Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
General American English, known in linguistics simply as General American (abbreviated GA or GenAm), is the umbrella accent of American English spoken by a majority of Americans (living in the U.S.A.), encompassing a continuum rather than a single unified accent.
Most General American accents, but not British ones, have undergone vowel mergers before /r/: the nearer–mirror and hurry–furry mergers, and some variation of the Mary–marry–merry merger, a total three-way merger being the most common throughout North America. [18] GA accents usually have some degree of merging weak vowels.
Boston accent Cajun English California English Chicano English General American [16] [17] [9] Inland Northern American English Miami accent Transatlantic accent New York accent Philadelphia accent Southern American English Brummie [18] Southern England English Northern England English RP Ulster English West & South-West Irish English Dublin English
Any American or Canadian accent perceived as lacking noticeably local, ethnic, or cultural markers is known in linguistics as General American; [6] it covers a fairly uniform accent continuum native to certain regions of the U.S. but especially associated with broadcast mass media and highly educated speech.
This keeps the distinction observed in rhotic accents like General American, but not made in RP. Also, some New Englanders, particularly in Eastern New England, could pronounce the vowel in start more fronted: [aː~aə]. However, in the mid-20th century and later, this came to be associated with non-elite Boston accents.
A General American accent is not a specific well-defined standard English in the way that Received Pronunciation (RP) has historically been the standard prestigious variant of the English language in England; rather, accents with a variety of features can all be perceived by Americans as "General American" so long as they lack certain ...
A PBS series even dispelled what those in the Pacific Northwest think of as a “general American” accent. When my wife reads this column on Sunday morning, I doubt she’ll channel her new ...
In Received Pronunciation, there are four open back vowels, /æ ɑː ɒ ɔː/, but in General American there are only three, /æ ɑ ɔ/, and in most dialects of Canadian English only two, /æ ɒ/. Which words have which vowel varies between dialects. Words like bath and cloth have the vowels /ɑː ɒ/ in Received Pronunciation, but /æ ɔ/ in ...