California English (or Californian English) collectively refers to varieties of
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
native to
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
. A distinctive
vowel shift
A vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language.
The best-known example in the English language is the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the 15th century. The Greek language also underwent a vowe ...
was first noted by linguists in the 1980s in
southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...
and the
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
of
northern California
Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...
.
[Gordon, Matthew J. (2004). "The West and Midwest: phonology." Kortmann, Bernd, Kate Burridge, Rajend Mesthrie, Edgar W. Schneider and Clive Upton (eds). ]
A Handbook of Varieties of English
'' Volume 1: Phonology, Volume 2: Morphology and Syntax. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter. p. 347. This helped to define an accent emerging primarily among youthful, white, urban, coastal speakers, and popularly associated with the
valley girl
A valley girl is a socioeconomic, linguistic, and youth subcultural stereotype and stock character originating during the 1980s: any materialistic upper-middle-class young woman, associated with unique vocal and California dialect features, fr ...
and
surfer dude youth subculture
Youth subculture is a youth-based subculture with distinct styles, behaviors, and interests. Youth subcultures offer participants an identity outside of that ascribed by social institutions such as family, work, home and school. Youth subcultures ...
s.
[California English]
" ''Do You Speak American?'' PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
. Macneil/Lehrer Productions. 2005. The possibility that this is, in fact, an age-specific variety of English is one hypothesis; however, certain features of this accent are intensifying and spreading geographically.
Other documented California English includes a "country" accent associated with rural and inland white Californians, an older accent once spoken by
Irish Americans
, image = Irish ancestry in the USA 2018; Where Irish eyes are Smiling.png
, image_caption = Irish Americans, % of population by state
, caption = Notable Irish Americans
, population =
36,115,472 (10.9%) alone ...
in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, and distinctly Californian varieties of
Chicano English
Chicano English, or Mexican-American English, is a dialect of American English spoken primarily by Mexican Americans (sometimes known as Chicanos), particularly in the Southwestern United States ranging from Texas to California,Newman, Michael.T ...
associated with
Mexican Americans
Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexica ...
. Research has shown that Californians themselves perceive a linguistic boundary between northern and southern California, particularly regarding the northern use of ''
hella
''Hella'' is an American slang term that originated in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is used as an intensifying adverb such as in "hella bad" or "hella good" and was eventually added to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' in 2002. It is possibl ...
'' and southern (but now nationally widespread) use of ''
dude
''Dude'' is American slang for an individual, typically male. From the 1870s to the 1960s, dude primarily meant a male person who dressed in an extremely fashionable manner (a dandy) or a conspicuous citified person who was visiting a rural lo ...
'', ''
bro'', and ''
like
In English, the word ''like'' has a very flexible range of uses, ranging from conventional to non-standard. It can be used as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, preposition, particle, conjunction, hedge, filler, and quotative.
Uses Comparisons
' ...
''.
As California became
one of the most ethnically diverse U.S. states, English speakers from a wide variety of backgrounds began to pick up different linguistic elements from one another and also develop new ones; the result is both divergence and convergence within Californian English.
However, linguists who studied English before and immediately after World War II tended to find few, if any, patterns unique to California,
and even today most California English still basically aligns to a
General
A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of highest military ranks, high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry.
In some usages the term "general officer" refers t ...
or
Western American accent.
Urban coastal variety
The variety of English most popularly associated with California largely correlates with the major urban areas along the coast. Notable is the absence of (the vowel sound of ''caught, stalk, clawed,'' etc.), which has completely
merged
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...
with (the vowel sound of ''cot, stock, clod,'' etc.), as in most of the Western United States.
A few
phonological
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
processes have been identified as being particular to California English. However, these vowel changes are by no means universal in Californian speech, and any single Californian's speech may only have some or none of the changes identified below. These sounds might also be found in the speech of some people from areas outside of California.
[Conn, Jeff (2002). "An investigation into the western dialect of Portland Oregon." Paper presented at NWAV31. San Diego, CA.]
*
Front vowel
A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would otherw ...
s are raised before , so that the traditional "short ''a''" and "short ''i''" sounds are
raised to the "long ''a''" and "long ''ee''" sounds, respectively, when before the ''ng'' sound .
