The history of linguistics in the United States began to discover a greater understanding of humans and language. By trying to find a greater ‘parent language’ through similarities in different languages, a number of connections were discovered. Many contributors and new ideas helped shape the study of linguistics in the United States into what we know it as today. In the 1920s, linguistics focused on grammatical analysis and grammatical structure, especially of languages indigenous to North America, such as Chippewa, Apache, and more. In addition to scholars who have paved the way for linguistics in the United States, the Linguistic Society of America is a group that has contributed to the research of linguistics in America. The United States has long been known for its diverse collection of linguistic features and dialects that are spread across the country. In recent years, the study of linguistics in the United States has broadened to include nonstandard varieties of English speaking, such as Chicano English and African American English , as well as the question if language perpetuates inequalities.
90-678: Inland Northern ( American ) English , also known in American linguistics as the Inland North or Great Lakes dialect , is an American English dialect spoken primarily by White Americans throughout much of the U.S. Great Lakes region . The most distinctive Inland Northern accents are spoken in Chicago , Milwaukee , Detroit , Cleveland , Buffalo , Rochester , and Syracuse . The dialect can be heard as far east as Upstate New York and as far west as eastern Iowa and even among certain demographics in
180-639: A cot-caught merger ; this is particularly evident in northeastern Pennsylvania. Younger speakers reversing the fronting of /ɑ/ , for example in Lansing, Michigan , also approach a merger. The movement of /æ/ to [ɛə] , in order to avoid overlap with the now-fronted /ɑ/ vowel, presumably initiates the consequent shifting of /ɛ/ (the "short e" in DRESS , [ ɛ ] in General American) away from its original position. Thus, /ɛ/ demonstrates backing, lowering, or
270-597: A local marketing effort to play up the homeport of Oliver Hazard Perry 's flagship Niagara . Manufacturing continues to play a large part in Erie's economy, with rising contributions from insurance, healthcare, higher education, technology, service industries, and tourism. Like the other Great Lakes port cities, Erie is accessible to the oceans via the Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River network in Canada . The local climate
360-399: A ] . Inland Northern TRAP raising was first identified in the 1960s, with that vowel becoming articulated with the tongue raised and then gliding back toward the center of the mouth, thus producing a centering diphthong of the type [ɛə] , [eə] , or at its most extreme [ɪə] ; e.g. naturally [ˈneətʃɹəli] . As for LOT/PALM fronting, it can go beyond [ ä ] to
450-541: A cognitive ""module"" in the human brain. Chomsky outlined key differences between language cognition in humans and in other animals as head author of "The Language Faculty", published in 2002. He also contributed the theory of Universal Grammar . From the 1950s, American linguistic tradition began to diverge from the de Saussurian structuralism taught in European academia, notably with Noam Chomsky 's " nativist " transformational grammar and successor theories, which during
540-505: A combination of both toward [ɐ] , the near-open central vowel , or almost [æ] . The next change is the movement of /ʌ/ (the STRUT vowel) from a central or back position toward a very far back position [ɔ] . People with the shift pronounce bus so that it sounds more like boss to people without the shift. The final change is the backing and lowering of /ɪ/ , the "short i" vowel in KIT , toward
630-464: A fine, natural harbor for Erie and offers 7 miles (11 km) of public beaches, wetlands, and fishing sites. Erie fronts Presque Isle Bay and is laid out in a grid surrounding Perry Square in the downtown area. The downtown area is separated from the waterfront by the Bayfront Parkway. The tallest structure in Erie is St. Peter Cathedral at 265 ft (81 m), and the tallest building
720-431: A full range of weather events, including snow, ice, rain, thunderstorms, and fog. The city's lakeside location helps to temper summer heat, with an average of 4 days with highs at or above 90 °F (32 °C) annually, and the highest temperature ever recorded was 100 °F (38 °C) on June 25, 1988. An average of 3 days have lows of 0 °F (−18 °C) or colder annually, and the lowest temperature ever recorded
810-417: A junior philharmonic division that tours the area. The Lake Erie Ballet is a professional company that performs well-known programs throughout the year. The Erie Civic Music Association attracts, sponsors, and books performances by professional musicians, singers, entertainers, and ensembles from around the world. Downtown Erie's historic and ornate Warner Theatre hosts a range of performances. Renovated in
