Northern cities vowel shift

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The Northern cities vowel shift is a chain shift in the sounds of some vowels. It is called northern cities because it is taking place mostly in a broad swath of the United States around the Great Lakes, beginning near Syracuse and Binghamton and extending west through Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Madison, and north to Green Bay (Labov et al. 187–208).

In this shift, the vowels in the words ket, cut, caught, cot, and cat have shifted from IPA Template:IPA toward Template:IPA, and, in addition, the vowel in kit (IPA Template:IPA) becomes more mid-centralized. Like most chain shifts, it is not complete in all areas at the same time: some but not all aspects of the shift can be found further afield. For example, the backing of Template:IPA is found as far south as St. Louis and as far west as Cedar Rapids, and the diphthongization of Template:IPA before oral consonants is found in parts of Minnesota (St. James, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Brainerd). Accents in which Template:IPA is more retracted than Template:IPA (whether by backing of Template:IPA, fronting of Template:IPA, or both) are encountered as far east as Providence, as far south as St. Louis, as far north as Bemidji, and as far west as Aberdeen (Labov et al. 204).

The trigger of this is the diphthongization of Template:IPA into Template:IPA (æ-tensing), a change identified as early as the 1960s. Then, Template:IPA is pulled forward toward Template:IPA, occupying a position very close to the position of former Template:IPA, and in some very advanced speakers an identical position. The third stage is another pull, namely the lowering of Template:IPA toward Template:IPA. The fourth stage is the backing of Template:IPA, a phonetic shift seen in some other accents, although less markedly and in fewer contexts; this is a push stage, because former Template:IPA and fronted Template:IPA sound similar, especially when Template:IPA is not fully raised to Template:IPA but only to Template:IPA. The fifth stage is the backing of Template:IPA, pulled by Template:IPA and at the same time pushed by Template:IPA. Finally, Template:IPA is lowered and backed, although it is still distinct from Template:IPA in all contexts. The shift is in progress throughout the Great Lakes cities, so some speakers might only have, for instance, the first two stages only, but none have, say, only the last stage.

The shift is found in white speakers and those who identify themselves with the region in which the vowel shift is occurring. Speakers of African American Vernacular English show little to no evidence of adopting the Northern Cities Shift. The shift has also not been adopted by Canadian speakers, despite the geographic proximity of millions of Canadians living near the U.S. border in the Great Lakes region and along the St. Lawrence. Because of this, a Canadian living in Ontario along the U.S. border is likely to sound more like a speaker thousands of miles away in California than an American speaker who resides just across the border.Template:Fact

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