Talk:California English

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[edit] Article title

Why is this "California English" rather than "Californian English"? It's a very awkward wording. "Californian English" would be much more suitable in my opinion. -Branddobbe 06:20, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. No one else seems to object, I guess. Maybe we can go ahead with a move then? I suspect Californian English already exists though, in which case an admin will have to do it. Theshibboleth 14:09, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, I object. To my ear "California English" sounds much more natural than "Californian English". Notice how [1] is labeled "California English", not "Californian English". Also compare 57 Google hits for "California English" for Stanford University websites vs. only 2 hits for "Californian English". (I restricted it to Standford sites to make sure we were getting mostly scholarly pages; other California universities could be checked too.) User:Angr 14:20, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I also object. It is not at all unusual in English for a noun to function as an adjective in a combined form. older ≠ wiser 15:53, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
California is indeed both a noun and an adjective - "California Girls" for example. The page is fine where it is. — sjorford++ 16:26, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
See also the Guardian style guide. — sjorford++ 16:27, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I actually can't think of one single thing I would trust the Guardian on. And they are most certainly incorrect when they write "the adjective is California" (my emphasis). That represents a grotesque misunderstanding of English. California in "California Girls" is no more an adjective than is music in "music theory" ("musical theory" would mean something else). (Yeah, I know, it's tricky; but "the adjective..." is wrong.) Putting two nouns together (even with a space between them) is absolutely no prob in English.
What I've read by the experts (that I recall) suggests that both suggested titles for this article would be correct. I've seen both "California English" and "Californian English." It's almost a question of feel. "New York English" would be correct because "New Yorkian" isn't a word (or, rather, New York, unlike California, can be an adjective). And "America English" would clearly be wrong, same with "Canada English." But "Boston English," or "Bostonian English"? That's as tricky a question as "California English" vs. "Californian English." Tricky. --Cultural Freedom talk 2006-07-04 22:10 (UTC)
I agree that Californian can be an adjective as well as a noun referring to an inhabitant, but there really aren't many examples. Besides California Girls and California English, I can think of the California Raisins (thought up by the California Raisin Advisory Board and California oranges, and in none of these examples would "Californian" sound right. Special:Allpages reveals the California barberry, California beer and breweries, California buttercup, California cheeseburger, California Cuisine, California wine and many, many more examples. Sequoia says an alternative name is California Redwood. The only articles using Californian as an adjective are Californian Australian Football League, Californian Hindu textbook controversy, Californian Stakes, and Californian rabbit. User:Angr 07:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
After reflecting on this a bit, I think "California English" is the correct title, if we mean the English of California, the English spoken in California. Californian English would be English with Californian properties, or characteristics. This would of course characterize California English, but it would also characterize the speaking habits of a New Yorker who said "that is, like, gnarly." By way of analogy: musical theory is a theory with musical properties. The theory itself could be a theory about linguistics. Music theory, on the other hand, is a theory of music. Likewise, California English is the English of California. --Cultural Freedom talk 2006-07-05 08:07 (UTC)
As many of the other regional variations on American English regional differences have noun-noun constructions I suppose I can overcome my grammatical reservations and accept the title as California English. Still though, it bothers me that there is inconsistency in the titles, for example with the article on English in the South being titled Southern American English. Theshibboleth 10:45, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
If there's an inconsistency, it's the term "American English" instead of *"America English", but that's a real inconsistency in usage; no one would say *"America English". And Southern American English just follows that pattern: it's [Southern [American English]]. User:Angr 10:54, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
There's a strange rule (which I believe may be codified in a style guide, the MLA or some other) regarding the use of states' names as adjectives. Whereas one can freely use the adjective form of countries' names with nouns -- Japanese beef, French wine, American cheese -- one cannot do so for states. Usually, the adjective form (Californian, Washingtonian, New Yorker, etc.) can only be used to refer specifically to people from that state. When you want to speak, for example, of wine from California, apples from Washington, or the politics of New York State, you would refer to "California wines", "Washington apples" and "New York politics". Most people would probably agree that the phrases "Californian wines", "Washingtonian apples" and "New Yorker politics" just don't sound right. Strangely enough, however, British English seems fond of using "Californian" (and possibly other state adjective forms also) with nouns -- a simple search of the word "Californian" in the BBC News website will show you many strange combinations. Among them: "Californian condor", known obviously on this side of the pond as the California Condor. Maybe it just sounds better to them, or maybe they adhere more strictly to the rules of grammar at the expense of comfort on the ears. (Just to prove how wonderfully inconsistent American English is, one could reasonably speak of "Washingtonian politics", assuming one was referring to politics in the age of George Washington.)--75.11.161.197 04:36, 23 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Requested move

The argument for (and mostly against) this move is made in the section above. I oppose this move as unidiomatic. Next we will be speaking of someone's "New English home", instead of "New England home" (I have actually seen this: in the works of an Englishman who spent a few months in the United States.) Septentrionalis 19:39, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The result of the nomination was Not moved -- Kim van der Linde at venus 04:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments on History and Accent

DISCLAIMER: I am neither a liguistic nor a historian so please interpret these comments accordingly.

