北美人口自然增长率:不同的州，美语都有那些不同口音？

美国口音主要是以南北区分, 但各个地方也有自己的口音, 这个地方不一定是用州来划分的, 像东北, 西北
下面文章有详细的地方口音分别, 但是英文的
Written English is standardized across the U.S., and in schools abroad specializing in American English, although it differs slightly from the written British-based English used in many other countries across the globe. By contrast, there is some variation in the spoken language. There are numerous recognizable regional variations (such as New York-New Jersey English), particularly in pronunciation, but also in slang vocabulary.

Most traditional sources cite General American English (occasionally referred to as Standard Midwestern) as the unofficial standard accent and dialect of American English. However, many linguists claim California English has become the de facto standard since the 1960s or 1970s due to its central role in the American entertainment industry; others argue that the entertainment industry, despite being in California, uses Midwestern. Certain features which are frequent in speakers of California English, particularly the cot-caught merger, are not often considered as part of the standard.

Regional dialects in North America are most strongly differentiated along the Eastern seaboard. The distinctive speech of important cultural centers like Boston, Massachusetts (see Boston accent), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Charleston, South Carolina, and New Orleans, Louisiana imposed their marks on the surrounding areas. The Connecticut River is usually regarded as the southern/western extent of New England speech, while the Potomac River generally divides a group of Northern coastal dialects from the beginning of the Coastal Southern dialect area (distinguished from the Highland Southern or South Midland dialect treated below, although outsiders often mistakenly believe that the speech in these two areas is the same); in between these two rivers several local variations exist, chief among them the one that prevails in and around New York City and northern New Jersey.

The sounds of American speech can be identified with a number of public figures: President John F. Kennedy spoke in the Boston accent, while President Jimmy Carter speaks with a Southern coastal accent. The North Midlands speech is familiar to those who have heard Neil Armstrong and John Glenn, while the South Midland speech was the speech of President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Comedians Mel Brooks and Ray Romano retain typical New York accents while Jack Black and Pauly Shore have the standard sound of southern California.

African American Vernacular English (AAVE, colloquially known as Ebonics) contains many distinctive forms.
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Eastern New England

The accents of eastern New England, including those of Boston (see Boston accent), New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Maine (also called Down East), are characterized by a number of phenomena that distinguish them from General American (GenAm). Traditionally, these accents (with the exception of Martha's Vineyard) are non-rhotic, but this feature is slowly losing ground, especially with the vowel [ɝ]. Further, most accents in this region have not merged the vowels of father and bother, that is, the two do not rhyme, as they do in GenAm.

In general, these accents undergo the cot-caught merger, making cot and caught homophonous as /kɒt/. They also have a dwindling group of words with broad A, such as past, half, aunt, can't. Among non-rhotic speakers, the broad A is identical to the sound usually spelled ar, so that past/parsed and aunt/aren't can be homophonous pairs.

The distinction between the vowels of horse and hoarse is maintained in traditional non-rhotic New England accents as [hɒs] (with the same vowel as cot and caught) vs. [hoəs].

Words that have [ɒɹV] in RP (where V stands for any vowel), such as origin, Florida, horrible, quarrel, warren, borrow, tomorrow, sorry, sorrow, all have [ɒɹV] in eastern New England, unlike GenAm where most have [ɔɹV] (except the last four in the list, which have [ɑɹV] in GenAm as well).

The eastern New England accents have not undergone many of the vowel mergers before intervocalic [ɹ] found in General American. For example, many accents in this region preserve the distinction between [ɪəɹ] (as in nearer /nɪəɹə/) and [ɪɹ] (as in mirror /mɪɹə/), as well as the distinction between [ʌɹ] (as in hurry /hʌɹi/) and [ɜ] (as in furry /fɜɹi/).

Like some other east-coast accents as well as AAVE, some accents of eastern New England merge [oɹ] and [ʊɹ], making homophones of pairs like pour/poor, more/moor, tore/tour, cores/Coors etc.
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New York City and northern New Jersey

Main article: New York-New Jersey English

As in Eastern New England, the accents of New York City and northern New Jersey are traditionally non-rhotic. But the vowels of cot ([kɑt]) and caught ([kɔət]) are distinct; the former is distinct from that of cart (/kɑət/) only by being short and monophthongal.

