The California Dialect

[@nielsholmlassen8275]

This made me realise how influential the california accent is on english in countries where english isn't the native lsnguage and on the internet

[@rainbowArsonal]

honestly its probably because of hollywood also being in california

[@Masterraccoon-np3kl]

Probably Hollywood. It’s the only media, American, I ever got to experience. So I adopted a Californian accent for my first year and two.

[@thebeautifulhobo1]

Hay, Western Dialogue is the accent news broadcasters are taught.

[@thebeautifulhobo1]

Long time now. Catch up.

[@dspserpico]

Bakersfield is California's Oklahoma thanks to the Dust Bowl, literally the plot of Grapes of Wrath.

[@timmylean]

In my experience, to most white people from there, they still idolize Merle Haggard and Buck Owens. The Bakersfield Sound remains my favorite genre of country music.

[@Boldorion1958]

@@timmylean They also came to work in the oil industry. Up in Stockton, there was a neighborhood called Okieville back in the 1980s, but I think the demography there has since changed.

[@adanactnomew7085]

The reason Bakersfield has the pin pen merger is because of the dust bowl. Immigrants from the affected areas moved to California and brought their dialects with them.

[@msmendes214]

💯 And the rest of the central valley. My great grandparents migrated from Oklahoma during Dust Bowl.

[@gunnasintern]

a ton of Midwesterners moved to the state during the Dust Bowl and essentially helped give rise to the Valley accent, particularly in places like San Fernando Valley. i’m in SGV so i can’t say for sure what goes on there, but the accent definitely has its presence here

[@adanactnomew7085]

@@gunnasintern that's so cool

[@Hōstwuz]

Lots of oakies in Bakersfield

[@aigenerated6786]

funny how people in other states today tend to hate californians because there are many of them moving out but in history california received many migrants from all over the country

[@rauljuarez296]

You forgot the most infamous one of them all. The ... "Yea, No" or "No, Yea" statements when asked a "Yes" or "No" question or for just a general acknowledgement lol. Those always get me even as a native South Cali dude.

[@iidkwhatnameuse]

@@3467AAA thats not a california accent thing thats just them being the main character and assuming the listener understands

[@itssryan8431]

im from socal and i feel whenever we use the "yeah, no" its always kind of a tongue in cheek sarcastic response and the "no, yeah" is always something that's highly excited agreeability

[@Jzombi301]

@@itssryan8431 to make it even more exaggerated, sometimes its said like "ok no but like yeah"

[@helloworld17778]

literally everyone uses yeah no and no yeah like that not just californians

[@itssryan8431]

@@helloworld17778 that was one of the most California sentences ever.

[@firstchoice7761]

I'm 81 years old, born in Hollywood, and am third generation. My Grandmother was born here in California in 1878. Your video on 'the Californian Accent' is the first time I have agreed with a video that tries to describe it. Most times they will use accents that are in movies or on TV. Congratulations on getting the history of 'Dude', correctly. My brother was a sufer and we laughed when he started to use it. So, thanks, for an entertaining video.

[@Action_Sloth]

As a So Cal linguist, I enjoyed this video. Id be down to watch a video exploring the differences between norcal/socal dialects as well

[@Matty002]

same same. i remember reading a paper that showed differences between norcal and socal in writing like news articles, apart from obvious lexical differences or the use of 'the' with freeways

[@BongDonkySecret77]

Is Linguist your profession?

[@worldofsimulacra]

hella 👍

[@TimTheDrifter]

Same! I was born in Oregon, but have lived in Ohio and Washington. I'm in Idaho, now.

[@Gray-soul_81]

That'd be hella badass.

[@KirkWaiblinger]

Quotative like is extremely useful for inexact quotation.

[@Alusnovalotus]

Fer sure!

[@blew1t]

Also, interestingly, it can be used to express someone's thoughts or internal reaction to something, ("She was like, 'Hey', and I'm like, 'What does this girl want?'"). In that sense, combined with the implied imprecision, it sort of stands anywhere between "They said" and "They thought" and every time it's used context has to be used to tell where it stands between those two

[@WGGplant]

Absolutely. And there have been so many different words used for that exact purpose, theyre just not made fun of because we dont hear them anymore.

[@giuseppelogiurato5718]

​@@blew1tI'm like, "wow, great comment; very insightful?"... (This video has made me aware of just how "Californian" I sound!

[@blew1t]

@@giuseppelogiurato5718 Me too! Seeing how much I and everyone I know use quotative like, including in the sense I described it, makes me wonder if it's Californian or perhaps a general youth thing. That line has been getting blurrier for a while

[@CaffieneKitty]

That note about uptalk being used to hold the floor kind of blew my mind, because it makes so much sense and I'd never realized that effect before.

