Alaskan?

Mon Sep 8 10:34:18 UTC 2008

Thanks to Hal for specifying the PNWC accent. Points 1,3 certainly  
hold for my vowels (I was born and raised in the Puget Sound area)  
although point 2 less so. In thinking about unrounded high-back, it  
strikes me as perhaps being more associated with more working class/ 
rural speech. (When I say those words in #2 I am immediately reminded  
of kids from Seabeck or the Olympic peninsula). I may be wrong, as I  
have been in Europe for 8 years and visit Seattle only occasionally.  
When I went to college in Portland, OR, more than one NEster  
commented on my accent, and even a SoCal thought I talked 'weird'.

Palin moved to AK when she was 3, so I doubt there is much Idaho  
influence. I wasn't paying that close attention to accent when I was  
in Fairbanks last summer, but it seemed that many Alaskans sounded a  
lot like Washingtonians. However, I noticed in conversations that  
many Alaskans often turned out to be from the PNW or their parents were.

In reference to Hal's last paragraph, when I moved to  
Charlottesville, VA for grad school, I often felt I WAS in a foreign  
country, especially when talking to locals in shops or driving around  
rural central Virginia. I regularly encountered accents and larger  
patterns in speech never or rarely represented in the media. The  
vowel qualities that Hal outlines are subtle differences and I think  
most people will either not notice them or only be able to describe  
them as 'talking funny'.

-Alex King

On 8 Sep 2008, at 2:34 am, Harold Schiffman wrote:

> 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?
>>
>
>
>
> --
> =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
>
> 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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