California English (or Californian English) is a variety of Western American English, mostly documented in Southern California and the San Francisco Bay area of Northern California. California is home to a highly diverse population, which is reflected in the historical and continuing formation of California English, whose uniquely developing features were only first noted by linguists in the 1980s. Since that time, unique California speech has been mostly associated in U.S. popular culture with adolescent and young-adult speakers of coastal California; the possibility that it is, in fact, an age-specific variety of English has been proposed, though not yet confirmed.