In other contexts, (as in ''bit, rich, quick,'' etc.) has a fairly open pronunciation, as indicated in the vowel chart here. Similarly, a word like ''rang'' will often have the same vowel as ''rain'' in California English, rather than the same vowel as ''ran'' (phonetically articulated as ; see below). In addition, ''king'' is pronounced more like ''keeng'', whereas ''bullying'' features two consecutive vowels: ''bull-ee-eeng'' (cf. GenAm , with followed by ). As all vowels preceding are historically short, this does not lead to a loss of phonemic contrast.
*In southern Californian English, the tensed pronunciation is present even when the ''g'' is dropped, so that ''thinking'' is pronounced ('theenkeen'), rather than .
* Before or (as in ''ran'' or ''ram''), is raised and diphthongized to or (a widespread shift throughout most of American English). Elsewhere, is lowered and backed as a result of the California vowel shift (see below).
* The rise of
uptalk
The high rising terminal (HRT), also known as upspeak, uptalk, or high rising intonation (HRI) is a feature of some variants of English where declarative sentences can end with a rising pitch similar to that typically found in yes-or-no questions ...
in southern Californian English.
*Notable use of "long ''a''" ( /eɪ/~/e/) before the "hard ''g''" sound in words such as ''egg, beg, leg'', which can be pronounced as /eɪg/ ''ayg,'' /beɪg/ ''bayg,'' /leɪg/ ''layg'', respectively.
California vowel shift
![California vowel shift](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/California_vowel_shift.png)
One topic that has begun to receive much attention from scholars in recent decades has been the emergence of a vowel-based
chain shift
In historical linguistics, a chain shift is a set of sound changes in which the change in pronunciation of one speech sound (typically, a phoneme) is linked to, and presumably causes, a change in pronunciation of other sounds as well. The sound ...
in California. This image on the right illustrates the California vowel shift. The vowel space of the image is a cross-section (as if looking at the interior of a mouth from a side profile perspective); it is a rough approximation of the space in a human mouth where the tongue is located in
articulating certain vowel sounds (the left is the front of the mouth closer to the teeth, the right side of the chart being the back of the mouth). As with other vowel shifts, several vowels may be seen moving in a chain shift around the mouth. As one vowel encroaches upon the space of another, the adjacent vowel in turn experiences a movement in order to maximize
phonemic differentiation
In historical linguistics, phonological change is any sound change that alters the distribution of phonemes in a language. In other words, a language develops a new system of oppositions among its phonemes. Old contrasts may disappear, new one ...
.
For convenience, California English will be compared with a "typical"
General American English
General American English or General American (abbreviated GA or GenAm) is the umbrella accent of American English spoken by a majority of Americans. In the United States it is often perceived as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or so ...
, abbreviated "GA". is pulled towards (''wreck'' and ''kettle'' are sounding more like ''rack'' and ''cattle'' in other dialects), is pulled towards , and and merge (''cot'' and ''stock'' are sounding more like ''caught'' and ''stalk''): the
cot-caught merger.
Other vowel changes, whose relation with the shift is uncertain, are also emerging: moving through towards (''rude'' and ''true'' are almost approaching ''reed'' and ''tree'', but with rounded lips), and moving beyond . is moving towards (so that, for example, ''book'' and ''could'' in the California dialect start to sound, to a GA speaker, more like ''buck'' and ''cud''), is moving through , sometimes approaching (''duck, crust, what,'' etc. are sounding like how U.S. Southerners pronounce them, or like how other Americans might pronounce ''deck, crest, wet,'' etc,).
New vowel characteristics of the California Shift are increasingly found among younger speakers. As with many vowel shifts, these significant changes occurring in the spoken language are rarely noticed by average speakers. For example, while some characteristics such as the
close central rounded vowel
}
The close central rounded vowel, or high central rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is }. B ...
or
close back unrounded vowel
The close back unrounded vowel, or high back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system ...
for are widespread in Californian speech, the same high degree of fronting for is found predominantly among young speakers.
Rural inland variety
One dialect of English, mostly reported in California's rural interior, inland from the major coastal cities,
has been popularly described as a "country," "hillbilly," or "twang" variety.