The linguistic history on this page I found a bit curious. My understanding is that the original anglophone visitors/settlers in California (even before it was annexed by the U.S.) were predominantly Texans (and others from the southern areas of the U.S.). The Gold Rush, of course, changed things substantially but I have always understood from what I've read that this early history was still influential in California's development. I lived in the SF Bay Area for 4 years back in the 90s. Although most of the people I encountered had fairly neutral accents, most of the people I actually dealt with regularly were actually from other parts of the U.S. To the extent that I did meet people who actually were from families that had lived in California for some generations I tended to hear traits in their speech that are not described here. In particular I had two friends, one from the north bay and one from the Eureka area, both with similar accents (and similar to others I had met in California). Their accents although not "thick" by my standards were very much what I've always thought of as the "western" accent. That is, an accent that has a lot of similarities to the "southern" accents although not quite as distinct (notably these friends grew up saying "y'all" but stopped as they grew into their professional lives). These aspects of the accent and the dialect (and their history) don't seem to be discussed here. I was curious why.

Your experience might be fairly anecdotal. Scholorly sources find more generalized traits but there will always be exceptions to the tendencies. Basically what you're saying is that California English is influenced from multiple regions, which the article already states. AEuSoes1 04:11, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
I think that there should be some audio samples of what is meant by a California accent. Would this be the thick sort of Southern California dialect we've heard from, say, Keanu Reeves and Alicia Silverstone, or is more of a Northern California accent I'm not especially aware of? Daniel M. Laenker 08:44, 22 November 2006 (GMT)

In Southern California, I`ve never heard "Ya`ll" except by ebonics users and people from various Southern states. Also, there is no such thing as a "neutral" or nonexistant accent or dialect, they might not be an identifiable regionl accent, but they still are accents. Neotribal42 19:07, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Northern vs. Southern

User:A Doon just removed without explanation a bunch of facts about the difference between Northern and Southern California, most notably the fact that "the" is not used with highway numbers in Northern California ("the 5" and so on) and the Northern-California shibboleth "hella". Why? These are both well-known and notable facts about California English.

On the other hand, the fact that San Franciscans don't refer to their city by cute nicknames doesn't seem to me to be a particularly interesting or notable fact. Lots of cities are referred to as "the city". AJD 23:36, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that's a meaningful statement about the Bay Area, particularly when Sacramentoans and San Jose residents refer to San Francisco as The City, even as their cities are technically larger. It defers to the urban primacy of San Francisco in Northern CA even from the Gold Rush days. Daniel M. Laenker 08:47, 22 November 2006 (GMT)

[[Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg -->|thumb|right|The San Francisco Warriors' "the City" logo]]

The Golden State Warriors, while playing in San Francisco, actually had "the City" on their jerseys and logo, rather than "San Francisco". This shows the extent to which San Francisco is referred to as "the city"—they could print that without any ambiguities. ¿ςפקιДИτς! ☺ ☻ 02:43, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Were the facts he removed verifiable by means of cited sources? If not, he was quite right to remove them. The same goes for the lack of cute nicknames for San Francisco. User:Angr 05:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Let's see... A Doon removed the citation for "the" with freeways along with removing the fact itself (Geyer 2001: "'The' freeway in southern California"). "Hella" was not cited in the article as it stood, but Bucholtz et al. (2005: "Hella Nor Cal or Totally So Cal?") report that "hella" is stereotypically associated with northern California by Californians. AJD 05:14, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I strongly protest A Doon's deletion of "bucket" and "trippy," based on his/her not hearing these in 8 years California experience. I have lived in California about six times that long, and I know these terms to be correct, especially "trippy," which I would even say is common and ordinary. "Bucket" is also correct, but I will concede, less common. Fluffbrain 28 August