[@Didleeios88]

Uptalk is more used by women to not appear aggressive when they are being assertive.

[@donovandownes5064]

I feel like "like" is now no way just californian thing. Might have started that way, but now even foreigners who speak english as a second language use it as a filler word or to say "she was like..."

[@MrIrrationalSmith]

I'm a Californian now living in Boston. I definitely see these Californian uses of "like" here, and I see women using uptalk pretty frequently.

[@eboqz]

Yeah, every single non-native I know (me included) use "like" this way; even in Spanish (my native) young people tend to say the calque "Y yo estaba como: no te creo" ("And I was like: I don't believe you") because of its influence 😂

[@parmaxolotl]

It definitely ain't. Like I say it all the time!

[@MakhalanyaneMotaung]

Like is basically global atp

[@gytan2221]

@@eboqzyeah like literally everyone now like always say “like” like when they are speaking like it’s so like annoying like I just like I can’t understand like why.

[@dialectdrug]

Also something to keep in mind: The Californian accent has had a major impact on the General American accent. The Californian accent was normalized via Hollywood, and therefore had a massive influence on the rest of the world. Media is a powerful thing.

[@A-ID-A-M]

It's very apparent just how influential this dialect has been on General American English

[@ChrisNoonetheFirst]

Hella.

[@GlueEater22]

As a Californian i never realized me and a lot of others even ended sentences on a high note

[@realneonbluegamer]

With all due respects, it sound like you're drunk 😂 Australia has this feature as well so I guess its a result of their relaxed sun-kissed environment.

[@natemg8867]

lol my friends always tease me about it in good fun, though i have been told by people at random that it is annoying

[@GlueEater22]

@@realneonbluegamer not drunk enough, only on my 2nd shot

[@hopsiepike]

Rilly?

[@bmac4]

I didnt catch on to this myself until I started listening to playback of my recordings. And holy moly I do it a lot lol

[@shoobydooby2564]

2:05 this is because of dust bowl migrants, and as someone who lives in sacramento and has family members who were dust bowl migrants, I'd say this extends further north. Its especially noticeable in rural areas of the central valley and in older people.

[@fordalels]

Another thing to mention about “like,” it’s often paired with gesturing to show what the person might have been doing. Especially common if you are describing something personally slighting or weird, and a silence. I find myself saying sentences similar to “he told me that and i was like …[gesturing here]…” and the sentence ends.

[@mariehayes8358]

Bingo.

[@phantom4255]

Here's a fun California word: "hella". I think it originated in Oakland and is more associated with Northern California - specifically SF Bay Area (I read somewhere that they eschew the word in SoCal). Roughly equivalent to "extremely", use "hella" to turn any adjective into a superlative: That math test was hella hard! Everyone likes Susan cuz she's hella sweet! Dude, I forgot my girlfriend's birthday and she got hella mad! Use the word a few times and you may find it's hella fun!

[@pidgeotroll]

There’s also “hecka,” a version of hella that is said by kids because their parents don’t like it when they say “hell,” and used ironically by others.

[@devenscience8894]

I was going to call out hella.

[@rainbowArsonal]

i didnt know hella was just a norcal thing, im from the SF bay area and this whole time i thought everyone said hella

[@bluepapaya77]

As a younger genX SoCal transplant from Washington State where "hella" was briefly popular in my teenagehood, I'm far more likely to use it than my elder Millenial partner who grew up here.

[@selladore4911]

thats like, so 90s

[@RJsPsycho]

I scrolled by and I was entirely expecting two heads on the bear

[@cherrycolareal]

this is what happens when you play too much Fallout, kids

[@mr.cauliflower3536]

@@cherrycolareal This happens if you play an adequate amount of fallout new vegas.

[@nategthepigeonlord2683]

Visited a friend outside of California. Same thing was said about my sweatshirt

[@redsorgum]

The Brotherhood of Steel wants to know your location…….

[@atagon1]

What I learned from this video as a Southerner is that I sound a lot like a Californian thanks to all my Internet access from a young age 💀

[@oldrottenlady]

you're welcome/we're sorry

[@yntnrthbr3940]

Younger Romanian speakers use the word "gen" just like "like" from the California accent. This may have been a way to mimic the spoken American from popular media, but I can't be sure. The word itself means "kind" as in "kind of thing". Maybe this happened in other languages too, I'd love to know!

[@lunarc8141]

The exact same thing happen in french with "genre"

[@icanogar]

And in Spanish «como», although in a slightly different distribution as the one reported in the video.

