Vocabulary
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New Orleans English [1] is American English native to the city of New Orleans and its metropolitan area. Native English speakers of the region actually speak a number of varieties, including the variety most recently brought in and spreading since the 20th century among white communities of the Southern United States in general (Southern U.S. English); the variety primarily spoken by black residents (African American Vernacular English); the variety spoken by Cajuns in southern Louisiana (Cajun English); the variety traditionally spoken by affluent white residents of the city's Uptown and Garden District; and the variety traditionally spoken by lower middle- and working-class white residents of Eastern New Orleans, particularly the Ninth Ward (sometimes known, since at least the 1980s, as Yat). [2] [3] However, only the last two varieties are unique to New Orleans and are typically those referred to in the academic research as "New Orleans English". These two varieties specific to New Orleans likely developed around the turn of the nineteenth century and most noticeably combine speech features commonly associated with both New York City English and, to a lesser extent, Southern U.S. English. [1] The noticeably New York-like characteristics include the NYC-like short-a split (so that mad and map, for example, do not have the same vowel), non-rhoticity, th-stopping (so that, for example, "those" may sound like "doze"), and the recently disappearing coil–curl merger. [4] Noticeably Southern characteristics include the fronting of /oʊ/ and possible monophthongization of /aɪ/ (just these features, plus non-rhoticity, often characterize the Uptown accent).
Often, the term "Yat" refers particularly to the New Orleans accents that are "strongest" or most especially reminiscent of a working-class New York City accent, [1] though others use the term as a regional marker, to define the speech heard in certain parts of the city and its inner suburbs. Used in these narrower senses, Yat is simply one of many sub-dialects of New Orleans. The word comes from the common use of the local greeting, "Where y'at?" or "Where are you at (i.e. in life)?", which is a way of asking, "How are you?"
A unique New Orleans accent, or "Yat" accent, is considered an identity marker of white metropolitan people who have been raised in the greater New Orleans area. English professor Allan A. Metcalf discusses that "Yats" mostly live near the Irish Channel in blue-collar neighborhoods. The dialect's connotation with the working-class white population therefore encodes the speaker's identities. [5]
The striking similarity between the New Orleans Yat accent and the accent of the New York metropolitan area has been the subject of much speculation. Plausible origins of the accent are described in A. J. Liebling's book The Earl of Louisiana, in a passage that was used as a foreword to A Confederacy of Dunces , John Kennedy Toole's well-known posthumously published novel about New Orleans: [6]
There is a New Orleans city accent ... associated with downtown New Orleans, particularly with the German and Irish Third Ward, that is hard to distinguish from the accent of Hoboken, Jersey City, and Astoria, Long Island, where the Al Smith inflection, extinct in Manhattan, has taken refuge. The reason, as you might expect, is that the same stocks that brought the accent to Manhattan imposed it on New Orleans. [7]
In the decades following the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, when New Orleans changed from being a French colonial possession to an American city, Irish, German, and eventually Italian (largely Sicilian) immigrants indeed began populating the city. [8] However, rather than believing the New York and New Orleans dialects evolved similarly merely due to a similar mixture of European immigrant populations, modern linguists believe that the dialect histories of New Orleans and New York City actually have a direct relationship: significant commercial and demographic interactions between the two cities. [9] Although exact linguistic theories vary, the broad consensus is that key New York accent features probably diffused to New Orleans by the late 19th century. [10] Large-scale movements (permanent or seasonal) of working-class, lower middle-class, and merchant-class Northeastern Americans of European immigrant families to New Orleans may have brought along their native Northeastern (namely, New York City) accent features. Even during the antebellum era, Northerners made up over a quarter of all free, white, non-immigrant residents of New Orleans. [11] Linguist William Labov specifically argues that Jewish American bankers and cotton merchants strongly affiliated with New York City were the biggest influence on upper-class accents (and presumably, the eventual accents of all classes) in New Orleans. He cites examples of Sephardic and German Jewish connections to influential mercantile firms in 19th-century New Orleans. [12]
Many of the features bear a direct relation to Southern American English or New York City English, when not common across the United States more broadly. Of the "Yat" dialect features, the most distinct ones are:
There are some words with phonemic pecularities, but according to no particular pattern; including 'sink' /ziŋk/, 'room' /ɻʊm/, 'mayonnaise' /ˈmeɪnæz/, 'museum' /mjuˈzɛəm/, 'ask' /æks/.[ citation needed ]
New Orleans is locally pronounced [nəˈwɔəlɪnz] or [nəˈwɔəliənz], with the "New" destressed. The slurred, stereotypical "N'awlins" [nɔəlɪnz] and the General American [nuɔɻˈlinz] are not often heard from natives. Louisiana can be pronounced as the standard [luˈiziænə] or a slightly reduced [ləˈwiziænə] in the 'Yat' dialect.
