one that combines the absence of written Rs with the presence of unwritten Rs - so called intrusive R) that sounds exactly like my own accent.

[@marskristin]

Simon! Loved the video! There's a channel with a clip of an older gent with an SF accent - the 'mission brogue' - the channel is called luckaroonie, the video is Lucky.McCarthy's'85.Part2 (not my channel! It was linked in an SFgate article on the Mission brogue.)

[@bob___]

On San Francisco English, there are still speakers of the old accent. Its East Coast connections are historically to Boston rather than New York, because settlement of San Francisco during the Gold Rush was mostly by ship from Boston, which was at that time the leading financial and commercial city of the United States. (New York didn't take the lead until after the Civil War.) And by the way, the ships had to go around Cape Horn, because there was no Panama Canal.

[@hilarychandler3621]

May I recommend Albion’s Seed - ethnographic and social anthropological study of the four major immigrant groups who settled in the Early US: New England. Early colonial Carolinas, Appalachia respectively. Gives a lot of information on language styles, class and place from the respective groups of origin from the UK

[@ryanwani216]

Hey simon I just wanted to point out a small error you made around the 14:00 mark. Eventhough your points about how vowels were pronounced before 'r' are correct, it is incorrect that 'more' used to have the lot vowel. This is because there were 2 types of 'o' sounds before r: one short similar to 'lot' and one longer and higher up in the mouth. This is known as the 'north- force' lexical set with north being in the former and force being in the latter. 'More' was in the latter so was not pronounced with the lot vowel. The 'horse hoarse' merger is the loss of distinction between these 2 vowels which has occured in most of england and the US but not in Scotland, Ireland or New England (including a traditional boston accent)

[@ryanwani216]

Hey Simon another thing I wanted to add is that a VERY traditional Boston accent did have a trap bath split, similar to England where bath was pronounced 'baahth', but this is almost extinct now. However, Boston and many east coast accents STILL have a trap bath split but instead of 'baahth' it's a highly tensed vowel sound like 'behth'. So trap is 'trap' and 'bath' is 'behth'.

[@ryanwani216]

I would recommend listening to the accent of police officer bill bratton, who has a very thick traditional Boston accent. You can clearly hear a 'lot' vowel in his 'north' lexical set which is different to his 'force' vowel. He is one of the few Americans who do not have the 'horse hoarse' merger

[@ryanwani216]

Also I would recommend listening to traditional Scottish accents to familiarize yourself with the 'north- force' lexical set.

[@smadaf]

There is at least one word with _a_ before a fricative that is exceptional: _rather._ Well outside the Northeastern United States, although most people rhyme this with _lather,_ some people rhyme it with _father._ In my very limited understanding, this is more about generation than it is about region: George W. Bush, for example, with his version of Texan and his affected noo-kee-ler weapons, still rhymes _rather_ with _father;_ and he was born in 1946. I know a woman born in 1950 and raised in Lexington, Massachusetts, who pronounces her Rs, doesn't use intrusive R, and says æsk and bæthroom (IPA æ)-and makes _rather_ rhyme with _father._

[@smadaf]

I've just been reminded that there is also the "ruther" (rhyming with "brother") American pronunciation of "rather", in some Southern accents. Even Southerners who rhyme "rather" with "lather" may still use the noun "druthers"-meaning "preference(s)", and coming from the verbs in "I'd rather" with a "ruther" pronunciation of "rather".

[@So-Be-It_890]

In Massachusetts they pronounce Worcester as Wuster.

[@DavidSmith-ie3nd]

It's pronounced this way across the UK. Similarly, Bicester is voiced 'bister'.

[@So-Be-It_890]

@@DavidSmith-ie3nd Haverhill is pronounced Hay-ver-hill there too?

[@DavidSmith-ie3nd]

Yes typically. There may be slight local variation in making the second H silent, but I'm not local to Haverhill so couldn't say authoritatively.

[@So-Be-It_890]

@@DavidSmith-ie3nd Some say Haver'll, but I being from New Hampshire call the town Hay-ver-hill because I am a hick from Cow Hampshire.

[@DavidSmith-ie3nd]

@@So-Be-It_890 I suspect that shortening is also a possibility in and around Haverhill (the UK version!)