900-573: A long-term partnership with the Erie Sports Center in February 2023, prompting them to move all operations of Cadets Arts & Entertainment, Inc. to Erie. Erie has been the location for many movies; for example, it is the hometown of the fictional band The Wonders in That Thing You Do! featuring Tom Hanks . Erie is the hometown of Train lead singer Patrick Monahan and of Marc Brown ,
990-456: A major population downturn in the 1970s. With the advent of the automobile age after World War II and government subsidies for highway construction, thousands of residents left Erie for suburbs such as Millcreek Township , which now has 55,000 residents. This caused a decline in downtown retail businesses, some of which followed to the suburbs. Reflecting this perceived decline, Erie is occasionally referred to by residents as "The Mistake on
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#17330558339281080-523: A modern recreation of the 1813 USS Niagara that served as Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry 's relief flagship during the Battle of Lake Erie . Erie is home to several professional and amateur performing arts groups. The most significant is the Erie Philharmonic , in existence since 1913 (except an interregnum during World War II ). This group of professional musicians also has a full chorus and
1170-682: A national standardized gauge was proposed, those jobs, and the importance of the rail hub itself, were put in jeopardy. In an event known as the Erie Gauge War , the citizens of Erie, led by the mayor, set fire to bridges, ripped up tracks, and rioted to try to stop the standardization. On August 3, 1915, the Mill Creek flooded downtown Erie. A culvert, or a tunnel, was blocked by debris and collapsed. A four-block reservoir, caused by torrential downpours, had formed behind it. The resulting deluge destroyed 225 houses and killed 36 people. After
1260-548: A population of 270,876 in 2020. Erie is about 80 miles (130 km) from Buffalo , 90 miles (140 km) from Cleveland , and 120 miles (190 km) from Pittsburgh . The city was named for the Native American Erie people who lived in the area until the mid-17th century. Its nicknames include "Gem City", a reference to its fine natural harbor, the "Gem of the Great Lakes"; and more recently, "Flagship City", from
1350-457: A small number of Chicagoans born between 1890 and 1920 suggests that /ɑ/ fronting occurred first, starting by 1900 at the latest, and was followed by /æ/ raising sometime in the 1920s. During the 1960s, several more vowels followed suit in rapid succession, each filling in the space left by the last, including the lowering of /ɔ/ as in THOUGHT , the backing and lowering of /ɛ/ as in DRESS ,
1440-476: A span from 8,000 BCE to 500 CE. Europeans first arrived as settlers in the region when the French constructed Fort Presque Isle near present-day Erie in 1753, as part of their effort to defend New France against the encroaching British colonists. The name of the fort refers to the peninsula that juts into Lake Erie , now protected as Presque Isle State Park. The French term presque-isle means peninsula. When
1530-602: Is Devonian shale and siltstone , overlain by glacial tills and stratified drift . Stream drainage in the city flows northward into Lake Erie, then through Lake Ontario into the St. Lawrence River , and out to the Atlantic Ocean. South of Erie is a drainage divide, beyond which most of the streams in western Pennsylvania flow south into the Allegheny or Ohio Rivers . Lake Erie is about 571 ft (174 m) above sea level, while
1620-644: Is Renaissance Centre at 198 ft (60 m). Historically, Erie had numerous ethnic neighborhoods, including Little Italy, which is located on Erie's west side, featuring the West 18th Street commercial corridor. South of 38th Street, the grid gives way to curvilinear roads of post-1970 suburban development. Millcreek Township and upper Peach Street in Summit Township include the Erie metropolitan area's newer developments. Post-industrial redevelopment of Erie's waterfront aimed at recreational and tourism uses include
1710-486: Is a fast-growing educator and provider of healthcare in the city. LECOM is located in the city and in adjacent Millcreek Township. The Erie Art Museum is the city's main art gallery , located in the Old Customshouse on State Street. Its collection has an emphasis on folk art and modern art and it hosts a popular blues and jazz concert series. The museum also works on public art projects to revitalize and improve
1800-629: Is affiliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism , and Rabbi Leonard Lifshen has been its spiritual leader since 1989. Erie is home to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Erie , covering 13 counties; at 9,936 sq mi (25,734 km ), it is the largest in the state in area. Its diocesan seat is Saint Peter Cathedral in Erie, which has a 265 ft (81 m) central tower flanked by two 150 ft (46 m) towers. Since October 1, 2012, Lawrence T. Persico has been
1890-744: Is an emerging center for biofuels and environmental research, producing over 45 million US gal (170 million L) of biofuel a year. Tourism plays an increasingly important role in the local economy with over 4 million people visiting Presque Isle State Park and other attractions. Shoppers from Ohio, New York, and the Canadian province of Ontario are drawn to the Millcreek Mall and Peach Street stores and attractions by Pennsylvania's tax exemption on clothing. UPMC Hamot and Saint Vincent Health System are also major employers in Erie. Once stand-alone Erie entities, Hamot merged with
