Re: great lakes sound change

On 11/23/05, Ph.D. <phil@...> wrote:
> Reilly Schlaier wrote:
> >
> > i watched a show about american english on PBS and
> > they said that the great lakes area has an odd sound
> > change.
> > black > bleck
> > block > black
> > and
> > boss > buss
> > i was wondering if there were any other vowel shifts in
> > this area or any other interesting dialects.
>
>
> See information on the chain shift here:
>
> http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lsp/Northeast/ncshift/ncshift.html
>
> I've probably said this before:  I used to work on the edge of
> Detroit (for eleven years) and I still do most of my work in the
> suburbs around Detroit. I've lived my entire fifty years within
> fifty miles of Detroit.
>
> I'll take the experts' word on this chain shift, but I personally
> have never heard any Detroit-area people speak in this way.
>
> --Ph. D.
>
I've heard "hardness" to open vowels and to "r" (I don't know the
SAMPA for the standard American "r") in the speech of some Detroiters
(Detroitois?). I have heard the vowel shift that the OP describes in
Chicago. Example: I once heard a Chicagoan asking a New Yorker (in
Westchester County) the question "What's it on?" (meaning "What is it
[a play the New Yorker had mentioned] about?"). Three times the
Chicagoan asked and three times the New Yorker answered with the
location. I stepped in and said "He's asking what the play is
_on_...what it's about." New Yorker said "I thought he said 'where's
it _at_". The flattened and broadened pronunciation of "on" was so
strong in the ears of the New Yorker that it won out over other cues
in the Chicagoan's utterance.