Pacific Northwest English

Pacific Northwest English (also known, in the United States, as Northwest English) is a variety of North American English that shares major elements with Canadian English as well as California English, and is geographically defined within the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon, sometimes including Idaho and the Canadian province of British Columbia. The variety may also be spreading to central and western Montana, western Alberta, southeastern Alaska, Wyoming, and far northern California. The area contains a highly diverse and mobile population, which is reflected in the historical and continuing development of the variety. Current studies remain inconclusive about whether Pacific Northwest English is a complete dialect of its own, separate from Western American English.

History

The linguistic traits that flourish throughout the Pacific Northwest attest to a culture that transcends boundaries. Historically, this hearkens back to the early years of colonial expansion by the British and Americans, when the entire region was considered a single area. Until the Oregon Treaty of 1846, it was identified as being either Oregon Country (by the Americans) or Columbia (by the British). As a result of the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush, the culture of the Pacific Northwest expanded northward into Yukon and Alaska, carried along by the thousands of people who were attracted to the gold fields in the north. Today, the English variety common to this shared culture can be heard by people from Eugene, Oregon to Fairbanks, Alaska.

Linguists immediately after World War II tended to find few patterns unique to the Western region. Several decades later, linguists began noticing emerging characteristics of Pacific Northwest English, although it remains close to the standard American accent.

Phonology

The Pacific Northwest English vowel space. Based on TELSUR data from Labov et al. The /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ are indistinguishable in the F1/F2 means for three speakers from Vancouver, British Columbia, two speakers from Seattle, and three from Portland, Oregon

As in most varieties of North American English, Pacific Northwest English is rhotic, which is historically a significant marker in differentiating global English varieties. Pacific Northwest English shares most of its characteristics with Canadian English and is developing characteristics related to California English.

Commonalities with both Canada and California

• The vowels in words such as Mary, marry, and merry are merged to the open-mid front unrounded vowel [ɛ]. This is also typical in most dialects of the United States.
• Younger speakers of Pacific Northwest English also show features of the Canadian/California Vowel Shift, which move front vowels through a lowering of the tongue:
  • /æ/ is lowered toward almost [a]; /ɛ/ toward almost [æ]; and /ɪ/ toward almost [ɛ]. Therefore, among younger speakers, hick can sound like heck, heck like hack, and hack like hock.
  • /ɑ/ is backed and sometimes rounded to become [ɒ]. Most Pacific Northwest speakers have undergone the cot–caught merger. A notable exception occurs with some speakers born before roughly the end of World War II. Thus, to a Seattle speaker, who backs the word cot towards the sound of caught, a Chicago speaker's cot – where the vowel is sometimes fronted towards [a] – may be interpreted as cat.

Commonalities with Canada

These commonalities are shared with Canada and the North Central United States which includes the Minnesota accent.

• Traditionally diphthongal vowels such as [oʊ] as in boat and [eɪ], as in bait, have qualities much closer to monophthongs in some speakers.
• There are also conditional raising processes of open front vowels. These processes are often more extreme than in Canada and the North Central United States.
  • Before the velar nasal [ŋ], /æ/ becomes [e]. This change makes for minimal pairs such as rang and rain, both having the same vowel [e], differing from rang [ræŋ] in other varieties of English.
  • Among some speakers in Portland and southern Oregon, /æ/ is sometimes raised and diphthongized to [eə] or [ɪə] before the non-velar nasal consonants [m] and [n]. This feature is rarer further north, where /æ/ tends to remain the same before non-velar nasal consonants, except for occasional schwa-like qualities (co-articulation of tongue and palate), resulting in [æə].
  • /ɛ/, and, in the northern Pacific Northwest, /æ/, become [eɪ] before the voiced velar plosive /ɡ/: egg and leg are pronounced to rhyme with plague and vague, a feature shared by many northern Midwestern dialects and with the Utah accent. In addition, sometimes bag will be pronounced bayg.
• Canadian raising: Some speakers have a tendency to slightly raise /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ before voiceless obstruents. It is strongest in rural areas in British Columbia and Washington, and in older and middle-aged speakers in Vancouver and Seattle. In other areas, /aɪ/ is occasionally raised. This phenomenon is widespread and well known throughout Anglophone Canada and other parts of the northern United States.

Commonalities with California

• California Shift: The Canadian/California Shift developing in Pacific Northwest English also includes these additional features only reminiscent of California English, but not Canadian English (especially among working-class young-adult females):
  • The close central rounded vowel [ʉ] or close back unrounded vowel [ɯ] for /u/, is found in Portland and some areas of Southern Oregon, but is generally not found further north, where the vowel remains the close back rounded [u].
  • In speakers born around the since the 1960s, there is a tendency to move the tongue forward in the first element of the diphthong /oʊ/. This is reminiscent also of Midland, Mid-Atlantic, and Southern U.S. English. This fronting does not appear before /m/ and /n/, for example, in the word home.

Miscellaneous characteristics

• Some speakers perceive or produce the pairs /ɛn/ and /ɪn/ close to each other, for example, resulting in a merger between pen and pin, most notably in Eugene, Oregon and Spokane, Washington.
• Consonant phonology is more conservative, as with other varieties of English. A notable divergence from standard speech is the pronunciation of the "str" consonant cluster as [ʃtɹ], "shtr".

Words and phrases

Main article: Chinook Jargon use by English Language speakers

Pacific Northwest English and British Columbian English adopted several words from Chinook Jargon. There are also several terms of English origin that originated or are distinct to the region.

• Sunbreak: break in the clouds during the dark, rainy winters typical west of the Cascade Mountains
• Duff: another word for forest litter
• Fish wheel: a fish trap powered by a river current
• Spendy: expensive
• Rig: Any vehicle: car, truck, or SUV

See also

• Chain shift
• California English
• Canadian English
• General American English
• Vowel Shift
• British Columbian English
• Chinook Jargon
• Chinook Jargon use by English Language speakers

Further reading

• Vowels and Consonants: An Introduction to the Sounds of Languages. Peter Ladefoged, 2003. Blackwell Publishing.
• Language in Society: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Suzanne Romaine, 2000. Oxford University Press.
• How We Talk: American Regional English Today. Allan Metcalf, 2000. Houghton Mifflin.

External links

• Hear Pacific Northwest English
• Phonological Atlas of North America