Alaskan?

Mon Sep 8 14:42:08 UTC 2008

Sorry if I'm stating what must be obvious to some, but the best place to look
for information on dialect differences in North American English is the "Atlas
of North American English" by William Labov, Sharon Ash and Charles Boberg
(Mouton/de Gruyter, 2006).
It seems that Anchorage was part of the sample, along with various places in
Washington and Idaho (and Western Canada).

More information can be found here:
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phonoatlas/
http://www.mouton-online.com/anae.php

If your library has it, you may have access to data online, including to speech
samples from the individuals who were recorded in the various places.

Best,
Philipp

-- 
Philipp Sebastian Angermeyer
Assistant Professor
Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics
York University
549 South Ross Building
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M3J 1P3
tel: (416) 736-2100 extension 66288
fax: (416) 736-5483
pangerme at yorku.ca
http://www.yorku.ca/pangerme/philipp.htm

Quoting Alexander King <a.king at ABDN.AC.UK>:

> 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/
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------
>
> - tel:+44(1224)27 2732, fax:+44(1224)27 2552 - http://www.koryaks.net
> - http://www.abdn.ac.uk/anthropology
>
>