This article includes inline links to audio files. If you have trouble playing the files, seeWikipedia Media help.

Speech example

An example of a White man fromPennsylvania (Bradley Cooper).

---

Problems playing this file? Seemedia help.

Speech example

An example of a Black woman fromGeorgia (Alice Walker).

---

Problems playing this file? Seemedia help.

Speech example

An example of an Asian woman fromIllinois (Michelle Wu).

---

Problems playing this file? Seemedia help.

General American English, known inlinguistics simply asGeneral American (abbreviatedGA orGenAm), is the umbrellaaccent ofAmerican English used by a majority ofAmericans, encompassing a continuum rather than a single unified accent.^[1][2][3] It is often perceived by Americans themselves as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or socioeconomic characteristics, though Americans with high education,^[4] or from the(North) Midland,Western New England, andWestern regions of the country are the most likely to be perceived as using General American speech.^[5][6][7] The precise definition and usefulness of the term continue to be debated,^[8][9][10] and the scholars who use it today admittedly do so as a convenient basis for comparison rather than for exactness.^[8][11] Some scholars prefer other names, such asStandard American English.^[12][4]

Standard Canadian English accents may be considered to fall under General American,^[13] especially in opposition to theUnited Kingdom'sReceived Pronunciation. Noted phoneticianJohn C. Wells, for instance, claimed in 1982 that typical Canadian English accents align with General American in nearly every situation whereBritish and American accents differ.^[14]

A table containing theconsonantphonemes is given below:

Thephoneme/r/ is pronounced as apostalveolar approximant[ɹ̠]^ⓘ orretroflex approximant[ɻ]^ⓘ,^[15] but a unique"bunched tongue" variant of the sound is also associated with the United States, perhaps mostly in theMidwest and the South.^[16] All these variants exhibit various degrees oflabialization andpharyngealization.^[17]

Full rhoticity (or "R-fulness") is typical of American accents, in which/r/ is pronounced in all historical environments spelled with the letter⟨r⟩. This includes in syllable-final position or before a consonant, such as inpearl,car andfort, whereas most speakers in England do not pronounce this⟨r⟩ in these environments and so are called non-rhotic.^[18][19] Non-rhotic American accents, such as some accents ofEastern New England,New York City, andAfrican-Americans, and a specific few (oftenolder ones) spoken bySoutherners, are often quickly noticed by General American listeners and perceived as sounding especially ethnic, regional, or antiquated.^[18][20][21]

Rhoticity is common in most American accents despite being now rare in England because, during the 17th-century British colonization of the Americas, nearly alldialects of English were rhotic, and mostEnglish in North America simply remained that way.^[22] The North American preservation of rhoticity was also supported by waves of rhotic-accented Scotch-Irish immigrants, most intensely during the 18th century, when this ethnic group eventually made up one-seventh of the colonial population, plus smaller waves during the following two centuries. Scotch-Irish settlers spread fromDelaware andPennsylvania throughout the largerMid-Atlantic region, the inland regions of both the South andNorth, and throughout theWest: American dialect areas that were all uninfluenced by upper-class non-rhoticity and that consequently have remained consistently rhotic.^[23] While non-rhoticity spread on the East Coast (perhaps first in imitation of early 19th-century London speech), even the East Coast has gradually begun to restore rhoticity, due to it becoming nationally prestigious since the mid-20th century.

Dropping of/j/ after a consonant, known asyod dropping in linguistics, is much more extensive in American accents than in most of England. In most North American accents,/j/ is "dropped" or "deleted" after allalveolar and interdental consonants (that is: everywhere except after /p/, /b/, /f/, /h/, /k/, and /m/), sonew, duke, Tuesday, assume are pronounced[nu],[duk],[ˈtʰuzdeɪ],[əˈsum] (compare with Standard British/nju/,/djuk/,/ˈtjuzdeɪ/,/əˈsjum/).^[24]

/t/ is normally pronounced as aglottal stop[ʔ] when both after a vowel or aliquid and before asyllabic[n̩] or any non-syllabic consonant, as inbutton[ˈbʌʔn̩]^ⓘ orfruitcake[ˈfɹuʔkʰeɪk]^ⓘ. In absolute final position after a vowel or liquid,/t/ is also replaced by, or simultaneously articulated with, glottal constriction:^[25] thus,what[wʌʔ] orfruit[fɹuʔ]. (This innovation of/t/ glottal stopping may occur in British English as well.)

The consonants/t/ and/d/ become aflap[ɾ]^ⓘ both after a vowel or/r/ and before an unstressed vowel or a syllabic consonant other than[n̩], includingwaterˈwɑɾɚ^ⓘ,party[ˈpʰɑɹɾi] andmodel[ˈmɑɾɫ̩]. This results in pairs such asladder/latter, metal/medal, andcoating/coding being pronounced the same. Flapping of/t/ or/d/ before a full stressed vowel is also possible but only if that vowel begins a new word or morpheme, as inwhat is it?[wʌɾˈɪzɨʔ] and twice innot at all[nɑɾɨɾˈɔɫ]. Other rules apply to flapping to such a complex degree in fact that flapping has been analyzed as being required in certain contexts, prohibited in others, and optional in still others.^[26] For instance, flapping is prohibited in words likeseduce[sɨˈdus],retail[ˈɹitʰeɪɫ], andmonotone[ˈmɑnɨtʰoʊn], yet optional inimpotence[ˈɪmpɨɾɨns,ˈɪmpɨtʰɨns].

Both intervocalic/nt/ and/n/ may commonly be realized as[ɾ̃] (a nasalizedalveolar flap) (flapping) or simply[n], makingwinter andwinner homophones in fast or informal speech.

England's typical distinction between a "clear L" (i.e.[l]^ⓘ) and a "dark L" (i.e.[ɫ]^ⓘ) is much less noticeable in nearly all dialects of American English; it is often altogether absent,^[27] with all "L" sounds tending to be "dark", meaning having some degree ofvelarization,^[28] perhaps even as dark as[ʟ]^ⓘ (though in the initial position, perhaps less dark than elsewhere among some speakers).^[29] The only notable exceptions to this "dark L" today are in some Spanish-influenced American English varieties (such asEast Coast Latino English) which can show a clear "L" insyllable onsets and intervocalically.

Word pairs likewine/whine, wet/whet, Wales/whales, wear/where, etc. arehomophones, in most cases eliminating/ʍ/, also transcribed/hw/, thevoiceless labiovelar fricative. However, scatterings of older speakers who do not merge these pairs still exist nationwide, perhaps most strongly in the South.^[30] This merger is also found in most modern varieties ofBritish English.

The 2006Atlas of North American English surmises that "if one were to recognize a type ofNorth American English to be called 'General American'" according to data measurements of vowel pronunciations, "it would be the configuration formed by these three" accent regions:(Standard) Canada, theAmerican West, and theAmerican Midland.^[31] The following charts present the vowels that converge across these three dialect regions to form anunmarked or generic American English sound system.

Vowel length is notphonemic in General American, and therefore vowels such as/i/ are customarily transcribed without the length mark.^[32] Phonetically, the vowels of GA are short[ɪ,i,ʊ,u,eɪ,oʊ,ɛ,ʌ,ɔ,æ,ɑ,aɪ,ɔɪ,aʊ] when they precede thefortis consonants/p,t,k,tʃ,f,θ,s,ʃ/ within the same syllable and long[ɪː,iː,ʊː,uː,eːɪ,oːʊ,ɛː,ʌː,ɔː,æː,ɑː,aːɪ,ɔːɪ,aːʊ] elsewhere. (Listen to the minimal pair ofkit andkid^ⓘ[ˈkʰɪt,ˈkʰɪːd].) All unstressed vowels are also shorter than the stressed ones, and the more unstressed syllables follow a stressed one, the shorter it is, so that/i/ inlead is noticeably longer than inleadership.^[33][34] (SeeStress and vowel reduction in English.)

