Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Baltimore is not in the Southern dialect region, it is a Midland dialect. Dr. Labov further groups Maryland east of the Blue Ridge all the way across the Eastern Shore in the same subregion as Eastern PA, Philly, most of Delaware and about 1/2 of New Jersey.
D.C. by Labov's classification isn't in this region. It is just south of the border in the Southern dialect region, along with Southern MD and the Lower Eastern Shore.
Now, why does Baltimore have some Southern vowels and other features in common with the South?
- Because all of MD is very close the border between Midland and Southern Speech. There is no hard and fast line that seperates these two regions. Heck, some Linguists don't believe the Midland dialect deserves to be separated out, but instead see it as a large zone of gradation between the Lower Tier of PA and the Southern end of Maryland. I personally think there are enough lexical and grammatical features to define a separate Midland dialect, but even so, the dialect has many overlapping features with both the dialects of the North and the South.......and the closer you get to the undisputed regions where these dialects are spoken, the more the Midland dialect is affected by them.
Last edited by westsideboy; 11-30-2014 at 06:09 PM..
How is this Northeastern? You find Catholics in Louisiana.
Just like Louisiana.
That state along with New Orleans is more of an anomaly in the South.
Quote:
That were there when the city was Southern. Also, row houses are found in Savannah, GA. They are a trait of European Colonialism, not necessarily regional identity.
Savannah doesn't have a large abundance rowhouse neighborhoods like many cities in the Northeast.
The 15 most Walkable Major cities consist of only three Northeastern cities. The rest are in the West, and the Midwest. If you count Baltimore and DC as being Northeastern because of this, it will just be circular reasoning. 3/15 isn't a great case builder for the Northeast being super walkable.
Walk scores change every year. I city can be ranked high one year than be ranked low the next year. That fact alone is enough for me not to take them to seriously.
Quote:
Again, only 3 Northeast cities take a spot in such a competition.
Most Southern cities barely have a light rail system. Baltimore, like many other major cities in the Northeast, has great mass transit. Inter-city rail, light rail, commuter rail, and subway are all available in Baltimore. Name me one Southern city that has all those transit amenities? Please don't say Washington DC.
Quote:
You mean the "distinctly Southern character" of Baltimore's accent???
Just like Kentucky, another Southern state. They were definitely sympathizers, and contributed to the Southern cause. The fact that MD for a long time offered Confederate Flag license plates is quite telling.
I'm not concerned with what the other states did because we're specifically talking about Maryland. The fact that Maryland didn't join the confederacy speaks volume. If Maryland had so many Confederate sympathizers, they would've been able to run those Unionists out of the state, or a least out of political power but that didn't happen. Maryland had its chance to prove how Dixie it was back in 1860 but it didn't happen. That's how history goes, so don't get mad at me because a lot of Marylanders didn't want to fight for the South.
Quote:
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Just look at the last elections.
More than half Maryland's Whites did not vote for Obama. You can't say the name of NY or the New England states.
Besides, even if this WAS the case, do you honestly believe that people like
Al Gore
Bill Clinton
Wendy Davis
Ed Schultz
...are not true Southerners because of their politics? Not that this even makes the case since MD's White population is mostly NOT Democrat.
Maryland politically leans more democrat and liberal, which is the exact opposite of the conservative and republican South.
That doesn't mean sh*t. Do those three Southern cites have Italian ethnic neighborhoods. I willing to guess that most of the Italian Americans living in those cities are transplants(mostly from the North). Doubt most of them have deep roots in the places unlike Baltimore that has had a long history of Italian American immigration. Philly has a larger Black population than any city in the South yet does that make Philly a southern city? No, of course not because you have to put things in its proper perspective. lol at all the people trying to downplay Baltimore's Italian American history.
Northern cities weren't the only cities to receive European immigrants. Benjamin Judah, for example, was a Jew and the Secretary of State of the Confederacy. Ben Bernanke, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, was raised in a multi-generational Southern Jewish household. European immigrants in both the North and South came through the port cities--Charleston, Baltimore, Savannah, Norfolk, New Orleans, Mobile, etc. The southern cities, with the exception of Baltimore and New Orleans, received fewer immigrants than northern cities because they were smaller. And the wholesale destruction of the southern economy after the Civil War precluded the influx of European immigrants witnessed by northern cities during the post-bellum period.
