The Cincinati Accent? (Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati: neighborhood, college, live)

[GI_Mark]

I was born and raised in Cincinnati and didn't realize an accent of any type until I left and even so, I agree that it's very subtle.

I think the variations have more to do with the people that come into Cincinnati from other places, as there are a lot of transplants there. I compare it to being in the Military and going from New York to some place like Texas. You spend 3-4 years at each place and you pick up the way the people in that region speak.

Cincinnatians have also picked up a lot of other dialects from people coming into the city and staying there. I went back to Cincinnati not long ago and while ordering at a restaurant, the waitress asked me where I was from. I looked at her surprisingly and said I was born and raised right here in Cincinnati and grew up right down the road. She told me that was impossible as it sounded like I had a southern accent gone horribly wrong.

That probably comes from being FROM Cincinnati, but spending many years in places like New York and Texas, as well as being around people from all walks of life.
Anyway, that's just another take on it...

[Pete.]

My two cents... I'm from Milwaukee. I worked for a company that had an office in Cincinnati, and we would often have conference calls with them. The Cincinnati people definitely sounded slightly southern to me. It wasn't a full-blown southern accent, but it sounded like a midwestern accent with some Kentucky thrown in, if that makes sense.

[Bigbluelandrover]

Black Female here,

My dad was born in West Virginia, he had a heavy applalachian accent even though he left at age 14. He would say Cinci-na-tuh, pa-ta-ta (potato) pa-puh, (paper) --shoot just a bunch of stuff he said was country. : ) My mom's side migrated north from Georgia. Someone earlier was surprised by the southern accent of minorities but c'mon, most of us have southern roots and then have moved to little neighborhoods and lived in those same areas for 50+ years (counting new generations). Some of my cousins live in Avondale and sound just like the older generation.

I find accents fascinating though. I know I have one, but now that I live outside DC--everyone here is from someplace else. I think the folks I work with in Baltimore have vocal quirks too! : )

[deg1114]

My accent from living here so long is described as "nasally" by my West coast friends. But there are differences depending on what area you live. I don't even know how to describe those in Hamilton.

[Cincy-Rise]

From a Linguists:

"It was stated above that the development of American dialects is controlled by two powerful and integrated sets of linguistic changes, the Northern Cities Shift and the Southern Shift, which drive the dialects of the Inland North and the South to ever more extreme forms in diametrically opposed directions.

We recognize that the Midland has a very different and less organized character. Each of the Midland cities -- Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City -- has its own local character.

Each urban dialect itself has developed local tendencies that are uniform throughout the city proper but shared only a limited degree by the hinterland.

In Philadelphia we find the regional patterns of the fronting of /uw/, /ow/ and /aw/, the raising of /ahr/ and /ohr/ in a chain shift, and the centralization of /ay/ before voiceless consonants. But only within the city proper do we find the Philadelphia split of /æ/ into tense and lax categories, the near-merger of /e/ and /^/ before intervocalic /r/ in ferry and furry, and the reversal of the direction of the glide in /aw/ from [au] to [eO].

Similarly, the entire area of Western Pennsylvania, centered round Pittsburgh, shares the merger of /o/ and /oh/ the fronting of /uw/ and /ow/, and the vocalization of /l/. But only Pittsburgh itself shows the characteristic monophthongization of /aw/ in house, mountain, etc.


Cincinnati shows a traditional split of /æ/ into tense and lax categories not dissimilar to that of New York City (Strassel and Boberg 1995). Here the pattern appears to be eroding in favor of a more general regional pattern of laxing."

National Map

... and there you have it folks.

[high mileage]

Originally Posted by Bigbluelandrover

Black Female here,

My dad was born in West Virginia, he had a heavy applalachian accent even though he left at age 14. He would say Cinci-na-tuh, pa-ta-ta (potato) pa-puh, (paper) --shoot just a bunch of stuff he said was country. : ) My mom's side migrated north from Georgia. Someone earlier was surprised by the southern accent of minorities but c'mon, most of us have southern roots and then have moved to little neighborhoods and lived in those same areas for 50+ years (counting new generations). Some of my cousins live in Avondale and sound just like the older generation.

I find accents fascinating though. I know I have one, but now that I live outside DC--everyone here is from someplace else. I think the folks I work with in Baltimore have vocal quirks too! : )

I was the one who said I was surprised about the relatively pronounced southern accents within the black community in Cincinati. Yes, most of us (blacks) have southern roots, but a lot of blacks in Cincinnati sound almost identical to those in Alabama. And yes I know the black migration to Cincinnati was supplemented heavily by Alabama. It just seems strange to me how much of a difference there is between the speech patterns of blacks and whites here.

Blacks in New England and the northeast have southern roots also (which I know you know), yet there is less of a variation in accents between races. I know if you go to certain parts of NYC, blacks and hispanics sound almost identical. I guess it stems from the early integration between races.

My dad was a deep rooted black South Carolinian who met my Panamanian mother who eventually convinced him or practically "dragged" him to Connecticut. The diversity in the north was a shock to him, but he eventually came to love it, and his siblings soon followed.

As for the Baltimore quirks, I know of a few, I'm not sure how widespread they are though. One that really sticks out to me is the way I hear a lot of residents in Baltimore pronounce words such as: due, two, too, Mountain Dew, through, few, you, etc. If you ever hear "Snoop" from "The Wire" speak, that will kind of give you the idea of what I'm talking about.

[Bigbluelandrover]

Hey High,
My husbands family lives in East St Louis-a lot of them migrated from Mississippi. If they don't sound like they came right from the Sip' then I don't know who does. Black Chicagoans from the south side--man o' man. Accents are cool though. The only one I don't like is from deep Louisiana, its a challenging dialect.

We have a lot of Georgia roots too!

[PhillytoCincy]

Originally Posted by Bigbluelandrover

Hey High,
My husbands family lives in East St Louis-a lot of them migrated from Mississippi. If they don't sound like they came right from the Sip' then I don't know who does. Black Chicagoans from the south side--man o' man. Accents are cool though. The only one I don't like is from deep Louisiana, its a challenging dialect.

We have a lot of Georgia roots too!

I just got back from a business trip where I was doing work in mid sized metro regions. Even in Shreveport (spelling) I had trouble understanding some people.

[tallydude02]

Some of those Appalachian accents heard in Cincinnati and across all of Ohio come from Ohio itself, especially in those counties along the Ohio River.

[ccstout]

I am a Cincinnatian, and being that I have lived in S. Carolina (Charleston), for four years now -- We Cincinnatians have an accent, and one to be proud of.

I moving to Cincinnati at the end of August, and prior to; I spent three weeks in Cincinnati during July.

Our accent does have a slight "draw", similiar to Charleston's very crisp and sharp. Unlike Columbus and Cleveland (totally seperate and different accents).

You will hear immediatley, words such as:
"Please..." instead of excuse me.
"You guys..." When collectively speaking about a group

West Side Cincinnati even has pronounces the use of their "R" differently than the East Side.

The elders in our beautiful city, still will say "Cincinnatah..." instead of the younger and my generation that says "Cincinnati..." And as far as I am concerned, that is just as much our heritage as geotta. As a few previvous posts have mentioned, our city is changing everyday, but we can not afford to lose these beautiful things that we call our heritage.