Why the classic Noo Yawk accent is fading away

NY Post ^ | February 6, 2010 | SHEILA McCLEAR

[Scanian]

The first thing theatergoers will notice about the revival of "A View of the Bridge," Arthur Miller's 1950s drama about a working-class Italian-American family in Red Hook, is that the characters are speaking a different language: Brooklynese. You got a problem with that!?

You can hear the mellifluous — some might say grating — dialect being celebrated on Broadway by Scarlett Johansson and Liev Schreiber. But that may be the only place. Linguists say features of the classic accent are heard less and less in the city itself, especially among the younger generation. Mocked and stereotyped, the long o's and w's have fallen out of favor, unless you're auditioning for a mob film.

Will old Noo Yawk become a museum piece, the subway token of language?

[xsmommy]

I have to be careful kidding around with turlit and earl for the car....at least outside the house....so as not to sound like a total guido

that made me laugh out loud!!

[csvset]

Ducks 'quack in regional accents'

[xsmommy]

i love accents! i have a very good friend from Boston, and her accent is extremely thick. i live in NorthernVa now but am from Pittsburgh originally and i do quite well at identifying a pittsburgher by accent. once in a great while i get thrown by a Baltimore accent. my kids roll their eyes at me, because if i hear what i think is a Pittsburgh accent i ALWAYS ask [as if i keep my own stats, LOL!]

[Hardastarboard]

I grew up in the South and moved North. I now sound like I’m from the North, and pretty much only I can hear the occasional Southern accent and idiom in my speech. When I go back down south, there’s a definite regional accent, cadence, flow and idiom that I re-adopt almost immediately, especially with those who don’t know me well, so that I’m not so obviously an outsider. Even at that, my casual clothing, while almost declasse’ in the North, is considered “dressed up” city boy clothing down there. Funny how those regional things are so strong.

[wintertime]

The only accent that gets on my nerves is that affected, irritating, whiny, obnoxious National Public Radio voice!

I have never known anyone anywhere who speaks like that. Honestly, do they have an NPR speaking school for these guys and gals?

[atc23]

"My favorite NY accent was Daniel Day Lewis in ‘Gangs of NY’ with his ancient NewYawkeze....

Interesting subject. I have a book here on the history of 5 Points. The book describes how there is no such thing as a "New York" accent - the so called accent is just the evolution (and variation)of a speaking and pronunciation style that came into vogue with the street denizens and early gangs that populated the Bowery circa late 1830's and 40's

The New York accent phenomena is residual from a manner of dress and behavior that we today might equate with "punk rockers" -

[MuttTheHoople]

The New York and New Orleans accent sound the exact same. Don’t know why.

[Dr. Sivana]

Woburn: WOO-burn (I don’t know why)

You might want to ask P.G. Wodehouse (pronounced "Woodhouse"). A lot of these names are older than modern English, and the pronunciations didn't change (or changed differently) as common words became more standardized in pronunciation.

[Houghton M.]

Agreed. I think it’s because NPR is so wymyn-dominated. The men all sound like the women and the women all sound alike. The accent manages to combine an air of infinite superiority with mommy-talk.

[Houghton M.]

And part of it is probably because they have their noses so high in the air and their heads tilted back as they talk down at us. That’s probably where the nasal whine comes from. /sarc

[Vaquero]

there is no such thing as a “New York” accent

no need to analyze these things to the point of distraction. We have diseases to cure, energy sources to tap, space to conquer, Marxism to defeat....why do we need to nit pick on the verbiage of whether an accent is an accent or just the evolution of a speaking and pronunciation style....which sound to me all the world like what an accent is.

[firebrand]

Since people in other countries are advised to learn English from a Brit rather than from an American, we have the double accent phenomenon here: the accent from the original country with a British overlay. Can be very charming.

[firebrand]

There's the "oy" sound for "i." Even my Verizon phone has that accent: "You have faw messages whose retention toyme is about to expoyre." Do they do different accents for different parts of the country?

And then there's the "er" for "oy"--not as common. I think from a part of Brooklyn: "Don't forget to flush the terlet."

[bjorn14]

Interesting subject...When I am in Europe people ask me how many dialects do Americans speak? My answer is maybe one...Cajun (or maybe Ebonics) because the rest to me are just accents. Ocassionally, some use different words to describe things..slicker v. raincoat, skillet v. frying pan, bubbler v. drinking fountain, etc. Just saying....

[left that other site]

It’s not gone.

It just retired to Boca.

[aruanan]

I think from a part of Brooklyn: "Don't forget to flush the terlet."

Also "vevvy" for "very."

[aruanan]

Why the classic Noo Yawk accent is fading away

All we need to do to get regional accents back is to isolate by reducing travel and eliminating electronic communications. In the U.S. we talk about parts of the country separated by many hundreds or thousands of miles as having different accents.

In places like the Dominican Republic the north coast and the south coast, as well as the Cibao Valley, had distinct differences, and those differences, as great as any between the Midwest and Appalachia, were over distances that could be contained in almost any U.S. state. In the "uneducated" Spanish of the Cibao Valley, the "r" becomes "i" so "parque" becomes "paique" and "barba" becomes "baiba." In the capital (and I've heard it among Puerto Ricans, too), the "r" becomes "l" so "parque" becomes "palque" and "barba" becomes "balba."

[Scanian]

The story I heard is that boatloads of New York laborers were brought to New Orleans to work on the levees. Many stayed and left an effect on the local speech.

[firebrand]

The East Coast may be referred to as "the r-less corridor by linguists," but New Jersey speak has a very strong r. I learned this when I got to college. Someone mentioned a New Jersey accent. What? Yeah, New Jerrrrrsey.

We also said "laig" for "leg" and "aig" for "egg," plus "ditten" for "didn't" etc. Cyu-pon, garadge, rad-itator, not to mention all the non-U vocabulary.

[firebrand]

That one I never heard.