User:EagleyeB101/sandbox

Inland California English or Rural California English is the dialect of English spoken in California’s rural interior, inland from the major coastal cities. This dialect stands in stark contrast from the dialect spoken in the coastal cities as it exhibits many features which would traditionally be considered part of the nonstandard accents of the South Midland or South.

History
The origins of this accent come from the Dust Bowl migrations of “Okies” and “Arkies” to California’s Central Valley. Migrants included people from Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, and other Southern states. Some remained in the Central Valley’s southernmost communities such as Bakersfield, while others continued further north to communities in the Valley’s northern tip such as Redding. Later, in the 1970s and 1980s, a second wave of “Okie” and “Arkie” migration came because of the timber boom in rural Northern California.

The Inland Californian Accent has been studied as far South as Bakersfield in Kern County and as far North as Trinity County, but it could possibly extend further. Country or “Okie” heritage is explicitly discussed within these communities, and many orient more readily toward rural or country lifestyles rather than to aspects of urban, coastal California identities. It is actually an individual’s orientation toward a more “country” identity rather than a person’s southern heritage that is a better predictor of accent. Likewise, a greater orientation toward a more urban, indoors, or “townie” identity has been found to correlate with a greater prevalence of the California Vowel shift, associated with urban, coastal California.

Several studies on the accent have found a distinction between the speech of those who orient toward a more country lifestyle and those who orient toward a more town lifestyle. Overall, among those who orient toward a more town lifestyle, features of the California Vowel Shift are more prominent, but not to the same extent as in urban coastal communities such as San Jose. By contrast, among those who orient toward a more country lifestyle, Southern features are more prominent, but some aspects of the California Vowel Shift are still present. The presence of a pin-pen merger has been found to be most closely correlated with a country-oriented identity. Perhaps counterintuitively, Southern features among country individuals are actually stronger the younger an individual is. . The proposed reason for this is that younger individuals feel a greater need to identify as either a rural-oriented or town-oriented individual and thus have taken on more features to match that identity than older generations may have.

There is evidence that the early stages of the California Vowel Shift are spreading even to rural, inland communities. However, it is unclear how much the shift will progress and if it will pass the early stages of the cot-caught merger, Ban-raising, and Bat-backing. There have been a few recorded cases of younger, town-oriented females progressing to the next stage of the California Vowel Shift with lowering their Dress-vowels.

Phonology

 * Both country and town folk are in the process of merging the cot-caught vowels and are most nearly merged, country folk are slightly less merged


 * /u/-fronting in words such as “Boot” is present with younger individuals fronting more and country individuals fronting more. Young, country-oriented males front the most.


 * /oʊ/-fronting in words such as “Toe” is also present with younger individuals fronting more and country individuals fronting more. Toe-fronting has been found to not be as advanced as boot-fronting. (source)


 * Pre-nasal /æ/-raising in words such as “Ban” is occurring. This is stronger among country-oriented individuals.  Ban-raising is a part of the California Vowel Shift, however, it is also a part of Southern American English. Thus, the stronger Ban-raising among country individuals can be analyzed as them taking on a more Southern-oriented feature rather than a more urban Californian feature.  It should still be noted that Ban-raising within inland towns is not as strong as in the major coastal cities.


 * /æ/ in words such as “Bat” is currently in the process of backing and is found to be stronger among town-oriented individuals. Bat-backing is part of the California Vowel Shift.


 * /ɛ/ in words such as “Bet” or “Dress” is raised among those who orient more toward the country. The raising of the Bet/Dress vowel is one of the features of the Southern Vowel Shift and is currently being led by country-oriented males.


 * A pin-pen merger


 * A fill-feel merger


 * A full-fool merger

Other Features:

 * Use of positive anymore ("I shop online anymore")
 * Use of "was" where English traditionally uses "were" ("You was going")
 * Intervocalic s in greasy is pronounced /z/.
 * Use of Epenthetic R: The phoneme sequence /wɑʃ/, as in wash, squash, and Washington, receives an additional /r/ sound after the ⟨a⟩, thus Washington sounds like "Warshington" /ˈwɑrʃɪŋtən/.