New York-New Jersey English: Encyclopedia II - New York-New Jersey English - Linguistic Features

New York-New Jersey English - Linguistic Features

New York-New Jersey English - Pronunciation

See the article International Phonetic Alphabet for explanations of the phonetic symbols used, as indicated between square brackets. These represent actual pronunciations. The symbols in curved parentheses () are variables, in this case historical word classes that have different realizations between and within dialects. This system was developed by William Labov. A link to a site with an example text read in various accents, including New York, can be found under external links.

New York-New Jersey English is predominantly characterized by the following sounds and speech patterns:

• The low back chain shift The (oh) vowel sound of words like talk, law, cross, and coffee and the often homophonous (ohr) in core and more are tensed and usually raised, higher than its equivalent in many other U.S. dialects. This vowel is typically above [ɔː], the corresponding vowel in Received Pronunciation; in the most extreme New York accents, it is even higher and possesses an inglide: [ʊə]. (ah) in father and (ahr) in car are tensed and move to a position abandoned by (oh). The result is that car is often similar to core in parts of New England. Some words not originally from this word class, such as on, god and Bob join the (ah) group. This shift is robust and has spread to many non European American New Yorkers.

• The short a split There is a class of words, indicated with (aeh) with a historical "short a" vowel, including plan, class, and bad, where the historical [æ] has undergone [æ]-tensing to [eə], or, in the most extreme accents, [ɪə], accompanied by an inglide as with (oh). This class is similar to, but larger than, the class of words in which Received Pronunciation uses the so-called broad A.Other words, such as plaque clatter and bat,indicated as (ae), remain lax, with the result that bad and bat have different vowels. Versions of the short a split are found from Philadelphia to Southern New England.

• pre-r distinctions New York accents lacks most of the mergers before medial [ɹ] that many other modern American accents possess:
  • The vowels in marry [mæɹi], merry [mɛɹi], and Mary [meəɹi] are distinct.
  • The vowels in furry [fɝi] and hurry [hʌɹi] are distinct
  • Words like orange and forest are pronounced [ɑɹəndʒ] and [fɑɹəst] with the same stressed vowel as pot, not with the same vowel as port as in much of the rest of the United States.

• er/oy In the most old-fashioned and extreme New York–area accents, the vowel sounds of words like girl and of words like oil both become a diphthong [ɜɪ]. This is often misperceived by speakers of other accents as a "reversal" of the "er" and "oy" sounds, so that girl is pronounced "goil" and oil is pronounced "erl"; this leads to the caricature of New Yorkers saying things like "Joizey" and "terlet". This particular speech pattern is no longer very prevalent; the character Archie Bunker was a good example of a speaker who had this feature. Younger New Yorkers (born since about 1950) are likely to use a rhotic [ɝ] in bird even if they use nonrhotic pronunciations of beard, bared, bard, board, boor, and butter.

• r-lessness The traditional New York–area accent is non-rhotic; in other words, the sound [ɹ] does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant. Thus, there is no [ɹ] in words like park [pɑːk], butter [bʌɾə], or here [hiə]. This feature is losing ground; there are plenty of New Yorkers who have fully or partially rhotic English. Non-rhoticity now happens sometimes in New Yorkers with entire rhotic speech if r 's are located in unaccented syllables or words and the next syllable or word begins in consonant. Some New Yorkers may also exhibit an intrusive or linking r, similar to Boston-area speakers.

• Dark (l) onsets This feature has rarely been commented on but it is robust. A dark variant of (l) is used before vowels like the (l) used in most English after vowels. In other words, in New York dialect, the (l) is made before vowels with the tongue bunched towards the back of the mouth as it is after vowels. In much US English, the prevowel version has a light variant, with the tongue bunched more towards the front. In effect, this means that the beginning sound of lull and level approximates the final one.

• Dentalization (t) and (d) are often pronounced with the tongue tip touching the teeth rather than the alveolar ridge (just above the teeth), as is typical in most varieties of English. Also, these sounds become affricates (sounds with a burst and then a substantial frication, (like ch) before r.

• (dh/th) fortition Some speakers replace the dental fricatives [θ, ð] with the stops [t, d], so that words like thing and this sound similar to "ting" and "dis". This feature is highly stigmatized and is becoming less and less frequent.

• Intrusive g. In most varieties of English, the velar nasal (ng), written as ‘’ng’’ has no g sound in it. However, in strong versions of New York dialect, it appears that it does get pronounced before a vowel as a velar stop. This leads to the stereotype of ‘’Long Island’’ being pronounced as Lawn Guyland.

New York-New Jersey English - Syntax

• Indirect questions The question order is preserved in indirect questions, at least those introduced by wh-words. He wanted to know when will he come instead of He wanted to know when he will come Or She asked why don’t you want any instead of the standard She asked why you don’t want any.

New York-New Jersey English - Lexicon

There are numerous words used mainly in New York, mostly associated with immigrant languages. A few examples include:

• Guido: a sleazy young Italian-American male
• Guidette: a corruption of Guido meaning young stereotypical Italian-American female (think poofy hair)
• Hero: the local name of the submarine sandwich, perhaps etymologically related to Greek gyro, though with a different meaning.
• Bodega: the local name for a small market, known in other parts of the US as a convenience store. Its use is general for stores owned by Latinos, but it has been extended to stores owned by members of other immigrant groups such as Middle Easterners.
• A new contribution, papichulo for a kind of suave ladies' man, is starting to spread.

A curious split in usage, reflective of the city's racial divide, involves the word punk. In the African American and Latino communities, the word tends to be used as a synomym for weak, someone unwilling or unable to defend her or usually himself or perhaps loser. That usage appears to descend from the AAVE meaning of male receptive participant in anal sex, a meaning which, in turn, may be largely lost among youth. Although this loser sense is expanding to younger European American and perhaps Asian American speakers with considerable contact with AAVE culture, an older usage, in which the term means youthful delinquent is probably still more common. Thus a newspaper article that refers to, say, some arrested muggers, as punks can have two different meanings to two different readers. Of course, the term also unambiguously means the follower of a particular musical and fashion peer cultural style.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Linguistic Features", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki