California English - History

History

English was first spoken on a wide scale in the area now known as California following the influx of English-speaking Whites from the United States and Canada during the California Gold Rush. The English-speaking population grew rapidly with subsequent migrations, which included large populations from the Northeast and the Midwest. The dialects imported by these early migrants were the basis for the development of the modern language.

Before World War I, the variety of speech types reflected the differing origins of these early inhabitants. At the time a distinctly southwestern drawl could be heard in Southern California, although the San Francisco area sounded more Midwestern. When a collapse in commodity prices followed World War I, many bankrupted Midwestern farmers migrated to California, bringing speech characteristic of Nebraska, Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, and Iowa; and this speech type has dominated to this day. Subsequently, incoming groups with differing speech, such as the speakers of Highland Southern during the 1930s, have been absorbed within a generation. The Dust bowl migration of the so-called Okies introduced the Southern accent to the west coast in the 1920s and 30s before the migration ended in World War II.

California's status as a relatively young state is significant in that it has not had centuries for regional patterns to emerge and grow (compared to, say, some East Coast or Southern dialects). Linguists who studied English as spoken in California before and in the period immediately after World War II tended to find few if any distinct patterns unique to the region. However, several decades later, with a more settled population and continued immigration from all over the globe, a noteworthy set of emerging characteristics of California English had begun to attract notice by linguists of the late 20th century and on.