/i,u,eɪ,oʊ,ɑ,ɔ/ are considered to compose anatural class oftense pure vowels (monophthongs) in General American, especially for speakers with thecot–caught merger (seeLOT–THOUGHT merger below). The class manifests in how GA speakers treatloanwords, as in the majority of cases stressed syllables of foreign words are assigned one of these six vowels, regardless of whether the original pronunciation has a tense or a lax vowel. An example of that is the common German nameHans, which is pronounced in GA with the tense/ɑ/ rather than lax/æ/ (as in Britain'sReceived Pronunciation, which mirrors the German pronunciation with/a/: also has a lax vowel).^[35] All of the tense vowels except/ɑ/ and/ɔ/ can have either monophthongal or diphthongal pronunciations (i.e.[i,u,e,ö̞] vs[i̞i,u̞u,eɪ,ö̞ʊ]). The diphthongs are the most usual realizations of/eɪ/ and/oʊ/ (as instay[steɪ]^ⓘ androw[ɹö̞ʊ]^ⓘ, hereafter transcribed without the diacritics), which is reflected in the way they are transcribed. Monophthongal realizations are also possible, most commonly in unstressed syllables; here are audio examples forpotato[pʰəˈtʰeɪɾö̞]^ⓘ andwindow[ˈwɪndö̞]^ⓘ. In the case of/i/ and/u/, the monophthongal pronunciations ([iˑ,uˑ]) are infree variation with diphthongs ([ɪ̞i~ɪ̈i,ʊ̞u~ʊ̈ʉ]).^[36] As indicated in above phonetic transcriptions,/u/ is subject to the same variation (also when monophthongal:[u~ʉ]),^[37] but its mean phonetic value is usually somewhat less central than in modern Received Pronunciation (RP).^[38]/ɑ/ varies between back[ɑ] and central[ɑ̈].^[39]

For most speakers, theshorta sound/æ/ as inTRAP orBATH, which is not normally a tense vowel, is pronounced with tensing—thetongue raised, followed by a centeringglide—whenever occurring before anasal consonant (that is, before/m/,/n/ and, for many speakers,/ŋ/).^[40] This sound may be broadly phonetically transcribed as[ɛə] (as inAnne^ⓘ andam^ⓘ), or, based on one's ownunique accent or regional accent, variously as[eə] or[ɪə]. In the following audio clip, the first pronunciation is the tensed one for the wordcamp, much more common in American English than the second, which is more typical of British English(listen^ⓘ). Linguists have variously called this "shorta raising", "shorta tensing", "pre-nasal /æ/ tensing", etc.

Before darkl in asyllable coda,/i,u/ and sometimes also/eɪ,oʊ/ are realized as centering diphthongs[iə,uə,eə,oə]. Therefore, words such aspeel/pil/ andfool/ful/ are often pronounced[pʰiəɫ] and[fuəɫ].^[36]

The American phenomenon of theLOT vowel (often spelled⟨o⟩ in words likebox, don, clock, notch, pot, etc.) being produced withoutrounded lips, like thePALM vowel, allows the two vowels to unify as a singlephoneme. A consequence is that some words, likefather andbother, rhyme for most Americans. Thisfather-bother merger is widespread throughout the country, except in northeasternNew England English (such as theBoston accent), thePittsburgh accent, and variably in some olderNew York accents, which may retain a rounded articulation ofbother, keeping it distinct fromfather.^[58][59]

The vowel in a word likeLOT/ɑ/ versus the vowel inTHOUGHT/ɔ/ are undergoing a merger, thecot–caught merger, in many parts of North America, but not in certain regions. American speakers with a completed merger pronounce the two historically separate vowels with the same sound (especially in theWest,Great Plains region, northernNew England,West Virginia andwestern Pennsylvania), but other speakers have no trace of a merger at all (especially middle-aged or older speakers in theSouth, theGreat Lakes region, southern New England, and thePhiladelphia–Baltimore andNew York metropolitan areas) and so pronounce each vowel with distinct soundslisten^ⓘ.^[60] Among speakers who distinguish between the two, the vowel ofcot is often acentral[ɑ̈]^ⓘ or slightly-advancedback[ɑ̟], while/ɔ/ is pronounced with more rounded lips and phonetically higher in the mouth, close to[ɒ]^ⓘ or[ɔ]^ⓘ.^[39] Among speakers who do not distinguish between them, thus producing acot–caught merger,/ɑ/ usually remains a back vowel,[ɑ]^ⓘ, sometimes showing lip rounding as[ɒ]. Therefore, even mainstream Americans vary greatly with this speech feature, with possibilities ranging from a full merger to no merger at all. In the West, for instance,PALM,LOT,CLOTH, andTHOUGHT are all typically pronounced the same, falling under one phoneme. A transitional stage of the merger is also common in scatterings throughout the United States, most consistently in 1990s and early 2000s research in theAmerican Midlands lying between the historical dialect regions of the North and the South. Meanwhile, younger Americans, in general, tend to be transitioning toward the merger. According to a 2003 dialect survey carried out across the country, about 61% of participants perceived themselves as keeping the two vowels distinct and 39% do not.^[61] A 2009 follow-up survey put the percentages at 58% non-merging speakers and 41% merging.^[62]

American accents that have not undergone thecot–caught merger (thelexical setsLOT andTHOUGHT) have instead retained aLOT–CLOTH split: a 17th-century distinction in which certain words (labeled as theCLOTHlexical set) separated away from theLOT set. The split, which has now reversed in most British English, simultaneously shifts this relatively recentCLOTH set into a merger with theTHOUGHT (caught) set. Having taken place prior to the unrounding of thecot vowel, it results in lengthening and perhaps raising, merging the more recently separated vowel into theTHOUGHT vowel in the following environments: before many instances of/f/,/θ/, and particularly/s/ (as inAustria, cloth, cost, loss, off, often, etc.), a few instances before/ŋ/ (as instrong, long, wrong), and variably by region or speaker ingone,on, and certain other words.^[63]

The phonetic quality of/ʌ/ (STRUT) varies in General American. It is often an (advanced) open-mid back unrounded vowel[ʌ̟]:(listen^ⓘ).^[64][65] Many Midland, Southern, African-American, and younger speakers nationwide pronounce it somewhat more centralized in the mouth.

Also, some scholars analyze[ʌ] to be an allophone of/ə/ (the unstressed vowel in words likeCOMMA,banana,oblige, etc.), that surfaces when stressed, so/ʌ/ and/ə/ may be considered to be incomplementary distribution, comprising only one phoneme.^[66]

TheSTRUT vowel, rather than the one inLOT (as in Britain), is used infunction words and certain other words likewas, of, from, what, everybody, nobody, somebody, anybody, and, for many speakersbecause and rarely evenwant, when stressed.^{[67][68][69][70]}

Many speakers split the sound/aɪ/ based on whether it occurs before a voiceless consonant or not. Thus, inrider, it is pronounced[ä(ː)ɪ], but inwriter, it is raised and potentially shortened to[ʌɪ] (because/t/ is a voiceless consonant while/d/ is not). Thus, words likebright, hike, price, wipe, etc. with a following voiceless consonant (such as/t,k,θ,s/) use a raised vowel sound compared tobride, high, prize, wide, etc. Because of this sound change, the wordsrider andwriter(listen^ⓘ), for instance, remain distinct from one another by virtue of their difference in height (and length) of the diphthong's starting point (unrelated to both the lettersd andt being pronounced in these words as alveolar flaps[ɾ]). The sound change also applies across word boundaries, though the position of a word or phrase's stress may prevent the raising from taking place. For instance, ahigh school in the sense of "secondary school" is generally pronounced[ˈhɐɪskuɫ]; however, ahigh school in the literal sense of "a tall school" would be pronounced[ˌhaɪˈskuɫ]. Thesound change began in theNorthern,New England, andMid-Atlantic regions of the country,^[71] and is becoming more common across the nation.

Many speakers outside of General American areas in theInland North,Upper Midwestern, andPhiladelphia dialect areas raise/aɪ/ before voiced consonants in certain words as well, particularly[d],[g] and[n]. Hence, words liketiny,spider,cider,tiger,dinosaur,beside,idle (but sometimes notidol), andfire may contain a raised nucleus. The use of[ʌɪ], rather than[aɪ], in such words is unpredictable from the phonetic environment alone, but it may have to do with their acoustic similarity to other words with[ʌɪ] before a voiceless consonant, per the traditional Canadian-raising system. Some researchers have argued that there has been aphonemic split in those dialects, and the distribution of the two sounds is becoming more unpredictable among younger speakers.^[72][73]

General American speakers typically realize final unstressed/ɪŋ/, like at the end ofsinging, as[ɪŋ] or, in a particularly casualstyle,[ɪn]. However, many speakers fromCalifornia, otherWestern states including those in thePacific Northwest, and theUpper Midwest realize final unstressed/ɪŋ/ as[in] when/ɪ/ ("shorti") is raised to become[i] ("longee") before the underlying/ŋ/ is converted to[n], so thatcoding, for example, is pronounced[ˈkoʊdin], homophonous withcodeine.^[74][75]