[@DaT1aGEnDerANdRosExUaL]

Commenting on that first section about Australian English, I think it very much is just an outsider perspective that categorises the "Australian accent" as being homogenous. As an Australian, I can definitely tell where someone is from by just listening to them speak (talking about Australia only). While yes, class distinctions are certainly present and they are by far the greatest indicator of a person's identity or whatnot, there are genuine geographical/regional differences in our accents. Probably the most identifiable are the Southern Victorian Dialect (also just called ‘Melburnian’ accent), Adelaidian Accent and the East Queenslander Accent. Couple examples from my own observations: [pɫɑːnt dɑːns ædˈvɑːns ɡɹʷɑːf] - Adelaide [pɫæːnt dæːns ədˈvæːns ɡɹʷaf] - Melbourne [hɛɫ mi̞ɫ əˈɫɛvn̩ ˈhɛvn̩ ˈɛɹʷə] - Adelaide [æʊˡ me̝ʊˡ əˈɫæːvn̩ ˈæːvn̩ ˈaɹʷɐ] - Melbourne

[@AttilatheNun-xv6kc]

Was Adeladeian subject to more British influences in past decades?

[@DaT1aGEnDerANdRosExUaL]

@@AttilatheNun-xv6kc Not entirely sure, but that wouldn't be unlikely. Adelaidians were definitely more subject to RP than most other places in the country due to the region being (in the past not anymore) really posh and full of Southeast British immigrants.

[@PrinceHerbsStrongestSoldier]

I have a Southern US accent (central VA), and we still pronounce “lot” and “cloth” differently. Cloth definitely has more of an /aw/ sound when we say it. But my family has what my husband from New Jersey calls a southern drawl lmao, so we tend to use different vowels in general with diphthongs in words that probably wouldn’t have them in the rest of the US

[@rebelranger]

The southern US at one point did have a bath-trap split, although with a different pronunciation than /ɑ/. It was common among the plantation class prior to the Civil War.

[@gajonoob5122]

im curious, did this involve pronouncing the BATH vowel as a [ɛə] diphthong?

[@ryanwani216]

​@@gajonoob5122many east coast accents still have this vowel. The point in the video that the US does not have a trap bath split is not really correct, many American accents still have it. In new York there is a clear, trap-bath split

[@ryanwani216]

its just that the quality of the 'bath' vowel is different to how it is in england, using an [ɛə] diphthong

[@rebelranger]

@gajonoob5122 That dipthong in most American accents is used before a nasal consonant. Only in areas where there's been a vowel shift, like the Northern Cities Vowel Shift or the (modern) Southern Vowel Shift, is that diphthong more widely used. The bath-trap split that was part of older Southern American English in the 19th century was closer to æɛ or ɐɛɐ.

[@ryanwani216]

@@rebelranger But this diphthong is also used in many American accents such as the New York city accent and the Philadelphia accents today and corresponds to a trap- bath split, not just before nasal consonants. For example New York uses it in words like 'bath' and 'pass' and this lexical set is roughly similar to the English 'trap-bath' lexical set. It is different to the words 'trap' with they will pronounce with an /æ/. Another example is can (simple coda) with /æ/ vs. can't (complex coda) with /ɛə/. Here is a full article on it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki//%C3%A6/_raising#Phonemic_/%C3%A6/_raising_systems

[@ted_splitter]

Growing up in Cumbria it always puzzled me why people said 'plaaster' instead of 'plaster', but on the other hand I would say 'maaster' and my dad's Lancashire accent saying 'master' sounded a bit funny to me

[@chairchair1231]

I sure learned a lot from this video

[@justNotSure]

Are you a time traveller?

[@chairchair1231]

@@justNotSure yea i am

[@danieliler886]

When Dave was responding with mmmhmms it sounded like I had some other app open or I had called someone on accident and they couldn't hear me

[@tedrussell3679]

Just remember - Bernie Sanders does NOT have a Vermont accent. He’s been there many years, but never lost his Brooklyn accent.

