Is the New York City accent gone? (Boston, Caroline: neighborhoods, wealthy)

[FlushingQwnz]

Definitely dead or at least in QUeens and Manhattan. Moderator cut: Off topic So if you're a native new yorker living in Queens chances are the person you're talking to wanst born here. Moderator cut: Off topic Then take the % of people who werent born in Nyc who live in Queens. You'll be lucky if 1/8 people who live in Queens have a Ny accent. More than half of the people who live in QUeens can barely speak english let alone have a new york accent.

Moderator cut: Racist

[Rachael84]

Originally Posted by FlushingQwnz

Definitely dead or at least in QUeens and Manhattan. Moderator cut: Off topic So if you're a native new yorker living in Queens chances are the person you're talking to wanst born here. Moderator cut: Off topic Then take the % of people who werent born in Nyc who live in Queens. You'll be lucky if 1/8 people who live in Queens have a Ny accent. More than half of the people who live in QUeens can barely speak english let alone have a new york accent.

Moderator cut: Racist

That's definitely true. Well, it's really always been like that (the diversity). But many more transplants are moving here compared to 20-30 years ago. I've NEVER met another native of Queens since I moved back here (well, besides my landlord). It's sad. I hate to say it, but I get along better with native NYers. I don't know, I guess we have the same personality type or something. It's rare to hear a true NY accent anymore.

[UWS Cowboy]

It's not dead in any borough when there's still hundreds of thousands who speak with the accent.... Maybe it's dwindled in Manhattan, but it's not dead.

[HCC]

There are distinct accents even within the so-called NY accent. I live in Brooklyn, not a native and from neighborhood to neighborhood it is different. People in Besonhurst sound tough and Italian while people in Midwood sound Yiddishe and people in Park Slope sound like educated Midwesterners. With the crazy influx of people that have moved here in the last 10 years with Sex and the City in their eyes, the majority of Manhattanites sound like they could be from anywhere USA. Head up to "da Bronx" and you here an altogether accent. Growing up in the Midwest, I guess what I thought of as a NY accent, turns out to be spoken mostly in Long Island. The accent is fading, but still exists mostly amongst those born and raised in the outer boroughs.

[nycricanpapi]

I believe that the NY accent is changing due to the influx of the immigrants from different places. So the NY accent will always be there, but it is going to be a different NY accent. This is what I think.

[anders]

Originally Posted by nycricanpapi

I believe that the NY accent is changing due to the influx of the immigrants from different places. So the NY accent will always be there, but it is going to be a different NY accent. This is what I think.

I agree, but
-- Immigrants might not have all _that_ much influence: By the time their kids get through college or into careers, they've adopted some form of New York-speak or quasi-Standard American English.
It's not like 1890s-to-WWII, when options were limited and you mostly hung out with your own folks.
-- The influx of Midwest/West Coasters, plus mass-media saturation, also are making a difference: I'm hearing more "NY accents" that actually are just generic U.S. English, but with NYC-isms thrown in (or with structure that's clearly from another language).

And I think the Old Brooklyn (or boroughs) deze-dem-doze thing is on the way out.
I hadn't heard a really, _really_, real Old Bklyn accent in ages ... until a few weeks ago, when I overheard a guy from Bensonhurst yelling on his cell phone. His Brooklynese was so thick that it made me do a serious heads-up: Though I'm a native NYCer, and am prettty adept at linguistics, I had no _clue_ re: what he was saying at first -- it had the cadence of English, but no recognizable words, just a glop of run-together sounds.

[Ninjahedge]

All you have to do is listen to the State Senate to hear some of the accents!

But I think the biggest difference now is not only people moving in, but the exposure of our youth to different media through television.

You still get the racial and ethnic accents coming through in some areas, but in most cases that are reduced by the proximity to so many different cultures and peoples.

The funny thing is, most of the accents they attribute to both NYC AND NJ can be found more prevalently in the outer boroughs and LI.

NJ USED to have a heavier accent akin to Fran Dresher (LI heavy)but I think NJ has had more dispersion in the last 10/20 years or so. You still hear smatterings of it, but I think it was more preserved in LI.....

my 2½¢

[Coolhand68]

I still have it, but it is something that I notice less of in NYC as there are more out of towners and immigrants moving in with each passing year.

[Andysocks]

Originally Posted by crisp444

I noticed this immediately when I moved here. However, people I know from central/north New Jersey pretty much ALL say in line, as well as most people from Long Island that I know. I've noticed that people from the boroughs and from Westchester tend to say on line, though. I wonder why. I have never heard this difference anywhere else in the Anglophone world so it was completely new to me!

i'm originally from LI and everyone i know from there says on line. or in a store, cashier calls "next on line." probably depends on class, what part of the island, etc.

[eek]

i've noticed that more ppl pronounce call, fall, all like a midwesterner or a person from cali...

its not even a class thing anymore.