TheKIT vowel/ɪ/ in unstressed syllables generally merges with theCOMMA vowel/ə/, so thateffect is pronounced likeaffect, andabbot andrabbit rhyme. The quality of the merged vowel varies considerably based on the environment but is typically more open, like [ə], in word-final oropen-syllable word-initial positions (makingcilantro[səˈɫɑnt͡ʃɹoʊ]), but more close, like [ɪ~ɨ], in other positions (makingpatted orpadded[ˈpʰæɾɪd]).^[76]

Thelexical setsNURSE and lettER are merged as the sequence/ər/, aschwa vowel plus/r/, which can also be analyzed as a simplesyllabic/r/, though often phonetically transcribed as theR-colored schwa[ɚ]^ⓘ. Therefore,perturb, pronounced/pəˈtɜːb/ in BritishReceived Pronunciation (RP), is/pərˈtərb/ (phonetically[pɚˈtɚb]^ⓘ) in General American pronunciation. Similarly, the wordsforward andforeword, which are phonologically distinguished in RP as/ˈfɔːwəd/ and/ˈfɔːwɜːd/, arehomophonous in GA:/ˈfɔrwərd/ (or phonetically[ˈfɔɹwɚd]).^[77] Moreover, what is historically/ʌr/, as inhurry, merges to/ər/ in GA as well, so the historical phonemes/ʌ/,/ɜ/, and/ə/ are allneutralized before/r/. Thus, unlike in most English dialects of England,/ɜ/ is not a true phoneme in General American but merely a different notation of/ə/ for when this phoneme precedes/r/ and is stressed—a convention preserved in many sources to facilitate comparisons with other accents.^[78]

Most North American accents are characterized by the mergers of certain vowels when they occur beforeintervocalic/r/. The only exceptions exist primarily along theEast Coast.

• Mary–marry–merry merger in transition: According to the 2003 dialect survey, nearly 57% of participants from around the country self-identified as merging the sounds/ær/ (as in the first syllable ofparish),/ɛr/ (as in the first syllable ofperish), and/ɛər/ (as inpear orpair).^[79] The merger is largely complete in most regions of the country, the major exceptions being much of the Atlantic Coast and southernLouisiana.^[80]
• Hurry–furry merger: The pre-/r/ vowels in words likehurry/ʌ/ andfurry/ɜ/ are merged in most American accents to[ɚ] or a syllabic consonant[ɹ̩]. Roughly only 10% of American English speakers acknowledge the distincthurry vowel before/r/, according to the same dialect survey aforementioned.^[81]
• Mirror–nearer merger in transition: The pre-/r/ vowels in words likemirror/ɪ/ andnearer/i/ are merged or very similar in most American accents. The quality of the historicmirror vowel in the wordmiracle is quite variable.^[82]
• Americans vary slightly in their pronunciations ofR-colored vowels such as those in/ɛər/ and/ɪər/, which sometimes monophthongizes towards[ɛɹ] and[ɪɹ] ortensing towards[eɪɹ] and[i(ə)ɹ] respectively. That causes pronunciations like[pʰeɪɹ] forpair/pear and[pʰiəɹ] forpeer/pier.^[83] Also,/jʊər/ is often reduced to[jɚ], so thatcure,pure, andmature may all end with the sound[ɚ], thus rhyming withblur andsir. The wordsure is also part of the rhyming set as it is commonly pronounced[ʃɚ].
• Horse–hoarse merger: This merger makes the vowels/ɔ/ and/o/ before/r/ homophones, with homophonous pairs likehorse/hoarse, corps/core, for/four, morning/mourning, war/wore, etc. homophones. Many older varieties of American English still keep the sets of words distinct, particularly in the extreme Northeast, the South (especially along the Gulf Coast), and the central Midlands,^[30] but the merger is evidently spreading and younger Americans rarely show the distinction. This merger is also found in most modern varieties ofBritish English.
• "Shorto" beforer before a vowel: In typical North American accents (both U.S. and Canada), the historical sequence/ɒr/ (a shorto sound followed byr and then another vowel, as inorange,forest,moral, andwarrant) is realized as[oɹ~ɔɹ], thus further merging with the already-merged/ɔr/–/oʊr/ (horse–hoarse) set. In the U.S., a small number of words (namely,tomorrow, sorry, sorrow, borrow, andmorrow) usually contain the sound[ɑɹ] instead and thus merge with the/ɑr/ set (thus,sorry andsari become homophones, both rhyming withstarry).^[39]