This California English variety is reminiscent of and presumably related to
Southern or South Midland U.S. accents,
mostly correlated with white, outdoors-oriented speakers of the
Central Valley. It has been studied even as far north as
Trinity County but could possibly extend farther,
[Ornelas, Cris (2012).]
Kern County Accent Studied
." 23 ABC News
ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...
. E. W. Scripps Company
The E. W. Scripps Company is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a media conglomerate. The company is he ...
. and as far south as Kern County (metropolitan Bakersfield). Similar to the
nonstandard accents of the South Midland and Southern United States, speakers of such towns as
Redding and
Merced
Merced (; Spanish for "Mercy") is a city in, and the county seat of, Merced County, California, United States, in the San Joaquin Valley. As of the 2020 Census, the city had a population of 86,333, up from 78,958 in 2010. Incorporated on April 1 ...
have been found to use the word
''anymore'' in a positive sense and the verb ''was'' in place of the standard English plural verb ''were''. Related other features of note include the
''pin–pen'' merger,
''fill–feel'' merger, and
''full–fool'' merger.
The
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
's westward
Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of both natural factors (severe drought) an ...
migrations of settlers into California from the Southern United States, namely from
Oklahoma
Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
,
Missouri
Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...
, and
Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...
,
is the presumable cause of this rural white accent's presence in California's
Central Valley.
Rural northern California was also settled by Oklahomans and Arkansans, though perhaps more recently in the 1970s and 1980s, due to the region's
timber industry boom. However, even in a single town, any given individual's identification with working and playing outdoors versus indoors appears to be a greater determiner of this accent than the authenticity of the individual's Southern heritage.
For example, this correlates with less educated rural men of northern California documented as raising in a style similar to the
Southern drawl
A drawl is a perceived feature of some varieties of spoken English and generally indicates slower, longer vowel sounds and diphthongs. The drawl is often perceived as a method of speaking more slowly and may be erroneously attributed to laziness ...
.
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, the Southern features are more prominent, but some aspects of the California Vowel Shift remain present as well.
Mission brogue (San Francisco)
The Mission brogue is a disappearing accent spoken within
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, mostly during the 20th century in the
Mission District
The Mission District (Spanish: ''Distrito de la Misión''), commonly known as The Mission (Spanish: ''La Misión''), is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. One of the oldest neighborhoods in San Francisco, the Mission District's name is ...
. It sounds distinctly like
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
and possibly
Boston accent
A Boston accent is a local accent of Eastern New England English, native specifically to the city of Boston and its suburbs. Northeastern New England English is classified as traditionally including New Hampshire, Maine, and all of eastern Massa ...
s, due to a large number of
Irish Americans
, image = Irish ancestry in the USA 2018; Where Irish eyes are Smiling.png
, image_caption = Irish Americans, % of population by state
, caption = Notable Irish Americans
, population =
36,115,472 (10.9%) alone ...
migrating from those two East Coast cities to the Mission District in the late 19th century.
It is today spoken only by some of the oldest
Irish-American
, image = Irish ancestry in the USA 2018; Where Irish eyes are Smiling.png
, image_caption = Irish Americans, % of population by state
, caption = Notable Irish Americans
, population =
36,115,472 (10.9%) alone ...
and possibly Jewish residents of the city. From before the 1870s to the 1890s, Irish Americans were the largest share of migrants coming to San Francisco,
the majority arriving by way of Northeastern U.S. cities like
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
and
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
thus bringing those cities' ways of speaking with them.
In San Francisco, the Mission District quickly became a predominantly
Irish Catholic
Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the British ...
neighborhood,
and its local dialect became associated with all of San Francisco as a way to contrast it with the rest of California.
Sounding like a "real San Franciscan" therefore once meant sounding "like a New Yorker",
the speakers said to "talk like Brooklynites".
Other names included the "south of the Slot" (referring to the cable car track running down Market Street)
or "south of Market" accent.
Pronunciation features of this accent included:
*
Th-stopping
''Th''-stopping is the realization of the dental fricatives as stops—either dental or alveolar—which occurs in several dialects of English. In some accents, such as of Indian English and middle- or upper-class Irish English, they ...