[@Gandalf_the_Black_]

I'm from the Midlands, my dad is from the south and my mum is from the Midlands, so my TRAP-BATH split is a bit all over the place. I will very happily pronounce bath as [baθ] or [bɑːθ], but the latter does sound more posh to me even though it's literally my own accent. (On that note, it's always slightly jarring for me hearing working class speech in programmes set in London, because they'll have the proper TRAP-BATH split alongside features which are considered less prestigious (or even stigmatised), such as th-fronting) There are some words where I would never use the split, such as transport [tʃɹʷanspoːʔ], but I sometimes hear that with [ɑː] on the news. And I don't have the FOOT-STRUT split at all. I wasn't even aware it was a thing until a year or so agoǃ They both have schwa for me.

[@DaveHuxtableLanguages]

Noone in London would say /bæf/ it's always /bɑːf/.

[@overlordnat]

Both being a schwa sounds very Welsh! I recently saw an episode of ‘Come Dine With Me’ set in Swansea and a contestant said ‘I didn’t know you cud cuck’!

[@Notemug]

Parts of New England absolutely had a TRAP BATH split! There are still speakers who do this in some words.

[@newenglandgreenman]

Yes, there are definitely speakers who do this around Boston. I want to say working class speakers who grew up pre-1980. Maybe in Maine, too. Though the split may not be as extensive as in England. I think it occurs before -θ and -st but maybe not before -s.

[@Libertaro-i2u]

That's true.

[@AtomikNY]

My aunt from Connecticut refers to herself as my [ɑ̃ːnt], but I (a New Yorker) call her my [ẽə̃nt].

[@DannyTP1888]

Link to Dave Huxtable's channel: kzbin.info?search_query=dave+huxtable

[@DaveHuxtableLanguages]

Thank you!

[@whatgoesaroundcomesaround920]

I grew up along the U.S. East Coast, from Piedmont SC to Long Island. I had Midwestern exposure as well. I do pronounce LOT and CLOTH differently, just as you pronounced them, AH vs. AWE. But TRAP and PATH have the same A, as do NASTY and LAUGH, that sort of nasal AAAH. This is basic middle-class Mid-Atlantic.

[@timothybruce4638]

You said something that confused me… (at approximately 14:00-15:00), you seem to speak of it as universal across English dialects that the TRAP vowel + r has merged into a back vowel + r, like START. This conflicts with what I’ve read elsewhere… My understanding is that, while a unique TRAP + (r) sound still exists in some dialects, in most cases, it has merged with SQUARE (not with START). This seems to be widely true, at the least, in the U.S. For example, some dialects, such as in Philadelphia or New York City, a TRAP-sounding vowel is used to pronounce words like “bare, Harry, tarry”… whereas most Americans pronounce them the same as the words “bear, hairy, and vary,” (in other words, all like SQUARE). So TRAP vowel + r has often merged with FACE + r (and/or DRESS + r, for that matter) into SQUARE. I’ve never heard of TRAP + r merging into a back vowel sound, such as START, in a major English dialect. Is this just something that I’m ignorant of? My understanding has been that the START lexical set historically derived from PALM + r, with the possible inclusion, depending on the dialect, of LOT +r and/or CLOTH + r. Am I mistaken?

[@almsivi123]

Can i selfishly recommend a video on the Manchester accent? I'd be surprised if its boring because its such a weird mix like they have northern and southern qualities sometimes it feels

[@melissaworth4450]

In Newfoundland the r is not retracted and is pronounced kar. Even the Torontonian accent as well, but much more subtly.

[@AtomikNY]

The [ær] pronunciation still definitely exists in North America. I hear it a lot in Canadian accents from Ontario and the Prairies.

[@erichamilton3373]

San Francisco English largely came from the Notheast US vía ships vs Southern California's English came overland from more southern points.

[@eTraxx]

Great way to fire up the brain early on a Friday morning

[@AnnaAnna-uc2ff]

Thanks.

[@the_neutral_container]

Interesting! I think I totally heard that colsed aw-vowel (in a similar context to _bath_ ) spoken by an American in a video a few days ago. I'll see if I can find it. Might be a case of _old-lady-saying-face_ though - not very significant.

