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Why Do People in New Orleans Talk That Way?
Slate ^ | 9/8/2005 | Jesse Sheidlower

Posted on 09/10/2005 12:46:45 PM PDT by Mike Bates

If you've been listening to coverage of Katrina's devastation on the radio, you've no doubt heard the distinctive New Orleans accents of victims, officials, and rescue workers alike. Some of them speak with a familiar, Southern drawl; others sound almost like they're from Brooklyn. Why do people in New Orleans talk that way?

(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Louisiana
KEYWORDS: dialect; neworleans
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To: Texasforever

No it doesn't. The New Orleans accent is NOT a Cajun accent. The two are completely different.


101 posted on 09/10/2005 2:16:56 PM PDT by Rocky Mountain High
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To: Mike Bates

"I was stuck in a dentist chair last week and had to endure Oprah and her visit to the hurricane areas."

'Time to find a new dentist.'

LOL. I looked around for the tv remote when the hygienist was out of the room but I couldn't find it. The hygienist seemed to be semi-watching the program so I thought it would be rude to ask for a channel change.


102 posted on 09/10/2005 2:18:25 PM PDT by plushaye (President Bush: W-2-4-4!! God Bless him and his administration.)
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To: Texasforever
There is another accent that is not Cajun and it does indeed sound like Brooklyn. It is the New Orleans accent , maybe it comes from the creoles, I don't know, but I have heard it. I asked a woman in the French Quarter once is she was from Brooklyn and she read me the riot act. LOL I am sure a person from Brooklyn would hear a difference but a Texan couldn't tell.
103 posted on 09/10/2005 2:19:26 PM PDT by Ditter
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To: Inyokern
The strangest accent I ever heard was in Eastern North Carolina. They sound almost Cockney

Coincidentally, a lifetime ago in college a visiting prof from NC filled in for a lecture. After a while, I kept thinking how very English he sounded. It was so distracting that I paid no attention to what he was saying.

Then again, there was nothing new there.

104 posted on 09/10/2005 2:19:41 PM PDT by Mike Bates (Irish Alzheimer's victim: I only remember the grudges.)
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To: pbrown
We don't talk funny...yankees and the rest of the world does. :-)

Isn't the proper verb there "do"? Just wonderin'.

105 posted on 09/10/2005 2:21:01 PM PDT by Mike Bates (Irish Alzheimer's victim: I only remember the grudges.)
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To: poinq

Long family histories in some of those black families. They were often literate and doing well when my momma's daddy's people couldn't write their names.
.


106 posted on 09/10/2005 2:21:03 PM PDT by Knitting A Conundrum (Act Justly, Love Mercy, and Walk Humbly With God Micah 6:8)
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To: Mike Bates
Why Do People in New Orleans Talk That Way?

It's Bush's fault.

107 posted on 09/10/2005 2:21:48 PM PDT by Charles Henrickson (Bush MIHOP!)
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To: Recon Dad
I've been places like Jennings and others spots where very little English was spoken.

Oh, like much of Chicago.

108 posted on 09/10/2005 2:21:58 PM PDT by Mike Bates (Irish Alzheimer's victim: I only remember the grudges.)
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To: Mike Bates
"Cajun" is a corruption of the word "Acadian". Many Louisianans migrated from Maine to Louisiana in the 18th century. This accounts, in some small way, to the similarities in the accents.
Read Longfellow's poem "Evangeline".
109 posted on 09/10/2005 2:22:16 PM PDT by ocjones
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To: Recon Dad

My family is from small town south Louisiana. Although not as common as it was twenty years ago, judges and local lawyers used to converse in french to the exclusion of the outside attorneys.


110 posted on 09/10/2005 2:22:29 PM PDT by Melpomene
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To: plushaye

I'm always changing CNN to Fox. I consider it a duty:')


111 posted on 09/10/2005 2:22:36 PM PDT by CindyDawg
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To: Charles Henrickson
Why Do People in New Orleans Talk That Way?