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#17330558339281980-603: Is humid, four-seasonal, and snowy, with warm summers and harsh winters, owing to its southern lakeshore location. Indigenous peoples occupied the shoreline and bluffs in this area for thousands of years, taking advantage of the rich resources. Sommerheim Park Archaeological District in Millcreek Township west of the city, includes artifacts from the Archaic period in the Americas and the early and middle Woodland Period , roughly
2070-460: Is persisting before nasal consonants, as is the General American norm) have now reversed among younger speakers in these areas. Several possible reasons have been proposed for the reversal, including growing stigma connected with the accent and the working-class identity it represents. Not all of these terms, here compared with their counterparts in other regions, are necessarily unique only to
2160-686: Is phonetically near-close central [ ɨ ] ). Before /r/ , only /ɑ/ undergoes the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, so that the vowel in start /stɑrt/ varies much like the one in lot /lɑt/ described above. The remaining /ɔ/ , /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ retain values similar to General American (GA) in this position, so that north /nɔrθ/ , merry /ˈmɛri/ and near /nɪr/ are pronounced [noɹθ, ˈmɛɹi, niɹ] , with unshifted THOUGHT (though somewhat closer than in GA), DRESS and KIT (as close as in GA). Inland Northern American English features
2250-584: Is the dialect spoken in part of America's chief industrial region, an area sometimes known as the Rust Belt . Northern Iowa and southern Minnesota may also variably fall within the Inland North dialect region; in the Twin Cities, educated middle-aged men in particular have been documented as aligning to the accent, though this is not necessarily the case among other demographics of that urban area. Linguists identify
2340-621: The LOT/PALM vowel) of this shift, documented since the 1970s as comprising five distinct stages. However, evidence since the mid-2010s suggests a retreat away from the Northern Cities Shift in many Inland Northern cities and toward a less marked American accent. Various common names for the Inland Northern accent exist, often based on city, for example: Chicago accent , Detroit accent , Milwaukee accent , etc. The dialect region called
2430-478: The 1936 North American heat wave . On average, the warmest low of the year is quite muggy 75 °F (24 °C). On December 24 and 25, 2017, Erie received 53 inches (135 cm) of snowfall, breaking a record for the largest two-day snowfall anywhere in Pennsylvania. By the close of the 2017–2018 snow season, Erie had recorded 198.5 in (5.04 m) of snow, its snowiest season on record, breaking
2520-781: The Bayfront Parkway , Niagara Pier, Perry's Landing Marina, Liberty Park & Amphitheater, Bayfront Convention Center , hotels, and Dobbins Landing , which features the Bicentennial Tower at its northern end. On the east side of the bayfront, the Erie Maritime Museum and the Erie County main library (third-largest in Pennsylvania), host the USS Niagara . Docks and marinas fill the freshwater shoreline in between. Under
2610-659: The Great Lakes , and the Saint Lawrence Seaway . The city emerged as a maritime center after the American Revolution, then as a railroad hub during the great American westward expansion. Erie became an important city for iron and steel manufacturing during the Industrial Revolution and thrived well into the 20th century with firms such as Griswold Manufacturing , once the leader in cast-iron cookware. Since
2700-560: The Köppen climate classification , Erie falls within either a hot-summer humid continental climate ( Dfa ) if the 0 °C (32 °F) isotherm is used or a humid subtropical climate ( Cfa ) if the −3 °C (27 °F) isotherm is used. It is located in the snow belt that stretches from Cleveland to Syracuse and Watertown ; winters are moderately cold, with heavy lake-effect snow , but also with occasional stretches of mild weather that cause accumulated snow to melt. The city experiences
2790-587: The Linguistic Society of America in 1924 as presented in the A History of the American Philological Association . Other linguists active in the first half of the 20th century include Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf . Noam Chomsky is an American linguist who is often described as the "father of modern linguistics". He theorized on language from a biological standpoint, and referred to it as
Inland Northern American English - Misplaced Pages Continue
2880-529: The Ontario Hockey League . Hockey games are played at Erie Insurance Arena , while Minor League Baseball games are held at UPMC Park . Gannon University , Mercyhurst University , Edinboro University , and Penn State Behrend have active NCAA collegiate sports programs. The local high schools compete in PIAA District ;10 sporting events. Additionally, Cathedral Preparatory School hosts
