Talk:Low-Back-Merger Shift

WTF? Serious!
What the F UDGE is this???

As a Canadian living in Western Canada, I find this description of the vowel shift totally inaccurate. I have never heard anyone from western or Central Canada talking this way. These vowel shifts sound like an eastern Canadian accent. Lcorriveau 05:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree... I am from Victoria, BC and I've never heard anyone from BC talk with this supposed "Canadian Shift". I am thoroughly confused and pissed off by this article. --FinnHawk 21:52, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Same here and I'm from Toronto -- nothing from this article sounds like anything I've ever heard -- what exactly does "found among many anglophone Canadians" actually mean? --Modus.irrealis 02:26, 11 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I have never come across anyone talking like that, either. However, in emphatic speech, some of these features can be found; for example, "I couldn't stand her anymore so I LEFT her" may sound like "I couldn't stand her anymore so I laughter" to an American speaker. &mdash;  JackLumber /tɔk/ 19:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I have, and I'm in Vancouver. An American friend thought I said "dumpster" when what I actually said was "Dempster". Cckitpw 17:48, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * This article is confusing to me, I've never seen any of these differences before. Ontarian English is no where different from northern American English, and so I've never heard any of this "Vowel Shift". I highly doubt that hat [hat], is like the US hot, or bit [bɪt] like bet. And bet [bɛt] is far from close to but [bʌt]... Io Katai 21:48, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Then you'd be wrong. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 22:30, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

As a Canadian, I agree with what the Canadians above have said, because as a Canadian I am completely unable to be objective about my own accent. A bit like my hairline - as far as I am concerned I have never had a receding hairline, but one day I woke up completely bald. But, no worries, Wikipedia is (or is supposed to be) based on verifiable citations, not personal opinions. 68.144.70.5 (talk) 00:47, 10 September 2011 (UTC) -- Go to the http://www.mouton-online.com/anae.php ANAE demo sound page and listen to the speakers of Canadian English. Many of them have [a] for [æ], especially those from Alberta. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.172.45.70 (talk) 14:47, 16 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Re: Io Katai's "Ontarian English is no where different from northern American English"
 * In the 1970s, our Toronto Scout troop used to go to a camp near Buffalo (because the camp owner liked Canadians and gave us a good deal).
 * The Scouts from Western New York at that camp were incomprehensible; their American accents were just too thick. "What?" "Sorry, what?" Hopeless. But a couple of our guys were able to translate American into Canadian for the rest of us.
 * The accent changes dramatically when you cross the Niagara River. You are always conscious of being in a foreign country when you're in Buffalo.
 * And I enjoy visiting Buffalo, Varlaam (talk) 19:39, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

as both a Canadian and a linguistics major, I find all of the claims in this article to be unfounded. There is perhaps a tendency in the central Ottawa area to merge /æ/ and /a/, but I've never heard it anywhere else, nor the lowering of /ɪ/ and /ɛ/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Badatom (talk • contribs) 09:54, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

To be honest, I have no idea where this information comes from... at best, it might pertain to much older speakers, but truthfully I've never heard most of these 'shifts' growing up in Manitoba for 25 years or so plus 15 more in Alberta, with the exception of perhaps Maritimers and/or Newfoundlanders. Perfect example being the 'map' example, I and 99% of the people I've listened to pronounce it as [mæp], never [maːp]. It may be more prevalent towards Eastern Canada, but from my observations, I'd surmise that to listen to anyone from Western Canada under 40-50 years old, it would be rather difficult to distinguish their speech from General American based on pronounciation alone. Whether that comes from the influence of media south of the border or not, I can't say, but it wouldn't surprise me. CanuckGod (talk) 22:56, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Unclear section

 * He studied a diverse range of English-speaking Montrealers, and found that younger speakers had a significantly retracted /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ compared with older speakers, but did not find any significant retraction.

Uhm. So is there significant rectraction or is there not?? An "among the older speakers" missing at the end maybe? --Tropylium 17:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Eep! There is. I meant to say that there wasn't significant lowering. I have corrected it. —Felix the Cassowary 01:17, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Toronto girls
Young Toronto girls that I unfortunately have to hear on the TTC bus often have accents that I would describe as foreign/American, as though they are mimicking some annoying US TV characters.

Is this the phenomenon the article is discussing?