Baltimore, as one would expect of a border city, found itself tucked in between North and South here. It has a White ethnic percentage that's higher than what's found in stereotypical southern cities, but also much lower than what's found in a stereotypical northern city (Boston, NYC, etc.). Immigrants, however, don't make a city northern or southern. As the report from the Baltimore Jewish Federation shows, the Jewish community there considered itself part of the South. You can have an immigrant population that's placed within a context of southern history and culture.
I also don't think anyone is "downplaying" Baltimore's Italian population. It's simply not very Italian...at least in the concentrated sense in which people think of Philly and NYC. Of the Top 500 cities and zip codes in the U.S. for Italian ancestry, none are in the state of Maryland (there are some in the New Orleans metro, however). Baltimore's Little Italy, which is probably the most recognizable Italian neighborhood in the metro, is only 3% Italian. In this regard, it has a very different feel from the Philadelphia and NYC metros, which have very large Italian concentrations in both their city limits and suburbs.
I'm not going to address each point here (though I will note for the record that Louisville, a Southern city, has a higher Catholic percentage than Baltimore), but I am going to touch on the one in bold because it contradicts much of what people on here have said.
Whether a place was within the Confederacy or not is an arbitrary standard to apply to determine if a place is northern or at least "non-southern." If culture is all that people should be concerned with, then I don't see why it makes a difference whether a place was part of the Confederacy. Northern Virginia included the estate of Robert E. Lee and was clearly part of the Confederacy yet posters argue that Alexandria and Arlington are not "in the South." If those places can become "northern" simply because people want them to be, history be damned, then I don't see why Richmond can't become "northern" in 25 years. I mean, people are already saying that the South doesn't even begin until you're more than 50 miles away from the Potomac River. Including Richmond in this new "Northeast," provided the right demographic shifts (racial minorities, northern transplants, etc.) doesn't seem much of a stretch.
Some people may balk at the idea of ever calling Richmond northern because of its role in the Civil War. However, I'm not sure why so many people would be troubled by Monument Drive in Richmond on the one hand and then not be troubled by Robert E. Lee Park and several Confederate memorials (including Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee monuments near Johns Hopkins) in Baltimore on the other. The idea of a major "northeastern" city containing tons of tributes to the Confederacy is ridiculous in either case.
Sure, and that's what you call history. Have you been here for that? Baltimore's history is that of a Southern town.
Forget about history. Just look at how Baltimore has been described by Baltimore natives in the present day. If Baltimore and Philadelphia really are spitting images of the other, then Philadelphia...
-Has been described as a sleepy Southern town
-Is "deeply rooted in the South"
-Has a Jewish community that reflects its Southern history
-Has an "unmistakable Southern vibe"
-Has a "Southern-style charm" that's similar to Charleston, New Orleans or Savannah
-Has a "pace of the South"
-Shares with southern cities a "relaxed pace of life" and a "history deeply informed by Jim Crow"
-Has a "very polite, very Southern" disposition
-Has a sense of Southern gentility that still hangs on
-Has "lingering hillbilly traits" with a "willingness to dance at the drop of a hat"
-Has speech, as one might expect, that shows a distinctly Southern character
These are the same things you read about Philadelphia. So I guess the two cities are very similar after all...
Little Italy in Baltimore doesn't feel very Italian to me comparable to Philly's Italian American Community.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee
Northern cities weren't the only cities to receive European immigrants. Benjamin Judah, for example, was a Jew and the Secretary of State of the Confederacy. Ben Bernanke, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, was raised in a multi-generational Southern Jewish household. European immigrants in both the North and South came through the port cities--Charleston, Baltimore, Savannah, Norfolk, New Orleans, Mobile, etc. The southern cities, with the exception of Baltimore and New Orleans, received fewer immigrants than northern cities because they were smaller. And the wholesale destruction of the southern economy after the Civil War precluded the influx of European immigrants witnessed by northern cities during the post-bellum period.