2970-473: The Twin Cities, Minnesota . Some of its features have also infiltrated a geographic corridor from Chicago southwest along historic Route 66 into St. Louis, Missouri ; today, the corridor shows a mixture of both Inland North and Midland American accents . Linguists often characterize the northwestern Great Lakes region's dialect separately as North-Central American English . The early 20th-century accent of
3060-654: The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in 2011 and Saint Vincent affiliated with the Cleveland Clinic in 2012 and merged with Highmark 's Allegheny Health Network the following year. The United States Department of Veterans Affairs operates the Erie Veterans Affairs Medical Center on East 38th Street. The Shriners International has operated Shriners Hospital for Children in Erie since 1927. Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM)
3150-617: The War of 1812 and Battle of Lake Erie . Erie is situated in Northwestern Pennsylvania at 42°6′52″N 80°4′34″W / 42.11444°N 80.07611°W / 42.11444; -80.07611 (42.114507, -80.076213), on the southern shore of Lake Erie across from the Canadian province of Ontario. It is 100 miles (160 km) northeast of Cleveland , Ohio , 90 miles (140 km) southwest of Buffalo, New York , and 128 miles (206 km) north of Pittsburgh . Erie's bedrock
3240-438: The federal government . Seneca Nation separately settled land claims against Pennsylvania in February 1791 for the sum of $ 800. It became a part of Pennsylvania on March 3, 1792, after Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York relinquished their rights to the land and sold the land to Pennsylvania for 75 cents per acre or a total of $ 151,640.25 in continental certificates. The General Assembly of Pennsylvania commissioned
3330-485: The north-force merger , the Mary-marry-merry merger , the mirror–nearer and /ʊr/ – /ur/ mergers , the hurry-furry merger , and the nurse-letter merger, all of which are also typical of GA varieties. William Labov et al.'s Atlas of North American English (2006) presents the first historical understanding of the order in which the Inland North's vowels shifted. Speakers around the Great Lakes began to pronounce
3420-652: The short a sound, /æ/ as in TRAP , as more of a diphthong and with a higher starting point in the mouth, causing the same word to sound more like "tray-ap" or "tray-up"; Labov et al. assume that this began by the middle of the 19th century. After roughly a century following this first vowel change—general /æ/ raising—the region's speakers, around the 1960s, then began to use the newly opened vowel space, previously occupied by /æ/ , for /ɑ/ (as in LOT and PALM ); therefore, words like bot , gosh , or lock came to be pronounced with
3510-446: The " St. Louis Corridor ", extending from Chicago down into St. Louis, as a dialectally remarkable area, because young and old speakers alike have a Midland accent, except for a single middle generation born between the 1920s and 1940s, who have an Inland Northern accent diffused into the area from Chicago. Erie, Pennsylvania , though in the geographic area of the "Inland North" and featuring some speakers of this dialect, never underwent
3600-565: The "Inland North" consists of western and central New York State ( Utica , Ithaca , Syracuse , Rochester , Buffalo , Binghamton , Jamestown , Fredonia , Olean ); northern Ohio ( Akron , Cleveland , Toledo ), Michigan 's Lower Peninsula ( Detroit , Flint , Grand Rapids , Lansing ); northern Indiana ( Gary , South Bend ); northern Illinois ( Chicago , Rockford ); southeastern Wisconsin ( Kenosha , Racine , Milwaukee ); and, largely, northeastern Pennsylvania 's Wyoming Valley / Coal Region ( Scranton and Wilkes-Barre ). This
3690-519: The 1970s " linguistics wars " gave rise to a wide variety of competing grammar frameworks . American linguistics outside the Chomskyan tradition includes functional grammar with proponents including Talmy Givón , and cognitive grammar advocated by Ronald Langacker and others. John McWhorter , who has a background in teaching African-American studies, is another American linguist. Linguistic typology , and controversially mass lexical comparison ,
Inland Northern American English - Misplaced Pages Continue
3780-552: The 1980s and again in 2007, the Warner is the hub of Erie's Civic Center . The downtown area is the home of the Erie Playhouse , one of the leading community theaters in the country, and the third-oldest community theater in the U.S. Erie is also home to several other community theatres, including Dramashop, PACA, and All an Act Theatre. In addition to regular performances, Erie has many festivals including motorcycle rallies. Since 2007,
3870-525: The Edinboro Branch Library, Iroquois Avenue Branch Library, Lincoln Community Center Branch Library, and Millcreek Branch Library. Along West 6th Street is Millionaires Row, a collection of 19th-century Victorian mansions. The John Hill House is one of the notable residences. First Presbyterian Church of the Covenant , a well-known landmark, is also located here. The Watson-Curtze Mansion, one of
