Is The Philly Dialect Changing?

[BajanYankee]

Originally Posted by gwillyfromphilly

Even if there isn't a distinct White DC accent, which I find a little hard to believe since whites had pretty much been the majority population until white flight occurred in the 1950's

It's not hard to believe. DC is not like Philadelphia where you have a lot of white people with roots in the city (or even the area). Those people are few and far between.

Originally Posted by gwillyfromphilly

but either way there is no denying the general Midland dialect influence in their speech patterns.

What do you mean by that? Give me an example.

Originally Posted by gwillyfromphilly

I think you can at least agree with some of that "BajanYankee".

What's up with the "quotations?" Anyways, I think people in the DC area literally sound like people from everywhere. I mean, the vast majority of new people to the region are Hispanics and Asians. The whites in the region are a transient bunch that come from literally every section of the country. And the blacks have a strong southern influence. You don't really pick up any speech patterns there because the person you're talking to could be from New England or they could be from Tennessee (or Ethiopia or El Salvador). There's not a long-standing (meaning two to three generations) native white population for speech patterns to really swing one way or the other.

[CarolSue2]

I was born in the Philly area and moved to Pittsburgh at age 7. The kids at my new school made fun of my accent and made me say the word "box" over and over again. They said I pronounced it "baax" with a broad A. To me, it sounded like they were saying "bowx." Actually, I have found that they didn't have any room to talk. Pittsburgh is known for it's very strange dialect and I know I have picked up a lot of it over the years.

Carol