With our free press under threat and federal funding for public media gone, your support matters more than ever. Help keep the LAist newsroom strong, become a monthly member or increase your support today.
A Southern California Accent? As If!

What does a Californian sound like?
We all know the cliche -- a mix of surfer dude, Valley girl and carefree spirit -- encapsulated to perfection by Saturday Night Live.
Professor Penelope Eckert, a professor of linguistics at Stanford University (from our newsroom we'd take the 110 to the 5 to the 152 to the 101 to get there), is the hands-down expert on the Golden State accent. Yes, there's an expert for this.
"I don't know if there's such a thing as a Southern California accent," Eckert said. "I actually doubt it. I think that it's possible that what we think of as a California accent may be actually stronger in the south."
By south, she means SoCal. By SoCal she means mainly Los Angeles. And if L.A. is known for one particular dialect, it's Valley girl-speak.
"What seems to have triggered a lot of the changes in California and throughout the west is a merger between the vowels cot (c-o-t) and caught (c-a-u-g-h-t)," she explained.
Basically, she said that in different parts of the country "cot" and "caught" are pronounced in such a way that you can actually distinguish them.
Not so in California, which is part of what Eckert calls the "The California Shift," which has to do with how we rotate our vowels.
With this rotation, "bit" sounds more like "bet;" "bet" sounds a little more like "bat;" and "bat" rolls toward "bought."
So you take that, then add in the elongating or breaking up of vowel sounds, also known as diphthongizing, which goes a little something like this:
Moovies, so the vowel "oo" becoming "ew". And then we have the vowel in boat going to things like 'bowt' so people say things like "she gows" rather than, "she goes."
There's the recipe for a stereotypical California accent, but Eckert said it brings to mind a very specific type of resident: white people.
"The shift that I describe, this sort of California vowel shift, is really associated with Anglo speech," she said.
But Southern California is made up of so many different ethnicities and cultures, which is bound to influence our accent.
That's what Norma Mendoza-Denton is working on. She's a professor of anthropology at UCLA and associate dean of the graduate division looking to prove a unique Southern California accent actually exists.
"Most researchers would agree that up until now, the public research shows that there's a sort of overarching California dialect and that possibly Southern California is just a part of that," Mendoza-Denton said. "But I think that, increasingly our pilot data suggests that we may be looking at a different accent, but that's still to be determined. We're very excited about finding it."
To home in on the SoCal accent, Norma dispatched 300 graduate students around L.A. and equipped them with a map.
"Los Angeles English" may be determined by things like a neighborhood's ethnic composition and many other social factors, she explained.
So for now, what makes the Southern California accent unique is not totally clear -- yet.
Editor's note: A version of this story was also on the radio. Listen to it here on KPCC's Take Two.
At LAist, we believe in journalism without censorship and the right of a free press to speak truth to those in power. Our hard-hitting watchdog reporting on local government, climate, and the ongoing housing and homelessness crisis is trustworthy, independent and freely accessible to everyone thanks to the support of readers like you.
But the game has changed: Congress voted to eliminate funding for public media across the country. Here at LAist that means a loss of $1.7 million in our budget every year. We want to assure you that despite growing threats to free press and free speech, LAist will remain a voice you know and trust. Speaking frankly, the amount of reader support we receive will help determine how strong of a newsroom we are going forward to cover the important news in our community.
We’re asking you to stand up for independent reporting that will not be silenced. With more individuals like you supporting this public service, we can continue to provide essential coverage for Southern Californians that you can’t find anywhere else. Become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission.
Thank you for your generous support and belief in the value of independent news.

-
What do stairs have to do with California’s housing crisis? More than you might think, says this Culver City councilmember.
-
Yes, it's controversial, but let me explain.
-
Doctors say administrator directives allow immigration agents to interfere in medical decisions and compromise medical care.
-
The Palisades Fire erupted on Jan. 7 and went on to kill 12 people and destroy more than 6,800 homes and buildings.
-
People moving to Los Angeles are regularly baffled by the region’s refrigerator-less apartments. They’ll soon be a thing of the past.
-
Experts say students shouldn't readily forgo federal aid. But a California-only program may be a good alternative in some cases.