3960-537: The Erie Art Museum began a project to create 40 artistic and functional bike racks, designed and created by local artists. The museum intends to add color and interest to downtown Erie and to promote bicycling, encourage healthy lifestyles, and provide environmental awareness. The Erie Maritime Museum commemorates and explains Erie's significance during the War of 1812 ; it is home to the USS Brig Niagara ,
4050-455: The Erie area from Geneva, New York ; they were Yankees from Uxbridge, Massachusetts . They became the first European-American settlers of Erie in present-day Presque Isle. President James Madison began the construction of a naval fleet during the War of 1812 to gain control of the Great Lakes from the British . Daniel Dobbins of Erie and Noah Brown of Boston were notable shipbuilders who led
4140-551: The French abandoned the fort in 1760 during the French and Indian War in the Seven Years' War , it was the last post they held west of Niagara River . The British established a garrison at the fort at Presque Isle that same year, three years before the end of the French and Indian War. Erie is in what was the disputed Erie Triangle , a tract of land comprising 202,187 acres in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania fronting Lake Erie that
4230-519: The Inland North was the basis for the term " General American ", though the regional accent has since altered, due to the Northern Cities Vowel Shift : its now-defining chain shift of vowels that began in the 1930s or possibly earlier. A 1969 study first formally showed lower-middle-class women leading the regional population in the first two stages ( raising of the TRAP vowel and fronting of
4320-551: The Inland North's general /æ/ raising originated from the diverse and incompatible /æ/ raising patterns of these various migrants mixing into a new, simpler pattern. He posits that this hypothetical dialect-mixing event, which initiated the larger Northern Cities Shift (NCS), occurred by about 1860 in upstate New York, and the later stages of the NCS are merely those that logically followed (a " pull chain "). More recent evidence suggests that German-accented English helped to greatly influence
4410-538: The Inland North, though they appear most strongly in this region: Individual cities and sub-regions also have their own terms; for example: American linguistics William Dwight Whitney , the first U.S.-taught academic linguist, founded the American Philological Association in 1869. During Whitney's professional career he served as president of the Convention of American Philologists . He
4500-559: The Lake" or "Dreary Erie". Downtown Erie has undergone a resurgence in the early 2020s with the opening of Flagship City Food Hall and Flagship City Public Market. Erie won the All-America City Award in 1972 and was a finalist in 1961, 1994, 1995, and 2009. In 2012, Erie hosted the Perry 200, a commemoration celebrating 200 years of peace between Britain, America, and Canada following
4590-511: The Midwest has stopped at a general boundary line traveling through central Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois and then western Wisconsin, on the other sides of which speakers have continued to maintain their Midland and North Central accents. Sociolinguist William Labov theorizes that this separation reflects a political divide and a controlled study of his shows that Inland Northern speakers tend to be more associated with liberal politics than those of
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#17330558339284680-510: The Northern Cities Shift and often shares more features with Western Pennsylvania English due to contact with Pittsburghers, particularly with Erie as their choice of city for summer vacations. Many African Americans in Detroit and other Northern cities are multidialectal and also or exclusively use African-American Vernacular English rather than Inland Northern English, but some do use the Inland Northern dialect. The dialect's progression across
4770-474: The Oakland School District implemented Ebonics, also referred to as African American Vernacular English , as the 'primary' language of African American students in 1996. Ebonics is not a language, but a dialect commonly used by black Americans. This implementation of Ebonics as a new language sought to teach students a 'standard' variety of English and showed the outlook of the lesser value assigned to
4860-948: The Shift, because German speakers tend to pronounce the English TRAP vowel as [ɛ] and the LOT/PALM vowel as [ä~a] , both of which resemble NCS vowels, and there were more speakers of German in the Erie Canal region of upstate New York in 1850 than there were of any single variety of English. There is also evidence for an alternative theory, according to which the Great Lakes area—settled primarily by western New Englanders—simply inherited Western New England English and developed that dialect's vowel shifts further. 20th-century Western New England English variably showed NCS-like TRAP and LOT/PALM pronunciations, which may have already existed among 19th-century New England settlers, though this has been contested. Another theory, not mutually exclusive with