I also protest, at least, the removal of "trippy". I've never heard anyone say bucket, but "trippy" has definitely been around for a while (and I've lived in SoCal my entire life). -Branddobbe 08:08, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
It's "boo-kay". —ptk✰fgs 03:15, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I’ll second bucket —Wiki Wikardo 11:18, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
The burden of finding sources falls on those wishing to include material, not those wishing to remove it. Find a source and it's appropriate to put it back in, otherwise not. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 20:51, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know the arguments going about North and South variations, but there are significant differences between NorCal and SoCal language. There needs to be mention of this. For example, statements about how Californians refer to freeways with the word the is only a SoCal method, and is simply wrong for NorCal. Also, phrase-abbreviate words such as Hyphy and Hella is a phenomenon of NorCal. Fcsuper 05:53, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I've already talked about hella... well, hella. It's used often in SoCal these days as well. JuJube 05:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Ok. It's blended into the article instead of a distinctive section. Fcsuper 15:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Southern Californians do refer to Freeways as "The 10", "The 101", etc. But this really only applies to Freeways. The article states that,

"...California State Route 1, which runs down the coast, is called "Highway 1" or simply "one" in Northern California, but "PCH" (for Pacific Coast Highway) in Southern California, sometimes pronounced as "peach" but much more often as "the PCH"."" I was born and raised in SoCal and I never heard anyone refer to PCH as "The PCH". It is pretty much always called simply PCH or, sometimes, Coast Highway. The "The" designation is always used for freeways, not highways. For example, in "I Love LA", Randy Newman rolls down Imperial Highway, not "The Imperial Highway". And these highway names are not nicknames, they are actually legally defined routes that are separate from the numbered highway. For example, most of Imperial Highway is synonymous with Highway 90. But part of Hwy 90 runs separately as The Marina Freeway, while Imperial Hwy continues along a different route. Part of Pacific Coast Highway is not signed as Hwy 1 near the San Diego County line. And many parts of Hwy 1 have different names. In much of West LA and Santa Monica, it is actually Sepulveda Blvd. and Lincoln. People in NorCal don't call it PCH because it isn't called that there. From Santa Barbara to San Francisco it is mostly called Cabrillo Highway. North of San Francisco it is Shoreline Highway. This is true for freeways, too, "The Hollywood Freeway" is a confusing term for many because it actually runs along several different numbered freeways. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.181.152.165 (talk) 05:42, 25 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Pitch range

Not being a linguist, I'll post this for discussion rather than edit directly: one of the most recognizable features of California English is that its speakers use a broader pitch range than most other U.S. speakers. The Valley Girl song is an extreme example of this (which still occurs in the San Fernando Valley). That is, Californians begin sentences at a higher pitch and end them at a lower pitch than (for example) Midwesterners. Durova 20:41, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hapa

Is this a SoCal thing? I ain’t never heard it —Wiki Wikardo 11:18, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Me neither, and I am from SoCal. Danny Lilithborne 08:49, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
  • This is a California Asian-American thing; both NorCal and SoCal AAs use it. Rin Tohsaka 18:28, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Really? As a Northern California Asian-American in a predominantly Asian-American community, I would think I would have heard it at least once. ¿ςפקιДИτς! ☺ ☻ 02:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't think it is as wide-spread as it is being made out to be. You probably have to be part-Hawaiian to understand it. I've only seen the term used in media. For example: Part Asian, 100% Hapa - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0811849597 --Stacey Doljack Borsody 07:47, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

'Hapa' is certainly catching on in the SF Bay area. It's tied in part to the frequent use of race-specific census and fill-out-this-form questions, when so many respondents are now of mixed race. Also with the celebrity of various mixed-race individuals.

Overall, I agree with the article's linguistic contentions, but must admit I am not familiar with the scientific symbols. This may be anecdotal, but it's based upon my family living in the SF Bay Area for a full century. -Paul Carlson

Ive lived in SoCal all my life and I`ve heard it only a few times. All of them, it was a half asian or pacific islander and half european decent person saying it. My conclusion: valid, just like mulatto and mezcla; said only rarely, but stil valuable as a cultural associational term.Neotribal42 18:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Hapa means half in Hawaiian, and almost always refers to a person with one parent Caucasian and the other parent something else. It is short for "Hapa-Haole" which you still hear from time to time, but most of the time you will just say 'hapa' as in "She looks hapa" (that 100% hapa made me laugh, it is such a good representation of most people from Hawaii ;) ) Anyway... this is supposed to be a California Dialect page and since the only people I hear use this word have ties to Hawaii, I will go out on a limb and say this word really isn't a candidate for "California English" (just yet anyway) --Billy Nair (talk) 10:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vowel Raising before ŋ

This happens to me, and I live in NW Kansas, isn't this just a General American thing?Cameron Nedland 17:42, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

  • As a Bay Area life-long resident, I've always used the raised I (as in keen) for words like king and sing; I've never known any other pronunciation until a few years ago. I can, however say and hear the differences, though they are very slight to me.