Not enough of a linguist, Varlaam (talk) 19:15, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
 * These girls inevitably mispronounce "house" and "out". Varlaam (talk)
 * How, like "howse" or "owt"? That's how I've pronounced it nearly the entirety of my 40 years in the Prairies. CanuckGod (talk) 22:56, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Third Dialect Shift
Wolfdog, I respect what you're doing in moving this to Third Dialect Shift, but I think you should have discussed it first. To begin with, there isn't yet a widely agreed-upon term for the combined phenomenon found in many dialects. "Third Dialect Shift" was apparently introduced by Durian (2012), and there are a handful of Google Scholar hits for the term; Boberg (2019) calls it the "Short Front Vowel Shift"; "Elsewhere Shift" has been picking up popularity recently after being proposed by Kendall and Fridland (see Nesbitt 2018); Kara Becker is editing a volume coming out soon in which every paper calls it the "Low Back Merger Shift" in an attempt to popularize that term for it; and of course "Canadian Shift" is older, better-established, and more widely used than any of these terms. I'm open to moving the article to something like Third Dialect Shift, but not without some discussion. Alternatively, it might be better to have Third Dialect or Elsewhere or what-have-you as a main article and Canadian shift as a separate article discussing it in its Canadian context specifically, I'm not sure. AJD (talk) 16:11, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
 * The idea of the "third dialect" of North American English appears to be used beyond Durian, but you're probably right that I conflated that with Durian's inclusion of the term "shift", making me think I'd seen it in several others articles before. I like the idea of a more neutral and encompassing term, although I agree that Canadian Shift is probably the most widely used. However, many studies are now showing a very similar shift outside of Canada, and I thought an umbrella title would therefore be more suitable than one that seems to favor a particular dialect. Anyway, you seem to get my reasons; I also respect your revert and am interest in others' thoughts as well. Wolfdog (talk) 16:26, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Do you have any preference for a name or do you think Canadian Shift remains safest? Wolfdog (talk) 16:18, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Eh, I think Canadian Shift is still the best name, honestly. Wait a couple years and see if a new consensus name shakes out in the literature and then we can move it. AJD (talk) 19:03, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
 * @Ajd In your tag, you use the term “Low Back Merger Shift”, so I’d like to ask if your opinion about the matter has changed. Tyrui (talk) 02:48, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Hmm, good question. I am starting to suspect Low Back Merger Shift might actually be taking off as a name. I don't know if it's displaced Canadian Shift in popularity yet, but it might be a better title if the article is going to discuss the overall multi-dialectal North American phenomenon rather than just the shift in Canada. AJD (talk) 04:17, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @Wolfdog What are your thoughts? I personally agree with @Ajd- I think, in sources written after 2019, I've seen more "LBMS" and "Elsewhere Shift" than "Canadian Shift"/"California Vowel Shift", though I'm not a linguist and have limited data. Tyrui (talk) 00:02, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Outside North America
The lowering of TRAP, DRESS, and sometimes KIT is attested (not necessarily widespread) in many dialects outside of North America, including RP, South Africa, Australia, and even India. Is it a good idea to include that? Tyrui (talk) 00:47, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Can you point to some sources? Wolfdog (talk) 02:50, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Domange (2020) Variation and change in the short vowels of Delhi English reported TRAP and DRESS lowering for Indian English, though I haven't found any sources for IE.
 * Bekker (2008) The Vowels of South African English, already cited on the South African English phonology page, reported some TRAP lowering, while the more recent Chevalier (2016) Globalisation versus internal development: The reverse short front vowel shift in South African English reported KIT, DRESS, and TRAP lowering, as well as STRUT backing and raising.
 * Lindsey (2019) English After RP reports DRESS and TRAP lowering, STRUT backing, and LOT raising in SSB, and Fabricius (2007) Variation and change in the TRAP and STRUT vowels of RP: A real time comparison of five acoustic data sets (basically) reports TRAP lowering and STRUT backing.
 * Grama, Travis, and Gonzalez Initiation, progression, and conditioning of the short-front vowel shift in Australia reports TRAP and DRESS lowering, as (I think) does Cox and Fletcher (2017) Australian English Pronunciation and Transcription, who're already cited on the Australian English phonology page.
 * I didn't include it in my original message, but Hickey (2016) English in Ireland: Development and varieties apparently mentions the shift in Dublin, Ireland (though I don't have access to it myself.)
 * My main concern with mentioning the other short vowel shifts on this page is that these shifts seem to be unrelated to the one (ones?) in North America, since most of the accents I mentioned lack the LOT-THOUGHT merger, though Hickey (2017) ‘Yes, that's the best’: Short front vowel lowering in English today probably says something insightful if anyone's willing to buy it, and maybe that could go on the page. Tyrui (talk) 06:50, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all this! I think certainly the patterns here are worth a mention. Obviously, you make an important point that the LOT-THOUGHT merger triggering this shift in North America makes it quite different than the shifts elsewhere in the world, but highlighting the similarity wouldn't be out of place. Wolfdog (talk) 22:10, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Name change
Thanks for the name change. Can you point to some specific sources that are referring to the Canadian and California Shifts as a single phenomenon? I feel a bit weaselly wording the sentence Whether the similarly structured shifts in these regional dialects have a single unified cause or not is still not fully confirmed. Thanks! Wolfdog (talk) 20:21, 14 November 2023 (UTC)


