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Not really anymore. Maybe with older white city natives, but rarely otherwise.
Not even remotely valid now, and even back in the day probably not. My grandpa was an Irish-American Brooklynite and I doubt he would have sounded much different if he was from Queens.
Back in the 70's I was beginning to be able to distinguish the differences between Queens/Brooklyn/Long Island accents pretty good for white primarily working/lower class folks who I guess were mostly 2nd or 3rd generation American like myself. Black & latin accents are pretty distinct from that. I moved away in the 70's & when I returned after a few years I was floored by the heavy accents on friends that I never noticed before & people who met me then asked where I was from since I seemed to have lost mine.
There has been such an influx of people from non-European countries in the last generation, unlike cities like Boston or Chicago who have held on to a strong accent, that I think there are too many variants now, it's probably more ethnically based than neighborhood based.
Exactly. Accent varies by ethnicity, class, and subculture, not neighborhood or borough.
Actually there is variance. There definitely is a difference between Brooklyn and Queens within the same ethnic enclave. It is subtle but it definitely is there.
I seem to always be able to pick out old school Italian, PR, Jewish people from the Bronx when I find one in the wild. Brooklyn, Queens, and LI sound the same to me. Manhattanites sound like wherever they came from.
I seem to always be able to pick out old school Italian, PR, Jewish people from the Bronx when I find one in the wild. Brooklyn, Queens, and LI sound the same to me. Manhattanites sound like wherever they came from.
Queens and LI are almost identical but Brooklyn is different. There is also variation between ethnic and subcultures. There is a "Queens - Jewish" accent and a "Brooklyn - Italian" one and they are different. Of course I wouldn't know how to describe it. My friend says "Weatha" and "Oh my Gawd!" she's very Queens.
And while old school Brooklynites will say "Tawlk" it's different than the way a Queensling will say "Gawd." it's more of how it's articulated.
Accents are going away in general and becoming softer all over the country.
Actually there is variance. There definitely is a difference between Brooklyn and Queens within the same ethnic enclave. It is subtle but it definitely is there.
My grandpa was an Irish-American from Brooklyn and I doubt he would have sounded any different if he were from Queens.
He was born in the 40s and even he didn't have a super exaggerated Bugs Bunny accent.
We'll have to do this the hard way. I hope you can hear all the differences; they are subtle
Both Penny Marshall and Rosie O'Donnell have NY Accents, but they are different. Marshall is from the Bronx and has an old-school accent. O'Donnell from Long Island.
There's a difference in slang between the boroughs but not accent. Brooklyn slang is faster than the Bronx in my opinion, and if you have to ask what that means, don't bother...
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We'll have to do this the hard way. I hope you can hear all the differences; they are subtle
Both Penny Marshall and Rosie O'Donnell have NY Accents, but they are different. Marshall is from the Bronx and has an old-school accent. O'Donnell from Long Island.
Rosie Perez has a stereotypical Nuyorican accent (heavily AA influenced with some Latin flair), it has nothing to do with borough.
The fact that these people don"t sound exactly the same does not mean their accents are different because of what borough they're from. Donald Trump and Nicki Minaj are both from Queens, do they sound the same to you?
Has anyone noticed that some/many Hispanic people in NYC (even if born here) at times have an accent in English? Sometimes they roll their "l"s in English, like people do in Spanish.
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