[@buckplug2423]

same in Russian with "типа"

[@davigurgel2040]

filler words are a thing in all languages, not just in english, in portuguese it's "tipo" or "tipo assim" (like, like this)

[@Avram_Orozco]

⁠@@icanogarI think in Spanish it’s o sea and tipo.

[@kurtnunn6116]

“Hella” is prevalent in NorCal urban areas and among the younger generations of NorCal’ers SoCal people react to very little that happens north of Santa Barbara, but use the word “Hella” around them and they will get annoyed

[@BongDonkySecret77]

I first heard this word in 80's. I have lived in Nor Cal And So Cal. Its a strange term for sure. Salud!

[@maxn.7234]

True. I live in SD and the only time I hear hella is when I'm north of Santa Cruz.

[@evatzug]

Loved this video! Thank you for making me discover the fact that I (a foreigner) speak Californian xD Keep up the linguistic content!

[@rickwrites2612]

Growing up in San Diego in 80s, we said "Dude' all the time. It doesnt refer to the person. It means something closer to "hey" or "yo". But more because we said if speaking to oneself alone like "dude its hot in here". Or it might be used to simply announce our own presence ie walk in where there are ppl and just say "dude". I thought everyone did this until i went to a desert camp w kids from a few different western states AZ etc and they were laughing "omg the CA kids really say dude constantly, wtf"

[@Frank-GavinMoratalla]

LOL I just belted out the loudest laugh reading this because I recalled my best friend in high school would do this simultaneously throwing his arms in the air whenever he walked in a room and I’d often lean over and say something like “like thanks for the heads up dude, how was your `Excellent Adventure' from the quad to the doorway?”

[@chinadoll7]

I love that dude can be used to stand in for words or to address someone or to respond. Like if someone says "He was yelling at me in the isle, I was so embarrassed." My response of awe and shock and empathy would be "Duuuude, what the hell?" lol I use that word so much and never realized it until I had conversations with people from other parts of the country. But using dude is so catchy that I notice that a lot of people use it now the same way. It's such a diverse and fascinating word.

[@Jzombi301]

bro and bruh have turned into the same things. now they’re all used interchangeably along with "man" sometimes

[@mariehayes8358]

“Dude” can mean so many things, depending on inflection. An abrupt bark, “Dude!” can mean, “Hey, what you’re doing is NOT cool. What were you thinking?!”, like when your friend walks out into traffic. A happy yell, “Dude!” is an explanation of joy like when that thing you ordered two weeks ago suddenly shows up on your doorstep. A slow rising “Duuude...”, means something bad or threatening is about to happen, like, I don’t think that’s a dolphin fin (it’s probably a shark). A high-pitched scooping “Du-uu-de” can mean, “Give that back and stop tormenting me!” And a sad, falling “Duuude”, means, “That’s a real bummer that your boogie board cracked, dude.”

[@mariehayes8358]

“Dude” can mean so many things, depending on inflection. An abrupt bark, “Dude!” can mean, “Hey, what you’re doing is NOT cool. What were you thinking?!”, like when your friend walks out into traffic. A happy yell, “Dude!” is an explanation of joy like when that thing you ordered two weeks ago suddenly shows up on your doorstep. A slow rising “Duuude...”, means something bad or threatening is about to happen, like, I don’t think that’s a dolphin fin (probably a shark). A high-pitched scooping “Du-uu-de” can mean, “Give that back and stop tormenting me!” And a sad, falling “Duuude”, means, “That’s a real bummer that your boogie board cracked, dude.”

[@mzogafoxglovethewhipspider]

The best way I can tell who's not a local is by if they pronounce the t in Sacramento. Everyone I know (norcal) says it like sack-ra-meno.

[@rguz333]

We same it the same here in SoCal. Sak-ra-meno. In-er-net. Sa-na Mo-ni-ca, Hun-ing-ton, Mon-er-ray, etc. Get rid of that T in the middle of the word.

[@rinnachi]

same for san diego: sanny-ehgo

[@LaraSierra28]

I can always tell folks not from NorCal by the way they pronounce San Francisco. If it's not (as the great Herb Caen once noted) "San Brsisco" they're not locals.

[@Dirty_Jagaloon]

@@LaraSierra28true!!! The fran part is least emphasized and quickly passed over.

[@randyk1919]

I've lived in Southern California for 58 of my 60 years.. and dude, your analysis is, like.. spot on.

[@Neckromorph]

Born and raised in California, and In terms of "cot" and "caught" I pretty much pronounce them the same, except I put a slight emphasis on the T in "cot" and less so in "caught".