The term "General American" was first disseminated by American English scholarGeorge Philip Krapp, who in 1925 described it as an American type of speech that was "Western" but "not local in character".^[100] In 1930, American linguistJohn Samuel Kenyon, who largely popularized the term, considered it equivalent to the speech of "the North" or "Northern American",^[100] but, in 1934, "Western and Midwestern".^[101] Now typically regarded as falling under the General American umbrella are the regional accents of theWest,^[102][103]Western New England,^[104] and theNorth Midland (a band spanning central Ohio, central Indiana, central Illinois, northern Missouri, southern Iowa, and southeastern Nebraska),^[105][106] plus the accents of highly educated Americans nationwide.^[4] Arguably, allCanadian English accents west ofQuebec are also General American,^[13] thoughCanadian vowel raising and certain other features may serve to distinguish such accents from U.S. ones.^[107]William Labov et al.'s 2006Atlas of North American English presented ascattergram based on theformants of vowel sounds, finding the Midland U.S., the Western U.S., Western Pennsylvania, and Central and Western Canada to be closest to the center of the scattergram, and concluding that they had fewermarked dialectical features than other regional accents of North American English, such as New York City or the Southern U.S.

Regarded as having General American accents in the earlier twentieth century, but not by the middle of that century, are theMid-Atlantic United States,^[5] theInland Northern United States,^[108] andWestern Pennsylvania.^[5] However, many younger speakers within the Inland North, Mid-Atlantic region, and many other areas appear to be retreating from their regional features towards a more General American accent.^{[109][110][111][112]} Accents that have never been labeled "General American", even since the term's popularization in the 1930s, are the regional accents (especially ther-dropping ones) ofEastern New England,New York City, and theAmerican South.^[113] In 1982, British phoneticianJohn C. Wells wrote that two-thirds of the American population spoke with a General American accent.^[12]

English-language scholar William A. Kretzschmar Jr. explains in a 2004 article that the term "General American" came to refer to "a presumed most common or 'default' form of American English, especially to be distinguished from marked regional speech of New England or the South" and referring especially to speech associated with the vaguely-defined "Midwest", despite any historical or present evidence supporting this notion. Kretzschmar argues that a General American accent is simply the result of American speakers suppressing regional and social features that have become widely noticed and stigmatized.^[114]

Since calling one variety of American speech the "general" variety can implyprivileging and prejudice, Kretzchmar instead promotes the termStandard American English, which he defines as a level of American English pronunciation "employed by educated speakers in formal settings", while still being variable within the U.S. from place to place, and even from speaker to speaker.^[4] However, the term "standard" may also be interpreted as problematically implying a superior or "best" form of speech.^[115] The termsStandard North American English andGeneral North American English, in an effort to incorporate Canadian speakers under the accent continuum, have also been suggested by sociolinguistCharles Boberg.^[116][117] Since the 2000s,Mainstream American English has also been occasionally used, particularly in scholarly articles that contrast it withAfrican-American English.^[118][119]

Modern language scholars discredit the original notion of General American as a single unified accent, or astandardized form of English^[8][11]—except perhaps as used bytelevision networks and othermass media.^[108][120] Today, the term is understood to refer to a continuum of American speech, with some slight internal variation,^[8] but otherwise characterized by the absence of "marked" pronunciation features: those perceived by Americans as strongly indicative of a fellow American speaker's regional origin, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. Despite confusion arising from the evolving definition and vagueness of the term "General American" and its consequent rejection by some linguists,^[121] the term persists mainly as a reference point to compare a baseline "typical" American English accent with otherEnglishes around the world (for instance, seeComparison of General American and Received Pronunciation).^[8]

Though General American accents are not commonly perceived as associated with any region, theirsound system does have traceable regional origins: specifically, the English of the non-coastalNortheastern United States in the very early 20th century, which was relatively stable since that region's original settlement by English speakers in the mid-19th century.^[122] This includes westernNew England and the area to its immediate west, settled by members of the same dialect community:^[123] interiorPennsylvania,Upstate New York, and the adjacent "Midwest" orGreat Lakes region. However, since the early to mid-20th century,^[108][124] deviance away from General American sounds started occurring, and may be ongoing, in the eastern Great Lakes region due to itsNorthern Cities Vowel Shift (NCVS) towards a uniqueInland Northern accent (often now associated with the region's urban centers, like Chicago and Detroit) and in the western Great Lakes region towards a uniqueNorth Central accent (often associated withMinnesota,Wisconsin, andNorth Dakota).

