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As a minnesotan who currently lives in Alabama, imo MOST black ppl in the midwest (chicago, detroit, clevend) sound very southern. Steve Harvey sound very southern for example. The ppl on hardcore pawn also sound southern.
Steve Harvey does sound Southern but not every Cleveland Black person has it that extreme. Detroit Blacks tend to more Northern accents than practically all Great Lakes cities. Now, I can't speak for Buffalo, Rochester, or Syracuse. I've met some Blacks from Upstate NY that sound Northern.
You're saying the plurality? I always thought that at least a third of Black NYers weren't from the South from the West Indies/Africa.
Also, to your last point, are you saying the Italian NYC accent is AA influenced a bit? I'm confused. To me, NYC Italians speak textbook New York English with zero Southern accent.
There is a certain "urban" accent, which is definitely heavily influenced by AAs that many Italians (Guidos) have been influenced by, though they will want to deny it. Despite the tensions between the two groups Italians have always been influenced by AA culture. Sinatra being an example, the doo wop, disco, and now hip hop.
Now that we have at least 3 generations of Caribbean immigrants and their offspring, and this on top of the earlier wave at the turn of the 20th century, and the heavy migration from Africa, it is the opinion of many that AAs, with purely Southern roots, are now less than 50% of the black NYC population.
The older AA population, which didn't derive from the South, has been fully absorbed, so its always a shock to meet some one derived from the pre Civil War NYC black population, but they do exist.
And why is it to say that the speech patterns of most AAs has Southern influences. This isn't to say that it is "Bama" southern, nor is it to say that this is how all AAs speak.
Given that most northern AAs have Southern roots, and given that most AAs have lived in social segregation, why the shock that some aspects of speech with origins in DIFFERENT regions of the South, still linger among people whose relatives left 2 generations ago?
I live in NW Ohio and so am only 10 minutes from MI and MANY people in MI say "y'all" and "ain't" and other Old English variations of speaking.
"Y'all" is not a southern creation.
I also asked if you were speaking of leaving off "-ing" from words. Leaving off -ing does not equal "southern" either.
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In NY/NJ typical black speech and tone is different from that of whites. We can debate as to the reasons why, but what should not be surprising is that certain patterns of speech that are used in the parts of the South that AA NY blacks originate from, still linger among AAs. Now this is less the case among the millennial generation, and among the most educated, but it is indeed the case.
In addition the AAVE is rooted in various regions in the South. It has certain parallels with the various English creoles of the Caribbean and less obviously so, with the various Pidgin Englishes of West Africa. This speech developed in areas of dense population by peoples of African descent. In the USA, this was the South.
I doubt that in places like NYC AAVE developed among the pre Civil War black populations which existed, as their numbers were too small, and they were forced to have high levels of social interaction with other groups. That all changed in the turn of the 20th C when large numbers of blacks arrived from the South East, and from the Caribbean. So what will be called the NY version of AAVE, will have its roots in the SE USA, and will differ some what from that of the Deep South, but will have similar grammatical structures.
Having said all of that, I will argue that AAVE is declining faster than Southern influences in accent, because AAVE is not well regarded, even by blacks, when spoken by those with education.
There is a certain "urban" accent, which is definitely heavily influenced by AAs that many Italians (Guidos) have been influenced by, though they will want to deny it. Despite the tensions between the two groups Italians have always been influenced by AA culture. Sinatra being an example, the doo wop, disco, and now hip hop.
Now that we have at least 3 generations of Caribbean immigrants and their offspring, and this on top of the earlier wave at the turn of the 20th century, and the heavy migration from Africa, it is the opinion of many that AAs, with purely Southern roots, are now less than 50% of the black NYC population.
The older AA population, which didn't derive from the South, has been fully absorbed, so its always a shock to meet some one derived from the pre Civil War NYC black population, but they do exist.
This is maybe why I was quick to point out that Italians and Blacks sounded alike, which led me to believe that AA's in NYC didn't sound Southern. Really, those "urban" Italians have AA influences in their speech too which is why sometimes I confuse the two.
This is obviously a different speech than that used in movies. That speech is more textbook NYC but of course a trained language coach could be the reason why movie Italians sound more textbook NYC than the "urban" Italians. You're right, though, now that I think about it, some Italians I've met in NYC do have some AA influences in their speech like in "ow" sounds in words like "about" that they say differently than White New Yorkers. It's small things but yeah, you're right that sometimes these "real life" Italians do have a different, AA influenced speech than White people with NYC accents.
In Philly, it becomes even more of a blurred line because the Philly speech is already Southernish with glide deletion and O sounds that Philly Italians and Blacks sometimes have identical speech, unlike Irish Philadelphians which don't have such strong glide deletion. Fascinating stuff.
I worked with a black man who was born and raised in rural Alabama. We all tried to copy his accent, and none of us could come close to sounding like him. He'd laugh and laugh and laugh!
In Philly, it becomes even more of a blurred line because the Philly speech is already Southernish with glide deletion and O sounds that Philly Italians and Blacks sometimes have identical speech, unlike Irish Philadelphians which don't have such strong glide deletion. Fascinating stuff.
On Arsenio Hall (the original version) on argument was whether "yo" had origins in AA slang or Italian American slang. What I did notice is that the Italian American guests had a rapport with Arsenio that the other white guests didn't have. The overlap between the "urban" culture of Italian Americans and AAs in the northern cities is quite obvious.
Having said all of that, I will argue that AAVE is declining faster than Southern influences in accent, because AAVE is not well regarded, even by blacks, when spoken by those with education.
That's never going to happen. Most educated Black people will continue to use AAVE, they just won't use it at work or other settings where it's deemed inappropriate.
That's never going to happen. Most educated Black people will continue to use AAVE, they just won't use it at work or other settings where it's deemed inappropriate.
St. Louis rapper Tef Poe and Detroit rapper Royce Da 5'9 on the same track. I would say both are pretty accurate representation of what young people in both cities talk like.
There is a lot of country ass people in St. Louis, but a lot of time its based on socioeconomic condition and education. I personally have a Midwest twang, but I grew up around a more street crowd than my cousins, who are from the same city but went to private schools with white kids and upwardly mobile blacks. There is a large "bougie" black middle class in St. Louis that tries their best to hide any "southern", "country", or stereotypically "black" accent they may have, I've noticed this even in large Southern cities like Dallas and Atlanta. I have family in St. Louis and up in Evanston (Chicago), that talk with no visible accent but their parents have a "country" or "ghetto" accent and it embarrasses the hell out of them. Personally, I don't care how a person talks, as long as I can understand them, and have a decent conversation. I've also come to learn that you cant judge a persons background on accent alone, there are country sounding black kids in St. Louis that grew up in a more urban environment than a suburban black kid from outside New York, who talks with the stereotypical "Yankee" accent. I think people often make the wrong association about a place based on accents. People assume I'm country, because I'm from St. Louis when I never saw a cow in person until I moved to Florida. I will say that all major Midwestern cities have Southern sounding blacks, obviously St. Louis more Southern leaning because of proximity, but I've met some straight up country (not necessarily Southern) cats from Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit, but most of them were street dudes or less educated. I also find many St. Louisans have a similar accent to Mike Epps, an Indianapolis native. I've met a lot of black people from Midwestern cities with Katt Williams (from Ohio), who is has a noticeably country accent.
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