What causes the Northern Cities Vowel Shift?

History of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift Speakers around the Great Lakes began to pronounce the short a sound, /æ/ as in TRAP, as more of a diphthong and with a higher starting point in the mouth, causing the same word to sound more like “tray-ap” or “tray-up”; Labov et al.

How many vowel shifts are there in the Northern Cities Shift?

one vowel shifts
The Northern Cities Shift As with strangers in an elevator, one vowel shifts to keep its distance when another enters the space. These coordinated movements are heard in the Northern Cities Shift, which affects six different vowels, those appearing in caught, cot, cat, bit, bet and but.

What is the difference between the vowel shifts in the Northern cities and the South?

What is the difference between the vowel shifts in the Northern Cities and the South? In the urban areas, the vowel shift is expanding in the North and receding in the South.

What are the three major North American vowel shifts?

The short vowels in English, pit, pet, pat, have been standing still for a thousand years, while the long vowels did their merry chase. It’s called the great vowel shift. But long about 1950, the short vowels in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, began to move. It’s called the northern city shift.

What accent is Chicagoans?

Linguists classify the Chicago accent as one of several types of Inland Northern English, also known as the Inland North Dialect or the Great Lakes Dialect.

Why did the vowel shift happen?

The great vowel shift was a water shed event , so much so that it is the reason that why most modern day English speakers would struggle to speak with people from the late 14th & 15th Century. The ‘vowel shift’ relates to the sound of long vowels.

When did the Northern Cities Vowel Shift start?

In 1972, three linguists, led by William Labov of the University of Pennsylvania, christened the phenomenon the Northern Cities Vowel Shift or, more simply, the Northern Cities Shift (NCS).

What is a Midwestern accent called?

North-Central American English (in the United States, also known as the Upper Midwestern or North-Central dialect and stereotypically recognized as a Minnesota or Wisconsin accent) is an American English dialect native to the Upper Midwestern United States, an area that somewhat overlaps with speakers of the separate …

How do vowel shifts work?

If you’re just joining us, a vowel shift happens when the vowel sounds of a particular accent (or language) move from one part of the vowel space to another. It’s best to look at an example: In Chicago and other Great Lakes cities, the vowel in pot moves toward the vowel in pat.

What is a vowel shift example?

Before the Great Vowel Shift, Middle English in Southern England had seven long vowels, /iː eː ɛː aː ɔː oː uː/. The vowels occurred in, for example, the words bite, meet, meat, mate, boat, boot, and out, respectively….Middle English vowel system.

What kind of accent do Chicagoans have?