User:GamerGeekWiki/Dialect

Moved to Nerdipedia

This is written by a native CE speaker, although I technically live outside of Califonia.

This may be helpful for the California English article

Consonants
Consonants are barely different from General American.

/r/ is a semivowel, and is pronounced [w˞]

You may see me comment on how I pronounce /ʃ/ as [ɬ]. I was mistaken; I just stopped pronouncing my silibants with teeth as closed ([ʃᵗ] and [sᵗ] is a way of writing it)

Coronal and Dorsal consonants will often be fronted near front vowels

Vowels
Vowels are radically different than any other dialect.

Allophones
[e] is an allophone of /ɛ/ before coronals in most cases

[ɘ] and [ɵ] occasionally act as allophones of /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ respectively in unstressed syllables (pin is [pʰɘn̟])

/ä/ seems to be an allophone of /a/ in stressed syllables

/a/ and /æ/
As with most American accents, /æ/ is more associated with A, while /a/ is more associated with O, and only a few words have A pronounced /a/

The Schwa
/ɪ/ (often [ɘ]) is more common than /ə/

Human is pronounced like [xʲʉɪn] which translates to /hjumɪn/, not the typical /humən/ transcription

Vocalic L
[ɔ] acts both as the vocalic equivelent of /l/ and as an allophone of /o/ in some contexts, especially in phthongs. In careful speech, [ɫ] will be used instead, however is always pronounced [ɔ]

Phthongs
Phthongs in Californian English are a mess.

The easiest examples are the diphthongs /aj/ /ej/ and /ɔj/

Then comes the diphthongs that deviate from General American, /ʌɔ/ (not /əʊ/) and /æɔ/ (not /aʊ/)

Then comes the pre-nasal /iæ/ (you'll sound awkward if you don't use this diphthong) and you realize book is [bʊɪk], not /bʊk/ (no-one will notice if you pronounce it normally)

Most people don't speak like Valley Girls
Whenever people speak like that, it's usually sarcastic.

I felt I needed to point that out.