A History of English Language

A history of the english language 360
curl and third are pronounced [kΛIl] and [θΛId], as in New York City, a pattern that may
be phonologically related to certain other diphthongizations in the Southern drawl. 34
Many speakers pronounce Tuesday and duty with a glide [tjus-, dju-], and in much of the
South homonomy of mid and high front vowels before nasals is general, no distinction
occurring between pin and pen [pIn]. There are considerable differences in the speech of
the South, enabling a southerner at times to tell from a short conversation the particular
state that another southerner comes from. But a northerner can seldom do this.
7. General American.
This variety and the next one, African American Vernacular English, are controversial
and unlike the dialects discussed above in not directly reflecting geographical patterns of
migration and settlement. Both varieties can be superimposed on large areas of the map
of dialects at the beginning of this section, although many dialectologists would deny the
validity of such a description. At the time of the first edition of this history, General
American was widely accepted as one of the three main dialects of American English,
along with New England and Southern. It was usually said to be characterized by the flat
a (in fast, path, etc.), the unrounded vowel in hot, top, etc., the retention of a strong r in
all positions, and less tendency than British English to introduce a glide after the vowels
[e] and [o], late, note. The western half of the country and the regions enumerated in the
preceding discussions except eastern New England, metropolitan New York, and
Southern were often spoken of as constituting General American. Since the 1930s,
investigations for the Linguistic Atlas (see § 255) have identified dialect areas within the
old General American area and have prompted a repudiation of this “prescientific
concept.” 35 However, if the term is completely abandoned, something very much like it
will have to be invented in the future. It is difficult to know whether the western areas of
the old General American should be subdivided at all. Even as the records of the
Linguistic Atlas become available in published form, they reflect the language of
speakers who were of the older generation during the middle decades of this century. The
questions asked and the informants interviewed put an emphasis on items of rural
vocabulary that are now seldom used by younger speakers. If the trend toward
homogeneity within the vast area of General American continues, there will be less utility
in the terms “Northern” and “Midland” for identifying speakers from, say, Minnesota
(Northern) and southern lowa (Midland) than in the supplanted term “General
34 See James Sledd, “Breaking, Umlaut, and the Southern Drawl,” Language, 42 (1966),
18–41.
35
Roger Abrahams and Rudolph C.Troike, eds., Language and Cultural Diversity in
American Education (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1972), p. 130. See also W.R.Van Riper,
“General American: An Ambiguity,” in Lexicography and Dialect Geography: Festgabe
for Hans Kurath (Wiesbaden, 1973), pp 232−42, and J.B.McMillan, “Of Matters
Lexicographical,” American Speech (1970; pub. 1974), 289–92. Frederic G.Cassidy
abandoned the term in his 1954 revision of Stuart Robertson, The Development of
Modern English (New York, 1934), as did C.K. Thomas in his 1958 revision of An
Introduction to the Phonetics of American English (New York, 1947), proposing instead
four regional dialects in the General American area beyond the Atlantic states.