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?

[andy58-in-nh]

The accent in Central and Western New York State is very similar to that of Northern Ohio and Western PA (except for an area around Pittsburgh which to my ear has a somewhat less nasal, more Appalachian component with broader vowels. I have traveled extensively and my love of language has made me pretty good at detecting regional accents (I’m not quite Professor Henry Higgins, but I like to think I’ve got a good ear for it).

[driftless2]

"I can just tell"

I have an in-law who grew up in Hicksville. She's been living in Wisconsin for over thirty years. She still has a very noticeable New York City-area accent. My question is: how far out geographically does the accent extend?

[Dr. Sivana]

My question is: how far out geographically does the accent extend?

It's everywhere. You can hear it on the "Demon Sheep" video crossover, an ex-NYer I met in North Carolina has about 1/2 of it despite being 20 years removed. The "oi" and "er" sounds, I believe, are related to NY's Dutch history.

Ethnic Italians in Connecticut often have it (even generations removed from NY, and without it affecting Conn.'ers around them), just as a large family here in Illinois carries the dad's Bahstin (Boston) accent.

I am from Connecticut, and one election night I was at teh Rockford, IL Republican bash as the results rolled in. I was in the parking lot, and heard a couple talking. You're not from around here, I suggested. It turned out they were McDonalds' execs in town for training, and decided to check out the Republicans on election night. They were from Cheshire, CT, a town I went to school in for seven years. Small world!

[steve86]

All those accents sound retarded out here.

[Madame Dufarge]

There’s definitely a “Z” in there :-)

[BfloGuy]

Started college in upstate New York in 1971. I met a girl who said she was from Teopawk. Took a while before I realized it was Deer Park.

[x]

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.

Could be. I heard there was the same Irish-German-Italian mix of 19th century immigrants in both cities. That could be said of other US cities that have different accents, though.

[x]

But there’s one thing I don’t get. What’s the significance of spelling “New” like “Noo” when simulating the New York accent? To me, they sound the same. Folks from elsewhere, what’s your take on this? Do you perhaps say “nyew?”

A lot of it is just a putdown. But supposedly it's a harsher sound formed a little further back with the the tongue lower in the mouth. I don't know whether New Yorkers actually talk that way.

[One_Upmanship]

The link I made above has a clickable map. It appears to be quite thorough.

This is another good one:

Prep

The American "posh" or "snob" accent. Also refered to as Boston Brahmin, after the East Coast Establishment families which are known as such. It is associated with Manhattan stockbrokers, Reagan-era yuppies, and the entire state of Connecticut. Think American Psycho. Clench the jaw and talk about stock prices. The yacht-club villains from a Rodney Dangerfield or a mid-1980s John Cusack movie will probably speak in this accent.

• Stereotype: Politely amoral greed. Emphasis on the greed, and sometimes less emphasis on the polite.
• Examples:
  • Christopher Buckley.
  • Major Charles Emerson Winchester III from MASH.
  • George Feeney from Boy Meets World.
  • Thurston Howell II from Gilligans Island.

This is the accent of people raised in New England who are of Portuguese stock. Also known as "Portugee", this is a subset of "Down East" (see below) that almost never shows up in movies/TV because the producers are afraid that nobody will understand why the blond, blue-eyed guy sounds like a Bostonian (see below) raised in France.

• Stereotype: Hard-working, honest, salt-of-the-Earth fisherman. Please note that "Portugee" is a slur and a great way to get a churrico-scented fist in your face if you are foolish enough to use this word around Portuguese people.

Down East

Spoken in upper New England, characterized by broad vowels and terse sentences. Tends to say "ayuh" a lot for "yes."

• Stereotype: taciturn, parsimonious, dry, rural, witty.
• Examples:
  • Fred Gwynne as Jud Crandall in Pet Sematary.
  • Most of Stephen King's books; not only does he write Down-Easters very convincingly, he has a Down East accent himself.
  • Bert and I.
  • President Calvin Coolidge epitomized the speech and the attitude, as did Margaret Hamilton.
  • Watch the early scenes in the classic movie Nothing Sacred with this in mind.

Boston

An urban version of Down East. "Pahk the caah at Haahvad Yaahd."  ^*

^{Please note that if you do try this, you will be summarily "towed to Meffud or Summaville"}

"I am going to Korear to furthah my careah." The Boston accent itself has two extreme versions:

• "Kennedese," so Flanderized that it sounds more Australian than American (at least, what Americans think Australians sound like; it's actually Bostonian with a generous dose of British).
  • Stereotype: Sophisticated, a leader, rough rich character, Old Money (as Old as money gets in the US, anyway), aristocratic in a non-British-affected way, probably a bit stuck-up, parodying a Kennedy.
  • Examples:
    • Mayor Quimby on The Simpsons
    • Any member of the Kennedy family, but especially JFK.
• "Southie," mostly associated with gangsters, which can be spotted by a character saying "aboot" or "aboat" for the word "about."
  • Stereotype: Working-class Irish Catholic roots and a Violent Glaswegian disposition.
  • Examples:
    • Rogue slayer Faith Lehane (Eliza Dushku is from Boston herself, but speaks with a more middle-class accent).
    • The Departed is a gold mine of these.