Linguists have proposed multiple factors contributing to the popularity of arhotic "General American" class of accents throughout the United States, largely focused on the first half of the twentieth century. However, a basic General American pronunciation system existed even before the twentieth century, since most American English dialects have diverged very little from each other anyway, when compared to dialects of single languages in other countries where there has been more time forlanguage change (such as theEnglish dialects of England orGerman dialects of Germany).^[125]

One factor fueling General American's popularity was the major demographic change of twentieth-century American society: increasedsuburbanization, leading to less mingling of different social classes and less density and diversity of linguistic interactions. As a result, wealthier and higher-educated Americans' communications became more restricted to their own demographic. This, alongside their new marketplace that transcended regional boundaries (arising from the century's faster transportation methods), reinforced a widespread belief that highly educated Americans should not possess a regional accent.^[126] A General American sound, then, originated from both suburbanization and suppression of regional accent by highly educated Americans in formal settings. A second factor was a rise in immigration to the Great Lakes area (one native region of supposed "General American" speech) following the region's rapid industrialization period after theAmerican Civil War, when this region's speakers went on to form a successful and highly mobile business elite, who traveled around the country in the mid-twentieth century, spreading the high status of their accents.^[127] A third factor is that various sociological (often race- and class-based) forces repelled socially-conscious Americans away from accents negatively associated with certain minority groups, such asAfrican Americans and poor white communities in the South and with Southern and Eastern European immigrant groups (for example, Jewish communities) in the coastal Northeast.^[128] Instead, socially-conscious Americans settled upon accents more prestigiously associated withWhite Anglo-Saxon Protestant communities in the remainder of the country: namely, the West, the Midwest, and the non-coastal Northeast.^[129]

Kenyon, author ofAmerican Pronunciation (1924) and pronunciation editor for the second edition ofWebster's New International Dictionary (1934), was influential in codifying General American pronunciation standards in writing. He used as a basis his native Midwestern (specifically, northern Ohio) pronunciation.^[130] Kenyon's home state ofOhio, however, far from being an area of "non-regional" accents, has emerged now as a crossroads for at least four distinct regional accents, according to late twentieth-century research.^[131] Furthermore, Kenyon himself was vocally opposed to the notion of any superior variety of American speech.^[132]

General American, like the BritishReceived Pronunciation (RP) andprestige accents of many other societies, has never been the accent of the entire nation, and, unlike RP, does not constitute a homogeneous national standard. Starting in the 1930s, nationwide radio networks adopted non-coastalNorthern U.S. rhotic pronunciations for their "General American" standard.^[133] The entertainment industry similarly shifted from anon-rhotic standard to a rhotic one in the late 1940s, after the triumph of theSecond World War, with the patriotic incentive for a more wide-ranging and unpretentious "heartland variety" in television and radio.^[134]

General American is thus sometimes associated with the speech of North American radio and television announcers, promoted as prestigious intheir industry,^[135][136] where it is sometimes called "Broadcast English",^[137] "Network English",^{[108][138][139][140]} or "Network Standard".^{[2][139][141]} Instructional classes in the United States that promise "accent reduction", "accent modification", or "accent neutralization" usually attempt to teach General American patterns.^[142] Television journalistLinda Ellerbee states that "in television you are not supposed to sound like you'refrom anywhere",^[143] and political comedianStephen Colbert says he consciously avoided developing aSouthern American accent in response to media portrayals of Southerners as stupid and uneducated.^[135][136]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toGeneral American English.

• Comparison with other English accents around the world

• American English
• Standard languages
• Standard English

• Pages using the Phonos extension
• Pages with plain IPA
• Webarchive template wayback links
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Wikipedia indefinitely move-protected pages
• Wikipedia pending changes protected pages
• Use mdy dates from December 2023
• Use American English from January 2019
• All Wikipedia articles written in American English
• Articles with hAudio microformats
• Pages including recorded pronunciations
• Listen template using plain parameter
• CS1: long volume value
• Commons category link from Wikidata