Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Northern American English or Northern U.S. English (also, Northern AmE) is a class of historically related American English dialects, spoken by predominantly white Americans, [1] in much of the Great Lakes region and some of the Northeast region within the United States.
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 ...
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]
New England English is, collectively, the various distinct dialects and varieties of American English originating in the New England area. [1] [2] Most of eastern and central New England once spoke the "Yankee dialect", some of whose accent features still remain in Eastern New England today, such as "R-dropping" (though this and other features are now receding among younger speakers). [3]
After the accent's decline following the end of World War II, this American version of a "posh" accent has all but disappeared even among the American upper classes, as Americans have increasingly dissociated from the speaking styles of the East Coast elite; [21] if anything, the accent is now subject to ridicule in American popular culture. [53]
North American English encompasses the English language as spoken in both the United States and Canada.Because of their related histories and cultures, [2] plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), vocabulary, and grammar of U.S. English and Canadian English, linguists often group the two together.
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
Northeastern New England English, popularly recognized as a Boston or Maine accent, in addition to all the above phonological features, further includes the merger of the vowel in cot and caught to [ɒ~ɑ], often with a slightly rounded quality, but a resistance to the merger of the vowels in father versus bother, a merger that is otherwise ...