Pacific Northwest English (also known, in American linguistics, as Northwest English) is a variety of North American English spoken in the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon, sometimes also including Idaho. Due to the internal diversity within Pacific Northwest English, current studies remain inconclusive about whether it is best regarded as a dialect of its own, separate from Western American English or even California English and/or influenced by Canadian English with which it shares its major phonological features. The dialect region contains a highly diverse and mobile population, which is reflected in the historical and continuing development of the variety.

History

The linguistic traits that flourish throughout the Pacific Northwest attest to a culture that transcends boundaries. Historically, this hearkens back to the early years of colonial expansion by the British and Americans, when the entire region was considered a single area and people of all different mother tongues and nationalities used Chinook Jargon (along with English and French) to communicate with each other. Until the Oregon Treaty of 1846, it was identified as being either Oregon Country (by the Americans) or Columbia (by the British). Linguists immediately after World WarII tended to find few patterns unique to the Western region, as among other things, Chinook Jargon and other "slang words" (despite Chinook Jargon being an actual separate language in and of itself, individual words from it like "salt chuck", "muckamuck", "siwash" and "tyee" were and still are used in Pacific Northwest English) were pushed away in favor of having a "proper, clean" dialect. Several decades later, linguists began noticing emerging characteristics of Pacific Northwest English, although it remains close to the standard American accent. Note that "Pacific Northwest" is a US notion, cutting off at the Canada-US border. In Canada the region north of the Canada-US border is generally called "West Coast".

Phonology

Commonalities with both Canada and California

Commonalities with Canada

These commonalities are shared with Canada and the North Central United States which includes the Minnesota accent.

Commonalities with California

Miscellaneous characteristics

Lexicon

Several English terms originated in or are largely unique to the region:

Variation among Mormons

In Cowlitz County, Washington, outside the Mormon culture region, there are very few phonological differences between the speech of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) and non-Mormons. The only statistically significant difference found was that Mormons had a higher F2 formant in following, and. This is in contrast to other studies finding some differences between Mormon and non-Mormon speech within the Mormon culture region.