A peculiar, seldom-heard subset is the Rhode Island accent, which combines New York percussiveness and Boston consonants with flat Chicago vowels, and sounds vaguely Brooklynese to people from outside the area.

• Examples:
  • The most famous example is probably Emeril Lagasse, who is not from Rhode Island but Fall River, across the border in Massachusetts, where the accent spills over to New Bedford or thereabouts and combines with the Luso accent. (Emeril enunciates his vowels a bit more than the typical Rhode Islander though.)
  • Peter Griffin from Family Guy has this accent.

[One_Upmanship]

A “new” nun from Boston came to our parish to teach Sunday school. A bunch of us were helping her set up the classroom; she asked me to “put the cahtan in the press.”

I thought she said “cotton” and I certainly didn’t know what a “press” was.

I was so shy, I was afraid to ask, so I asked her to repeat it; She said, “Put the cahton in the press” and she said it louder, thinking I didn’t hear her well. I became terrified as we were taught to be very respectful of the clergy. I remember I was frozen with fear. She pointed a bony finger at the cardboard box and then motioned to the closet.

Saying “Duh” to myself, I did what was directed and inched out of the room.

Later that year we learned about “bubblers” and “hot top” and “submarine sandwiches.” I had no idea. LOL

(If we got our lessons perfectly right, she’d let us read comic books as a reward. She kept the door open in a way that she could see if the priest was coming, and if he was, she’d announce loudly “Children, take out your rosaries!” That was our signal to quickly sit on the comics to hide them.)

[FreedomCalls]

That’s not the only accent gone. Listen to any news broadcast from the 60s. Then to one from the 30s. Then a current one. All 3 are very different.

I saw the Miss Americas introduce themselves in a clip from the 30s and each and every one of them had a strong and distinct accent from the state they were from. Now they all sound the same but for a slight accent from one or two from the south.

[FreedomCalls]

I was just talking w/ a friend yesterday about how the Texas accent was evaporating. Contrast Gov Perry w/ former LBJ.

The Whataburger commercial guy has a pretty good Texas accent.

[fieldmarshaldj]

*ping of interest*

[fieldmarshaldj]

One peculiar one, there’s a town of Nevada in SW Missouri. They don’t pronounce it like the state at all... Pronouncing it Nuh-VAY-da. Sometimes peculiarities occur even one state apart. There’s a Newark in Delaware & New Jersey. In NJ, they say, “New-work”, but in DE, it’s “New-ARK.” Ditto Beaufort in SC and NC. It’s “Byoo-furt” in SC and “BO-fort” in NC. One teeth-grinder in TN is with a local county in Middle TN, called Maury. Anywhere else, you pronounce it “Morr-ee.” Here they pronounce it “Murray.”

[Clemenza]

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

As I have pointed out a few times on this forum, Daniel Day Lewis learned the accent by listening to recordings of Walt Whitman.

[Clemenza]

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

Sicilians, Irish, Germans, Ashkenazic Jews all settled the east wards, leading to the "Yat" accent, which is VERY different from that spoken by both the Creole and Anglo upper classes of New Orleans.

[Clemenza]

As I love to point out, New Jersey has several different accents. The "Tony Soprano" accent is actually rare outside of folks raised in Hudson County. The classic North Jersey accent, IMHO, belongs to Mr. Anthony Bourdain of Leonia, and it sounds NOTHING like anything spoken east of the Hudson.

When I was in Lawrenceville (in the middle of the state, near Princeton), I was basically at the cut-off point between North Jersey and South Jersey accents, usage. Once you get south of Hamilton/Trenton, you start hearing folks drinking "Werter, " rooting for the "Iggles," and ordering "hewgies" instead of subs.

[Clemenza]

Cuban Spanish is very heavily influenced by that of the Canary Islands, as the first settlers came from Gran Canaria. There is also something of a Gallego influence on folks from Havana and Santiago, to say nothing of the African influence. Puerto Rico and DR also have heavy Afro-Carib influence on the accents, especially noticeable in places like Loiza on PR.

I've never been a fan of Caribbean Spanish, and prefer that spoken in the interior of Colombia.

[Clemenza]

I taught a seminar once and in it were three young women from various parts of the country and they all spoke exactly alike -— that awful Valley Girl accent. One was Janapese-American from Hawaii, one was a native-born San Antonian (Texas) and a third was from Michigan. They all spoke Valley Girl.

The sad thing is, every woman under 30 in Manhattan, whether she be from Scarsdale or Dallas originally, talks, "like, oh my gaaahD!" I blame television for the spread of Val-speak.

[OldPossum]

I think today's modern communications networks managed to kill a lot of regional dialects...

I can certainly understand why you would make that observation, but I don't think it is true. If it were, then the folks down South (from which I hail) would have lost their Southern accents long, long ago since the standard the networks have demanded from their announcers and other personnel (think of the actors and actresses on the soaps) is the Mid-West accent.

Since the invention of the radio and televison there have been steady bombardments of that speech into the homes of people all around the USA and yet there certainly are regional accents through this country. The reason? People learn their speech from their peers, not outside influences.