[@ken.the.person]

I feel like this is the basis for general american because I grew up in northern Kentucky and I talk like all of the changes you mentioned, and all of my friends there talk exactly like I do, and the people who are in the Chicago suburban area (where i am) talk like this too.

[@towaii]

frankly as for uptalk being a strategy for indicating that you're not done talking i'm kind of envious of californian speakers for this feature because i always, always get cut off in the middle of what i'm saying and people will just say whatever in response to the thing that i was only saying to set up the thing i actually wanted to say

[@FREAKSLICER]

Common California W 💪

[@towaii]

@@FREAKSLICER to be fair and balanced tmrc i do a lot of the time inflect like i'm in the middle of a sentence (because i am) and still get interrupted so i think it's just like some kind of thing neurotypicals do

[@selladore4911]

don't worry, people cut eachother off regardless of uptalk T_T

[@CheshireCatz]

Yeah, when I think they finally stop, they just keep going

[@lilyprettylamb]

Nah it’s so annoying to listen to especially when someone uses it but isn’t concise. So they just ramble for fucking ever

[@axyrl]

I got a 56 second ad and then a 51 second ad right after. The youtube ad situation is bullshit. I gotta say it was probably worth it

[@TheLingOtter]

That's actually insane wth

[@MarshmallowBoy]

​@@TheLingOtterjudging by that pfp i have no doubt your from cali lol (not supposed to be mean or offensive)

[@kylezo]

Bruh what kind of degenerate still doesn't use ublock pro origin

[@Jzombi301]

@@MarshmallowBoy literally said in the video. or at least heavily implied it

[@ZZZZierra]

I personally grew up in the UK, but I have been exposed to the Internet for a while now, and I have consumed a lot of American and specifically California-made content by people with Californian accents. While I definitely haven't picked up the accent per se, I have definitely adopted the Californian usage of "like". Only now do I realise how funny it is with my British midlands accent combined with how often I use like as a filler, especially for how far back in my mouth I pronounce the /a/ sound in the diphthong in like. Very interesting video!

[@Kernfederate]

Hey, semi local to Bakersfield here! 😂 I’m pretty sure one of the reasons for the pin/pen pronunciation was the mass immigration of Oklahomans and Texans during the Great Dust Bowl. I’m in the mountains East of the valley, and a small portion of the locals have still retained a bit of their Southern/ Midwestern twang.

[@highviibin8886]

I having been living in SoCal all my almost 60years and I still say Duuude, like, alot, man. I've lived in LA near San Fernando Valley...i also spent time with sufer dudes...i met a dude from West Virgina once while vising Texas and he said he knew i was from California because of my 🤭 accent. I never knew I had an accent! 😂😂😂

[@fcon2002]

I miss how in the 1980's, my surfer friends used to describe the waves... gnarly, wallen, jammin, awesome, rad (radical). As a matter of fact, the word "tubular" became popular in movies from surf terminology.

[@Jzombi301]

words like gnarly, rad or radical, tubular, and totally are still how most non californians think we still talk like because of all the movies portraying an exaggerated stereotype of the surfer/stoner californian dude well tbf "totally" is still totally used and "gnarly" is also sometimes heard although it can often be shortened to "gnar"

[@Frank-GavinMoratalla]

I was born & raised in SoCal, Eagle Rock specifically. I’m now 48 years old, I never was an uptalker, but I have spent most of my adult life speaking two different ways, professionally in a very “adult” way, for lack of a better word. However, in my personal life I’m just “like omg this happened and then like that happened and then dude, I like liked the likity like like.” And all I hear in response is, “OMG, like I know, riiight!?!”

[@robertgerow670]

I watched a great KZbin documentary (by FlameIsLucky incidentally) about one of the greatest skaters in the world, Yuto Horigome. In his late teens he came from Japan to live in California, despite barely speaking English, because of the skate culture here. I found it amusing when it showed Interviews after he had been here a while, speaking California skater English, interjecting “like” frequently, but still with a pretty noticeable Japanese accent. I love when cultures intermingle

[@deepfryerhouse6885]

The Bakersfield shade 😭 I’m used to it though

[@mikeg8276]

This was, like, _informative?_

[@MayorMcC666]

dude...

[@redsorgum]

Like that was like corny………😘

[@nlpnt]

The most famous SoCal shibboleth is using "the" in front of highway numbers (along with dropping any references to classification as Interstate, US Highway or state highway) so that I-10 becomes "the 10". Another one is referring to the film/TV industry as "the industry" whether you work in it or not, since using "Hollywood" as a metonym would lead to confusion with the actual neighborhood of Hollywood.