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The Yat accent is the most pronounced version of the New Orleans accent, and is perceptually similar to a New York accent. As with all dialects, there is variance in the accent to geographic and social factors like one's exact locational or financial background.
Speakers of this dialect originated in the Ninth Ward, as well as the Irish Channel and Mid-City. Lighter features of the dialect can be heard in some parts of the city, such as Lakeview, the Marigny, the Garden District, and some parts of Gentilly, but mainly in the suburbs. The dialect is present to some degree in all seven parishes that make up the New Orleans metropolitan area, from St. Tammany to Plaquemines. As with many sociolinguistic artifacts in the 21st century, the dialect is usually more distinct among older members of the population. The New Orleans suburban area of Chalmette shows the strongest Yat accent.
The distinct New Orleans dialect has been depicted in many ways throughout the city and the U.S.
The main character of the cartoon strip Krazy Kat spoke in a slightly exaggerated phonetically-rendered version of early-20th century Yat; friends of the New Orleans-born cartoonist George Herriman recalled that he spoke with many of the same distinctive pronunciations.
Actual New Orleans accents were seldom heard nationally. New Orleanians who attained national prominence in the media often made an effort to tone down or eliminate the most distinctive local pronunciations. Dan Baum's Nine Lives shares the feelings of Ronald Lewis, a native of the Ninth Ward who is embarrassed by his local dialect when speaking in front of a group of white northerners. After the displacement of Greater New Orleans area residents because of Hurricane Katrina, the United States was introduced to some of the New Orleans Yat accents by constant news coverage. Steven Seagal's show Lawman exposed some Yat accents and dialects to the nation.
Ronnie Virgets, a New Orleans writer, commentator, and journalist, employs New Orleans dialects and accents in his written and spoken works, including the locally produced public radio program, Crescent City. WWNO, the local public radio station, broadcasts the program and provides access to past Crescent City programs on its website.
The name of the official mascot for the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition, held in New Orleans, was derived from the truncated pronunciation of "See More of the Fair," which results in the pseudo yat speak "Seymore D. Fair."
A Midwest Cajun restaurant chain based in Indianapolis, Indiana carries the name Yats.
Cellphone company Boost Mobile used the phrase "Where Y'At?" in early advertising campaigns.
Who Dat? is a chant commonly tied to the Yat dialect and used in support of the New Orleans Saints football team. The entire chant is "Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?" Saints fans are collectively called the "Who Dat Nation."
The Yat dialect is seldom heard when New Orleans is depicted in movies and television shows. Traditionally, characters portrayed from New Orleans are heard using a southern or Cajun accent. An example of this is 1986's The Big Easy , in which Dennis Quaid speaks an exaggerated Cajun/southern derivation. [16] This trend has been challenged, though, in light of post-Katrina New Orleans representation, like HBO's Treme and Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , both of which feature actual New Orleans locals either speaking in Yat or one of its variations.
Historically, the city of New Orleans has been home to people of French, Spanish, and African heritages, which led to the creation of the Louisiana Creole language, before this city came under U.S. rule in the Louisiana Purchase. Over the course of the 19th century, the city transitioned from speaking French to becoming a non-rhotic English-speaking society. Similarly, much of the South has historically spoken non-rhotic English.
A misconception in other parts of the U.S. is that the local dialect of New Orleans is the same as Cajun English (spoken in several other areas of South Louisiana), but the city's cultural and linguistic traditions are distinct from that of the predominantly rural Acadiana, an area spanning across South Louisiana. While there has been an influx of Cajuns into the city since the oil boom of the later 20th century and while there are some similarities due to shared roots, Cajun culture has had relatively little influence upon Creole culture and thus Yat culture. The confusion of Cajun culture with the Creole culture is largely due to the confusion of these French cultures by the tourism and entertainment industries; sometimes this was done deliberately, as "Cajun" was often discovered to be a potentially lucrative marketing term. Speakers with a New Orleans accent are typically proud of their accent as it organically stems from the historical mixing of language and culture. This distinctive accent has been dying out generationally in the city due to white flight of the city, but remains very strong in the suburbs. However, the Yat dialect does survive in the city in several areas, notably Mid-city, Lakeview, parts of Gentilly and Uptown. [17]
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances is the de facto common language used in government, education and commerce. Since the late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide.
