[spetznaz]

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.

[Yardstick]

btt

[9YearLurker]

That’s an incredibly in-depth story for the Post!

[RayChuang88]

I think today's modern communications networks managed to kill a lot of regional dialects. As such, we now consider fluent speakers of English as those who can speak with the BBC English accent (if you come from a Commonwealth country) or the accent-free American English you hear on radio and TV broadcasts in the USA. When I was working in the Bay Area, I used to know a Russian émigré at the workplace that spoke such perfect BBC English if it weren't for the Russian surname you'd think he was born in the UK. He admitted that he started to learn English at age six using materials provided by the BBC English language programme, and if it weren't for the breakup of the Soviet Union would likely have pursued a career in the Soviet diplomatic corps or as an English-to-Russian translator.

[Dr. Sivana]

Whether Brooklyn or The Bronx, New Yorkese is all the same accent.

Not true. I have nailed Bronx vs. Queens/Brooklyn many times. I can't describe the diphthongs in question, I can just tell.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

No matter how they talk they still waddle like ducks!

[Dudoight]

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

I hate to see these regional speech traits and manner of expression die out.

[july4thfreedomfoundation]

I’m not buying it.

A New York accent and a Brooklyn accent are two different things.

My 83 year-old uncle lives in Florida. He grew up in Brooklyn, and in his younger days he had a Brooklyn accent.....now he has a classic New York accent, the accent heard in Manhattan and some of the other burroughs, as well as Long Island. I myself grew up on Long Island, and I’ve been told I still have traces of a New York accent, even though I haven’t lived in the New York area since 1974.

Years ago, New Yorkers who had the classic Brooklyn accent pronounced “oil” as “earl” and Thirty-Third Street would be pronounced as “totie-turd” street. That classic Brooklyn accent may be disappearing, but the other New York accent is alive and well. I have a number of relatives on Long Island and most of them have thick New York accents.....accents so thick you could them with a knife.

I live in Maine now and I can always tell when someone visiting here in the summer is from New York, although some New Yorkers have more obvious accents than others. There is also such as thing as a Maine accent, although I’ll have to say it’s more prevalent among elderly and middle-aged Mainers than the teenagers....I think they pick it up as they grow older. Also, a Boston accent is different than a Maine accent.

Then there’s regional sayings....in Maine, if you ask directions of a local, someone might say. “You can’t get there from here.” If you were not born in Maine, you are said to be “from away.”

Also, if a New Yorker trips while walking down the street carrying a bag of groceries, he might say, “Son of a bitch!”

In Maine, (and Massachusetts), he would yell, “Son of a whore!” LOL!

[libertarian27]

The Boston accent is starting to fade too.

In the New movie ‘Edge of Darkness’, set in Boston and other MA towns, Mel Gibson and other characters throw the accent around in various scenes, but not all. It’s a mish-mosh of dialects that people from Taxachusetts will hear as strange.

There’s a few scenes set in Northampton with a character that just drips a Boston accent - you don’t hear that in Northampton at all, the accent is very out of place. The town is @ 90 miles west of Boston and accents don’t travel that far in MA anymore.

[Vaquero]

fugetaboutit.....

the increase of foreign nationals from all over the world will surely modify newyawkese....

most of the purveyors of various ‘traditional’ NY dialects have moved to the ‘suboibs’ and much of them have morphed into a more correct usage over the past few generations....

Me? I put my accent on or take it off as needed....mostly for my own amusement.

but 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.

BTW....ever notice how a segment of the folks from NawOrlins have that NY twang???

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

[Dilbert56]

I dated a girl fwom Bwooklyn. She used to panounce her “arhs” where there were no “arhs” and add an “r” to words ending in “a”.

[Paladin2]

"Will old Noo Yawk become a museum piece..?"

Hopefully, as I find it annoying.

[raccoonradio]

I’ve got a baseball related CD box set and there’s one bit from radio (40s? 50s?) where they talk to Brooklyn Dodger fans and the accents are interesting, etc.

Didn’t the NY accent kind of spread to Rhode Island? Dorg,
corfee...

I am in Boston and do have more that a bit of a Boston accent. When I travel I point out that, no, Bostonians do not, er, uh, necessarily uh sound like the, uh, Kennedys.

Boston: BAW-stin
Vermont: Ver-MAWnt (a Vermonter would say “Ver-MAHHnt”)
Gloucester: GLOSS-tah
Worcester: WISS-tah
Medford: MED-fidd (no, not “Meffa”, at least not for me)
Woburn: WOO-burn (I don’t know why)
Peabody: PEA-bih-dee

Obviously my pronunciation of car or bar gives me away.

[csvset]

Ducks 'quack in regional accents'

[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?

[MuttTheHoople]

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

[left that other site]

It’s not gone.

It just retired to Boca.

[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."

[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.

[Darnright]

This is the New York accent that is never heard anymore and it's a crying shame.