[@GeraldH-ln4dv]

Another excellent video. Thanks, Simon. I remember reading somewhere that some of the current accents from Appalachia regions are very similar to late 17th and early 18th Century English. Also, I think, some of the insular populations on the islands of the eastern Virginia shore?

[@ryanwani216]

Though these accents have similarities to older forms of English, they have also undergone sound changes which make them distinct. For example In the diphthong /aɪ/, the second half of the diphthong is often omitted (referred to as monophthongization), and it is thus pronounced similar to [äː]. I dont think this was a feature of late 17th and early 18th Century English. At the same time they use many old words such as 'yonder' or an even more obsolete form 'yander'

[@DaveHuxtableLanguages]

@@ryanwani216 You're right. No accents stand still.

[@HweolRidda]

I believe that rural Appalachia had significant migration of Scotch Irish from Northern Ireland. I have no idea about the characteristics of NI English(es) in the 18th century. In the 19th century, my own family came from NI to the where the Appalachian Mountains peter out in Canada. Current NI accents are more like the speech of my grandparent's generation than anywhere else in the UK but their accent had already migrated to a variety of North American English.

[@GeraldH-ln4dv]

@@HweolRidda I agree. I recall reading that the many islanders of the Chesapeake Bay area, off the coast of Virginia and Maryland, were primarily descendants of West Country dialect speakers, mainly Cornwall and Devon. And remnants of that 18th century West Country accent still remain there while it has mostly disappeared in the UK. They call themselves Hoi Toiders, meaning High Tiders, and the accent is very distinct from the surrounding dialects of Maryland and Virginia. I find such remnant dialects fascinating. All of the original accent of my paternal ancestors is gone. From the Rhineland to Pennsylvania in the 1740's, but the Rhine German accent is entirely gone now. Even the pronunciation of my last name is entirely different.

[@MarkSiosal]

Don't know if you'll see this Simon, but I was fascinated to hear the recording of a speech made by William McKinley, (US President from 1897-1901). It's on his Wikipedia page, underneath what we would call here, all the "bumpf" (no idea of the origins etc. lol). He was born in Buffalo, NY (*edit born in Niles, Ohio. I misread place of birth & place of death on Wiki) & was also brought up in Pennsylvania & Ohio. He sounds kind of RP but slips into Scottish (e.g. when he says "honour") too. I was amazed at how "unAmerican" he sounded. It's only a minute or 2. I just wondered if you would let us know your thoughts.

[@Hal9526]

Thank you for the speech reference. However, McKinley was born in Niles, Ohio. He *died* in Buffalo, NY (assassinated).

[@ryanwani216]

@@Hal9526 Interestingly his speech is mostly non- Rhotic even though i dont think Ohio has ever been non-rhotic, unlike NY

[@MarkSiosal]

@@Hal9526 Ah you're right. My mistake. Thanks for putting me right. Still......his accent is amazing to me. I can hear Scottish, English and maybe a bit of Irish. To my ear, there is very little "American" about it.

[@MarkSiosal]

@@Hal9526 Interested to hear your thoughts on his accent. Very British sounding to today's ear, no? Maybe i'm mistaken.😊 Interested to know if you're an American listening to an "unAmerican American" accent lol?

[@williampalmer8052]

The characteristic New York City accent doesn't really extend outside the city itself, and even within it, it varies depending on the specific location. People in Buffalo have very little in common with those in NYC, despite living in the same state. It's one of the reasons New York is called the Empire State.

[@erichamilton3373]

The monopthongal long vowel version of goat and face is alive and well in Upper Midwestern US English--states like Minnesota and Michigan. It is very characteristic. The basis of their dialect is Western New England settlement. Western New England should have been more conservative than coastal Boston...so it also retains rhoticism.

[@daveeggleston8218]

I'm no expert, but from what I've read, there are many linguistic commonalities between coastal commercial cities in the U.S., such as New York, New Orleans, Baltimore, etc. Supposedly due to the migrations of ethnic groups, and with their assimilation, they lost some "New Yorkisms," while donating others to the local dialect. So I'm not surprised that San Francisco had a lot in common linguistically with New York.

