Inland Northern American English

The most distinctive Inland Northern accents are spoken in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse.

The dialect region called the "Inland North" consists of western and central New York State (Utica, Ithaca, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Binghamton, Jamestown, Fredonia, Olean); northern Ohio (Akron, Cleveland, Toledo), Michigan's Lower Peninsula (Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Kalamazoo, Saginaw); northwestern Indiana (Gary); northern Illinois (Chicago, Rockford, Joliet); southeastern Wisconsin (Kenosha, Racine, Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay); and, largely, northeastern Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley / Coal Region (Scranton, Wilkes-Barre).

Northern Iowa and southern Minnesota may also variably fall within the Inland North dialect region; in the Twin Cities, educated middle-aged men in particular have been documented as aligning to the accent, though this is not necessarily the case among other demographics of that urban area.

[18] In defiance of the shift, however, there is a well-documented scattering of Inland North speakers who are in a state of transition toward a cot-caught merger; this is particularly evident in northeastern Pennsylvania.

[9] The movement of /æ/ to [ɛə], in order to avoid overlap with the now-fronted /ɑ/ vowel, presumably initiates the consequent shifting of /ɛ/ (the "short e" in DRESS, [ɛ] in General American) away from its original position.

[23] After roughly a century following this first vowel change—general /æ/ raising—the region's speakers, around the 1960s, then began to use the newly opened vowel space, previously occupied by /æ/, for /ɑ/ (as in LOT and PALM); therefore, words like bot, gosh, or lock came to be pronounced with the tongue extended farther forward, thus making these words sound more like how bat, gash, and lack sound in dialects without the shift.

[6] While these were certainly the first two vowel shifts of this accent, and Labov et al. assume that /æ/ raising occurred first, they also admit that the specifics of time and place are unclear.

[24] In fact, real-time evidence of a small number of Chicagoans born between 1890 and 1920 suggests that /ɑ/ fronting occurred first, starting by 1900 at the latest, and was followed by /æ/ raising sometime in the 1920s.

[28] Another theory, not mutually exclusive with the others, is that the Great Migration of African Americans intensified White Northerners' participation in the NCS in order to differentiate their accents from Black ones.

[29] Recent evidence suggests that the Shift has largely begun to reverse in many cities of the Inland North,[9][10] such as Lansing,[9] Ogdensburg, Rochester, Syracuse,[10][30][31] Detroit, Buffalo, Chicago, and Eau Claire.

Several possible reasons have been proposed for the reversal, including growing stigma connected with the accent and the working-class identity it represents.

This map shows, with red circles, the exact cities identified within the Inland North dialect region, according to Labov et al.'s (2006) ANAE .
Three isoglosses identifying the NCVS. In the brown areas STRUT is more retracted than LOT . The blue line encloses areas in which DRESS is backed. The red line encloses areas in which TRAP is diphthongized to [eə] even before oral consonants . The areas enclosed by all three lines may be considered the "core" of the NCVS; it is most consistently present in Syracuse , Rochester , Buffalo , Detroit , and Chicago . Adapted from Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006) , p. 204.
The monophthongs of Southern Michigan on a vowel chart , typical of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, though not to the extreme. Adapted from Hillenbrand (2003). [ 15 ]
The diphthongs of Southern Michigan on a vowel chart, adapted from Hillenbrand (2003). [ 15 ]
Based on Labov et al.; averaged F1/F2 means for speakers from the Inland North. /æ/ is higher and fronter than /ɛ/ , while /ʌ/ is more retracted than /ɑ/ .
Northern Cities Shift as a vowel chart, based on image in Labov, Ash, and Boberg (1997)'s "A national map of the regional dialects of American English".