Why Do People in New Orleans Talk That Way?

Slate ^ | 9/8/2005 | Jesse Sheidlower

[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?

[Salamander]

Love your tagline....LOL!

[CindyDawg]

I was just joking. I know I have a strong accent. I guess I'm kind of proud of it too:')

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

Gen. Honere is a Cajun and he has lost most of the accent. Good thing the writer did not hear some colloquial table conversation over a platter of mud bugs to the west of NO, he would have been wondering for real.

I am retired oil field trash (smile when you say that) and have worked with Cajuns from Alaska, Wyoming, Colorado and many other places. They are some of the hardest working, friendliest and big hearted people I have ever known. Wife and I loved going down to Lafayette when Company sent me a couple of times for courses there.

[proud American in Canada]

Whenever I'm out of the Midwest, I'm amazed at all the people with accents

LOL! No kidding. There is no accent in the Midwest. ;)

Although once I called a talk radio show up here and the host said, "I'm detecting an American accent. Are you from the States?"

Accent is in the ear of the listener, to ruin an old cliche.

[proud American in Canada]

Re #71: fascinating post!

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

Back in the 50's there were quite a few Italian farmers around Tickfaw, LA, just north of Hammond, they made a great strawberry wine. When I was in the army we went through there on a large field exercise (operation King Cole I think it was) in 1957.

[Salamander]

Google 'Highland Southern dialect'.

There are still pockets of old timers in the hills that retain an Elizabethan flavor to their speech.

As one example, whereas "regular" Southrens say "y'all", HSers will instead say "yee'll" as in "Ye all" or "ye will", depending.

Due to the very heavy Scots-Irish influence, our speech is much more "sing song" [though we prefer to call it melodious] than "plain" English.

I myself had a devil of a time getting used to the Southren tendency to end every sentence on an ascending note as though it were a question rather than a statement.

I found myself mentally dissecting the grammar/context of a sentence to decide how it should be answered....;))

HSers write differently too.

For years I'd spell "favor" as "favour" and had to retrain myself because I got tired of online friends asking if I was British.....:)


And then there's the "unique" syntax.

Instead of saying "please throw a towel up to me" it's "please throw me up a towel".
[and to be honest, "throw" mutates into "thow"]


Most annoying to DH is the chronic vowel/consonent/entire word "dropping" of an HSer wife in a hurry.

"Give that to me" becomes "givuhtummy" and even that "word" just *barely* manages to include the 4 syllables it appears to have.

We're nothing if not verbally thrifty.

Now, please thowatowel uptummy....:)

[Rebelbase]

If you think the Cajuns talk funny, wait until Ophellia hits South Carolina and the press inteviews some of the Gullah Geechee folk.

[RVN Airplane Driver]

As a Texan...(not native, but got here as fast as I could) and ex-military who had the opportunity to live in more than a few places around the south with a business that has taken me around the country what the post of #71 has stated is true to the best of my knowledge. Louisiana folks are wonderful, but NO folks are very different from cajun folks....north of the Red River is as different in many ways as day and night...Baptists north and Catholics south....an incredibly interesting state...that has sent a bunch of their natives over here for a "spell".

We have a a young couple and their children that we have kind of taken under our wing....at the end of the day I really need to Thank them..they are good kids and they have awaken a part of me that I knew existed...but had been at flight idle for most of my life...

[Salamander]

This is funny but dead-on;

http://www.ih.k12.oh.us/msbellb/Dialect%20Page.htm

[turn down your speakers some]...;)

[aculeus]

Southern drawl; others sound almost like they're from Brooklyn

This Noo Yawker was mightily amazed many years ago to hear NO natives speak pure Brooklynese.

One theory is that the NooYawk accent was actually copied from the NO accent ... coastal marine commercial intercourse and all that.

[pointsal]

Generations of East Coast nuns at the local Catholic schools.

[processing please hold]

Thanks for the laugh. :-)

[rightazrain]

I lived on the West Bank, in Harvey.

[Recon Dad]

One of my best friends lives at English Turn. Had minor damage and just waiting things out in Morgan City.

I used to do business with some folks on the West Bank in Gretna, named Luke Labruza.

[Mike Bates]

Thanks. A lot of those words/phrases reminded me of Grandpa McCoy. (That's probably before anyone else's time around here).

[roaddog727]

Creole dialect

[Salamander]

That show went off when I was only 2 so I never got to see it.

The words remind me of my gramma.
After she died, I heard words like that less and less as years went by.

I sure do miss that woman.

I spent more time with her than I did my own mother....:)