Steve Pickett is fascinated by accents. 鈥淚t tells you a lot about somebody,鈥� he says.
A Cleveland native, Pickett moved to Columbus a decade ago for business school at The Ohio State University. After arriving, however, he was struck more by what he 诲颈诲苍鈥檛 hear.
鈥淭here never seemed to be any consistency with the accent itself or any marker that tipped me off to the fact that someone was from Columbus,鈥� Pickett says.
He asked 星空无限传媒鈥檚 Curious Cbus project to investigate: Does Columbus have an accent?
The Nonexistent Accent
Pickett isn鈥檛 alone in his confusion. In fact, the very idea of a Columbus accent is controversial, even to people outside of the city.
I spent an afternoon this summer wandering around the Ohio State Fair, meeting residents from across the state. "Do you think there is a Columbus accent?" I asked them.
Most everyone responded the same way.
鈥淚鈥檝e never heard one,鈥� replied Angela McClintock of Akron. Zacharias Hailu from Whitehall shook his head: 鈥淗onestly, I don鈥檛 think we have an accent at all.鈥�
Steve Sparks, who was born in Bellefontaine, said there鈥檚 no accent in Columbus鈥攂ut there is in the southern part of the state. A lot of the fairgoers had similar comments.
鈥淢aybe down south, Portsmouth area,鈥� said Leroy Wilburn of Etna. 鈥淭hey talk a little bit slower, and they move a little bit slower.鈥�
鈥淭here鈥檚 a southern Ohio accent for sure,鈥� said Judy Solar of Columbus. 鈥淎nd up near Toledo there鈥檚 a little bit of an accent.鈥�
I noticed something of a conundrum developing. How is it possible that southern and northern Ohio have accents, but Central Ohio doesn鈥檛?
Everyone Has An Accent
The debate over the Columbus accent鈥攁nd whether it even exists in the first place鈥攈as simmered for almost 100 years. Of course, if you ask a linguist, 鈥淒oes Columbus has an accent?鈥� a much different answer awaits.
鈥淕iven that I鈥檓 a professor, you鈥檙e probably not going to be surprised that my answer is, it depends by what you mean by an accent,鈥� says Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, a linguistics professor at The Ohio State University who specializes in the accents of Ohio.
Campbell-Kibler says that when linguists talk about regional accents, they鈥檙e referring to a few different things. Part of an accent comes from the way people pronounce vowels and consonants; the other factor is unique words or phrases.
鈥淚 think the features that people tend to pay attention to or they tend to care about and make distinctions about, Columbus tends to not have a lot of those,鈥� Campbell-Kibler says.
So yes, Columbus has an accent. Everyone has an accent. It鈥檚 just that the particular features of the Columbus accent aren鈥檛 as immediately obvious.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 a lot of what we mean when we say somebody not having an accent,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e mean, 鈥榃ell, the particular ways that you talk aren鈥檛 things I really notice or care about as being important for where somebody is from.鈥欌��
Talking Columbus
Rest assured, the Columbus accent has at least one cheerleader: Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania professor David Durian.
鈥淥hio is interesting because you have actually, depending on what dialect survey you look at for results, either two or three major accent areas within the whole state,鈥� says Durian, who wrote his thesis at Ohio State on the Columbus accent.
Cleveland and Toledo belong to what鈥檚 sometimes called the 鈥淣orthern Cities鈥� or "Inland North" accent, sharing similarities to Buffalo and Chicago. Athens and the bottom of the state fit into an 鈥淯pper Southern鈥� accent, mixing with some elements of Appalachian speech.
Columbus is part of what鈥檚 called the 鈥淢idland鈥� accent, which stretches from the edge of Pennsylvania west to Indiana, Illinois and into Kansas.
One of its features is the way we say 鈥渃ot鈥� and 鈥渃aught.鈥� In Columbus, the two words sound exactly the same. Linguists label this the 鈥渓ow-back merger鈥� because of where the vowels fall in our mouth.
Another feature of the Midland accent is 鈥渂ack vowel fronting.鈥� For example, the word 鈥渂ets鈥� ends up sounding more like 鈥渂its,鈥� because the tongue comes closer to the front of the mouth.
