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Three isoglosses identifying the NCVS. In the brown areas /ʌ/ is more retracted than /ɑ/. The blue line encloses areas in which /ɛ/ is backed. The red line encloses areas in which /æ/ is diphthongized to [eə] even before oral consonants. The areas enclosed by all three lines may be considered the "core" of the NCVS; it is most consistently present in Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Detroit, and Chicago. From Labov et al. 2006: 204. See: Inland Northern American English.

The Northern cities vowel shift is a chain shift in the sounds of some vowels in the dialect region of American English known as the Inland North. It is called northern cities because it is taking place mostly in a broad swath of the United States around the Great Lakes, beginning some 50 miles west of Albany and extending west through Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Madison, and north to Green Bay (Labov et al. 187–208). In the study of phonetic changes, a chain shift is a type of sound shift in which a group of sounds all change at about the same time, with some sounds taking the place of others. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος, dialektos) is a variety of a language characteristic of a particular group of the languages speakers. ... For other uses, see American English (disambiguation). ... The Inland North Dialect of American English was the standard Midwestern speech that was the basis for General American in the mid-20th Century, though it has been recently modified by the northern cities vowel shift. ... The Great Lakes from space The Laurentian Great Lakes are a group of five large lakes in North America on or near the Canada-United States border. ... For other uses, see Albany. ... Nickname: Location of Syracuse within the state of New York Coordinates: , City Government  - Mayor Matthew Driscoll (D) Area  - City 66. ... This article is about the city of Rochester in Monroe County. ... Nickname: Location of Buffalo in New York State County Government  - Mayor Byron Brown (D) Area  - City 52. ... Cleveland redirects here. ... “Detroit” redirects here. ... Nickname: Motto: Urbs in Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location in the Chicago metro area and Illinois Coordinates: , Country State Counties Cook, DuPage Settled 1770s Incorporated March 4, 1837 Government  - Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) Area  - City  234. ... Nickname: Location of Madison in Dane County, Wisconsin Coordinates: , Municipality City Incorporated 1848 Government  - Mayor Dave Cieslewicz Area  - City 219. ... Green Bay is the county seat of Brown County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. ... Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from an article revision dated 2006-02-04, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ...

In this shift, the vowels in the words cat, cot, caught, cut, and ket have shifted from IPA [æ],[ɑ],[ɔ],[ʌ],[ɛ] toward [ɪə],[a],[ɑ],[ɔ],[ə], and, in addition, the vowel in kit (IPA [ɪ]) becomes more mid-centralized. Like most chain shifts, it is not complete in all areas at the same time: some but not all aspects of the shift can be found further afield. For example, the backing of /ɛ/ is found as far south as St. Louis and as far west as Cedar Rapids, and the diphthongization of /æ/ before oral consonants is found in parts of Minnesota (St. James, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Brainerd). Accents in which /ʌ/ is more retracted than /ɑ/ (whether by backing of /ʌ/, fronting of /ɑ/, or both) are encountered as far east as Providence, as far south as St. Louis, as far north as Bemidji, and as far west as Aberdeen (Labov et al. 204). Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Nickname: Location in the state of Missouri Coordinates: , Country State County Independent City Government  - Mayor Francis G. Slay (D) Area  - City  66. ... Nickname: Location in the State of Iowa Coordinates: , Country State County Linn Incorporated 1849 Government  - Mayor Kay Halloran Area  - City 166. ... An oral consonant is a consonant sound in speech that is made by allowing air to escape from the mouth. ... Capital Saint Paul Largest city Minneapolis Area  Ranked 12th  - Total 87,014 sq mi (225,365 km²)  - Width 250 miles (400 km)  - Length 400 miles (645 km)  - % water 8. ... St. ... A map of the Twin Cities metropolitan area. ... Brainerd is a city located in Crow Wing County, Minnesota. ... “Providence” redirects here. ... Bemidji is a city located in Beltrami County, Minnesota. ... Aberdeen, a city and the county seat of Brown County, South Dakota, USA, about 125 mi (200 km) N.E. of Pierre. ...

The trigger of this shift is the diphthongization of /æ/ into /ɪə/ (æ-tensing), a change identified as early as the 1960s. Then, /ɑ/ is pulled forward toward [a], occupying a position very close to the position of former /æ/, and in some very advanced speakers an identical position. The third stage is another pull, namely the lowering of /ɔ/ toward [ɑ]. The fourth stage is the backing of /ɛ/, a phonetic shift seen in some other accents, although less markedly and in fewer contexts; this is a push stage, because former /ɛ/ and fronted /æ/ sound similar, especially when /æ/ is not fully raised to [ɪə] but only to [eə]. The fifth stage is the backing of /ʌ/, pulled by /ɔ/ and at the same time pushed by /ɛ/. Finally, /ɪ/ is lowered and backed, although it is still distinct from /ɛ/ in all contexts. The shift is in progress throughout the Great Lakes cities, so some speakers might only have, for instance, the first two stages only, but none have, say, only the last stage. In phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ... // Trap-bath split The trap-bath split is a vowel split that occurs mainly in southern varieties of English English (including Received Pronunciation), in the Boston accent, and in the Southern Hemisphere accents (Australian English, New Zealand English, South African English), by which the Early Modern English phoneme was lengthened... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. ...

The shift is found in mainly white speakers. Speakers of African American Vernacular English show little to no evidence of adopting the Northern Cities Shift. The shift has also not been adopted by Canadian speakers, despite the geographic proximity of millions of Canadians living near the United States border in the Great Lakes region and along the St. Lawrence. This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... The Great Lakes from space The Laurentian Great Lakes are a group of five large lakes in North America on or near the Canada-United States border. ... TheSaint Lawrence River (In French: fleuve Saint-Laurent) is a large west-to-east flowing river in the middle latitudes of North America, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. ...

See also

• Great Vowel Shift

The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in the south of England between 1200 and 1600. ...

External links

• Northern Cities Shift
• A National Map of The Regional Dialects of American English
• PBS resource from the show "Do you Speak American?"
• Detroit Area Vowels (bottom part of page) Sound files at Penelope Eckert's website
• The Guide to Buffalo English
• NPR interview with Professor William Labov about the shift

References

• Boberg, Charles (2000). "Geolinguistic Diffusion and the U.S.-Canada Border". Language Variation and Change 12:1–24
• Dinkin, Aaron (2007) and William Labov (2007). "Bridging the Gap: Dialect Boundaries and Regional Allegiance in Upstate New York". Paper presented at Penn Linguistics Colloquium 31.
• Gordon, Matthew J. (2001). Small-town Values and Big-city Vowels: A Study of the Northern Cities Shift in Michigan. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-6478-6. 
• Labov, William, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg (2006). The Atlas of North American English. Berlin: Mouton-de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-016746-8.