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 ...
I'm from Brooklyn; I don't recall hearing Brooklyn accents in New Orleans; just a very distinctive accent different from other Southerners.
Some members of my family are very fluent in Cajun French but their children are not. Shame.
You should hear what Texans do to my last name. :o) But I give them kudos for trying.
Well put. I stand corrected. :o)
Well if it has an X at the end I add a "row"
Australianese can be handled by me, if I really turn my ear to it (I was in the Aussie lobster importing business and have spent time there).
But there was one evening in Perth a few years ago, where I was really jet-lagged and it was a company party going on....they mumbled their slang to each other, and I felt pretty lost.
...and the West Aussies speak as distinct a lingo from the Easterners as in the U.S. - just takes awhile for us to pick up the differences.
Do that and you have much of the Cajun language mastered. lol
I'll leave it to the intellectuals to keep the Kings English alive and well.
That may be the Okracoke accent of the Outer Banks -- "Hoi Toid" for high tide. There are some very distinctive dialect pockets in Eastern Shore Maryland, and along the Virginia Coast, as well. Some people on islands and inlets had little contact with the outside world and preserved older dialects, like those in the hollows and coves of the Appalachians.
I knew someone who sort of munched his words in an incomprehensible, though vaguely British fashion. It turned out that he was from Martha's Vinyard. They work on keeping up their distinctive accent in the Winter when the tourists are gone. Apparently Vineyarders also have a distinctive "dialect" of sign language, since there was a deaf colony on the island.
Here's a page on regional accents. It puts a lot of stress on what the local dialect word for "doughnut" is for some reason.
"Working class whites are as likely to say to their kid coming in, "Where ya at, Heart? Stay off the bankette and wash the dishes in the zink. Hang these clothes up in da chiffarobe. When you're done, you can go getta cold drink. Here's a dolla and a silver dime, that ougtta do it. I'm gonna go make groceries, cause we're outta may-o-naise and I wanna make po-boys for dinna tonight. First, though, I'm going by your Ahhnt's house. We'll have swimps tomorra when I get some more erl to fry with."
This is much like the accents on Galveston Island. Those who were B.O.I (born on the island).
Ever since I knew what a Brooklyn accent sounded like, I've always thought that's what the folks in NO sound like. Some folks on the MS Gulf Coast sound the same way.
Emeril Lagasse sounds like he's from New Orleans, but he's actually from either Fall River or Bedford, MA, both areas heavily populated by fishermen of Portuguese descent.
My maternal great-grandaddy was one of them!
Another great City! I was in Millinium Park last Monday.
That's an intersting site. I find that I use some of the words from each southern area though. I didn't see the newest one popping up . (Tex-Mex)
I didn't say I didn't like it. I think Texans are great.
After having worked in Chicago for 25 years, I stay out of it as much as possible. Only been there once in the past six years and that was because of a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney.
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