Posted on 08/24/2012 2:10:57 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
On July 4, 1960, the Eugene (Ore.) Register-Guard rang in Independence Day with a dire Associated Press report by one Norma Gauhn headlined American Dialects Disappearing. The problem, according to speech experts, was the homogenizing effect of mass communications, compulsory education, [and] the mobility of restless Americans. These conformist pressures have only intensified in the half-century since the AP warned that within four generations virtually all regional U.S. speech differences will be gone. And so as we enter the predicted twilight of regional American English, its no surprise that publications as venerable as the Economist now confirm what our collective intuition tells us: Television and the Internet are definitely doing something to our regional accents: A Boston accent that would have seemed weak in the John F. Kennedy years now sounds thick by comparison.
Before you start weeping into your chowdah, though, I have some news: All these people are wrong. Not about the Boston accent, necessarily; that one might really be receding. But American linguistic diversity as a whole isnt dyingits thriving. Despite our gut-level hunch about the direction of the language; despite the fact that 70-cent, three-minute, off-peak, coast-to-coast long-distance calls that cost four inflation-adjusted dollars in 1970 are now free; despite cheap travel, YouTube, and the globalization of film and television, American dialects are actually diverging.
There are multiple examples of such divergence. But none is as dramatic, as baffling to linguists, and as mysteriously under the collective radar as whats happening in the cities that ring the Great Lakes. From Syracuse, N.Y., in the east to Milwaukee in the west, 34 million Americans are revolutionizing the sound of English. Linguists first noted aspects of the change in the late 1960s.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
I tink der mak’n fn’v uz.
Words sound just like they are here in Mizzourah.
Awesome!
Actually, that last part about "school" being turned into two syllables is common among Yankee kids, not adults, for some odd reason. These kids (very young to teenagers) also turn "cool" to "coo ull."
This really sounds weird to these Southern ears.
LOL!!
This really sounds weird to these Southern ears.
Don't get me started. "Coo-ull" is part of what I call post-millennial Valley Girl, for lack of a better term. I wish a linguist would do a study on it, because I'd be interested. High-school/college aged girls, and even young women in their 20s work it to death. It sets my teeth on edge.
“You see the problem.”
You know I was talking to a fellow that had just lost his job about the regional differences in vowel sounds and I said that very thing to him but he kept bringing up stuff about feeding his family and keeping his old car going.
Some people!
That's the way Australians pronounce beer also, written out in simple phonetics. But if you listen to the actual pronunciation of "bee-ah" between an Aussie and a Bostonian you'd swear they're from two different planets. The written phonetics aren't capturing something major.
I was born (1953) and raised in the city of Chicago, in the city itself. I’ve got what you might call a northern urban accent. I live in St. Louis now, but my accent is not like here.
THERE'S a good example ..
Can't = cahnt, but the T is not so much a T as a T-ified D ..
Anyway ... yeah ... as they say in new yock ... fageddaboudit.
That goes back to the old Cole Porter recording of "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. I've heard it 50 times and never could distinguish the difference, but now I think I understand. (BTW, of course Louis & Ella were both Black, but Louis maybe more New Orleans while Ella more New York by background).
BS I have lived near and on Lake Huron for over 70 years...we are the ones without a dialect, the rest of the country doen’t know how to speak english properly...First time I went into the deep south, I had to keep saying “What”, they don’t know english at all...:O)
John Kennedy had an accent like unto that you're describing. It was quite unfamiliar to most of the country and was considered part of his charm.
He called Cuba "Koober".
Found this video of a British girl doing various English accents — it’s hysterical — predictably, the only one that sounds normal and unaffected to me is the Seattle variation. Wouldn’t you know I’m from (and in) Washington State (Warshington, for you?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0tRphsvM8M&feature=related
Interesting post!
I was born and raised in NYC, but thankfully don’t have much of an accent, though I certainly CAN have one if I want...
Anyway, we moved to Long Island after we married and the people here sound kind of like NYC, but there’s something harsher or more gutteral or something about the Long Island accent — I’m not sure what it is. They would say “LawnGUYland”, for instance. Again, though, I seem to be a fish out of water because not only do I HEAR their accents, but they keep asking me where I’M from! Go figure.
While I hear no difference in the NY accents of those around me, I absolutely here one in the accents of my cousins’ children from Pennsylvania.
When I was a kid, my cousins sounded distinctly “Pennsylvania.” “Wack the dag,” they’d say, or “We’re gon’ down the crick t’fish.” But their children do NOT sound like that. Their kids sound...well...like nothing, really. Every once in awhile they might say something Pennsylvania-y: If a small child is misbehaving, they might say, “Oh, yer so bow-ulled!” (bold), but other than that, I’d have to say that that northeastern Pennsylvania accent is almost gone from the kids (say about 24 years old and up).
My cousins still sound the same, though!
Regards,
No more nasal, or yous guys, or POP for soda.. LOL
I too grew up in the inner city, “Little Italy”, Taylor and Halsted.. Moved west to another Italian neighborhood, Harrison St. and St Louis, across the street from Sears Roebuck world Headquarters..
Finally, we moved to Mayor Daley’s neighborhood, 11th Ward.. Bridgeport, Back of The Yards..
I cut my teeth on RUSH St, owning a Club called Ciro’s, sharing the building with my Fashion House, and living in the John Hancock Building, on Michigan Ave.. Hung out at the early Playboy Mansion, with a young Hefner.. Woo Hoo..
We were in Nashville a while ago and I had a lot of trouble understanding some of the people. It was funny when, after hearing us N. Ohioans talk, they said, “You’re not from around here.” I restrained myself from saying, “No shit? How could you tell?”
But the people were very nice and cheerful, unlike some of my neighbors.
Our relatives in Wisconsin say things like, “Day-uv, go get the boe-ut” (Dave, go get the boat.)
Cleveland? That's just the eastern Europeans and Italians.
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