The accent is well attested in American movies and television shows. Bugs Bunny and Groucho Marx both had a Brooklyn accent. The accent is often exaggerated, but it still does exist to some degree with many Brooklyn natives. A more contemporary version of this can be found on the popular television show The Sopranos, which is set in Essex County, New Jersey. However, it is important to note that the dialect portrayed on this television show does not apply to citizens of the entire state; it is a particular socio-ethnic accent.
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Mid-Atlantic Region
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Northeastern Pennsylvania

The dialect of the Wyoming Valley (including Scranton and Wilkes-Barre) is Northeast Pennsylvania English.
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Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley

Main article: Philadelphia accent

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The accent of Philadelphia and nearby parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, is probably the original ancestor of General American. It is one of the few coastal accents that is rhotic, and one of the first to merge the historical [oɹ] of hoarse, mourning with the [ɔɹ] of horse, morning. It also maintains the cot-caught contrast, unlike New England and western Pennsylvania. Nevertheless there are differences between modern Philadelphia speech and General American, some of which will be outlined here.

* "Water" is sometimes pronounced /wʊdɚ/, that is, with the vowel of wood
* As in New York-New Jersey English, but unlike General American, words like orange, horrible, etc., are pronounced with [-ɑɹ-]. See English-language vowel changes before historic r: "Tory-torrent merger".
* On is pronounced [ɔn], so that, as in the South and Midland (and unlike New York and the North) it rhymes with dawn rather than don.
* The [oʊ] of goat and boat is fronted, so it is pronounced [ɞʊ], as in the Midland and South.
* The phoneme [æ] undergoes æ-tensing in some words; fewer words have the tense [eə] in Philadelphia than in New York City.
* As in New York City and Boston, there is a three-way distinction between Mary, marry, and merry. A recent development is a merger of the vowel of merry with Murray.
* Canadian raising occurs for [aɪ] (price) but not for /aʊ/ (mouth)
* There is a split of [eɪ] (face) so at the end of a word (for example, day) it sounds like it does in Australia, while in any other position (for example, date) it is pronounced more like [i]. Commonly confused words include eight and eat, snake and sneak, slave and sleeve.
* South Philadelphia has been known for r-dropping, even though it has never been a characteristic of the rest of the region.

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Baltimore, Maryland

See the separate article on Baltimorese
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Pittsburgh

The Pittsburgh English has a number of distinctive features. Please refer to that article for more information.
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South

Main article: Southern American English

* monophthongization of [aɪ] as [aː], for example, most dialects' "I" → "Ah" in the South.
* Coastal Southern speech (also some East Coast) is non-rhotic.
* [e] and [i] merged before nasal consonants, for example "Wendy" becomes "Windy", "pen" becomes "pin", and so forth.
* Unlike most American English, but like British English, [j] (the y sound) is retained before [u] after the consonants [t], [d], [θ], [s], [z], [n], and [l].
* In the Deep South, vowels tend to take the hard sound more often, for example, "on" and "own" are similar; "can't" and "ain't" and "glass" and "face" also might rhyme.
* Some verbs have alternate meanings not found in other regions. For example, 'cut' the light off, or 'mash' the buttons

In Greater Houston several words beginning with the letter H are pronounced with a y in place of the h:

* Houston becomes youston
* Humid becomes yumid (yumidity, etc.)
* Human becomes yuman (yumanity, yumankind)
* Huge becomes youge
* Humble becomes umble. The residents of Humble, Texas in the Greater Houston Area are known to use this pronunciation.

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New Orleans
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While including such characteristics of the Southern U.S. English as using "y'all" for second person plural, the New Orleans accent is so unlike the rest of the South and so similar to that of New York City that New Orleanians traveling in other parts of the USA are often mistaken for New Yorkers.

