dialects

[Beverly Flanigan]

I didn't hear the original interview, but the assertion in question was
repeated on NPR this morning, and Beard sounded pretty categorical on "no
accents" in the West (who IS he anyway, and how does NPR find these
people?).  The clip was just background for two responses, both of which
were equally naive.  (One said something like "How refreshing that
linguists are looking at something other than diphthongs and the position
of the tongue.")

At 10:31 AM 6/23/2006, you wrote:
>Maybe Beard is asserting that, although local accents
>may be numerous, there is no identifiable regional
>accent for the west (other than a lack of one of the
>eastern accents).
>
>
>
>--- "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
>wrote:
>
> > On Jun 22, 2006, at 8:06 AM, Larry Horn wrote:
> >
> > > ... Or that Youpers, born and bred in the U.P. of
> > > Michigan, are phonologically indistinguishable
> > > from Texans.  Or (if there's an exception for
> > > those south-of-whatever) from Utahns.  Maybe he
> > > was misquoted?
> >
> > alas, no.  he asserts that once settlers went west
> > of ohio, their
> > accents started to blend together, and then it was
> > all one
> > undifferentiated accent, right out to california and
> > oregon.
> >
> > you'd have to have a tin ear not to hear accent
> > differences here on
> > the west coast, stemming in part from significant
> > differences north
> > to south in the origin of the majority of settlers
> > (new england in
> > the north, the southwest in the south), but also
> > related to urban vs.
> > rural and coastal vs. inland differences in
> > settlement.
> >
> > arnold
> >
> >
>------------------------------------------------------------
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> > http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org