[@nawe325]

I love your video something you brought up that would be cool to look at in the future would be how media form California has kinda effect how the entire country talks

[@j.m.quinn465]

03:32 sounds like mordecai

[@nickbarr4899]

Didn’t mention how a lot of Californians will drop T inn certain words. I see this most often with place names. For example, I grew up in Orange County and when we say Huntington Beach we often drop the first T. So it’s Hunington Beach. With Monterey it’s pronounced Monatrey.

[@silentsmurf]

I think this is an American thing overall, or at least a general Western one e

[@lisacawyer6896]

From San Diego. I also drop the first t in Huntington, but Monterey is pronounced as it is spelled, or sometimes Mont-er-rey.

[@GlaceonStudios]

I know it's so, like, hard, but you got to keep, like, like, going! You have to win this for, like, like, like, like, the both of us!

[@joshuahamilton7630]

What’s this from again?

[@GlaceonStudios]

@@joshuahamilton7630 Battle for Dream Island.

[@joshuahamilton7630]

BFDI! A fellow Huang fan I see

[@-inthevalley-]

*gets lasered*

[@Person16384]

​@@joshuahamilton7630Aren't the Huangs Californian btw

[@Niteowlette]

Also, Californians say "yeah, no" a lot. Then there are the "OR" and "AR" pronunciations. Examples: OREinge (orange) and CAREit (carrot). Dragging out the last syllable of some words is common too.

[@Chris-lc4bo]

Yeah, I do that😉

[@Jzombi301]

i understand and agree with the first part but i dont get what you mean with the other 2. like yeah thats how orange and carrot are pronounced right? how else would it be in an american accent? also i would like examples of that last sentence

[@Niteowlette]

@@Jzombi301 Examples: Californians say CAREit (carrot) and OREange (orange). In NY, NJ, and CT they say CARit and AREange.

[@Jzombi301]

@@Niteowlette ok i just got confused with what you were comparing it to since the majority of New England don’t have the typical American accent and Californians do (at least mostly, tho there are slight differences but not with the examples you provided)

[@Niteowlette]

@@Jzombi301 linguistics can be difficult to do on the internet. 😊

[@dabberowl]

Really enjoyed your upload, hella stoked to check the rest of the channel out!

[@demo3702]

my terminally online ass really just thought "why does the NCR bear on the thumbnail only have one head" forgetting that calafornia is actually a place.

[@redsorgum]

The Brotherhood of Steel would like to know your location……

[@dougsinthailand7176]

Checks out. It’s interesting that Hollywood hasn’t adopted it and forced it to be standard movie English. Instead it’s used as an ironic “valley girl” dialect.

[@kaumingo]

We also say leg and egg with a long A instead of a short E. And melk.

[@ASCENDANTGAMERSAGE]

The up talk thing is so real. I literally never noticed you doing it, but im from california😅

[@viridiantheforest1037]

I thought it was funny when he started doing it in the explanation before he got to the examples, and then he apologized for it 😂

[@passerbypassinbi]

I've definitely heard several of these outside of California. I wonder how much of it has spread because of Hollywood and/or popular KZbinrs?

[@Matty002]

im kinda shocked there was no mention of the vowel shift that although is thought to have started here, has been spreading or showing up in other dialects regardless of distance

[@jone6135]

as an australian i always found the thing with yanks getting so miffed about uptalk really odd - considering it's something which virtually everyone here does pretty frequently regardless of any social groupings or region, i guess i just got used to it and never noticed its absence in media because so much of it is californian

[@Duda286]

I only recently learned about "like" being a thing from california To me (non-us citizen, non native eng speaker), it comes so naturally, exactly like that very californian way of using it Tbh, almost the whole thing, I think this is what we (worldwide) think of when we think "English" (that is, american eng) And it makes me understand why so many foreigners learning our language (portuguese, Brazil) go for the Rio accent - cause it's the same thing as california for that matter... This video probably got recommended to me cause I'm kinda trying to improve or acquire a californian accent but it appears I might already have half of it all

[@FairyCRat]

As a young Frenchman who speaks with a lot of Californianisms (probably due to my love for Californian pop-punk music) I was definitely curious to know what was so French about Californian English. I'd never realized that their U was so similar to ours!

[@brentwalker8596]

The "like" phenomenon is totally out of control. I remember when Moon Unit Zappa came out with "Valley Girl" and launched "like" into the mainstream, and the rest is history.

[@willywonka3050]

You missed O-fronting! It's not just the U that is gradually moving to the front.

[@viridiantheforest1037]

Apparently I live on the edge of the pen/pin merger. (Wichita, Kansas) I know that I say them differently but difference so subtle that I can hardly tell.