It's Bush's fault.

If I had thought about it another minute, I probably would have arrived at that conclusion. With some help from Geraldo, etc.

112 posted on 09/10/2005 2:24:07 PM PDT by Mike Bates (Irish Alzheimer's victim: I only remember the grudges.)
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To: Mike Bates

I think the Brooklynese accent has to do with roots in the Irish Channel neighborhood. At least that is what I have learned from James Lee Burke's novels.


113 posted on 09/10/2005 2:29:32 PM PDT by lastchance (Hug your babies.)
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To: Mike Bates

Her-ral-do Ree-veta?


114 posted on 09/10/2005 2:29:34 PM PDT by CindyDawg
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To: Mike Bates

This guy looks like he'll be talking with a Southron drawl any day now.

115 posted on 09/10/2005 2:32:13 PM PDT by TheMole
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To: Mike Bates

So where does that unique accent by the ones (including my DH) that are from the Texas/LA border come from?


116 posted on 09/10/2005 2:32:36 PM PDT by CindyDawg
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To: Mike Bates

The truth is that there are MANY Southern accents. People who are not from this region tend to think that there is only the drawl, but that is not the case at all. I am from Mobile, and our accent is very different from the north Alabama accent, which tends to be a bit nasal.

My father was from New Orleans, and all of my cousins have the regional accent. My wife says that I pick it up when I am around them.

The same ethnic groups who settled in the Northeast in the 1800's also settled in the coastal cities of the South. (Conventional history tends to ignore the fact that there was 19th century European immigration to all parts of the US, although most people went through the Atlantic ports.)

The Brooklyn-on-the-Bayou accent comes from the fact that many Irish, Italians, and Germans came to New Orleans during the 1840's and 50's, adding to the French, Spanish, and Anglo populations already present.

Older Mobilians often have an accent similar to that of New Orleans, eg, foist, for first, choich, for church, etc.

New Orleans also has a vocabulary all its own. A "banquette" is a sidewalk, the "neutral ground" is the median. One "goes by" "ya mama n 'em's ', perhaps on the way to "make groceries." New Orleanian pronunciations of French words are also unique, eg, "Chottis" for Chartres St.

I am happy to report that all of my "dawlin" cousins got out of the area before the storm. All are alive and well, although they have lost so much.

One positive outcome of the New Orleans diaspora is that there's gonna be some mighty fine cookin' all over the USA!


117 posted on 09/10/2005 2:33:06 PM PDT by Frankster
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To: ErnBatavia

Ditto some Australian accents. I once met a man from Australia, couldn't understand 90% of what he said--and I was told he was speaking English. Of course he probably couldn't understand me either.


118 posted on 09/10/2005 2:34:59 PM PDT by pepperdog
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To: sinclair

Loved the riverboat story. In 1957 I was involved in shipping anhydrous ammonia by barge from south Arkansas to Florida. We had one barge that carried about 850 tons of ammonia, shoved by a little tiny tug with two 165 hp GMC diesels. There was a 4 man crew. I think they all came from New Orleans. I swear they lived on boiled eggs and turnip greens. Part of my job was to go down in the bunkroom, often about 4 am, to wake up the crew. The barge had "BOW" painted on one end and "STERN" on the other apparently identical end, and by gosh, they were going to shove it "BOW" first, which involved cutting it loose from the dock and turning it in the river while free floating, loaded with ammonia, and pipes sticking up all over the deck scraping the tree limbs. Why we never had a major environmental disaster I never knew.


119 posted on 09/10/2005 2:35:33 PM PDT by 19th LA Inf
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To: Mike Bates; airborne
My best friends are two brothers born and raised in Kenner, LA, right outside of NO.

Both of them (they are WHITE) talk as if they were born and raised on the streets of New York.

I used to think the first brother had a speech impediment, until I met brother number two and his wife.

Now I recognize the accent really fast.
120 posted on 09/10/2005 2:36:13 PM PDT by linkinpunk
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