Many pronunciations are surprisingly similar to that found in New York City and northern New Jersey, presumably arising from a similar mix of immigrants. Parallels include the split of the historic short-a class into tense [eə] and lax [æ] versions, as well as pronunciation of cot and caught as [kɑt] and [kɔt]. The stereotypical New York curl-coil merger of "toity-toid street" (33rd Street) used to be a common New Orleans feature, though it has mostly receded today.

Perhaps the most distinctive New Orleans accent is locally nicknamed "yat", from a traditional greeting "Where y'at" ("Where are you at?", meaning "How are you?"). One of the most detailed phonetic depictions of an extreme "yat" accent of the early 20th century is found in the speech of the character Krazy Kat in the comic strip of the same name by George Herriman. While such extreme "yat" accents are no longer so common in the city, they can still be found in parts of Mid-City and the 9th ward, as well as in St. Bernard Parish, just east of New Orleans.

The novel A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole is generally considered the best depiction of New Orleans accents in literature.
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Central and South Florida
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The speech used in the urban and coastal areas of Central and South Florida (everything south of and including Orlando) is noticeable for not being a typical southern accent, because a large proportion of the inhabitants of the area are either natives of the Northeast (and therefore speakers of accents like New York-New Jersey English) or else native Spanish speakers (predominantly from Cuba.) The accents heard in some parts of this region, especially in older communities such as Aventura, Boca Raton, or West Palm Beach, are that of the typical New Yorker. However the southern dialect is still predominantly spoken in the rural and inland areas of Central and South Florida.

In Miami alone, as of the 2000 Census, there are over 145 different languages spoken throughout many communities in Miami and its surrounding areas. Numerically, the strongest of these is Spanish. Most people visiting Miami for the first time complain that they couldn't communicate with the locals because they didn't speak Spanish. There are even stories of going through a drive-through at a fast food restaurant and being greeted in Spanish, then French, and then English (this is likely extremely rare and confined to one specific location, however). This is especially notable on 8th street (or Calle Ocho) where almost everyone is a native Spanish speaker. This results in "Spanglish", a code-switching conglomeration of English and Spanish. "Escuche Maria, he said to meet him al taller, 'ta bien?" (Hey Maria, he said to meet him at the garage, okay?).

In terms of speakers, the next highest minority languages are, in from greatest to least, Haitian Creole, Brazilian Portuguese, Canadian French, Russian, and Chinese. This makes Miami a very difficult place to pinpoint any certain "accent." However, close inspection reveals the development of a distinct Miami accent, one which is strongly and not surprisingly influenced by Spanish, but not simply English spoken with a Spanish accent. It is best described as General American English modified by somewhat subtle Spanish inflections, especially in the vowels.

This developing Miami accent is spoken primarily by second and third-generation Hispanics whose first language is English. Similar to the regional accents of the Northeast and the Northern Plains, it is derived from the ethnic characteristics that shape the city's population. Although it is strongly influenced by Spanish, it is not to be confused with a heavily-accented or broken English spoken by many non-native Hispanic speakers. The Miami accent might be considered as the next evolutionary step after the thick Spanish accent of recently-arrived immigrants. Due to its limited extent and exposure, it is hard to recognize or pinpoint by those outside South Florida, and many people either identify it as a generic Spanish accent or as a flat and non-deterministic accent.

There is a possibility that this "accent" may evolve into another separate one, or disappear entirely. However, due to the steady flow of Hispanic immigration and close contact with Latin America, this accent has a good chance of persisting and better defining itself in future generations.

Overall, standard linguistic rules tend to be difficult to apply in a general sense here; thus, this analysis is mostly demographic in nature.
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Inland North
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A distinctive speech pattern is centered on the Great Lakes region. This is the Inland North dialect - 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.

This area consists of western New York State (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse), parts of Michigan's Lower Peninsula (Detroit, Ann Arbor, etc.), Cleveland, Chicago, Gary, and Southeastern Wisconsin (Milwaukee, Racine).