[@ellen4956]

San Francisco and New York accents are completely different! I'm from the San Francisco bay area and we do have an accent but it's very different from New York accents. Even just on the east coast, the accents between Boston, New York and Rhode Island (also a port state) are very distinct. I'm not sure about Baltimore.

[@vvvvaaaacccc]

I think I'd have a hard time hearing regional variations amongst many members of my socioeconomic class (born and lived my entire life in the United States). by "class" I also includes urban/rural alignment (or how much someone listens to "country" music). I hear the pin-pen merger, and I also hear the merry-marry-Mary merger (which I don't have - I'm from New Jersey). I'm no social butter, but I would have a tough time associating manner of speech with place of origin among United-Statesians. while I have older family members with thick New Jersey accents (cawfee), I think that regional differences are flattening and that urban/rural (if not geographically then in terms of one's own self-identification, like George W. Bush adopting his accent) alignment is becoming more salient.

[@DangRockets]

Fascinating as always. Is the next video about the culture of wearing, or not wearing hats indoors, UK v's USA? ; )

[@DaveHuxtableLanguages]

There is a reason for Simon's hat... He's making a movie where his hair style is very different and doesn't want to reveal it until that premieres.

[@HweolRidda]

​@@DaveHuxtableLanguages If it were winter I'd have put it down to English household "heating".

[@Libertaro-i2u]

Nowadays the etiquette surrounding wearing hats inside has largely faded away with the exceptions of the military and ultra conservative families.

[@RhysMcGoldrick94]

Could it be that Americas trap bath split resulted in a lengthened a vowel rather than a quality difference? The way a Northernern English accent pronounces "bath" seems much shorter than how an American might say it

[@skipmcilvaine]

would love to watch this, but the popping and audio quality is frustrating. does it get better?

[@pierfrancescopeperoni]

The automatic captions look fine.

[@mytube001]

@@pierfrancescopeperoni But that's not audio...

[@Tom-sq2yy]

As i recall it was not a problem with previous calls e.g. with jackson crawford - so maybe simon is using some different software this time

[@pierfrancescopeperoni]

@@mytube001 I thought they might want to turn off the audio and read the captions. Or perhaps they meant to listen to this while doing something else, then yes, that's quite a pickle.

[@revangerang]

I wonder if second gen dialects seem to emphasize less prominent features of the parents' generation's speech is because it's just easier to notice bigger differences? And also because people like new things, especially kids and especially people with access to more variety to begin with? Like for me as someone from Southern California, I started saying "Naur" as a meme and now I can't stop lol. I've even started to notice a slight shift in my other words with that vowel sound too😅 Another personal anecdote: as an internet native exposed to sooooo many words and concepts every moment of the day (and probably also because I have ADHD lol), normal words just feel so boring and repetitive, so I try to regularly switch them up with either different vocabulary, words from other languages, or silly meme pronunciations depending on my mood- anyways I recently learned about the Chico(?) pronunciation of the word almond ("amund") and despite HATING IT WITH ALL MY BEING BC IT IS STUPID AND WRONG my brain immediately acquired it and I have to actively stop myself from thinking/saying it 😭

[@moonlightlizard]

USA mentioned lets gooooo

[@breadbunbun]

Yey!

[@VulcanTrekkie45]

I'm from Boston and I wanted to provide a couple clarifications. I think the quality of the vowel in PARK that you used is rather a bit too broad and more characteristic of someone trying to mimic or parody a Boston accent. It's not exactly the British PARK vowel but it's that that broad. Also, the COT/CAUGHT merger seems to have popped up in a few different places around the country and is spreading from them. One of them is New England, and so here the change is moving west, not east.

[@ryanwani216]

The cot- caught merger started mostly in the west coast, but New England was one of the only places in the East Coast that got a 'cot- caught' merger early on. Other parts of the east such as NY, Philadelphia, Detroit and parts of the south are unmerged, whereas pretty much ALL of the west in merged. So it is spreading east

[@ryanwani216]

The 'cot caught' merger in New England is also different from the Western 'cot- caught' merger in that it's an /ɒ/ sound as opposed to an /ɑ/ sound. This means that unlike in the West, the words 'father' and 'bother' don't rhyme. The 'cot-caught' merger in New England developed separately from the Western 'cot- caught' merger

[@angusmackaskill3035]

Howzits goin eh? never knew us was the co-birth place of English.

