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Yinzer is a 20th-century term playing on the Pittsburghese second-person plural vernacular "yinz." The word is used among people who identify themselves with the city of Pittsburgh and its traditions.
"Yinzer" (or "Yunzer") was historically used to identify the typical blue-collar people from the Pittsburgh region who often spoke with a heavy Pittsburghese accent. The term stems from the word yinz (or yunz), a second-person plural pronoun brought to the area by early Scottish-Irish immigrants. [1] Over time, yinzer has been used by many Pittsburgh residents to self-identify, even if they don't speak with a thick accent.
The concept and use of the word gained popularity in the 21st century as the area's population loss slowed, and the city became a hub for revitalization. As the city gained note as a desirable place to live, [2] [3] more outsiders have moved or returned to the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. The term has taken on a connotation to identify someone who is either a lifelong Pittsburgher, or says a phrase or commits an act that could be identified as something a stereotypical Pittsburgher might do.
British English is the set of varieties of the English language native to the island of Great Britain. More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to the collective dialects of English throughout the British Isles taken as a single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English, Welsh English, and Ulster English. Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English acknowledges that British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions [with] the word 'British' and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity".
Western Pennsylvania English, known more narrowly as Pittsburgh English or popularly as Pittsburghese, is a dialect of American English native primarily to the western half of Pennsylvania, centered on the city of Pittsburgh, but potentially appearing in some speakers as far north as Erie County, as far west as Youngstown, Ohio, and as far south as Clarksburg, West Virginia. Commonly associated with the working class of Pittsburgh, users of the dialect are colloquially known as "Yinzers". The dialect is even heard in the town of Hancock, Maryland.
West Country English is a group of English language varieties and accents used by much of the native population of the West Country, an area found in the southwest of England.
In Modern English, the word "you" is the second-person pronoun. It is grammatically plural, and was historically used only for the dative case, but in most modern dialects is used for all cases and numbers.
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.
Neapolitan is a Romance language of the Italo-Romance group spoken in Naples and most of continental Southern Italy. It is named after the Kingdom of Naples, which once covered most of the area, since the city of Naples was its capital. On 14 October 2008, a law by the Region of Campania stated that Neapolitan was to be protected.
Yinz is a second-person plural pronoun used mainly in Western Pennsylvania English. It is most prominent in Pittsburgh, but it is also found throughout the cultural region known as Appalachia, located within the geographical region of the Appalachians.
Western Pennsylvania is a region in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania encompassing the western third of the state. Pittsburgh is the region's principal city, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic and cultural center. Erie, Altoona, and Johnstown are its other metropolitan centers. As of the 2010 census, Western Pennsylvania's total population is nearly 4 million.
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. Other than Philadelphia and arguably Baltimore, the dialect is 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.
Central American Spanish is the general name of the Spanish language dialects spoken in Central America. More precisely, the term refers to the Spanish language as spoken in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Panamanian Spanish is considered a variety of Caribbean Spanish, it is transitional between Central American and Caribbean dialects.
Mzungu, also known as muzungu, mlungu, musungu or musongo, is a Bantu word that means "wanderer" originally pertaining to spirits. The term is currently used in predominantly Swahili speaking nations to refer to foreign people dating back to 18th century. The noun Mzungu or its variants are used in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Comoros, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mayotte, Zambia and in Northern Madagascar dating back to the 18th century.
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.
Ye is a second-person, plural, personal pronoun (nominative), spelled in Old English as "ge". In Middle English and Early Modern English, it was used as a both informal second-person plural and formal honorific, to address a group of equals or superiors or a single superior. While its use is archaic in most of the English-speaking world, it is used in Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada and in some parts of Ireland, to distinguish from the singular "you".
Midland American English is a regional dialect or super-dialect of American English, geographically lying between the traditionally-defined Northern and Southern United States. The boundaries of Midland American English are not entirely clear, being revised and reduced by linguists due to definitional changes and several Midland sub-regions undergoing rapid and diverging pronunciation shifts since the early-middle 20th century onwards.
Texan English is the array of American English dialects spoken in Texas, primarily falling under Southern U.S. English. As one nationwide study states, the typical Texan accent is a "Southern accent with a twist". The "twist" refers to inland Southern U.S., older coastal Southern U.S., and South Midland U.S. accents mixing together, due to Texas's settlement history, as well as some lexical (vocabulary) influences from Mexican Spanish. In fact, there is no single accent that covers all of Texas and few dialect features are unique to Texas alone. The newest and most innovative Southern U.S. accent features are best reported in Lubbock, Odessa, somewhat Houston and variably Dallas, though general features of this same dialect are found throughout the state, with several exceptions: Abilene and somewhat Austin, Corpus Christi, and El Paso appear to align more with Midland U.S. accents than Southern ones.
Kéo or Nagé-Kéo is a Malayo-Polynesian dialect cluster spoken by the Kéo and Nage people that reside in an area southeast of the Ebu Lobo volcano in the south-central part of Nusa Tenggara Timur Province on the island of Flores, eastern Indonesia, largely in the eponymous Nagekeo Regency.
Pittsburgh Dad is an online series of short films featuring the observations of a blue-collar father from Pittsburgh who speaks with a thick Pittsburghese dialect. The series was created by Chris Preksta and Curt Wootton in 2011. Wootton plays the namesake character of Pittsburgh Dad in the series.
Jagoff or jag-off is an American English derogatory slang term from Pittsburghese meaning a person who is a jerk, stupid or inept. It is most prominent in the Pittsburgh area and Pennsylvania in general, along with wide use in the City of Chicago, particularly in the Irish taverns. The Dictionary of American Regional English defines the term as a "general term of disparagement". It is an archetypical Pittsburgh word, conjuring feelings of delight among Pittsburgh expatriates. The term is generally not seen as obscene among Pittsburghers and Chicagoans.
Barbara Johnstone is an American professor of rhetoric and linguistics at Carnegie Mellon University. She specializes in discourse structure and function, sociolinguistics, rhetorical theory, and methods of text analysis. She was the editor in chief of Language in Society from 2005 to 2013, and is the editor of Pittsburgh Speech & Society, a website about Pittsburgh English for non-linguists. She has published several books, including Speaking Pittsburghese (2013) and Discourse Analysis, 2nd Ed. (2008). She has also written for The New York Times.