The same thing happens with the OO sound in words like 鈥渞ude鈥� or "dude,鈥� and the OH sound in words like 鈥済o鈥� or 鈥渂oat.鈥� Durian says this vowel shift is something Ohio has in common with California.
Durian also identified some regional phrases in Columbus. Somebody from this area is 鈥渢he laundry needs washed鈥� instead of 鈥渢he laundry needs to be 飞补蝉丑别诲.鈥�
Columbus residents also have a habit of turning brand names into a possessive, i.e. Kroger鈥檚, Meijer鈥檚, Jo Anne鈥檚. According to Durian, that鈥檚 a working-class feature found in a few cities.
Much Ado About R
One of the most important parts of the Midland accent is called the 鈥減ostvocalic R.鈥� That means typical speakers in Columbus pronounce R when it comes after a vowel.
When you ask people what regions have noticeable accents, they鈥檒l often mention places like the South, New York or maybe Boston. It's no coincidence that those are all regional dialects that drop the R.
As in: Or: Or in this comedic sketch about the 鈥淏oston Accent鈥� from Late Night With Seth Meyers:
Why is everyone so concerned about R? For more than a century, this letter has been intimately tied to notions of class, race and American identity.
According to Thomas Paul Bonfiglio (from his book Race And The Rise Of Standard American), U.S. radio broadcasters in the 1930-40s tasked themselves with establishing a 鈥渕odel鈥� of English speech. The burgeoning medium of radio provided an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate 鈥減roper鈥� language to millions of Americans.
Kathryn Campbell-Kibler says broadcasters hoped to define 鈥渨hat it means to sound like an educated American.鈥� At the same time, those men鈥攖hey were almost entirely white men鈥攚anted to erase speech they saw as 鈥渟loppy,鈥� 鈥渙ffensive,鈥� and 鈥渋mpure.鈥�
鈥淧art of what they were doing was they were avoiding what they saw as the taint of immigration and racial diversity that they saw as living in East Coast cities,鈥� Campbell-Kibler says.
Radio broadcasters zoomed in on one accent marker in particular: the dropped R.
鈥淚t is well known that races which habitually pronounce their R鈥檚 are easily heard, while races that habitually do not pronounce their R鈥檚 are inaudible,鈥� wrote Frank Vizetelly in his 1933 book How To Speak English Effectively.
Vizetelly, who established a school for announcers at CBS, was concerned with maintaining the 鈥減urity鈥� of American English. In his mind, the Midwest was the place to be鈥攁nd Ohio in particular.
Vizetelly and other educators felt that broadcasters could evoke trustworthiness and objectivity by imitating the speech of the 鈥渉eartland.鈥� Eventually, when radio announcers and TV journalists began sounding like they were from the Midwest, the 鈥渂roadcaster鈥檚 dialect鈥� became understood as normal.
Embracing Differences
Even though Ohio has changed a lot since the 1930s, that myth of the 鈥渁ccentless accent鈥� remains today.
At the Ohio State Fair, I had another question for fairgoers: "Do you think you have an accent?" And once again, their answers were pretty similar.
鈥淚 don鈥檛, but people say I do,鈥� replied Desiree Beakner, a Columbus native.
鈥淣o,鈥� said Leroy Wilborne. 鈥淏ecause I鈥檓 from Ohio.鈥�
That鈥檚 not surprising to Campbell-Kibler.
鈥淎 lot of people in Columbus are very proud of the idea that it鈥檚 a place that doesn鈥檛 have an accent, because that has a special meaning for people,鈥� she says. 鈥淚n the U.S. especially, having an accent tends to be associated with鈥攕ometimes people talk about it not being as educated or not sounding polished or professional.鈥�
But she says there鈥檚 hope yet for the Columbus accent. Other regional accents like Chicago or Minnesota only gained recognition in the last few decades, thanks to forces in popular culture, economics and immigration. Ohio isn't immune to those shifts.
鈥淗onestly, nobody knows why speech changes over time, but we know that it does and it pretty much always does,鈥� Campbell-Kibler says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 always in flux.鈥�
Another hundred years in the future, who鈥檚 to say what Columbus will sound like then?
Ask your own question below about the culture of Central Ohio, and 星空无限传媒 may answer for our next Curious Cbus story.