I also raise it when I drop the G in -ing forms, so even if there's no /ŋ/ there I raise as well. So I wind up saying stuff like "dreenkeen" (sampa = /dr\iNkin/) for drinking —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.0.136.131 (talk) 01:35, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hella

the overwhelming majority of written work regarding "hella", both by linguists and casual observers of popular culture alike, describe "hella" as characteristic of the Northern California lexicon, and describe the San Francisco Bay Area as it's place of birth. In so far as this word has entered the vocabulary of speakers outside the Bay Area, it has been through diffusion--and the further from the epicenter, the less frequent the usage. Thus, recent deletions of the passage referring to the word hella are not justified, nor has anyone, to my knowledge, referenced a source that would contradict the preponderance of referrable works (including those already cited) which support it's continued inclusion. Triggtay 06:25, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Nevertheless, the part saying "hella" is seldom, if ever, used in SoCal is patently false, as I can give you no less than two popular artists from SoCal that have used it. JuJube 06:29, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
'K. As I noted in my last edit summary, I put in a {{fact}} just to get someone (you?) to actually connect the statements regarding "hella" with the references at the bottom.
By the way, you might want to do something about those greengrocer's apostrophes of yours. +ILike2BeAnonymous 06:31, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I've also heard (and used) "hell of" (said as one word: "hel-love") as a strictly ironic replacement for "hella" (I've been a Bay Area resident all my life).

I've lived in SoCal my entire life (25 years). Hella is so infrequently used down here, that I didn't even hear of the word until I was 20 (after a friend of mine returned from a bay area trip), and we generally laugh whenever we hear some one from NorCal use it. On the rare occasion that we do use the word hella, it is usally used as a joke or comically. The NorCal/SoCal hella difference should stay. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Catgirl667 (talk • contribs) 22:52, 25 April 2007 (UTC).
I changed hella because I live in orange county never hear anybody say it.(Recharge330 (talk) 15:29, 5 June 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Place names

The text about Norcal, Socal and Frisco is relevant and factually correct. There was no reason to delete it. Similarly, there was no reason to substitute "Sactown" for "Sacto", since the list says explicitly, "and other nicknames. I've heard Sacto, but not Sactown - how about a cite? Until then, I'm putting it back the way it was. I'm using the revert procedure because it's easier, not because I'm accusing anyone of vandalism. And no, I'm not one of the no-revert-rule people.

Cbdorsett 07:43, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, even the California State Anthem itself refers to Sacramento as "Sactown", not "Sacto". Observe,
From Oakland to Sactown
The Bay Area and back down
Cali is where they put they mack down
Give me love!
Triggtay 09:01, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, so it's used in a rap song - that doesn't make it the State Anthem :). Just for the record, I noticed the nickname on a list of city nicknames on Wikipedia. That list includes both of the nicknames we're talking about here. I still see no reason to prefer one over the other. Cbdorsett 09:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Are you sure that's the state anthem? I believe you're referring to I Love You, California. Hachiko 18:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I've lived in the Bay Area all my life, and I think I've heard 'Sacto' once or twice, but mostly just as 'Sac'. I sometimes call it Sakuramento, after an anime club from there. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.23.166.38 (talk) 06:41, 1 March 2007 (UTC).

I changed it to "sactown," because that nickname is used more frequently than "sacto." And if anyone complains, I'll change it to Sacramento's REAL nickname: nutSac. You can add sacto if you want, but sactown needs to stay. catgirl667 4/25/2007

Having lived in Sacramento for eighteen years now, I can safely say that "Sacto" seems to have prevalence typically in just the Downtown region and "Sactown" is accepted outside of the city proper. I have heard denizens of some nearby cities in the metropolitan area like Davis or Folsom refer to the city proper as "Capital City". So, "Sactown" has held more harmony throughout the entire city than has others like "Sacto"; simply saying "Sacramento" is however more profound than using its nicknames. Seemingly disparaging nicknames like "nutSac" or "Cowtown" is accepted here as we find it risibly amusing, but you will not hear our residents use those terms in parlance, except for humorous effect. Referencing for this can be easily found, but I am at a loss for time right now. Slof 22:36, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Question, since I'm addressing a Sacto resident here: is it true that people call it (or at least used to call it) "Sackatomato", as Herb Caen used to say? Is/was this widespread, or just another bit of three-dot journalism? +ILike2BeAnonymous 00:09, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
That and its variants ("Sack-of-tomatoes", "Sac of Tomatoes") used to have prevalence as one of its nicknames said by people outside of the area. However, the decline of tomato production as a crop and transition to other mainstay crops since the latter half of the twentieth century has dated this nickname. You might even say that it is obsolete. Slof 02:57, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
This material may be true, but what does it have to do with a dialect of English? Isn't there a better article to handle what people call the Bay Area, or nicknames for Sacramento? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 02:07, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