North American English is the most generalized variety of the English language as spoken in the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), vocabulary, and grammar of American English and Canadian English, the two spoken varieties are often grouped together under a single category. Canadians are generally tolerant of both British and American spellings, with British spellings of certain words being favored in more formal settings and in Canadian print media; for some other words the American spelling prevails over the British.
Spoken English shows great variation across regions where it is the predominant language; the United Kingdom has a wide variety of accents, and no single "British accent" exists. This article provides an overview of the numerous identifiable variations in pronunciation; such distinctions usually derive from the phonetic inventory of local dialects, as well as from broader differences in the Standard English of different primary-speaking populations.
A Confederacy of Dunces is a novel by American writer John Kennedy Toole that was published in 1980, 11 years after Toole's death. Published through the efforts of writer Walker Percy and Toole's mother, Thelma, the book became first a cult classic, then a mainstream success; it earned Toole a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981 and is now a canonical work of modern literature of the Southern United States.
Southern American English or Southern U.S. English is a regional dialect or collection of dialects of American English spoken throughout the Southern United States, though concentrated increasingly in more rural areas, and spoken primarily by White Southerners. In terms of accent, its most innovative forms include southern varieties of Appalachian English and certain varieties of Texan English. Popularly known in the United States as a Southern accent or simply Southern, Southern American English now comprises the largest American regional accent group by number of speakers. Formal, much more recent terms within American linguistics include Southern White Vernacular English and Rural White Southern English.
A Boston accent is a local accent of Eastern New England English, native specifically to the city of Boston and its suburbs. Northeastern New England English is classified as traditionally including New Hampshire, Maine, and all of eastern Massachusetts, though some uniquely local vocabulary appears only around Boston. A 2006 study co-authored by William Labov claims that the accent remains relatively stable, though a 2018 study suggests the accent's traditional features may be retreating, particularly among the city's younger residents, and becoming increasingly confined to the historically Irish American neighborhood of South Boston.
New York City English, or Metropolitan New York English, is a regional dialect of American English spoken by many people in New York City and much of its surrounding metropolitan area. It is described by sociolinguist William Labov as the most recognizable regional dialect in North America. Its pronunciation system—the New York accent—is widely represented in American media with many public figures and fictional characters. Major features of the accent include a high, gliding vowel ; a split of the "short a" vowel into two separate sounds; variable dropping of r sounds; and a lack of the cot–caught, Mary–marry–merry, and hurry–furry mergers heard in many other American accents.
Eastern New England English, historically known as the Yankee dialect since at least the 19th century, is the traditional regional dialect of Maine, New Hampshire, and the eastern half of Massachusetts. Features of this variety once spanned an even larger dialect area of New England, for example, including the eastern halves of Vermont and Connecticut for those born as late as the early twentieth century. Studies vary as to whether the unique dialect of Rhode Island technically falls within the Eastern New England dialect region.
The English language as primarily spoken by Hispanic Americans on the East Coast of the United States demonstrates considerable influence from New York City English and African-American Vernacular English, with certain additional features borrowed from the Spanish language. Though not currently confirmed to be a single stabilized dialect, this variety has received some attention in the academic literature, being recently labelled New York Latino English, referring to its city of twentieth-century origin, or, more inclusively, East Coast Latino English. In the 1970s scholarship, the variety was more narrowly called (New York) Puerto Rican English or Nuyorican English. The variety originated with Puerto Ricans moving to New York City after World War I, though particularly in the subsequent generations born in the New York dialect region who were native speakers of both English and often Spanish. Today, it covers the English of many Hispanic and Latino Americans of diverse national heritages, not simply Puerto Ricans, in the New York metropolitan area and beyond along the northeastern coast of the United States.
In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions and so fewer vowel phonemes occur before than in other positions of a word.
Philadelphia English or Delaware Valley English is a variety or dialect of American English native to Philadelphia and extending into Philadelphia's metropolitan area throughout the Delaware Valley, including southeastern Pennsylvania, counties of northern Delaware, the northern Eastern Shore of Maryland, and all of South Jersey, with the dialect being spoken in cities such as Wilmington, Atlantic City, Camden, Vineland, and Dover. Philadelphia English is one of the best-studied types of English, as Philadelphia's University of Pennsylvania is the home institution of pioneering sociolinguist William Labov. Philadelphia English shares certain features with New York City English and Midland American English, although it remains a distinct dialect of its own. Philadelphia and Baltimore accents together fall under what Labov describes as a single "Mid-Atlantic" regional dialect.