[@Trecesolotienesdos]

Webster?

[@bhami]

I think the term "trap / bath split" can be pretty confusing. I'm an American who has lived most of my life in suburban NY, Philadelphia, Chicago, LA, and Salt Lake City, so my speech is pretty standard American, with a bit of a bias to east-central New Jersey. You seem to use the term to refer to Brits who might rhyme "bath" with "sloth". However, my speech makes a rather different distinction. Namely, for me, the "trap" vowel is a monophthong, whereas the "bath" vowel is a diphthong. The initial quality of the "a" in both cases is the same. diphthongs: bath path laugh graph staff half calf tan Sam monophthongs: trap map tap flap bat mat stack pack

[@ryanwani216]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki//%C3%A6/_raising#Phonemic_/%C3%A6/_raising_systems

[@newenglandgreenman]

Brits don't rhyme "bath" with "sloth". Those are different vowels in every UK accent I can think of.

[@ryanwani216]

@@newenglandgreenman i think he meant that the British bath vowel is the same as the American sloth vowel

[@DaveHuxtableLanguages]

@@ryanwani216 In General American yes, but in New York sloth has the CLOTH vowel, like GE NORTH. Southern British BATH has the PALM vowel.

[@DaveHuxtableLanguages]

Yes, the short-a split is the North American version of TRAP BATH - /træp/ /bɛəθ/

[@portialipton]

I am Australian and it is impossible to tell where someone is from. The difference in accent between classes is no more distinguishable than it is between the classes in the UK or US. By the way, we Aussies park the car just like Bostonians.

[@danfarm]

Unless you say halicopter, then we all know you're from Malbourne 😛

[@pierfrancescopeperoni]

​@@danfarm I'm Austrian and I say choppa

[@two_tier_gary_rumain]

@@pierfrancescopeperoni Arnie, is that you?

[@two_tier_gary_rumain]

You can usually tell if someone is from Adelaide.

[@pierfrancescopeperoni]

@@two_tier_gary_rumain Arnie is my neighba.

[@caramelldansen2204]

:)

[@M414-q6o]

you might want to remove the google drive link

[@j.s.c.4355]

American English ids twice as old as Australian.

[@LimeyRedneck]

🤠🍋‍🟩

[@rdreher7380]

I wonder what the linguistics is behind the way British people trying to sound American by slightly nasalizing their [æ] sound. The way you said 'bath' or 'nasty" or 'laugh' when trying to demonstrate the American [æ] is just so typical of the way British people sound when the imitate or make fun of Americans. Laurence Brown of Lost in the Pond does that sort of thing to, especially when trying to sound "mid-western." I'm not from the Mid-west, so sometimes I wonder if Illinois people just really do sound like that, but my upstate NY accent shouldn't be that different, and in my experience, just no American sounds quite so forced and restricted when we say the [æ] sound. The thing is, our /æ/ phoneme typically sounds the same as your TRAP vowel, or the way you say "tacko" instead of taco (much to the pain of my American ears). At the very end when you said "Grant" you had no issue saying it exactly the way an American would. I think there must be some sort of phonological phenomenon going on, perhaps similar to what motivates dissimulation of phonemes. In your mind the American /æ/ is a distinct as possible from your native sounds, so you have this subconscious need to pile on distinctive features that make it such, making it more restricted, forced, and somewhat nasally sounding when it comes out of your mouth, whereas if you were just making it as a native sound it just comes out effortlessly and easily, like your own TRAP vowels do.

[@selen332]

For most British English speakers our TRAP vowel is not the same as the American TRAP vowel, since we mostly have [a] rather than [æ], which is why we tend to map the sounds in Romance languages with our TRAP vowel, as it's more accurate than the PALM vowel for us.

