Alaskan?

[Harold Schiffman]

Having lived in the Pacific Northwest for 28 years, and taught linguistics
courses
there, I have a few ideas about the PNW "accent" if indeed one can make
generalizations
about it as it  might apply to Alaska.  (Ms. Palin was born in Idaho, I'm
told, and also
attended college in that state, so maybe she has some  of her accent from
Idaho.)

The most noticeable  thing about PNW English that I  can attest is that
certain vowel
contrasts that are found in east coast American English are missing, or
rare.

1. There is no contrast between the low back vowel in "caller" as contrasted
with the /a/ in 'collar,
and  that applies across the board.  "Otto" is pronounced the same as
"auto", 'caught' the same as
'cot', etc.

2. The high-lax back vowel in "should, put, good" etc. is often more
unrounded, more
like the final /u/  in Japanese, or Russian "jeri".  In some c ases it may
even approach
the quality of barred-i.
.
3. There is no contrast between the vowel of 'bed' and the vowel of 'bad'
(sorry I can't
represent them well from this email system) when they occur before /r/, i.e.
'perish' and
'parish' are identical, as are the names Aaron and Erin, Barry and berry,
'merry' and 'marry',
and so on.

These are the most salient features I have noticed in the phonology of the
PNW dialect. There
may be others, but I never noticed whether people said "eye-rack"  instead
of "ear-rack".

One thing I should report--whenever I did surveys in my ling classes to see
whether people had
the contrasts I've mentioned above, if anybody did have those contrasts,
they were surely not
from the local area.  Once, after doing this, a student asked me if I was
"from this country."  I was
rather outraged by this question, since the student was assuming that his
English was "normal" and
mine was therefore "foreign".  Or maybe it was meant as a joke, since I
would assume students
watched TV and heard other accents from the media.

Hal Schiffman

On Sat, Sep 6, 2008 at 6:16 PM, Jim <festushaggen at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> Robert Lawless comments:
> ************
> My son heard Sarah Palin today and said, "She talks funny. Is that an
> Alaska accent." Frankly I didn't notice anything that I could label a
> regional accent -- just that she sounds rather strident. Any comments?
>
> ************
>
>
> My fiancée and I have noted what we discern as a "Canadian accent"...
>
> As an "armchair linguist" I would guess Western Canadian...or more
> precisely, North American West Coast. (Northern Oregon...Washington
> State...and Brit Columbia all seem to have the same hollow sound to their
> broad vowels.  (Surely, there's a term for this sound I hear...???)
>
> I have limited experience with true Alaskans...and almost none with native
> born Alaskans... So N American W Coast is about the best I can do.
>
> As to her philosophical accent--I think she is clearly from one very
> distinct, very American region: the private sector. (Is Stepford the
> capitol
> of Alaska???)
>
> I hope my linguistic attempts offer you any insights whatsoever. (Please
> keep us posted if you track down anything more on this matter of
> Palin-guistics.)
>
> Jim
>
> http://www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory/index.php
>
> http://www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory/events/documents/CinematicExtraterrestri
> als.doc
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Linguistic Anthropology Discussion Group
> [mailto:LINGANTH at listserv.linguistlist.org] On Behalf Of Robert Lawless
> Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2008 2:29 PM
> To: LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
>  Subject: Alaskan?
>
> My son heard Sarah Palin today and said, "She talks funny. Is that an
> Alaska accent." Frankly I didn't notice anything that I could label a
> regional accent -- just that she sounds rather strident. Any comments?
>



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Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone: (215) 898-7475
Fax: (215) 573-2138

Email: haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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