Baltimore, as one would expect of a border city, found itself tucked in between North and South here. It has a White ethnic percentage that's higher than what's found in stereotypical southern cities, but also much lower than what's found in a stereotypical northern city (Boston, NYC, etc.). Immigrants, however, don't make a city northern or southern. As the report from the Baltimore Jewish Federation shows, the Jewish community there considered itself part of the South. You can have an immigrant population that's placed within a context of southern history and culture.
I also don't think anyone is "downplaying" Baltimore's Italian population. It's simply not very Italian...at least in the concentrated sense in which people think of Philly and NYC. Of the Top 500 cities and zip codes in the U.S. for Italian ancestry, none are in the state of Maryland (there are some in the New Orleans metro, however). Baltimore's Little Italy, which is probably the most recognizable Italian neighborhood in the metro, is only 3% Italian. In this regard, it has a very different feel from the Philadelphia and NYC metros, which have very large Italian concentrations in both their city limits and suburbs.
*Banjan, who really wants to be associated with The South when you're so close to NY and Philly?
*I can't get with the Midwest feel you've described. Baltimore's pace is picking up though. I feel that more internationals and other transplants from the "coastal Northeast" are moving to Baltimore are speeding up the pace of the city. I'm starting to see this city finally grow up, and out of that slowness and historical and social coma.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee
I think the best we can do for Baltimore, since it abhors any association with the South whatsoever, is place it in the Midwest. Aside from the centuries old Black population, confederate monuments and parks, Episcopalian southern aristocracy, and rowhouses, it fits quite nicely. Its white ethnic profile is closer to Cincinnati, St. Louis and Detroit than it is to Philadelphia, New York, Boston or even Pittsburgh's. It has a much slower pace than the coastal Northeast. It has an industrial heritage like Midwestern cities. And like those cities, it received massive influxes of white southerners to work in its factories.
*Banjan, who really wants to be associated with The South when you're so close to NY and Philly?
Proximity to NYC and Philly can't really matter that much if Baltimore was a Southern city. Baltimore and Philadelphia have always been the same distance from each other. So one question to ask is how Baltimore wound up being Southern while Philadelphia and New York did not (since all of these cities are only a few hours drive from each other).
I also don't know where this idea comes from that a northern city can't be near the South: "Bajan, are you trying to say Philadelphia was right there by the South????" Indeed it was. It was Philadelphia's proximity to the South that gave speakers there its funny vowel sounds. This didn't happen in the NYC area because it was further removed.
Quote:
The beauty of the Philly accent, and I should point out it’s mostly to whites that these sweeping statements apply, is its mashing-up of the Northern and Southern. Nowhere but in the Delaware Valley can you hear those rounded vowels — soda is sewda, house is hay-ouse — a clear influence from Baltimore and points south.
For Philly to have a "mashing up of the Northern and Southern," it had to get the southern from somewhere. That southern influence was coming from "Baltimore and points south."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinite_heights77
*I can't get with the Midwest feel you've described.
Seems that way to me. Like Cincinnati and other Midwestern cities, there's a Southern Appalachian presence in Baltimore that the northeastern cities along the Eastern Seaboard wholly lack. There are also vestiges of Southern culture that are indigenous to the city that give Baltimore its own distinct flavor.
BajanYankee you are a crazy one. Baltimore has Confederate memorials. So do many places outside of the South. Baltimore has plenty of Union memorials too. Civil War monuments are a pretty weak argument. It's also a fact that most Marylanders do not consider their state to be a part of the South. Baltimore does not fit the profile of a Southern city culturally or linguistically unlike Louisville. Those descriptions by natives are inaccurate as far as I'm concerned. Baltimore is not sleepy and it's certainly not a Southern city or a town from a modern. The fact you work so hard to win this argument shows how desperate you are. Civil War Monuments are not proof of a city's Northerness or Southerness. Chicago has a Confederate Memorial at Camp Douglas yet I don't see you calling it Southern. St. Louis has a Confederate Memorial and nobody calls that city Southern. Louisville has a Confederate Memorial yet you're willing to dismiss it. So why is it Baltimore has to be Southern. You need a therapist because you obviously are one insecure person.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
