Seattle Accent
There is apparently a debate about whether the Northwest has its own accent. It’s surprising that there is even a debate. If you talk to anyone who grew up in this area; especially the non-urban outskirts, you can immediately tell — and the accent is definitely different from California and Canada.
I think the reason that some people have trouble believing that there is a local accent is because there are so few actual locals in the Northwest. Most people in the Northwest have been here less than five years. And many of the people who were raised here (since childhood is when accents most strongly form) were raised by parents who weren’t from the Northwest. Most of the people I work with on a daily basis are from outside the U.S., and certainly aren’t “locals”. Most UW professors I know are not from the area, and don’t have deep roots with the “locals”. Seattle is the typical modern port town; most of the people you meet will not be sporting a local accent.
But when you meet someone born and bred by locals, you hear it in their voices. Ever since moving here, I’ve been interested by the accent, in part because there shouldn’t be one, and in part because I’ve noticed that it’s strongest in women (as the study shows) and particular groups of residents. I theorize that accent is as much an outgrowth of cultural self-identification as geography (how else to explain that people in Vancouver B.C. sound more like people in Toronto than like people in Seattle?). Does this mean that women who move to Seattle are more likely to self-identify with a particular clique or culture?
May 11th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Both my parents and their grandparents were born here and my friends, who are almost all children of transplants to the area frequently mock me for my strange pronounciation of words. For example, I pronounce the word bag like bayg, and it’s always nice to see that other people notice the accent.
June 28th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
I always think that pronouncing “bag” like “bayg” is an indicator of what I call a “Great Lakes accent”, that is someone from the region of the U.S. around Lakes Superior, St. Clair, Huron, Michigan, Erie and Ontario.
June 29th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Tom, that’s where I grew up. It’s a lot different from a Seattle accent, so I suppose you’re not reading “bayg” with the same sound that VJ intended. “bag” to us doesn’t sound like “bahg”.
December 29th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
I’d have to dispute the claim that Vancouverites sound far more like Torontonians than they sound like Seattleites. It’s not the case that international boundaries represent solid, constant impediments to linguistic influence. Their effect is rather arbitrary.
The American Great Lakes region is undergoing what’s called the “Northern Cities Vowel Shift”. This means that “jazz” sounds more like “jeee-uuuhzz” (but not “jizz”) and “cot” more like “cat”. However, this shift is not happening on the Canadian side of the Great Lakes, nor is it happening west of Milwaukee or Chicago, east of Rochester/Western New England, or south of Chicago.
Consequently, the differences in accent between people from Detroit and people from Windsor is greater than the difference in accent between Seattleites and Vancouverites. And a Torontonian can sound more similar to a person from Pittsburgh (sufficiently northern) than to a Buffalonian, who lives nearer to Toronto. When I moved from Seattle to Vancouver at age 25, even after four years I was never asked whether I was American, or even where I was from.
However, I surmise that there are major differences between British Columbian English and Ontarian English. Vancouverites tend to sound more like Seattleites, Portlanders, Franciscans, or Angelenos. Torontonians sound different from both Chicagoans and Vancouverites, slightly more Scottish.
It’s complicated, but generally, accents of cities in the western US and western Canada sound more similar to each other than cities in the eastern US and eastern Canada do. Both the western US and western Canada were settled relatively recently compared to the eastern US and eastern Canada.
December 30th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Brandon: Fascinating. I don’t ask Canadians where they’re from, since they are so common here and I know by their accent
People in Vanouver are more likely to have populated from eastern Canada than vice-versa, and more likely than from the states, so you still hear plenty of Vancouverites using stereotypically Canadian accent like “aboot”. But agreed that the pull is for Vancouver to be more “west coast”.