page_title: Western American English
section_title: Phonology and phonetics
hierarchical_section_title: Western American English / Phonology and phonetics
caption_attribution_description: English: The vowel space of Western American English. Based on data from "The Atlas of North American English" by Labov, Ash, and Boberg.
context_page_description: Western American English is a variety of American English that largely unites the entire western half of the United States as a single dialect region, including the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. It also generally encompasses Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, some of whose speakers are classified additionally under Pacific Northwest English.
  The West was the last area in the United States to be reached during the gradual westward expansion of English-speaking settlement and its history shows considerable mixing and leveling of the linguistic patterns of other regions. As the settlement populations are relatively young when compared with other regions, the American West is a dialect region in formation. According to the 2006 Atlas of North American English, as a very broad generalization, Western U.S. accents are differentiated from Southern U.S. accents in maintaining as a diphthong, from Northern U.S. accents by fronting, and from both by most consistently showing the cot–caught merger.
context_section_description: The Western dialect of American English is somewhat variable and not necessarily distinct from "General American." Western American English is characterized primarily by two phonological features: the cot-caught merger (as distinct from most Northern and Southern U.S. English) and the fronting of /u/ but not /oʊ/ (as distinct from most Southern and Mid-Atlantic American English, in which both of those vowels are fronted, as well as from most Northern U.S. English, in which both of these remain backed). 
  Like most Canadian dialects and younger General American, /ɑ/ allophones remain back and may be either rounded or unrounded due to a merger between /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ (commonly represented in younger General American, respectively, so that words like cot and caught, or pod and pawed, are perfect homophones (except in San Francisco). Unlike in Canada, however, the occurrence of Canadian raising of the /aʊ/ and /aɪ/ diphthongs is not as consistent and pronounced. A significant minority of Western speakers have the pin–pen merger or a closeness to the merger, especially around Bakersfield, California, though it is a sound typically associated with Southern U.S. dialect, which influenced the area. The West is entirely rhotic and the Mary–marry–merry merger is complete (as in most of North America), so that words like Mary, marry, and merry are all pronounced identically because of the merger of all three of those vowels' sounds when before r (towards [ɛ]). T-glottalization is more common in Western dialects than other varieties of American English, particularly among younger speakers.
caption: Western American English vowel formant plot
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