* By the Northern cities vowel shift, cad, cod, cawed, Ked, and cut are pronounced [keəd], [kad], [kɑd], [kʌd], and [kɔt], respectively.
* The starting point of /aʊ/ (for example, mouse, down) is pronounced noticeably in the back of the mouth ([mɑʊs], [dɑʊn]), while /aɪ/ (mice, dine) is much further front: ([maɪs], [daɪn]).
* The long-o of "bone" and "goat" is rounded and pronounced far back.
* The word "on" rhymes with "don," not with "dawn."
* Canadian raising is found in areas close to the Canadian border.

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The Midland

West of the Appalachian Mountains begins the broad zone of what is generally called "Midland" speech. This is divided into two discrete subdivisions, the North Midland that begins north of the Ohio River valley area, and the South Midland speech; sometimes the former is designated simply Midland and the latter is reckoned as Highland Southern. The North Midland speech continues to expand westward until it becomes the closely related speech of California, although in the immediate San Francisco area the speech more closely resembles that of the mid-Atlantic region.

The South Midland dialect follows the Ohio River in a generally southwesterly direction, moves across Arkansas and Oklahoma west of the Mississippi, and peters out in West Texas. It is a version of the Midland speech that has assimilated some coastal Southern forms, most noticeably the loss of the diphthong [ɑɪ], , which becomes [ɑː], and the second person plural pronoun "you-all" or "y'all." Unlike Coastal Southern, however, South Midland is a rhotic dialect, pronouncing /r/ wherever it has historically occurred.

Midland dialects cover of the larger parts of Ohio, Indiana, and central Illinois which are not in the Inland North, as well as Missouri, southern Iowa, northern Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska where it begins to blend into the West, and even extends into a small extreme southern parts of Michigan's lower peninsula.[1]

* In some rural areas, words like "roof" and "root" get the vowel of "book" and "hoof"
* People who pronounce "don" and "dawn" differently pronounce "on" to rhyme with "dawn" and not "don"
* St. Louis has a distinctive accent, see the section on it below.
* South Indiana has a distinctive accent, locally known as the "Hoosier Twang" (a well-known speaker is actor Jim Nabors, who played Gomer Pyle on TV and has for many years sung "Back Home In Indiana" before the Indy 500 race).

South Midlands speech is characterized by:

* monophthongization of [ai] as [aː], for example, most dialects' "I" → "Ah" in the South.
* raising of initial vowel of [au] to [æu]; the initial vowel is often lengthened and prolonged, yielding [æːw].
* nasalization of vowels, esp. diphthongs, before [n].
* raising of [æ] to [e]; can't → cain't, etc.
* Unlike most American English, but like British English, glides ([j], the y sound) are inserted before [u] after the consonants [t], [d], [θ], [s], [z], [n], and [l].
* South Midlands speech is rhotic. This is the principal feature that distinguishes South Midland speech from the non-rhotic coastal Southern varieties.

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Midwest
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North Central American English

(Minnesota (esp. rural), Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Wisconsin, North Dakota)

* As in most North American accents, [ɒ] is merged with [ɑ], so that father rhymes with bother.
* Canadian raising: see section on Canada.
* "roof", "book", and "root" all use the same vowel [ʊ]); "root" may be pronounced as rhyming with "scoot," however
* Use of German/Scandinavian "ja", pronounced as either /jaː/ or /jæː/, as an affirmative filler or emphatic; Standard U.S. English "yes" is used in formal settings to answer questions and to start an explanation.
* Tendency towards a "sing-songy" intonation (the area's earliest European settlers were primarily Scandinavian, and this has influenced the local dialect). More recently, this has been reinforced by an influx of Asians, most of whom speak tonal languages. In urban Minnesota, this variation of NCAE is referred to as "Minnewegian," a portmanteau of Minnesota and Norwegian.
* For a stereotypical (although very overdone) example, refer to the movie Fargo. For a more normative example, Garrison Keillor speaks with a typical Minnesota accent.(Note: most southern, even rural, Minnesota accents sound more like the northern Iowan accent. More distinct accents up in the northern areas are still much less de

就象我国分南北区域南方口音和北方口音是不同的,而标准的又是以北京口音为准,同样美国也是如此.