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Los Angeles Times
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
What is the California accent? It's hella complex
Good morning. Here's what you need to know to start your day. What does a Californian sound like? Can you tell if someone was raised in the Golden State or moved here later in life? Those who only know our dialect from our many pop culture exports may hear us in their heads as some mix of Valley girl, surfer dude and Saturday Night Live's classic sketches, 'The Californians' — plus plenty of like's thrown in. But in reality, our supposed accent is largely 'a figment of our collective imagination,' Norma Mendoza-Denton, a professor of anthropology at UCLA, told me this week. Her research focuses on understanding different cultures through the evolution of their languages, centering on California. 'The way that you speak is a sort of constellation of all of the different features that are arranged just so to reflect your social history and the way you grew up … your gender, your class, your ethnic identity — all kinds of things about you,' she said. Californians' accents are complex and understudied The stereotypical sounding Californian is widely known, but actual research into our state's accents is relatively new, Mendoza-Denton said. For one thing, our big state became the populous place it is today through many generations of migration — from Native Americans to Spanish colonizers to the Gold Rush to the Second Great Migration to the Dust Bowl era to waves of Asian immigrants. An SNL sketch could never reflect that rich linguistic mix. 'That's one of the reasons why California itself is distinctive, but there is no one California accent, even though we are stereotyped as being full of Valley girls and Kardashians,' she said. To better understand it requires granular, community-level research, which is what Mendoza-Denton is working on in her ongoing project Los Angeles Speaks. Her students study speech patterns in L.A. neighborhoods, working in collaboration with communities to understand how their language has evolved over time. Mendoza-Denton shared how her students embedded in Pacific Palisades — before the devastating fire — and learned that longtime residents could tell who was from the neighborhood or not based on how they pronounced certain street names. What do we know about Californians' distinctive speech patterns? As we spoke, I wondered if I was unknowingly taking part in the linguist's version of the Voight-Kampff test from 'Blade Runner.' Could Mendoza-Denton tell that I was a real Californian and not some out-of-state synthetic? It was quickly obvious to her I was a lifelong Californian, she said, though she humored me with a couple of questions (quiz yourselves at home!). How do you say 'cot?' What about 'caught?' If those are indistinguishable, there's a good chance you've lived in California awhile. How do you say 'pony?' Apparently younger Californians tend to say that last word differently than me, a rapidly aging millennial. Many Californians employ tell-tale 'discourse markers,' Mendoza-Denton noted, such as 'like' and 'I was all.' And of course there's 'hella' — typically a dead giveaway that you're talking to someone from Northern California. But our accents and markers can shift over time, she said, depending on our family, friends, work and other social systems. I also asked how physicality affects the way we speak. One common feature is a lower jaw setting, which some parodic California accents take to the extreme. We've also perfected what's known as 'creaky voice,' a low, scratchy register often associated with younger women, Mendoza-Denton said. That California brand of talking has become a sort of phonetic fashion statement, she explained. 'California is turning into a prestige center of speech,' she said. 'We've configured it and packaged it, and of course … the L.A. area is one of the hubs of communication for the whole country.' Want to help chart Los Angeles' accents? Mendoza-Denton is recruiting longtime Angelenos to help UCLA 'document language, life, and experience in the greater region of Los Angeles.' There are some eligibility requirements, including using English as a primary language and being a longtime resident in one L.A. neighborhood. Anyone who has questions or wants to volunteer can call (805) 826-3568. We'll, like, totally check back with her to see how the project is going. Sounds hella cool. Trump's Department of Energy targets California and other blue states for budget cuts Newsom says sharing his beliefs on trans athletes wasn't 'some grand design' Santa Monica offices get unexpected tenants: Children from five fire-ravaged schools What else is going on Get unlimited access to the Los Angeles Times. Subscribe here. How the Mexican Mafia's 'Pomona Mike' made L.A.'s federal jail his fiefdom. Michael Lerma, 68, hasn't walked the streets of his hometown on the eastern edge of Los Angeles County since the 1980s, when he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. But according to federal prosecutors, he controls an 'empire' of gang members and drug dealers who pay him a cut of their illicit profits. Other must reads How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@ Going out Staying in Show us your favorite place in California! Send us photos you have taken of spots in California that are special — natural or human-made — and tell us why they're important to you. Today's great photo is from Times photographer Genaro Molina at the quirky, fun apartment of a Long Beach couple. Have a great day, from the Essential California team Ryan Fonseca, reporterDefne Karabatur, fellowAndrew Campa, Sunday reporterKevinisha Walker, multiplatform editorHunter Clauss, multiplatform editorChristian Orozco, assistant editorStephanie Chavez, deputy metro editorKarim Doumar, head of newsletters Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on
Associated Press
11-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Book Review: Brian Castleberry aims for a Jonathan Franzen-style saga with ‘The Californians'
Like its characters, Brian Castleberry's second novel, 'The Californians,' is full of ambition. It spans eras of American history, diving into everything from the heyday of silent cinema to the Reagan administration to the rise of cryptocurrency. Threading through it all are the intersected stories of two families, the Stiegls and the Harlans. There's a helpful family tree in the preface that readers will find themselves referring to multiple times until they understand who is related to whom and how. The plot starts in the current day, with the ripped-from-the-headlines destruction of Tinsley, California, by a wildfire. The novel's opening sentence foreshadows what's to come as a young man flees the devastation: 'In a couple of days, Tobey Harlan will steal from the walls of his father's home three large paintings by Di Stiegl… valued in the tens of millions.' It's a strong start, but the novel's structure makes it hard to deliver on that promise. After Tobey makes it safely to a neighbor's daughter's house in Stockton, we're treated to a Variety article from 1928 about the end of silent cinema, and then we zoom back in time to 1925 and meet Klaus von Stiegl, nee Klaus Aaronsohn, a German who loves movies and basically invents himself as a film director and makes his way from Queens to Hollywood. Then it's on to 1979, when Klaus' granddaughter Diane ('Di' for short) drops out of NYU and starts a career as an avant-garde artist, employing a photo-realist style to capture the gritty city. Between chapters there are also snippets from letters, text messages, and more news stories and reviews, all designed to establish the time period and fill in plot details before we return to the story's characters. It can be overwhelming at times. The connecting tissue between Klaus and Di — art — is the most resonant theme of the novel. Those two main characters, often in crisis, are always creating, leaving something behind to be appreciated or ignored. There's a great scene toward the end of the book featuring Klaus and Di, in 1971, when he tells her: 'In America, art is always paid for by somebody and griped about by somebody else. … Occasionally something breaks through, people see it, people like it, their lives are changed by an infinitesimal degree.' That's as good a summary of 'The Californians' as any, and readers will have to decide if the novel does indeed break through for them. For this reader, it did not, but Klaus has some words of wisdom for critics like me: 'If you make things for a living, total strangers will show up in your life to tell you how you did it wrong.'