* No
cot–caught merger
The ''cot''–''caught'' merger or merger, formally known in linguistics as the low back merger, is a sound change present in some dialects of English where speakers do not distinguish the vowel phonemes in "cot" and "caught". "Cot" and "caugh ...
, with /ɔ/ being raised and accompanied with an inglide, so as to produce a vowel sound approximating
əref name=DeCamp />
*
Non-rhoticity
Rhoticity in English is the pronunciation of the historical rhotic consonant by English speakers. The presence or absence of rhoticity is one of the most prominent distinctions by which varieties of English can be classified. In rhotic varieti ...
** The use of /əɪ/ rather than /ər/ before unvoiced consonants such that would have the same vowel sound as "choice"
*
Glottal stop
The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
,
instead of /t/ before syllabic /l/ such as in "bottle";
this and all the above features were reminiscent of a New York accent
* Possible
split, reminiscent of older Boston English
Overall, starting in the later half of the 20th century, San Francisco has been undergoing dialect levelling towards the broader regional
Western American English
Western American English (also known as Western U.S. English) is a variety of American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English languag ...
,
for example: younger Mission District speakers now exhibit a full cot–caught merger, show the vowel shift of urban coastal Californians, and front the and vowels.
Other varieties
Certain varieties of
Chicano English
Chicano English, or Mexican-American English, is a dialect of American English spoken primarily by Mexican Americans (sometimes known as Chicanos), particularly in the Southwestern United States ranging from Texas to California,Newman, Michael.T ...
are also native to California, sometimes even being spoken by non-Latino Californians. One example is East Los Angeles Chicano English, which has been influenced by both Californian and
African American Vernacular English
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE, ), also referred to as Black (Vernacular) English, Black English Vernacular, or occasionally Ebonics (a colloquial, controversial term), is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban ...
.
The coastal urban accent of California traces many of its features back to
Valleyspeak
A valley girl is a socioeconomic, linguistic, and youth subcultural stereotype and stock character originating during the 1980s: any materialistic upper-middle-class young woman, associated with unique vocal and California dialect features, ...
: a social dialect arising in the 1980s among a particular white youthful demographic in the
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...
, including
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
.
Boontling
Boontling is a jargon or argot spoken only in Boonville, California, Boonville in Northern California of the United States. It was created in the 1890s. Today, it is nearly extinct, and fewer than 100 people still speak it. It has an Internet Ass ...
is a
jargon
Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular Context (language use), communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The conte ...
or
argot
A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argot ...
spoken in
Boonville, California
Boonville (formerly The Corners and Kendall's City) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Mendocino County, California, United States. It is located southwest of Ukiah, at an elevation of 381 feet (116 m). The population was 1,018 at the 2020 cen ...
, with only about 100 speakers today.
Lexical overview
The popular image of a typical southern California speaker often conjures up images of the so-called
Valley girl
A valley girl is a socioeconomic, linguistic, and youth subcultural stereotype and stock character originating during the 1980s: any materialistic upper-middle-class young woman, associated with unique vocal and California dialect features, fr ...
s popularized by the
1982 hit song by
Frank
Frank or Franks may refer to:
People
* Frank (given name)
* Frank (surname)
* Franks (surname)
* Franks, a medieval Germanic people
* Frank, a term in the Muslim world for all western Europeans, particularly during the Crusades - see Farang
Curre ...
and
Moon Zappa
Moon Unit Zappa (born September 28, 1967) is an American actress, singer, and author. She is the daughter of musician Frank Zappa.
Early life
Moon Zappa was born in New York City, the eldest child of Gail (née Sloatman) and musician Frank Zappa ...
, or "
surfer-dude" speech made famous by movies such as ''
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
''Fast Times at Ridgemont High'' is a 1982 American coming-of-age comedy film directed by Amy Heckerling (in her feature directorial debut), from a screenplay by Cameron Crowe, based on his 1981 book ''Fast Times at Ridgemont High: A True Story' ...
