Do people in New Orleans have the southern accent? (Metairie: sales, income)

[TNRyan23]

Originally Posted by BRMan

...if you really want to get the heaviest of the New Orleans accent, talk to someone in the Westbank or in St Bernard Parish (Chalmette, Arabi - also known as "Da Parish")

My wife lived on the Westbank for a few years before the storm and had a really weird accent but she lost it. She talks like anyone else these days.

[DopeBoiii]

So the New Orleans accent is different than everyone elses accent in Louisiana? Cause I've heard people from Louisana with Southern accents. Just not in New Orleans.

[BRMan]

Originally Posted by DopeBoiii

So the New Orleans accent is different than everyone elses accent in Louisiana? Cause I've heard people from Louisana with Southern accents. Just not in New Orleans.

Yes. There's the NO accent, the Cajun accent, and the Southern accent.

[Drouzin]

In general the accent is called, "Yat." It comes from the old greeting, "Hey! Where ya at?" The strength of the accent depends on what part of town you're from and how old you are. If you are 25 and live uptown it's likely that you are going to sound way less Yat than if you are 70 and grew up in the 9th ward. Here's a couple links for y'all:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yat_(New_Orleans), How ta tawk rite

Disclaimer: How ta tawk rite, is obviously Pre-k, and in true GNO fashion does pick on Uptown quite a bit, but try to remember that I didn't "rite" it, and being in Da Parish am of course the butt of many of those, "it takes 32 Chalmations to make a full set of teeth," jokes. So don't be too offended, we all know y'all really do have nothing but gator shirts and I've got to go and brush my one tooth and polish the shrimp boots for church on Easter.

[WestbankNOLA]

Drouzin said it best ya heard me.

[MrSykes]

North of the lake you get closer to the "mainstream" southern accent (Hammond, Lacombe, Covington, etc).

[rdhbs93]

New Orleans is a "Port" city like NY and Boston so that is why the accents are similar to those you might find in areas such as Brooklyn and Staten Island or South Boston.
"Southern" dialects are found North of NO. Cajun accents are found mostly along the bayou regions of LA.

[bustaduke]

Originally Posted by DopeBoiii

They were doing the COPS show in New Orleans, and Nobody seemed to have a southern accent.

Nope, we got a yat accent


busta

[GypsyJag]

I used to belong to an online chat group called 'Yat Chat'.....a bunch of people who just loved NOLA.....from all over the nation! We once met up in NOLA and had a great time! Friends till this day....and I'm from Crowley where the accent is very cajun, almost foreign sounding! So, love it or leave it...there's no place else where it's "mo better" than NOLA!

[Puddy4LyF]

If you watch Spike Lee's When The Levee's Broke, he interviews atleast 10 different NOLA natives. That's probably a good start to understanding the accent. It's definitely unique.