The Briefing Room
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: jmyrlefuller on February 06, 2015, 12:11:18 am
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by John Brodigan • February 5, 2015
New York (often pronounced nu-YAWK) and New Yorkers are known for their very distinctive accent.
It’s an accent, though, that many linguists say is becoming extinct, an argument that filmmaker Heather Quinlan explores in her latest project, If These Knishes Could Talk.
“Knishes” offers a broader obituary: the New York accent is being displaced, a casualty of internal migration and television, where actors work hard to sound like they’re from Des Moines or Topeka. Quinlan had gone looking for bastions of survival.
Another reason why linguists believe the accent is fading away? A rapid influx of wealthier outsiders into Manhattan, which has flattened out the accents that once defined New York City.
Excerpted from The Independent Journal Review.
http://www.ijreview.com/2015/02/245913-new-york-accent-become-extinct-linguists-think-know/
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During my Army service, there was a fellow in my office that was from some borough of NYC.
He had such a strong accent, that when he spoke fast from across the room, none of the rest of us could understand him.
And that really pissed him off. He sounded like he was trying to talk, with mashed potatoes in his mouth.
I have a brother-in-law that hails from a New Jersey suburb of NYC, and he has a predictable strong accent, but we can understand him.
Out here in the "no accent" west, I can discern a few regional quirks. For instance I can sometimes detect a Utah accent, partly because I have had relatives from there. Same for Wyoming.
But like the article suggests, those would be natives. Inbound transfers could be from, anywhere.
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I hate to see dialects go away - how long did it take to cultivate it? I know how to talk without my heavy Eastern Kentucky twang (we were always taught to "lose" the accent on a job interview) - but I continue to proudly speak my native tongue - in remembrance of my forefathers - how long did it take to cultivate that?
New Yorkers - you gotta keep it alive!
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'New York accent about to become extinct'? B*llsh*t! 'Linguists think they know why'? F*ck 'em!. New York enough for ya? And as long as that lovely word indicating an Oedipal relationship exists [our greatest contribution to American], the New York accent will never die.
A New Yorker
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It will be whacked by a Jersey accent hitslang.
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'New York accent about to become extinct'? B*llsh*t! 'Linguists think they know why'? F*ck 'em!. New York enough for ya? And as long as that lovely word indicating an Oedipal relationship exists [our greatest contribution to American], the New York accent will never die.
A New Yorker
I like it!
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Alice, my late father was from a little town near Charleston, WV, but when he decided to go into broadcasting, he really had to work hard to lose the accent. I don't know what he sounded like before he trained himself to speak neutrally, but I know what a twang his older sister - my aunt - had!
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Alice, my late father was from a little town near Charleston, WV, but when he decided to go into broadcasting, he really had to work hard to lose the accent. I don't know what he sounded like before he trained himself to speak neutrally, but I know what a twang his older sister - my aunt - had!
That's funny! I wish I had recorded my Pappaw's voice! We had trouble understanding it sometimes. He loved to tell stories too.
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I like it!
Try this one: Face Linguist. With one hand [usually the left one] grab the front of your pants you know where. State loudly and clearly, " I got your accent extinction right here!"
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Would that be pronounced "I gotch yer accennnt extinctshun rat heah?"
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Here is an accent story unrelated to New York so I'll apologize in advance.
I was on a business trip to Louisville, Kentucky and waiting in the quiet hotel bar for an associate. There was a late-50ish couple and their adult daughter laughing it up with the bartender over his accent. It was obvious to me that the topic was becoming tedious with the bartender. Anyway, I finally chimed in and said to the threesome, "you're from Wisconsin, aren't you?" They seemed startled and said yes and asked how I knew. I replied, "your accent". They were dumbstruck. The bartender was pleased.
(They were from Sheboygan, Wisconsin.)
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Would that be pronounced "I gotch yer accennnt extinctshun rat heah?"
Except for the "rat heah". That's southern. And the "Gotch yer" is one word.
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My wife is from Texas. After we moved to Pennsylvania her Texas twang gradually faded. But every time she meets a fellow Texan, it comes right back.
