LeeBrownston%CMU-CS-A@sri-unix.UUCP (09/17/84)
[Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] The way Pittsburghers talk is a sure source of amusement for newcomers to this area. Most attention is devoted to diction, especially to the idioms. Although the latter are no more nor less illogical than any other idioms, they are easily identified and likely to be unfamiliar. Over the past couple years, I've been trying to figure out the system of phonology. I'm still working on the suprasegmentals, but I have some preliminary results on vowels and consonants that may be of some interest. As far as I can tell, the only consonantal departure from Standard American English is that the final 'g' is omitted from the present progressive to the extent that the terminal sound is the alveolar nasal rather than the palatal nasal continuant. This pronunciation is of course hardly unique to Pittsburgh. The vowels are much more interesting. The 'ow' sound is pronounced 'ah', as in 'dahntahn'. Confusion between, say, "down" and "don" is avoided since the 'ah' sound has already vacated: it is pronounced 'aw', as in 'Bawb signed the cawntract'. Similarly, 'aw' has gone to the greener pastures of 'or', as in 'needs worshed'. It appears that the chain ends here. As its discoverer, I shall call this phonological game of musical chairs "the great Pittsburgh vowel movement."