Pacific Northwest English (also known, in the United States, as Northwest English) is a variety of North American English, and is geographically defined within the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon, sometimes including Idaho and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Current studies remain inconclusive about whether Pacific Northwest English is a dialect of its own, separate from Western American English or even California English or Standard Canadian English, with which it appears to share its major phonological features. The area contains a highly diverse and mobile population, which is reflected in the historical and continuing development of the variety.
The linguistic traits that flourish throughout the Pacific Northwest attest to a culture that transcends boundaries. Historically, this hearkens back to the early years of colonial expansion by the British and Americans, when the entire region was considered a single area and people of all different mother tongues and nationalities used Chinook Jargon (along with English and French) to communicate with each other. Until the Oregon Treaty of 1846, it was identified as being either Oregon Country (by the Americans) or Columbia (by the British). As a result of the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush, the culture of the Pacific Northwest expanded northward into Yukon and Alaska, carried along by the thousands of people who were attracted to the gold fields in the north. Today, the English variety common to this shared culture can be heard by people from Eugene, Oregon to Fairbanks, Alaska.
Linguists immediately after World War II tended to find few patterns unique to the Western region, as among other things, Chinook Jargon and other "slang words" (despite Chinook Jargon being an actual separate language in and of itself, individual words from it like "salt chuck", "muckamuck", "siwash" and "tyee" were and still are used in Pacific Northwest English) were pushed away in favour of having a "proper, clean" dialect. Several decades later, linguists began noticing emerging characteristics of Pacific Northwest English, although it remains close to the standard American accent.
As in most varieties of North American English, Pacific Northwest English is rhotic, which is historically a significant marker in differentiating global English varieties.
Commonalities with both Canada and California
Pacific Northwest English has all the phonological mergers typical of North American English and, more specifically, all the mergers typical of Western American English, including the cot–caught merger.
Younger speakers of Pacific Northwest English also show features of the Canadian/California Vowel Shift, which move front vowels through a lowering of the tongue:
/æ/ is lowered toward almost [a]; /ɛ/ toward almost [æ]; and /ɪ/ toward almost [ɛ]. Therefore, among younger speakers, hick can sound like heck, heck like hack, and hack like hock.
/ɑ/ is backed and sometimes rounded to become [ɒ]. Most Pacific Northwest speakers have undergone the cot–caught merger. A notable exception occurs with some speakers born before roughly the end of World War II.
These commonalities are shared with Canada and the North Central United States which includes the Minnesota accent.
Traditional and older speakers may show diphthongal vowels such as [oʊ] as in boat and [eɪ], as in bait with qualities much closer to monophthongs.
There are also conditional raising processes of open front vowels. These processes are often more extreme than in Canada and the North Central United States.
Before the velar nasal [ŋ], /æ/ becomes [e]. This change makes for minimal pairs such as rang and rain, both having the same vowel [e], differing from rang [ræŋ] in other varieties of English.
Among some speakers in Portland and southern Oregon, /æ/ is sometimes raised and diphthongized to [eə] or [ɪə] before the non-velar nasal consonants [m] and [n]. This feature is rarer further north, where /æ/ tends to remain the same before non-velar nasal consonants, except for occasional schwa-like qualities (co-articulation of tongue and palate), resulting in [æə].
/ɛ/, and, in the northern Pacific Northwest, /æ/, become [eɪ] before the voiced velar plosive /ɡ/: egg and leg are pronounced to rhyme with plague and vague, a feature shared by many northern Midwestern dialects and with the Utah accent. In addition, sometimes bag will be pronounced bayg.
Canadian raising: Some speakers have a tendency to slightly raise /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ before voiceless obstruents. It is strongest in rural areas in British Columbia and Washington, and in older and middle-aged speakers in Vancouver and Seattle. In other areas, /aɪ/ is occasionally raised. This phenomenon is widespread and well known throughout Anglophone Canada and other parts of the northern United States.
Back vowels of the California Shift: The Canadian/California Shift developing in Pacific Northwest English also includes these additional features only reminiscent of California English, but not Canadian English (especially among working-class young-adult females):The close central rounded vowel [ʉ] or close back unrounded vowel [ɯ] for /u/, is found in Portland and some areas of Southern Oregon, but is generally not found further north, where the vowel remains the close back rounded [u].
In speakers born around the 1960s, there is a tendency to move the tongue forward in the first element of the diphthong /oʊ/. This is reminiscent also of Midland, Mid-Atlantic, and Southern U.S. English. This fronting does not appear before /m/ and /n/, for example, in the word home.
Some speakers perceive or produce the pairs /ɛn/ and /ɪn/ close to each other, for example, resulting in a merger between pen and pin, most notably in Eugene, Oregon and Spokane, Washington.
Consonant phonology is more conservative, as with other varieties of English.
Words and phrases
Pacific Northwest English and British Columbian English adopted a huge number of words from Chinook Jargon, as before the beginning of the 1900s essentially the entire population was at least slightly bilingual in the language. There are also several terms of English origin that originated in or are distinct to the region.
Sunbreak: break in the clouds during the dark, rainy winters typical west of the Cascade Mountains
Black ice: invisible ice on a road. A term used in everyday speech, and on the radio.
Salt chuck: the ocean (from Chinook Jargon, where it means "salt water; the ocean"). A term used on the radio.
Potlatch: a potluck (from Chinook Jargon, where it means "give, a gift")
High muckamuck: an important person or person of authority, usually a pompous one (from Chinook Jargon, where it means "eats a lot; much food")
Duff: another word for forest litter
Fish wheel: a fish trap powered by a river current
Spendy: expensive
Rig: Any vehicle: car, truck, or SUV