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I once was required to visit the building at 1185 Ave. of the Americas with some regularity and was always greeted with "Hey Tex! whear'd ya pock ya hoose this time!" when I walked into the office.
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Funny stories. I have found when I travel that my accent can become the topic of a conversation. I remember we stayed at a quaint whaling captain's mansion in Bar Harbor, Maine. There was a nice bar, and there we found ourselves conversing with several people from Maine and Massachusetts. You can imagine what a room full of accents that was! LOL!
But, whose "accent" do they focus on? Mine! They were fascinated, and kept asking me to "say that again". Of course, you have to lay it on pretty thick when you are being examined like that! I kept thinking, they are calling this place, "Bah Hahbah" - and I"M the one with the accent?
:nometalk:
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Funny stories. I have found when I travel that my accent can become the topic of a conversation. I remember we stayed at a quaint whaling captain's mansion in Bar Harbor, Maine. There was a nice bar, and there we found ourselves conversing with several people from Maine and Massachusetts. You can imagine what a room full of accents that was! LOL!
But, whose "accent" do they focus on? Mine! They were fascinated, and kept asking me to "say that again". Of course, you have to lay it on pretty thick when you are being examined like that! I kept thinking, they are calling this place, "Bah Hahbah" - and I"M the one with the accent?
:nometalk:
They usually tune in on "How Ya Doin?" with me.
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"They usually tune in on "How Ya Doin?" with me."
Do you get asked to say the word "coffee"?
I do love dialects - it helps us to stand apart. :beer:
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Given time you all will speak normal, just like us on the West Coast.
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Yinz needta learn hah to speak like a Picksburgher, 'nat.
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Do you get asked to say the word "coffee"?
I do love dialects - it helps us to stand apart. :beer:
You mean "Cawfee"?
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You mean "Cawfee"?
That's exactly what I meant! :tongue2:
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Except for the "rat heah". That's southern. And the "Gotch yer" is one word.
And people are always 'fixin to' do something.
We had some people from New Jersey move to town and we could hardly understand them...
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Growing up in Western New York I became intimately familiar with the Polish American Buffalo Accent. It actually shows up in my usual speaking voice.
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And then the are the "deze, dats, dems and doze" of Chicago.
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Given time you all will speak normal, just like us on the West Coast.
Fur Shur, ya'll
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And people are always 'fixin to' do something.
That 'fixin' thing has always interested me. I have tried to say it for fun, but I can't get away with it because I don't believe it. So it comes across as fake and stupid.
You have the basic fixin', which means preparing or getting ready to do a thing. I'm fixin to put up a shed.
Then there is 'fixinaa' for 'fixintaa', as in we's fixintaa go eat. Now in this case you could use the a'fixin because it does not mean preparing but rather indicates that an action is imminent. As in, we's a'fixintaa go eat, or he's a'fixinaa' go, meaning the person is about to leave.
Now in some dialects, mostly Black but Whites as well, they will say fissin' instead of fixing or fixin'. As in I'm a'fissintaa go. At least fixing or fixin' is based on a real actual word. When you get to fissintaa', you are on your own at that point. That is a completely new made up word, that everyone in the South would understand without a blink.
But I have to agree with the poster who said that eventually everyone will speak exactly like me. That is to say, they will all finally speak normally.
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And then the are the "deze, dats, dems and doze" of Chicago.
I knew a guy from the city who would say, "toity tird and tird". Guys from Brooklyn called "oil" "earl". And the only southern inflection we used was pronouncing "rat bastard" as 'rat bastahd".
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Funny stories. I have found when I travel that my accent can become the topic of a conversation. I remember we stayed at a quaint whaling captain's mansion in Bar Harbor, Maine. There was a nice bar, and there we found ourselves conversing with several people from Maine and Massachusetts. You can imagine what a room full of accents that was! LOL!
But, whose "accent" do they focus on? Mine! They were fascinated, and kept asking me to "say that again". Of course, you have to lay it on pretty thick when you are being examined like that! I kept thinking, they are calling this place, "Bah Hahbah" - and I"M the one with the accent?
:nometalk:
Four Marine recruits sitting eating chow. One from northern Florida, one from Ohio, one from New Jersey and one from Massachusetts. Three of them had no accent. One did.