[@newenglandgreenman]

@@selen332 No, the American TRAP vowel in the word "trap" is the same as the England English one. But there are other words that have the TRAP phoneme where the vowel is not the same. For example, "bad", or "stand". In other words, when the TRAP vowel follows a stop, an affricate, or a fricative. In that position, the vowel breaks into a diphthong. So, for example, in my Northeastern US dialect, "bad" is something like [bɪad]. Southern US dialects tend to have something more like [beəd], and in the South it can even become disyllabic, with the emphasis on the first vowel. But this breaking doesn't happen after liquids like /r/ or /l/ or after /s/ or /z/, at least in the Northern US. I think what sounds fake to American ears is when Brits try to do this vowel by pronouncing [æ], which I think is rare in America, instead of using a normal [a] vowel where it isn't broken and instead of breaking the vowel as Americans do in the positions where it should break.

[@ryanwani216]

@@newenglandgreenman en.wikipedia.org/wiki//%C3%A6/_raising#Phonemic_/%C3%A6/_raising_systems

[@rdreher7380]

@@newenglandgreenman Well put. I think part of the confusion here is the lack of phonology on the internet. Linguistics doesn't go beyond phonetics on the internet, where IPA info is readily available on Wikipedia, but charts on the distinctive features of generative linguistics are not, and prominent language and linguistics youtubers like Simon here are much more versed in phonetics than phonology. In phonetics, the IPA symbol and symbol and symbol are all different things. Phonologists don't give a fuck about these distinctions and use the symbols in whatever way suits us. When describing the phonology of the American English vowel system, there are (for most people) only two low vowels, one that is more back, and one that is more front. Thus, it is convenient to simply use the letter for one of those phonemes, and the letter for the other, giving us /æ/ and /a/. However, the exact realization of those phonemes is not necessarily one-to-one with their hyper-precise IPA meaning, leading to confusion among curious laypeople. I'm a little confused about your [bɪad] for 'bad.' I'm from the Albany area, with some New England features in my speech because that's where my Dad's family is from, so Northeastern US like you, but that transcription doesn't quite make sense to me. Maybe the sound you're trying to describe would be better denoted with the front mid lax sound [ɛ] falling to a low central sound. Maybe you really do talk like that though, I'd have to look at a spectrogram of you saying /bæd/ I suppose. Personally, I think I have something more monophthonal in that environment, so maybe I don't have the split you're talking about. Ryanwani216 suggests that you're describing the /æ/ raising found more in the traditional east coast urban dialects, which I guess my suburban Albany talk wouldn't have. Speaking of Wikipedia, while looking around the stuff ryanwani216 shared, I came to this page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Northern_American_English#Northern_Cities_Vowel_Shift It points out that your midwest northern cities do in fact raise the TRAP vowel extensively, even gives an example of someone saying "naturally" that does sound EXACTLY the way Laurence Brown talks when he imitates "mid-western." East NY is outside the range for that way of talking, and I think your more general American broadcasting sort of accent would avoid that too, so it's no wonder I thought that sort of sound is not accurate. Coincidentally, I now understand why the Crime Pays Botany Doesn't guy says "GoldenRAD," lol; it's all part of the same vowel shift. So I think there are a few things going on. I still think the British imitation often sounds more "forced" and nasal than the natural American speech usually sounds, even the midwestern high TRAP sound. It might be more about them imitating the extremes than just amping things up. For people like Simon it might be confusion about how the symbol is being used. For others yet it might be simply evoking an outdated caricature of the Yankee based more on the old coastal urban dialects of the east coast that had more æ raising.

[@Trecesolotienesdos]

Australian accent sounds like an exaggerated version of a London accent

[@carolinejames7257]

We're aware that to many outsiders we sound like the warped version of some accent they're familiar with. Of course, to us we sound nothing like that. It's particularly obvious when actors try to mimic an Australian accent. I've never heard a single one get it right, and most aren't even close, unless they were born here or lived here for some time. I'm sure some CAN do it, I've just never come across them.

[@51elephantchang]

By UK English I presume you mean English?

[@timkbirchico8542]

they are talking about colonial English pronunciation not the root history of the language.

[@HweolRidda]

"UK Englishes" means something. "UK English" does not mean anything. For example most Scottish accents are no closer to RP than they are to "standard" American.

[@timkbirchico8542]

@@HweolRidda good comment except the rp reference. I havent heard Scots talking like a Windsor or a BBC radio voice in the 40s and 50s