4950-521: The United States for the sound quality produced by speakers of this dialect. Many of the characteristics listed here are not necessarily unique to the region and are oftentimes found elsewhere in the Midwest . The Northern Cities Vowel Shift or simply Northern Cities Shift is a chain shift of vowels and the defining accent feature of the Inland North dialect region, though it can also be found, variably, in
5040-638: The annual Roar on the Shore motorcycle rally has taken place in Erie, although in 2019, it moved to the Lake Erie Speedway. Presque Isle Downs & Casino opened on February 28, 2007, and was the fourth slots parlor in the state and the first in Western Pennsylvania. Table games opened at the casino on July 8, 2010. Erie is home to The Cadets Drum and Bugle Corps , ten-time Drum Corps International World Champion as of 2023. The Cadets entered
5130-439: The annual high-school basketball tournament featuring top national teams, called the Burger King Classic since 2010. Scholastic and intramural sports are held at school and park facilities around the city. The Mercyhurst Ice Center , JMC Ice Arena, Erie Sports Park, and Erie Veterans Memorial Stadium are many sports arenas and stadiums available in and around the city. Downtown Erie is surrounded by Presque Isle State Park ,
5220-450: The author and illustrator of Arthur books and TV series. There are five Erie County library system branches in Erie and a bookmobile . The Main Library opened in 1996, and is the third-largest library in Pennsylvania. It is connected to the Erie Maritime Museum , and has waterfront views of the Presque Isle Bay . The Main Library contains an art collection and provides internet access to patrons. The four remaining libraries are
5310-441: The backing of /ʌ/ as in STRUT (first reported in 1986), and the backing and lowering of /ɪ/ as in KIT , often but not always in that exact order. Altogether, this constitutes the Northern Cities Shift, identified by linguists as such in 1972. Migrants from all over the Northeastern U.S. traveled west to the rapidly industrializing Great Lakes area in the decades after the Erie Canal opened in 1825, and Labov suggests that
5400-443: The bishop of Erie; Donald Trautman was the bishop emeritus of the diocese until his death in 2022. According to the Association of Religion Data Archives, Erie County had a total population of 280,843 in 2000, of which 103,333 claimed affiliation with the Catholic Church, 40,301 with mainline Protestant houses of worship, and 12,980 with evangelical Protestant churches. Erie is Pennsylvania's primary access point to Lake Erie ,
5490-495: The canonical Eastern Orthodox Church . Even today, the gold-domed Church of the Nativity, on the bayfront near the former heart of the Russian community, is an Old Ritualist church and home parish to the famed iconographer Fr. Theodore Jurewicz . The Erie Jewish community is more than 150 years old. As of 2021, Temple Anshe Hesed , a member of the Union for Reform Judaism , was served by its spiritual leader, Rabbi Robert Morais. Congregation Brith Sholom (Jewish Center)
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#17330558339285580-468: The city of Erie is about 728 ft (222 m) above sea level. According to the U.S. Census Bureau , the city has a total area of 19.3 square miles (49.9 km ), with 19.1 square miles (49.4 km ) being land and the remaining 0.2 square miles (0.5 km ), or 1.03%, being water. Presque Isle State Park (referred to by locals as "the Peninsula" or simply "the beach"), is a recurving sandspit peninsula that stretches north into Lake Erie, providing
5670-411: The city. In 2000, it created a project entitled GoFish, similar to CowParade ; 95 fiberglass fish were decorated by Erie artists and placed throughout the city. Patrons paid $ 3,000 for a fish and the proceeds went to Gannon University 's scholarship fund and the Erie Public Art endowment fund. The Erie Art Museum created a similar public art project in 2004 that involved frogs rather than fish. In 2012,
5760-470: The construction of four schooner−rigged gunboats and two brigs. Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry arrived from Rhode Island and led the squadron to success in the historic Battle of Lake Erie . Erie was an important shipbuilding, fishing, and railroad hub during the mid-19th century. The city was the site where three sets of track gauges met. While the delays engendered cargo troubles for commerce and travel, they provided much-needed local jobs in Erie. When
5850-408: The decline of large manufacturers in the later 20th century, a more diverse mix of midsized industries has emerged. This broader economic base includes smaller and more agile steel and plastic plants (with about 10% of tooling and molding located in the tri-state area) and vigorous service sectors: health, insurance, and tourism. The ZIP code 16501 covering some of the downtown areas is considered one of
5940-412: The departure of factories and dependent businesses. The city has lost about 40,000 people since the early 1960s, allowing Allentown to claim the position as Pennsylvania's third-largest city behind Philadelphia and Pittsburgh . Erie's population was spread evenly among all age groups, with the median being 34. About 13% of families and 19% of the population were below the poverty line . Most of
6030-422: The early 20th century, Erie had a significant community of Russian immigrants, many of whom worked in shipbuilding along the bayfront. Unusual for a Great Lakes city, a substantial number of these Russian immigrants were priestless ( Bespopovtsy ) Old Believers . In 1983, most of this community united with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia , and Father Pimen Simon became an Old Ritualist priest within
6120-417: The flood, Mayor Miles Brown Kitts had the Mill Creek directed into another, larger culvert, constructed underneath more than 2 miles (3.2 km) of the city, before emptying into Presque Isle Bay on the city's lower east side. Erie continued to grow for the first half of the 20th century, due to its strong manufacturing base. The city attracted numerous waves of European immigrants for industrial jobs. Erie
6210-420: The front [ a ] , and may, for the most advanced speakers, even be close to [ æ ] —so that pot or sod come to be pronounced how a mainstream American speaker would say pat or sad ; e.g. coupon [ˈkʰupan] . The fronting of the LOT/PALM vowel leaves a blank space that is filled by lowering the "aw" vowel in THOUGHT [ ɔ ] , which itself comes to be pronounced with
6300-414: The general public. The Linguistic Society of America also has sister organizations that they work closely with such as the American Dialect Society and the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas . Inequalities in language are due to different languages and dialects being seen as having less value than others, this can also be viewed as Linguistic discrimination . For example,
6390-411: The most notable residences on this street, is also home to the Erie County Historical Society. Permanent and rotating exhibits showcase the life of some of Erie's influential founders and the development of Erie. The Erie Land Light stands at the foot of Lighthouse Street. The lighthouse was built in 1818 and replaced in 1867. The Bicentennial Tower , on Dobbins Landing at the foot of State Street,
6480-528: The neighboring Upper Midwest and Western New England accent regions . The first two sound changes in the shift, with some debate about which one led to the other or came first, are the general raising and lengthening (tensing) of the "short a" (the vowel sound of TRAP , typically rendered /æ/ in American transcriptions), as well as the fronting of the sound of LOT or PALM in this accent (typically transcribed /ɑ/ ) toward [ ä ] or [
6570-816: The origins of the study, there is extensive information on the dialects and structure of indigenous languages. The Linguistic Society of America has over 4000 members across the globe. It is made up of students, teachers, and individuals with a passion for linguistics and its field of study. Most of the Linguistic Society of America's members are either working towards a degree in the field or have already earned one. Members of LSA who have earned their PhD work at colleges or universities where they can improve their research, hold research studies, and teach courses. An increasing number of LSA members are working in government fields and are using their expansive knowledge of linguistics to create products and technologies to be used by
6660-404: The other dialects, especially as Americans continue to self-segregate in residence based on ideological concerns. Former President Barack Obama , for example, has a mild Inland Northern accent despite not living in the dialect region until young adulthood. A Midwestern accent (which may refer to other dialectal accents as well), Chicago accent , or Great Lakes accent are all common names in
6750-506: The others, is that the Great Migration of African Americans intensified White Northerners' participation in the NCS in order to differentiate their accents from Black ones. Recent evidence suggests that the Shift has largely begun to reverse in many cities of the Inland North, such as Lansing , Ogdensburg , Rochester , Syracuse , Detroit, Buffalo, Chicago, and Eau Claire . In particular, /ɑ/ fronting and /æ/ raising (though raising
6840-540: The people who reside in Erie are of European descent. Since the 1980s, the International Institute of Erie (IIE), founded in 1919, has helped with the resettlement of refugees from Bosnia , Eritrea , Ghana , Iraq , Kosovo , Liberia , Nepal , Bhutan , Myanmar , Somalia , Sudan , Romania , Russia, Syria , and Vietnam . The inclusion of refugees in Erie's community augments religious diversity and prompts community events such as cultural festivals. In
6930-655: The poorest neighborhoods in the country. Erie is the corporate headquarters of the Erie Insurance Group and Marquette Savings Bank . Lord Corporation was founded and has major operations in Erie. Along with GE and Erie Insurance, major employers in the county include the county, state , and federal governments, as well as the Erie City School District . Over 10% of the nation's plastics are manufactured or finished in Erie-based plastics plants. Erie
