Midland American English
Midland American English is a regional dialect or super-dialect of American English,[2] geographically lying between the traditionally-defined Northern and Southern United States.[3] The boundaries of Midland American English are not entirely clear, being revised and reduced by linguists due to definitional changes and several Midland sub-regions undergoing rapid and diverging pronunciation shifts since the early-middle 20th century onwards.[4][5]
As of the early 21st century, these general characteristics of the Midland regional accent are firmly established: fronting of the /oʊ/, /aʊ/, and /ʌ/ vowels occurs towards the center or even the front of the mouth;[6] the cot–caught merger is neither fully completed nor fully absent; and short-a tensing evidently occurs strongest before nasal consonants.[7] The currently-documented core of the Midland dialect region spans from central Ohio at its eastern extreme to central Nebraska and Oklahoma City at its western extreme. Certain areas outside the core also clearly demonstrate a Midland accent, including Charleston, South Carolina;[8] the Texan cities of Abilene, Austin, and Corpus Christi; and central and some areas of southern Florida.[9]
Early 20th-century dialectology was the first to identify the "Midland" as a region lexically distinct from the North and the South and later even focused on an internal division: North Midland versus South Midland. However, 21st-century studies now reveal increasing unification of the South Midland with a larger newer Southern accent region, while much of the North Midland retains a more "General American" accent.[10] Most Americans view this as being the "accentless" American speech.[11]
Early 20th-century boundaries established for the Midland dialect region are being reduced or revised since several previous subregions of Midland speech have since developed their own distinct dialects. Pennsylvania, the original home state of the Midland dialect, is one such area and has now formed such unique dialects as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh English.[12]
Today, the Midland is considered a transitional dialect region between the South and Inland North; however, the "South Midland" is a sub-region that phonologically speaking fits more with the South and even employs some Southern vocabulary, for example, favoring y'all as the plural of you, whereas the rest of the (North) Midland favors you guys. Another possible Appalachian and South Midland variant is you'uns (from you ones), though it remains most associated with Western Pennsylvania English.[39]
Charleston[edit]
Today, the city of Charleston, South Carolina, clearly has all the defining features of a mainstream Midland accent.[12] The vowels /oʊ/ and /u/ are extremely fronted, and yet not so not before /l/.[8] Also, the older, more traditional Charleston accent was extremely "non-Southern" in sound (as well as being highly unique), spoken throughout the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry, but it mostly faded out of existence in the first half of the 20th century.[8]
Cincinnati[edit]
Older English speakers of Cincinnati, Ohio, have a phonological pattern quite distinct from the surrounding area (Boberg and Strassel 2000), while younger speakers now align to the general Midland accent. The older Cincinnati short-a system is unique in the Midland. While there is no evidence for a phonemic split, the phonetic conditioning of short-a in conservative Cincinnati speech is similar to and originates from that of New York City, with the raising environments including nasals (m, n, ŋ), voiceless fricatives (f, unvoiced th, sh, s), and voiced stops (b, d, g). Weaker forms of this pattern are shown by speakers from nearby Dayton and Springfield. Boberg and Strassel (2000) reported that Cincinnati's traditional short-a system was giving way among younger speakers to a nasal system similar to those found elsewhere in the Midland and the West.
St. Louis corridor[edit]
St. Louis, Missouri, is historically one among several (North) Midland cities, but it has developed some unique features of its own distinguishing it from the rest of the Midland. The area around St. Louis has been in dialectal transition throughout most of the 1900s until the present moment. The eldest generation of the area may exhibit a rapidly-declining merger of the phonemes /ɔr/ (as in for) and /ɑr/ (as in far) to the sound [ɒɹ], while leaving distinct /oʊr/ (as in four), thus being one of the few American accents to still resist the horse-hoarse merger (while also displaying the card-cord merger). This merger has led to jokes referring to "I farty-far",[40] although a more accurate eye spelling would be "I farty-four". Also, some St. Louis speakers, again usually the oldest ones, have /eɪ/ instead of more typical /ɛ/ before /ʒ/—thus measure is pronounced [ˈmeɪʒɚ]—and wash (as well as Washington) gains an /r/, becoming [wɒɹʃ] ("warsh").
Since the mid-1900s (namely, in speakers born from the 1920s to 1940s), however, a newer accent arose in a dialect "corridor" essentially following historic U.S. Route 66 in Illinois (now Interstate 55 in Illinois) from Chicago southwest to St. Louis. Speakers of this modern "St. Louis Corridor"—including St. Louis, Fairbury, and Springfield, Illinois—have gradually developed more features of the Inland North dialect, best recognized today as the Chicago accent. This 20th-century St. Louis accent's separating quality from the rest of the Midland is its strong resistance to the cot–caught merger and the most advanced development of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift (NCS).[41] In the 20th century, Greater St. Louis therefore became a mix of Midland accents and Inland Northern (Chicago-like) accents.
Even more complicated, however, there is evidence that these Northern sound changes are reversing for the younger generations of speakers in the St. Louis area, who are re-embracing purely Midland-like accent features, though only at a regional level and therefore not including the aforementioned traditional features of the eldest generation. According to a UPenn study, the St. Louis Corridor's one-generation period of embracing the NCS was followed by the next generation's "retreat of NCS features from Route 66 and a slight increase of NCS off of Route 66", in turn followed by the most recent generations' decreasing evidence of the NCS until it disappears altogether among the youngest speakers.[42] Thus, due to harboring two different dialects in the same geographic space, the "Corridor appears simultaneously as a single dialect area and two separate dialect areas".[43]
Texas[edit]
Rather than a proper Southern accent, several cities in Texas can be better described as having a Midland U.S. accent, as they lack the "true" Southern accent's full /aɪ/ deletion and the oft-accompanying Southern Vowel Shift. Texan cities classifiable as such specifically include Abilene, Austin, San Antonio and Corpus Christi. Austin, in particular, has been reported in some speakers to show the South Midland (but not the Southern) variant of /aɪ/ deletion mentioned above.[44]