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 and the fronting of but not . Like most Canadian dialects and younger General American, allophones remain back and may be either rounded or unrounded due to a merger between and . Unlike in Canada, however, the occurrence of Canadian raising of the and 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, 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. T-glottalization is more common in Western dialects than other varieties of American English, particularly among younger speakers.
Vocabulary
baby buggy as opposed to baby carriage
bear claw: a large stuffy pastry
buckaroo: cowboy
*Originating in California, buckaroo is an Anglicization of the Mexican Spanish translation of cowboy vaquero; the corresponding term which originated in Texas is "wrangler" or "horse wrangler", itself an Anglicization of the Mexican caballerango.
firefly: preferred term for any insect of the Lampyridae family
*Shivaree is the more common usage east of the Mississippi and in Kentucky and Tennessee; "belling" is the more common usage in Ohio, while "serenade" is the more common usage in Atlantic states—except New York and Connecticut—and the Appalachians)
tennis shoes: preferred term for general athletic shoes, with sneakers being the second-most common term
A noticeable California Vowel Shift has been observed in the English of some California speakers scattered throughout the state, though especially younger and coastal speakers. This shift involves two elements, including that the vowel in words like toe, rose, and go, and the vowel in words like spoon, move, and rude are both pronounced farther forward in the mouth than most other English dialects; at the same time, a lowering chain movement of the front vowels is occurring, so that, to listeners of other English dialects, sit may approach the sound of set, set may approach sat, and sat may approach sot. This front-vowel lowering is also reported around Portland, Oregon, the hub of a unique Northwestern variety of American English that demonstrates other similarities with Canadian English. Some older, Irish-American residents spoke what was called the Mission brogue, a dialect of English far more similar to New York English.
Utah
Utah is the only U.S. state with a majority population belonging to a single religious denomination, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the cause of certain cultural influences on the state, including some dialect distinctions; however, even these characteristics exist only among a minority of Utahns. Members of the LDS Church may use the propredicate "do" or "done", as in the sentence "I would have done", unlike other Americans. Some Utahns tense front vowels before /l/, which results in pronouncing "milk" as. One prominent older, declining feature of Utah English is the cord-card merger without a horse-hoarse merger, particularly along the Wasatch Front, which merges /ɑɹ/ and /ɔɹ/, while keeping /oʊɹ/ distinct.
Hawaiʻi
Studies demonstrate that gender, age, and ability to speak Hawaiian Creole correlate with the recent emergence of different Hawaiian English accents. In a 2013 study of twenty Oʻahu-raised native English speakers, those who do not speak Pidgin or are male were shown to lower and ; younger speakers of the first group also lowered, and younger participants in general backed. Though this movement of these vowels is superficially similar to the California Vowel Shift, it is not believed to be due to a chain shift, though Hawaii residents do have a cot–caught merger, at least among younger speakers. Unlike most Americans, Hawaii residents may not demonstrate any form of /æ/ tensing.
Alaska
Currently, there is not enough data on the English of Alaska to either include it within Western American English or assign it its own "separate status". Of two documented speakers in Anchorage, their cot-caught merger is completed or transitional, is not fronted, is centralized, the placement of is inconsistent, and ag approaches the sound of egg. Not far from Anchorage, in Alaska's Matanuska-Susitna Valley, is an entirely separate accent: a Minnesota-like one in a dialect enclave of North-Central American English, due to immigration of Minnesotans to the valley in the 1930s.