7020-448: The previous record of 149.1 in (3.79 m) inches set in 2000–2001 by a large margin. The hardiness zone is now 7a along the lakeshore and 6b in the remainder of the city. [1] As of the 2010 United States Census , 101,786 people, 40,913 households, and 22,915 families were residing in the city. Its 44,790 housing units averaged a vacancy rate of 8%. Erie has long been declining in population due to
7110-441: The runway at Erie International Airport on February 21, 1986, and caused whiteouts that were responsible for a 50-car pile-up on Interstate 90 on January 25, 2007. The coldest maximum temperature on record was −4 °F (−20 °C) in 1994 and the average coldest maximum between 1991 and 2020 was 13 °F (−11 °C). The warmest overnight low on record was 82 °F (28 °C) once in 1918 and another time during
7200-421: The schwa /ə/ . Alternatively, KIT is lowered to [ e ] , without backing. This results in a considerable phonetic overlap between /ɪ/ and /ə/ , although there is no phonemic KIT–COMMA merger because the weak vowel merger is not complete ("Rosa's" /ˈroʊzəz/ , with a morpheme-final mid schwa [ ə ] is distinct from "roses" /ˈroʊzɪz/ , with an unstressed allophone of KIT that
7290-465: The surveying of land near Presque Isle through an act passed on April 18, 1795. Andrew Ellicott , who completed Pierre Charles L'Enfant 's survey of Washington, D.C. , and helped resolve the boundary between Pennsylvania and New York, arrived to begin the survey and lay out the plan for the city in June 1795. The initial settlement of the area began that year. Lt. Colonel Seth Reed and his family moved to
7380-439: The tongue extended farther forward, thus making these words sound more like how bat , gash , and lack sound in dialects without the shift. These two vowel changes were first recognized and reported in 1967. While these were certainly the first two vowel shifts of this accent, and Labov et al. assume that /æ/ raising occurred first, they also admit that the specifics of time and place are unclear. In fact, real-time evidence of
7470-407: The tongue in a lower position, closer to [ɑ] or [ɒ] . As a result, for example, people with the shift pronounce caught the way speakers without the shift say cot ; thus, shifted speakers pronounce caught as [kʰɑt] (and cot as [kʰat] , as explained above). In defiance of the shift, however, there is a well-documented scattering of Inland North speakers who are in a state of transition toward
7560-484: The variation in language. Erie, Pennsylvania Erie ( / ˈ ɪər i / ; EER -ee ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania , United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in Pennsylvania and the most populous in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 at the 2020 census . The two-county Erie metropolitan area had
7650-480: Was also the first editor-in-chief of The Century Dictionary, 1889–1891. He has also written many books including 'A Sanskrit Grammar' (1879), 'A Compendious German Grammar' (1869), 'A German Reader' (1869), 'The Life and Growth of Language' (1875), and more can be found listed in The Encyclopedia Americana. Leonard Bloomfield (1878–1949), professor at the University of Chicago from 1927-1940, founded
7740-548: Was built in 1995−96 to celebrate the city's bicentennial. It is 187 ft (57 m) tall and gives a panoramic view of Lake Erie and downtown. The Blasco Library and Erie Maritime Museum are its neighbors to the east. Erie plays host to several semi-professional and professional sports teams. The Erie SeaWolves play AA baseball in the Eastern League as an affiliate of the Detroit Tigers . The Erie Otters play hockey in
7830-560: Was claimed after the American Revolutionary War by the newly formed states of New York , Pennsylvania , Connecticut , as part of its Western Reserve , and Massachusetts . The Iroquois claimed ownership of present-day Erie. On January 9, 1789, a conference was arranged during which representatives from the Iroquois signed a deed relinquishing their ownership of the land in exchange for $ 2,000 from Pennsylvania and $ 1,200 from
7920-477: Was considered a wet city during the Prohibition Era in the United States . The city's economy began to suffer in the latter part of the 20th century as industrial restructuring took place and jobs moved out of the area. The Erie region is considered to be part of the Rust Belt . The importance of American manufacturing, US steel and coal production, and commercial fishing began to gradually decline, resulting in
8010-410: Was considered by Joseph Greenberg . Winfred P. Lehmann introduced Greenbergian typological theory to Indo-European studies in the 1970s. In early studies of linguistics in the 1920s, it was incredibly common for an American linguist to focus on grammar and structure of languages native to North America, such as Chippewa , Ojibwa , Apache , Mohawk , and many other indigenous languages . Due to
8100-430: Was −18 °F (−28 °C) on January 19, 1994, and February 16, 2015. Erie is third on The Daily Beast ' s list of snowiest places in the United States, averaging 78.7 inches (200 cm); however, the 1981–2010 normal seasonal snowfall is 100.8 inches (256 cm). Average annual snowfall in the decade 2010-2019 was 100.7 inches (256 cm). The adverse winter conditions caused USAir Flight 499 to overrun
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