Assessing the "Southerness" of Philly's Black Population (Philadelphia: closing, living)

[pman]

there are different groups of philadelphia blacks. philadelphia was an early hitbed of abolitionism and had a sizable popularions of free blacks long before the abolition of slavery. people moved north after the war, again in the first great migration, and yet again in the second great migration...the latter is often associated with southern as this group were thrown out of work by the introduction of northern farmkng techniques during the depression. plus it was the most recent group. philly is more southern than ny and dc more southern than philly. there is no hard line. dc is certainly not the deep south and striles me as less southern tham it probably was fifty years ago

[toobusytoday]

The civil war ended 148 years ago. I don't really think it has any relevance now to a city's Southern flavor. Geographically, Philly is SOUTH of New York and DC is SOUTH of Philly. Is this news?? There is a hard line, it's called the mason-dixon line and it's South of Philly. The Mason-Dixon Line - Overivew of Mason-Dixon Line

[southbound_295]

Originally Posted by toobusytoday

The civil war ended 148 years ago. I don't really think it has any relevance now to a city's Southern flavor. Geographically, Philly is SOUTH of New York and DC is SOUTH of Philly. Is this news?? There is a hard line, it's called the mason-dixon line and it's South of Philly. The Mason-Dixon Line - Overivew of Mason-Dixon Line

At the time of the marking of the border, Philadelphia was 15 miles north of the ine. This is important for 2 reasons. The Calverts claimed Philadelphia & the Penns claimed Baltimore. Also, that was the city border at that time, long before the consolidation. Saving the Mason-Dixon Line

If someone goes to the library & looks through old editions of the Inquirer, in the spring the society page ran notices of the "coming out" parties & balls for the debutantes. There were white debutantes & black debutantes. "High society" was segregated. I recall seeing the announcements in the '60s & '70s. I don't recall when it stopped. At some point the society page was changed, repurposed, & renamed.

[pman]

Originally Posted by toobusytoday

The civil war ended 148 years ago. I don't really think it has any relevance now to a city's Southern flavor. Geographically, Philly is SOUTH of New York and DC is SOUTH of Philly. Is this news?? There is a hard line, it's called the mason-dixon line and it's South of Philly. The Mason-Dixon Line - Overivew of Mason-Dixon Line

actually, I've heard people claim, and perhaps with reason, that these old communities were segregated. in other words, the field hands that were thrown out of work migrated to the industrial areas (mostly north philly) desperate for work while many of the more established from prior periods moved on up to east mt airy, cedarbrook, etc and that there were differences in speech patterns as well with the former being more southern. there is of course, no hard line, not even if there's one on a map. that simply flies in the face of logic unless there's a wall or an ocean, which there's not.

A University of Pennsylvania linguistics professor says the Southern-inflected sound of the Philadelphia dialect is moving toward a more Northern accent

Philadelphians have a unique accent, with pronunciation evolving over the decades - Washington Post

[nephi215]

The quintessential Philly accent (white ethnic Philly accent) has always been a 100% northern accent. How is the changing into something it already was lol? It does not, and never had a tiny bit of an southern influence.

[southbound_295]

Originally Posted by nephi215

The quintessential Philly accent (white ethnic Philly accent) has always been a 100% northern accent. How is the changing into something it already was lol? It does not, and never had a tiny bit of an southern influence.

Really? Try this. The cadence is northern. I'll give you that. Try listening to the vowels.

[loose cannon]

Not offensive at all. There are quite a good number of African Americans in the whole state of Pa from down South. But, the families have been here for so long that the SOuthern culture does not really take up here. Some African Americans may visit relatives in South Carolina or wherever, but they pretty have acclimated themselves to this part of the country and carry themselves accordingly.

[gwillyfromphilly]

Originally Posted by nephi215

The quintessential Philly accent (white ethnic Philly accent) has always been a 100% northern accent. How is the changing into something it already was lol? It does not, and never had a tiny bit of an southern influence.

Even if it did had a small southern influence, the Philly accent still falls under the Midland dialect(which is distinct from the Southern dialect region). I don't understand why some posters on here have a hard time accepting that. When Blacks from the South moved up North to Philadelphia, their descendants would go own to lose the Southern dialect all together. Not every city around the country can say that. That in itself speaks volume as to how removed the Philly dialect is to the Southern dialect.

[mancat100]

Philly accent is not southern. Compare Chris Matthews (TV personality originally from Northeast Philly) to Haley Barbour (Former Governor of Mississippi). No similarity. None. Nada. Nothing. Zero.

[nephi215]

Originally Posted by southbound_295

Really? Try this. The cadence is northern. I'll give you that. Try listening to the vowels.

Your reaching. A is an vowel of course and think about how Philadelphians say Cawfee Tawk etc. Even the "o" is pronounced differently in certain words like thaut instead of thought, Munney instead of money etc. The vowels along with the along with the Philly accent in its entirety is not southern in any extent and completely northeastern with some midland similarities to a lesser extent. Here is the accent described in depth Philadelphia dialect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia