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Breaking down the New York accent

February 25, 2008

Anatomy of an accent

Breaking down some of the accent's classic features. Some are still around, and others you can only find on Turner Classic Movies.

A becomes "Aw"

This feature, famously parodied in how words like coffee are pronounced, extends from Providence to Baltimore. Recent studies find its use is declining among younger people, but it's still a distinct, perhaps essential, part of the accent's identity.

A becomes "Ah"

You see this when man becomes "ma-an" and cab become "ca-ab." This tensing of the "a" sound, as NYU's Kara Becker calls it, is common among white ethnic speakers, but is now seen less.

Mary-marry-merry

We make distinctions in how we pronounce these words, George Jochnowitz explains, as do many people from the East. This is a distinction, also found in cot-caught, that carried over from British English but has faded across the rest of the country, Jochnowitz explains. We did a small test in our office. Fellow managing editor Pete Catapano, a Queens native (as well as yours truly, a Westchester native) made the distinctions. Reporter David Freedlander, who hails from Baltimore, pronounced them all the same. He shook his head at us, too.

Rs that vanish after vowels

Though this feature is disappearing among some younger speakers, it has tremendous staying power. Jochnowitz explains its origins: "The centralizing glide where an R was lost is British, but grew significantly in New York, giving pronunciations like taw-uh for "tore" and theah-uh for "there." The vowel of "tore" was extended to words like "coffee."

OI becomes ER, ER becomes OI

It's perhaps the most stereotyped aspect of New York English. When speakers turns "girl" into "goil," for instance. It's as rare as hen's tooth now, except in old movies set in New York.

Rhyming words like singer with finger

Says Johnowitz: "The loss of the distinction between the -ng- sounds in 'singer' and 'finger' entered from both Italian and Yiddish and perhaps some other European languages as well." And Becker says she's not seeing that any more in her research.

TH becomes T and D

Seen in classic New Yorker pronunciations as "fada" for father, it's heard much less among younger speakers, says Becker. "It was so stigmatized and so stereotyped that it's really almost gone," she said.

Youse

Jochnowitz cites two factors for the gradual disappearance of that distinctly New York "youse." "Stigmatization and the spreading of 'you guys' all over the country, which filled the void in the pronominal system that had created 'youse' in the first place."

-- Rolando Pujol

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