ah/ awe

[Gordon, Matthew J.]

Yeah but the interesting thing about Pittsburgh, as Doug noted, is the monophthongization of /aw/ which isn't spreading into either Ohio or West VA, right? The Atlas of North American English found it only in SW PA with any regularity.


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Beverly Flanigan
Sent: Mon 10/2/2006 9:54 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject:      Re: ah/ awe
 
Same thing in southeastern Ohio:  The vowel in 'Don' and 'dawn' isn't quite
as rounded as my Northern 'saw' and 'bought', but it's definitely not the
vowel in Northern 'Don'--as it is in central Ohio and westward.  So there's
a merger of ah/awe here too, but it's more raised and further back than in
Columbus.

At 12:49 AM 10/2/2006, you wrote:
>And just south of Pittsburgh, in Northern West Virginia and Greene
>County, PA, Don and Dawn come out with something like a Philadelphia
>dawn.  My mother-in-law's (male) cousin, from Waynesburg, PA, is
>"Dawnie" with quite a raised open o.
>
>Paul Johnaston
>On Oct 1, 2006, at 7:28 PM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
>>Subject:      Re: ah/ awe
>>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>---------
>>
>>Here is my perception of the situation in Pittsburgh.
>>
>>In (say) Chicago, in my experience, there are usually two distinct
>>vowels
>>in "Don" and "Dawn": say, "Don" /dan/ 'unrounded', "Dawn" /dOn/
>>'rounded'.
>>
>>In stereotypical Pittsburgh pronunciation, to my ear, "Don" and
>>"Dawn" are
>>both /dOn/. Pittsburghers regard them as sounding the same. They
>>both sound
>>(to me) like Chicago "Dawn".
>>
>>This does not by any means imply that stereotypical Pittsburghers
>>have any
>>trouble saying /dan/ or distinguishing it from /dOn/. Pittsburghers
>>say
>>/dan/ (which sounds to me the same as Chicago "Don") all the time:
>>but it's
>>spelled "down" (this is a sort of local shibboleth, I guess).
>>
>>-- Doug Wilson
>>
>>
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