[@mikeodeo]

Fantastic video; as a socal native, the U-placement test for "dude" felt like falling for a magic trick. Another thing I've noticed is friends who grew up two cities over pronounce "saw" as "saul" with a very distinct L, and they think the rest of us "saw" people have a strong accent.

[@harvmate]

‘Like’ is an Essex thing in the UK, pronounced more ‘luy So… we was ‘lut ‘oh no, don’t do vat’, and ven he ‘luy… you get the idea

[@bedrock6443]

There’s also silent t.

[@kaylenewharff1844]

Something thing that I have realized from living in the Sacramento area, is that if there is a "nt" in the middle of a word, we rarely pronounce the t, just the n. "Santa" becomes "Sana". "Sacremento" becomes "Sacremenno". "Trenton" becomes "Trennen". Another thing I have realized is that we pronounce "towel" as one syllable instead of two.

[@InsaneBuizel]

As a Floridian, I've managed to speak in uptalk in daily convo. I only thought it was just how my peers talked and I use it to indicate I haven't even finished my talk like Im continuing it. Maybe my friends growing up were from Cali.

[@aculady1]

I grew up in Orange County, CA and moved to San Luis Obispo County many years ago. I had always been told that Bakersfield has its own accent due to the influx of the people from the Dust Bowl era. I finally met someone from Bakersfield who spoke with the accent. Kind of a southernish sound. I think his great-grandparents came from Oklahoma and settled in Bakersfield.

[@LeeWright337W]

One thing to mention is the "L coloring" that has been happening in Southern California in the past few decades. That's when you say the diphthong in "day," but drop it when adding the adverbial suffix "-ly" so that "daily" ends up sounding very much like "dally," or "feelings" sounds like "fillings." Some have also commented here about how "also" sounds like "ohlso."

[@hopsiepike]

Rilly.

[@Chris-lc4bo]

Oh, I say "ohlso" , yikes

[@ThePawsketeer]

I’m Californian and I never realized I had (at least a little bit of) the dialect because about after I had to leave the state at about five (don’t ask why I don’t know) I spoke Korean for most of my life, and I got back in the East Coast because my grandparents had a house there and I’ve been told by my doctor I have an eastern shore accent but I feel like I lean on both sides.

[@LoxytocinYT]

Been studying Scandinavian languages lately and a lot of Californians (but especially in SoCal) say their o's similar to the Swedish and Norwegian Ö and Ø.

[@Niteowlette]

I think that's from the influence of the upper Midwesterners who migrated to California, and many were of Scandinavian heritage.

[@LoxytocinYT]

@@Niteowlette Upper Midwesterners don’t pronounce the o similar to what I mentioned. O and Ö are separate vowels. Now in Oklahoma and the more central Midwestern areas (aka Midland) between the South and the Great Lakes cities the O fronting that sounds like Ö is more common and a lot of the original California settlers came from that region.

[@rinnachi]

this is true lol. i'm from a city called oceanside, or as i call it, ööceansåide. (the i vowl warps there too lol.)

[@mr.coffee5220]

Grew up in the Antelope Valley. The only thing I barely do in this video is the uptalk, but even then it’s still there a little bit. I don’t have any shame in having this dialect, I will keep wearing shorts and a sweater while saying “like” and dude” till I die.

[@Ploxtifs_OldAndDeadAccountXD]

As someone who has suffered in California their whole existence, I always felt my accent was the “default setting” accent, being very hard to pin down compared to other American accents such as southern, northeastern, Texan, and midwestern.

[@Noobuh]

I feel like this is mainly cause most media is from california (hollywood) so the "standard" accent in movies and shows is the west coast accent, since thats where most of the actors are from.

[@Ploxtifs_OldAndDeadAccountXD]

@@Noobuh also likely because cali has a truly staggering amount of different immigrant populations(Westminster, Orange County, being south of LA country, has the largest Vietnamese population of any city outside of Viet Nam)

[@johnbyrnes3790]

They pronounce pin and pen like that in Bakersfield because they’re okies. Oklahoma transplants from the dust bowl era

[@Boldorion1958]

"Like" as a filler was featured in Edd "Kooky" Byrnes' 1959 hit record "Like I Love You."

[@msmendes214]

I was just thinking about "quotative" words! like your example of "like". Another one is "go/goes"... For example when telling a story.. He goes "I like pizza" so I go "me too"

[@skeletonboxers7336]

asian american whos family is Mostly immigrated out to california. but my mom moved to the south for work so i grew up here. i find it so interesting that i pronounce things like a californian and use lots of californian slang (apparently) but i use southern words and contexts mixed in too. its so funny. top it off with learning tagalog and japanese and its just so much context switching when i visit family out west or overseas. everyone who didnt know me growing up in the south just assumes im not from the south but nope, born and raised here, i love southern food and ironically know Kudzu too well.