i have heard scaramneto called suck a tomato. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.37.139.5 (talk • contribs) 21:01, 30 December 2007

[edit] Bias?

Is it just me or is this article overwhelmingly NorCal-centric? There is very little discussion about the LA basin or San Diego meto, both of which are bigger than the Bay area. Perhaps, some more discussion of the effects of Spanish on the pronunciation and vocabulary of SoCal. At the very lease exchange a few of the NorCal examples for SoCal examples, in the interest of equal time.HoratioVitero 15:45, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Freeway nomenclature?

Isn't this article about a dialect of English? Does it really need a whole section about freeway nomenclature? Larry V (talk | e-mail) 20:18, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd say definitely not, especially since a great majority of the section itself isn't even necessarily true, so much as a series of gross generalizations.President David Palmer 12:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
HELLA YEA i agree because in Minnesota we always refer to highways as "94" "35W/35E" "494" "694" etc, we never say I-94 or I-35W ick gross. In terms of a linguistic view, why would people refer to highways with the Interstate prefix when its definitely easier to refer to them without. What source said it anyway? Agreed, grossly generalized. Davumaya 07:46, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Agreed - i'm in milwaukee and we always say '94' '45' '43', and for the exits i never hear anyone refer to them by number...its always 'Take 94 to Van Buren', etc. In fact, can anyone name a place where they actually DO say "take the <insert highway name> highway to exit 334B"?32.168.249.216 19:25, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
The distinction between southern California and other parts of the US where I've lived is not the omission of the "I" or "Interstate" - it's the addition of the definite article "the." For example, in NJ, "take 295 to 42" but in LA, "take the 5 to the 405." But I believe the paragraph about San Diego County not adhering to the use of "the" is mistaken: I've lived in San Diego for several years, and everybody here says, "the 805 is jammed; take the 5 instead." Not sure how to document that... can examples of actual usage be used? E.g.: http://www.hallontheweb.com/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=hw&report=sp&ID=025

[edit] Worst article ever?

Most insubstantial and useless article ever?71.131.213.157 09:55, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This should be two articles

Nearly all of the content on this page is either about features of Northern California English or of Southern California English. The page itself is a strong argument that there are two distinct dialects here. Most of the phonological material is on a vowel-shift that is referred to on its original page as the "Northern California Shift". Lexical features are subdivided into Northern phenomena and Southern phenomena. The article doesn't provide any evidence that Northern Californians speak more like Southern Californians than they do like, say, Oregonians, and so there's no grounds for grouping the two dialects into a single article. Several other articles that link to the page employ constructions such as "southern [[California English]]" (for example, English_phonology#Phonemes). I propose therefore that the article be split into a Northern California English and a Southern California English article. It may be worthwhile also to have a page on differences between the two, just as there is a page on differences between British English and American English.--Atemperman 20:48, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

i agree. although Californians do share ligutisic siliarities. Northern California and southern California are TWO SEPARATE AREAS. in fact the should be two different states!

[edit] Since when is California(n) English a "dialect"?

I think that this very first assertion in the article is incorrect. As I understand it, a dialect is a variant of a language which, while it is understandable to other speakers of that language, contains significant unique elements. In no way does what passes for English in California constitute a dialect. This should be stricken from the article, which should serve to further diminish whatever importance this mish-mosh of an article has. Basically, it's a collection of language trivia, not a description of anything of linguistic importance. +ILike2BeAnonymous (talk) 21:09, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unverified but true

Don't delete the section on freeway nomenclature. It is absolutely correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.27.73.102 (talk) 22:09, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Oops

Oops, I am terribly embarrassed. I wrongly corrected "The most populous of the United States ...", because I forgot to notice that the United States was being referred to as a collective group of states, not as just one entity. Sorry. Good job Binksternet. 71.178.238.238 (talk) 04:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Words

Should there be a list of the different words or usage of words like gay, retard, emo, and so on. (Recharge330 (talk) 15:39, 5 June 2008 (UTC))