My specific vowels & Dialect

Here is where I'm going to informally document my ways of speaking, internet and irl. I'd like to start out with my irl way of speaking since I've recently been really into looking into all my phonology and phonetics and Praat and allat. It's really interesting! I'm normally more into cross-linguistic things and looking into other languages but i've recently gotten more into my own and the other people around me's phonetics.

My Vowels

Here is a synopsis of my life strained to only the parts that could've influenced how I speak

1. Who I'm
   • I am autistic

   While I don't think I have the typical autistic cadence/way-of-speaking that's often heard from some autistics, I did go to speech therapy for a long while trying to get better at talking to other people, and I used to be really quiet.

2. Where I'm
   • Born in Southern Appalachia, lived there til 3rd grade

   I lived in Asheville, North Carolina: The wokest city in Appalachia. I only ever interacted with people in downtown/west Asheville, so nobody I knew had a strong/rural southern accent (apart from my sister, she is very southern). There was still a general Southern Accent though.

   • Lived in Delco (Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood) for 5 years

   People there sounded very Philadelphian and black (aave). I wasn't exactly the most social around this time and most of the kids i talked to there were white sooooooo.... I figure i should still add it since I did live there for quite a while and at least heard other black people talk.

   • Now live in an Allentown-esque neighborhood outside of Philadelphia.

   Most people have a broad north-eastern accent, some scattered people have a more recognizable philly accent and say jawn.

3. When I'm
   • I'm 17 and go to school with other 17 year olds (crazy)
4. Other
   • I do theatre and choir

   Although doing them dont accent my accent perse, they have definately affectedmy diction and how I pronounce words (Lowkey also me being into linguistics and meta analysing my own speech patterns (as i am rn))

To my own ears, I have a pretty General American-esque dialect (I think Philadelphian english is kinda a middle ground between Northeastern and Southern Dialects in itself), and I have all the attributes typical to the majority of Americans (Cot-Caught Merger, Merry-Mary-Marry Merger, Rhotic, at least some æ-raising, etc). I don't really use very Philly-specific slang like "jawn" or "youse", which I think is pretty given since I haven't really lived in Philadelphia (mostly outskirts (Delco is considered it's own thing))