[@Leslie_AF]

On the “like as describing body language” point, I often use like to combine what someone is saying and mixing it with what vibes I’m getting. So like if I’m quoting someone who was being a bitch, I could say “and they were like” then quote what they say but change it a bit to add in that aggressive vibe.

[@Meeptome]

Yep. The use of like as a quotation is explicitly not a quotation, it is a statement that you dont remember details or are taking artistic liberties and what is being said is your view of what happened more than what happened. And it changes how I treat the information. The infomation I pull from it is much more likley to be "these two people argued" than "that person pulled some real bs" because no mater how many details are stated, there really aren't any.

[@kalanimondoy8344]

Love it! I was sharing this video and quickly addressed the "uptalk" you mentioned but didn't finish listening to your video till after I shared your video. Then I heard you comment about how you also do that. I just laughed. With the exception of the mergers which I feel mine differs, definitely noticed the U-fronting and then the A & I becoming long before NG. I do notice that, but thought it was just me, despite living in Los Angeles for 35yrs (originally from a small island in Hawaii) it's me whose accent will NOT change as 100% Californian. I try not to use LIKE so much, noticed that in the early 90s & its usage/meanings as well. The U-fronting and the others (raising of that [ae]) I am noticing with the younger generation in Hawaii with their Hawaiian words. Sounds awful! Other than that, loved this video!

[@curtiscarlson8958]

i think that upspeak often starts mid sentence or sooner. Not always just the last couple words of a sentence.

[@syro33]

I have a very similar accent to you, from Utah. Though, I have even more centralization of vowels going on I think. For whatever reason all my back vowels are centralized except for the ones involving r or l. So like, the FOOT vowel is schwa, the BOAT vowel is [əw], and GOOSE is [ʉ], same as you. I don't use dude much, but those usages of like are definitely in my vocabulary. I think California has had a big influence on the rest of the west, so that's probably why.

[@syro33]

Oh, also I don't really do uptalk. That's probably one of the bigger differences, and one of the few things that I think of differently when i think of a californian accent.

[@TheInkPitOx]

Stuff that originated in the San Fernando Valley is called Valspeak. They are associated with terms like "Barf out" and "Gag me with a spoon" "like" as a filler word is a bad habit and can be compared with "you know"

[@kanders7391]

Bakersfield got a huge influx of south easterners as farm labor during the 1930s depression & dust bowl era. The mid west dried up due partly to bad & unsustainable farming practices. Lots of farm families in Oklahoma, North Texas, and some from Arkansas & Missouri, + other states in the region moved to California and were collectively referred to as Okies. The Grapes of Wrath was written about their experiences. The regional shift of that time is why Bakersfield’s accent is a bit more Southern. Though it is headed back toward more Spanish influence.

[@snusey3642]

I usually talk until the sentence is at a high note and end it with something like “but” in a normal note

[@maykr-]

I moved from stockton, ca to west michigan when i was 8 & my accent was called out by everyone. every single point you hit on.

[@alyssoid]

I was born and raised in San Diego, then went to the University of San Diego and I’ll never forget all of the out of state people asking me 1) do you surf and 2) why do you say “like” so much. Like, my dudes you are in my town now.

[@maurofranciscosarabiagarci9605]

I've read the Valley Girl accent is actually a form of the Arkansas dialect from Southern migrants to LA, that's so cool to me. Also as a non-native English speaker that grew up on the East Coast I've loved Californian English because the mainstream media definetly prioritises it.

[@Mitchthemysteryman]

This was good. However, you mainly focused on LA and didn’t mention the Bay Area, which has plenty of linguistic contributions. I’d recommend a part 2 for NorCal. Hella needs to be included, along with other slang.

[@jamesbernald2850]

Yeah that would be like hella cool

[@passatboi]

I live is southern California and I've noticed the following: people are using a glottal stop between "the" and a vowel sound (not including the yu or yo) sound. For example, I say "thee ocean" and "thee elevator". But I've heard a lot of people say "thuh ocean" and "thuh elevator". Also, the loss of the present perfect tense. People are saying "I should have went" or "I've never ate there" instead of "I should have gone" and "I've never eaten there". Also, people don't differentiate between to lay and to lay. They say "I'm going to go lay down". Ugh. When I visited friends in Knoxville, no one made this error.

[@Camaron8928]

Omg i say the as thuh all the time

[@passatboi]

@@Camaron8928 Yes. It’s pronounced thuh before a consonant or a y sound like “the universe”. But before a vowel it’s pronounced thee. Thee earth. Thee elements….

[@ChrisW-17]

I've lived in Southern California my whole life and nearly always pronounce "the" as "thuh" regardless what follows.

[@passatboi]

Hearing “thuh earth” is just jarring to me. But….language is evolving. Maybe soon people will say “a apple” instead of an apple and “a elevator” instead of an elevator as well. Why have 2 forms when you can have one?

[@ChrisW-17]

@@passatboi To another one of your points, "I've never ate there" sounds completely jarring to my ears.

[@georgewang2947]

There is a feature I've noticed in some older Californians of pronouncing "ell" like the name "Al." For example they might say, "So come to find out, he was still working out in Bal-flower"

[@jmanig76]

Reminds me of the story of some dude (sorry) named Al Niño that kept getting angry calls during one of the first El Niños that was publicized as such (I really want to say 1992 but my old memory is failing me)

[@rron5641]

Very good video

[@starcola3035]

The one that always stood out to me is crawdads. It was really weird for me when I started seeing media call them "crawfish" or "crayfish".

[@Oliver-ld3ei]

California Supremacy 🐻🐻🐻

[@elsadmafioso]

I'm not a native English speaker, yet it seems I've picked up most of the pronuntiations found in California. to me, that feels amazing I do, however, tend to avoid uptalk, maybe out of personal aesthetic. what's funny though is that I've heard bilingual Spanish speakers use some crossover form of uptalk in their Spanish speech as well. I've thus never heard uptalk in a monolingual Spanish speaker's speech

[@boardcertifiable]

When I talk to little kids in Spanish, they do a lot of uptalking. Maybe that's where it came from? Oh great, I'm doing it now.

[@elsadmafioso]

@@boardcertifiable hahah yeah, I also have updated my views on the subject. it seems to me that there may indeed be some form of uptalk in some Spanish dialects. mainly, I can think of Northern Mexican accents, as well as Chilean and Argentinian accents

[@dialectdrug]

The uptalk is one of the features of the 'valley girl' accent, which is why it originated in the San Fernando *Valley*

[@Mama_Doomm]

I’m from Washington and someone online asked me what my accent was like and I never thought about it because I always assumed I don’t have an accent. I’ve realized that the best way to describe my accent is “the California accent.” It must be an entire west coast thing 🤔

[@because-strudels]

Damn dude as a lifelong SoCal resident I didn't realize the Frenchy "yu" in my "oo". Also I call everybody "dude," don't matter if you're a dude or dudette, you're a dude, dude.

[@MrRurounismc]

Bakersfield person here: The merger there is likely due to the large amount of migration from the south before and after the Dust Bowl. It shows up a bit in Riverside too I believe for similar reasons.

[@Gryphonisle]

Bakersfield is near where the southern cotton industry ended up with a large out migration of southerners. I wonder if this is part of the merger for pi and pen?

[@endawmyke]

3:28 Dud (Soos from Gravity Falls) Dud (Mordecai from Regular Show)

[@ZackKolesky]

Like is the audible comma

[@philliphunt6204]

Learnt a bit about myself today. Good looking out.

[@josukehigashikata1481]

Only ever lived in the south but I have nearly all the features of the Californian dialect.

[@SomeRandomPersonOnTheNet]

Can’t forget about using “the” in front of the interstate number. “The 5”, “the 405”… and not pronouncing like I-5 or just 5. Living outside of California now, but yes… I annoy many with uptalk… it’s unintentional.

[@kylezo]

That's socal, not NorCal.

[@pielero70]

The Harbor Freeway is the only or few surviving names or the 110. Might be in part that there is the ten 10 and the One-ten.

[@digithardt]

outside of like, los angeles and san diego, nobody really does that

[@maxn.7234]

I can't imagine talking about a freeway without putting "the" in front of it? How does anyone do this?

[@dougsinthailand7176]

An alternative to “like” is “all”. I’m not sure if this is restricted to certain subculture or age group, but I’ve heard it a lot in the bear state.

[@ItemHazard]

I’m moving to California soon from the South!

[@redsorgum]

If you move to Southern California, you’ll still be a Southerner……..✌️😉😘

[@silentsmurf]

Welcome 🤗

[@jstanley8545]

Cool Video. I would like to add that uptalk and using "like" are something us SFV folks use less and less as we grow older. That's my observation.

[@uservdhdunxinfstinf]

as a native californian from LA, uptalk sucks and we all hate. it’s funny though because it comes in from both the valley girl accent and chicano english