''. While many phrases found in these extreme versions of California English from the 1980s may now be considered passé, certain words such as ''awesome'', ''totally'', ''for sure'', ''harsh'', ''gnarly'', and ''
dude
''Dude'' is American slang for an individual, typically male. From the 1870s to the 1960s, dude primarily meant a male person who dressed in an extremely fashionable manner (a dandy) or a conspicuous citified person who was visiting a rural lo ...
'' have remained popular in California and have spread to a national, even international, level.
A common example of a northern Californian colloquialism is ''
hella
''Hella'' is an American slang term that originated in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is used as an intensifying adverb such as in "hella bad" or "hella good" and was eventually added to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' in 2002. It is possibl ...
'' (from "(a) hell of a (lot of)", and the euphemistic alternative ''hecka'') to mean "many", "much", "so" or "very". It can be used with both count and mass nouns. For example: "I haven't seen you in ''hella'' long"; "There were ''hella'' people there"; or "This guacamole is ''hella'' good". The word can be casually used multiple times in multiple ways within a single sentence. Pop culture references to "hella" are common, as in the song "
Hella Good
"Hella Good" is a song by American rock band No Doubt from their fifth studio album, ''Rock Steady'' (2001). Written by Gwen Stefani, Tony Kanal and the Neptunes (Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo), and produced by Nellee Hooper and the band, "Hel ...
" by the band
No Doubt
No Doubt is an American rock band from Anaheim, California, formed in 1986. For most of their career, the band has consisted of vocalist Gwen Stefani, guitarist Tom Dumont, bassist Tony Kanal, and drummer Adrian Young. Since the mid-1990s, they ...
, which hails from southern California, and "Hella" by the band Skull Stomp, who come from northern California.
California, like other
Southwestern
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...
states, has borrowed many words from
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
, especially for
place name
Place may refer to:
Geography
* Place (United States Census Bureau), defined as any concentration of population
** Census-designated place, a populated area lacking its own municipal government
* "Place", a type of street or road name
** Often ...
s, food, and other cultural items, reflecting the linguistic heritage of the
Californio
Californio (plural Californios) is a term used to designate a Hispanic Californian, especially those descended from Spanish and Mexican settlers of the 17th through 19th centuries. California's Spanish-speaking community has resided there sinc ...
s as well as more recent immigration from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. High concentrations of various ethnic groups throughout the state have contributed to general familiarity with words describing (especially cultural) phenomena. For example, a high concentration of
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...
s from various cultural backgrounds, especially in urban and suburban metropolitan areas in California, has led to the adoption of the word ''
hapa
Hapa is a Hawaiian word for someone of multiracial ancestry. In Hawaii, the word refers to any person of mixed ethnic heritage, regardless of the specific mixture.: "Thus, for locals in Hawai’i, both hapa or hapa haole are used to depict p ...
'' (itself originally a Hawaiian borrowing of English "half") to mean someone of mixed European/Islander or Asian/Islander heritage.
In 1958, essayist
Clifton Fadiman
Clifton Paul "Kip" Fadiman (May 15, 1904 – June 20, 1999) was an American intellectual, author, editor, radio and television personality. He began his work with the radio, and switched to television later in his career.
Background
Born in Bro ...
pointed out that northern California is the only place (besides
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
and the area surrounding
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
and the
Canadian Prairies
The Canadian Prairies (usually referred to as simply the Prairies in Canada) is a region in Western Canada. It includes the Canadian portion of the Great Plains and the Prairie Provinces, namely Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. These provin ...
) where the word ''chesterfield'' is used as a synonym for ''sofa'' or ''couch''.
Freeways
In the
Los Angeles metropolitan area
Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino Coun ...
,
Inland Empire
The Inland Empire (IE) is a metropolitan area and region inland of and adjacent to coastal Southern California, centering around the cities of San Bernardino and Riverside, and bordering Los Angeles County to the west. It includes the cities o ...
,
Coachella Valley
, map_image = Wpdms shdrlfi020l coachella valley.jpg
, map_caption = Coachella Valley
, location = California, United States
, coordinates =
, width =
, boundaries = Salton Sea (southeast), Santa Rosa Mountains (southwest), San Jacint ...
and
San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...
, freeways are often referred to either by name or by route number but with the addition of the
definite article
An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech.
In English, both "the" and "a(n)" ar ...
