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I have never noticed this, but I am from the Deep South (Metro Atlanta). I HAVE noticed, however, that many Blacks in northern locals (okay maybe not so much New York and Boston) have SOUTHERN ACCENTS, like myself and many native Georgians. Makes me happy when I travel up north to hear "some South in their mouths". ;0) Colloquialisms like "y'all", etc. are also quite common; I have noticed.
Everybody says y'all but you will never mistake a black person from New York with a black person from Georgia. Hell, you won't even mistake a black person from New Orleans with a black person from Baton Rouge and they're only 100 miles apart.
Location: L'Enfant D.C. near the southern end of the megalopolis
39 posts, read 41,907 times
Reputation: 53
used to live in Bmore
Quote:
Originally Posted by the resident09
Y'all think I just say these things for C-D like there's no basis, but I swear I don't make statements that have no basis.
The following video is of a man breaking up a fight of teenagers in AC New Jersey. I SWORE this was filmed in Baltimore from hearing the accents, until the news clip showed it was in NJ:
Lol I used to live in East Bmore so I guess I'll comment.
I was trying to hear what you was saying, but it was not really coming off the same way to me in terms of the people in this video sounding like they're from Baltimore. Like I didn't think saying "errbody" was a regionalism tbh. Additional notes:
The way the guy breaking up the fight said "man" like "meean" sounds very NY-like to me. Made me think of how Q-Tip talks. The same thing applies especially with the word "wrong" ("wrawong" in this case). And he said both of those words more than once so there was no mistaking his natural pronunciation of them.
The way he said "yo" was also very distracting because the "o" had a sort of "e" sound in it and came out like "yehw." Maybe it's a NJ thing? I have heard o-fronting from black folks down here in the District before but idk how common it is in this area.
As far as similarities, the way he pronounced "record" gen. follows how people would drop r's in that context on the East Coast. And the way he said "parents" was surprisingly slurred for NJ (sounded like "pairnts"), but not recognizable as the "purrents" you hear here in DC/up in Baltimore.
To respond to the OP question I'd say what's been touched on somewhat before, which is that the only places where black people sound like NYC are in proximity to that city in the NE. It's easy to hear similarities to NY accents down to Philly (and AC as theresident09's video just showed), even tho those areas definitely have their own regional signifiers to distinguish from NY. So there's not as much a NY accent in those other places but rather Northeastern characteristics.
Btw, nice thread! I always appreciate convos on black linguistics like this. Sometimes I get tired of not hearing about it when discussing regionalisms and stuff.
The premise of this thread is crazy lol. Native born NYC black people have a very unique accent. Blacks from NYC sound completely and utterly different from those from other places (outside of the northeast).
I went to a college that was 95%+ black and well represented by different regions. The biggest cohorts were from the DC area, Southern California, Atlanta, Chicago, and Texas. As a freshman, the differences in our language styles were ridiculously obvious. Being a Texan, I will never forget when I first set foot on campus I literally could not understand what people from New York were saying. And they couldn't understand me either. It took months until I stopped saying "what?" to every other sentence that came out of their mouths.
California accents are unique too and very different between northern and southern California.
I think outside of Texas, black folks from the south have a much more consistent accent, but there are still small differences that natives of the region can hear and identify.
And let's not even get started on Louisiana. Completely different.
Yea Tay Roc is the name I was searching to find. I didn't know there was an RVA mc on the scene. What is the name of the guy from Richmond? I know most of the battle rappers in VA are from Hampton Roads, since local battle leagues (Headhunters, 7 cities sharks, etc) have been popular out here for a long time. That is how Bigg K and Ave were discovered.
@Kbank007 The Richmond VA battler's name is Jakkboy Maine and he's actually pretty good
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used to live in Bmore
I always appreciate convos on black linguistics like this. Sometimes I get tired of not hearing about it when discussing regionalisms and stuff.
