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North American English is a collective term for the dialects of the United States and Canada. It does not include the varieties of Caribbean English spoken in the West Indies. Rhoticity: Most North American English accents differ from Received Pronunciation and some other British dialects by being rhotic.
Regional dialects in North America are historically the most strongly differentiated along the Eastern seaboard, due to distinctive speech patterns of urban centers of the American East Coast like Boston, New York City, and certain Southern cities, all of these accents historically noted by their London-like r-dropping (called non-rhoticity), a feature gradually receding among younger ...
For example, the New Yorker accent is one of the most visible regional accents in American culture, frequently being immortalized in TV and film, like with Dustin Hoffman's famous line, "Hey, I'm ...
The early 20th-century accent of the Inland North was the basis for the term "General American", [6] [7] though the regional accent has since altered, due to the Northern Cities Vowel Shift: its now-defining chain shift of vowels that began in the 1930s or possibly earlier. [8]
It is a term used by all social groups, although more frequently by people with a lower social status than by members of the educated upper classes. Furthermore, it is more common in the speech of younger people than in that of older people. [70] Like much of the Southern dialect, the term is also more prevalent in rural areas than in urban areas.
For example, /æ/ may be generally raised and /ɑ/ generally fronted in comparison to other American English accents. [9] Some speakers exhibit extreme raising of /æ/ before voiced velars (/ɡ/ and /ŋ/), with an up-glide, and so bag sounds close to beg or is even raised like the first syllable of bagel. Other examples are the words flag and ...
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, [b] is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. [4] English is the most widely spoken language in the United States; an official language in 32 of the 50 U.S. states; and the de facto common language used in government, education, and commerce throughout the nation. [5]
A California Assembly bill would allow the use of diacritical marks like accents in government documents, not allowed since 1986's "English only" law which many say targeted Latinos.