"the", such as "
the 405 North", "
the 99
''The 99'' ( ar, الـ99 or ) is a comic book, created by Naif Al-Mutawa and published by Teshkeel Comics, featuring a team of superheroes with special abilities based on the 99 attributes of Allah in Islam but some are virtues encouraged by ...
" or "
the 605 (Freeway)". This usage has been parodied in the recurring ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves a ...
'' sketch "
The Californians". In contrast, typical northern California usage omits the definite article.
When
southern California freeways
The Southern California freeways are a vast network of interconnected freeways in the megaregion of Southern California, serving a population of 23 million people. The Master Plan of Metropolitan Los Angeles Freeways was adopted by the Region ...
were built in the 1940s and early 1950s, local common usage was primarily the freeway name preceded by the definite article, such as "
the Hollywood Freeway
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in En ...
".
It took several decades for southern California locals to start to commonly refer to the freeways with the numerical designations, but usage of the definite article persisted. For example, it evolved to "the 605 Freeway" and then shortened to "the 605".
See also
*
African-American Vernacular English
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE, ), also referred to as Black (Vernacular) English, Black English Vernacular, or occasionally Ebonics (a colloquial, controversial term), is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban ...
*
Boontling
Boontling is a jargon or argot spoken only in Boonville, California, Boonville in Northern California of the United States. It was created in the 1890s. Today, it is nearly extinct, and fewer than 100 people still speak it. It has an Internet Ass ...
*
Chain shift
In historical linguistics, a chain shift is a set of sound changes in which the change in pronunciation of one speech sound (typically, a phoneme) is linked to, and presumably causes, a change in pronunciation of other sounds as well. The sound ...
*
Chicano English
Chicano English, or Mexican-American English, is a dialect of American English spoken primarily by Mexican Americans (sometimes known as Chicanos), particularly in the Southwestern United States ranging from Texas to California,Newman, Michael.T ...
*
Hyphy
The term hyphy ( ) is Oakland slang meaning "hyperactive". More specifically, it is an adjective describing the hip hop music and the culture associated with the area. The term was first coined by Oakland rapper Keak da Sneak.
History
The hyp ...
*
North American English regional phonology
North American English regional phonology is the study of variations in the pronunciation of spoken North American English (English of the United States and Canada)—what are commonly known simply as "regional accents". Though studies of regional ...
*
Sociolect
In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language ( non-standard dialect, restricted register) or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, an age group, or other social group.
Sociolects involve both passive acquisi ...
*
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural Norm (sociology), norms, expectations, and context (language use), context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on languag ...
*
Spanglish
Spanglish (a portmanteau of the words "Spanish" and "English") is any language variety (such as a contact dialect, hybrid language, pidgin, or creole language) that results from conversationally combining Spanish and English. The term is mos ...
*
Valspeak
A valley girl is a socioeconomic, linguistic, and youth subcultural stereotype and stock character originating during the 1980s: any materialistic upper-middle-class young woman, associated with unique vocal and California dialect features, fr ...
*
Vowel shift
A vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language.
The best-known example in the English language is the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the 15th century. The Greek language also underwent a vowe ...
*
Western American English
Western American English (also known as Western U.S. English) is a variety of American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English languag ...
References
Citations
General and cited sources
*
*
Further reading
* ''Vowels and Consonants: An Introduction to the Sounds of Languages''. Peter Ladefoged, 2003. Blackwell Publishing.
* ''Language in Society: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics''.
Suzanne Romaine
Suzanne Romaine (born 1951) is an American linguist known for work on historical linguistics and sociolinguistics. From 1984 to 2014 she was Merton Professor of English language at the University of Oxford.
Background and career
Romaine was bo ...
, 2000. Oxford University Press.
* ''How We Talk: American Regional English Today''. Allan Metcalf, 2000. Houghton Mifflin.
External links
PBS.org: "Do you speak American? − ''California English"by Rachelle Waksler, discussing usage of "hella"
— by Mary Bucholtz Ph.D., UC Santa Barbara Department of Linguistics, includes discussion of "hella"
{{Languages of the United States
American English
California culture
History of California
Languages of California
Northern California
Southern California
Vowel shifts