North American English regional phonology is the study of variations in the pronunciation of spoken North American English —what are commonly known simply as "regional accents". Though studies of regional dialects can be based on multiple characteristics, often including characteristics that are phonemic, phonetic, lexical (vocabulary-based), and syntactic (grammar-based), this article focuses only on the former two items. North American English includes American English, which has several highly developed and distinct regional varieties, along with the closely related Canadian English, which is more homogeneous geographically. American English and Canadian English have more in common with each other than with varieties of English outside North America.
Cajun English, or Cajun Vernacular English, is a dialect of American English spoken by Cajuns living in Southern Louisiana. Cajun English is significantly influenced by Louisiana French, the historical language of the Cajun people, a subset of Louisiana Creoles — although many today prefer not to identify as such — who descend largely from the Acadian people expelled from the Maritime provinces during Le Grand Dérangement.
Older Southern American English is a diverse set of American English dialects of the Southern United States spoken most widely up until the American Civil War of the 1860s, before gradually transforming among its White speakers, first, by the turn of the 20th century, and, again, following the Great Depression, World War II, and, finally, the Civil Rights Movement. By the mid-20th century, among White Southerners, these local dialects had largely consolidated into, or been replaced by, a more regionally unified Southern American English. Meanwhile, among Black Southerners, these dialects transformed into a fairly stable African-American Vernacular English, now spoken nationwide among Black people. Certain features unique to older Southern U.S. English persist today, like non-rhoticity, though typically only among Black speakers or among very localized White speakers.
Louisiana is a South Central U.S. state, with a 2020 U.S. census resident population of 4,657,757, and apportioned population of 4,661,468. Much of the state's population is concentrated in southern Louisiana in the Greater New Orleans, Florida Parishes, and Acadiana regions, with the remainder in North and Central Louisiana's major metropolitan areas. The center of population of Louisiana is located in Pointe Coupee Parish, in the city of New Roads.
The culture of Louisiana involves its music, food, religion, clothing, language, architecture, art, literature, games, and sports. Often, these elements are the basis for one of the many festivals in the state. Louisiana, while sharing many similarities to its neighbors along the Gulf Coast, is unique in the influence of Louisiana French culture, due to the historical waves of immigration of French-speaking settlers to Louisiana. Likewise, African-American culture plays a prominent role. While New Orleans, as the largest city, has had an outsize influence on Louisiana throughout its history, other regions both rural and urban have contributed their shared histories and identities to the culture of the state.
Despite popular stereotypes in the media that there is a singular New Jersey accent, there are in fact several distinct accents native to the U.S. state of New Jersey, none being confined only to New Jersey. Therefore, the term New Jersey English is diverse in meaning and often misleading, and it may refer to any of the following dialects of American English or even to intermediate varieties that blend the features of these multiple dialects.
The sound system of New York City English is popularly known as a New York accent. The New York metropolitan accent is one of the most recognizable accents of the United States, largely due to its popular stereotypes and portrayal in radio, film, and television. Several other common names exist for the accent, associating it with more specific locations in the New York City area, such as a Bronx accent, Brooklyn accent, Long Island accent, or North Jersey accent; however, no research has demonstrated significant linguistic differences between these locations.
Rhoticity in the English language is the pronunciation of the historical rhotic consonant in certain contexts by English speakers. The presence or absence of rhoticity is one of the most prominent distinctions by which varieties of English can be classified. In rhotic accents, the historical English sound is preserved in all pronunciation contexts. In non-rhotic accents, speakers no longer pronounce in postvocalic environments: when it is immediately after a vowel and not followed by another vowel. For example, in isolation, a rhotic English speaker pronounces the words hard and butter as /ˈhɑːrd/ and /ˈbʌtər/, but a non-rhotic speaker "drops" or "deletes" the sound and pronounces them as /ˈhɑːd/ and /ˈbʌtə/.
Louisiana French is an umbrella term for the dialects and varieties of the French language spoken traditionally by French Louisianians in colonial Lower Louisiana. As of today Louisiana French is primarily used in the state of Louisiana, specifically in its southern parishes.
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