 * The argument is generally laid out in Becker's 2019 volume in the Proceedings if the American Dialect Society. Feel free to email me if you need access and I can send you more specific references. As for the quoted sentence, while I'd agree with it, there's not really a good citation for it so it's probably best removed. The relationship between the low back merger and front lax vowel shift is actually one of my areas of research, so I'd be happy to share my bibliography if that's helpful. — Wug·a·po·des 00:07, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much! As for the quoted sentence, is there possibly just a better way to put it? Perhaps at this point (with a source, maybe from the Becker journal, e.g.) it would be truer to write: Linguists suspect the similarly structured shifts in these regional dialects have a single unified cause. Unless you feel this is also inaccurate. Wolfdog (talk) 01:56, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I think it's accurate enough, but my only caution is that there doesn't seem to be a consensus in the literature on what the common cause even is. Contributors to Becker (2019) argue that it's the movement of the LOT vowel, not merger per se that causes the front lax movement. Gardner & Roeder (2022) give an alternative proposal that the cause is due to the underlying phonology, not phonetic drift. — Wug·a·po·des 23:04, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Duplication
@Wolfdog your recent edit duplicated most of the article, so that the content is present twice. Looking at the ToC will make the problem obvious. Did you read my edit summary before reverting? Wham2001 (talk) 07:54, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello! Yeah, I sure did. Are you reading right? Perhaps you looked at an intermediate version? What I editied summarizes the article, as a lead normally does. But it doesn't duplicate anything. What do you mean? If anything, it provides single-time details, including the exact years 1987 and 1995 when the shifts were first documented. Can you specify please? Wolfdog (talk) 13:47, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Look at the Table of Contents for the article in its current state. There are two sections entitled "Canadian shift", two entitled "U.S. Third Dialect Shifts" etc. Each pair has identical contents, except for References. You introduced that duplication with this recent edit. Wham2001 (talk) 14:32, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi, I honestly don't see what you're talking about. I see ONE "Canadian Shift" in the Table of Contents and ONE "U.S. Third Dialect Shift". Perhaps one of our two devices is loading the page incorrectly? Perhaps we can get a third opinion. Wolfdog (talk) 14:54, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
 * OK that really is weird. I've tried force-reloading it to clear my browser cache and I still see the same thing – perhaps you could try the same?  I got here via Category:Harv and Sfn multiple-target errors so I might ping @ActivelyDisinterested who is editing currently and actively gnomes the sfn error categories to take a third look. Best, Wham2001 (talk) 15:00, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
 * PS if you look at the article history do you see that your edit at 20:10 aproximately doubled the length of the article (from 24 to 46 kbytes)? Wham2001 (talk) 15:02, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I've reverted the addition again, there is something very wrong with it. Most of the article has been duplicated, as can be seen by the fact it adds 22k of text. If you search "U.S. Third Dialect Shifts" in your edit you will see you are adding that section, but it already exists in the article so your addition is a duplicate. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:12, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Looking at the diff I think everything from Paper presented at NWAV31, Stanford, CA. Whether the similarly structured shifts in these regional dialects have a single unified cause or not is still not fully confirmed onwards is the duplication. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:14, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
 * No that's not right either, I can't work out which parts are duplicates are which are changes. I fear you'll have to do the edit from scratch. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:18, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks @ActivelyDisinterested. I suspect that this is caused by a rarely-hit bug either in a browser or in MediaWiki – I see a duplication like this perhaps every other month (though only when they affect articles that use sfn or similar references).  Best, Wham2001 (talk) 15:23, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah there's a bug somewhere it's been reported but I bet it's near impossible to reproduce in testing. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:26, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
 * This is wild! Sorry for the trouble, everyone. I will attempt to re-edit from scratch. Thanks, Wham and AD! Wolfdog (talk) 16:37, 15 November 2023 (UTC)