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While it is true that NYC black people and nuyoricans don’t have a southern sound at all, I’d like to address the myth the South had no phonetic influence on us. Not southern southern things but uniquely African American elements that black migrants took to other regions of the country are well and alive in New York. Fronting TH to either V or F in words such as Mother becoming Muva and Nothing becoming Nuffin is the most notable example. Another is pronunciation of words such as police as PO-lice instead of pa-LICE. This is obviously accent and not dialect as dialect is only grammar and vocabulary yet while AAVE dialect is universally understood to be maintained throughout the country, this obvious southern rooted phonetic influence as it comes from a southern rooted dialect is not acknowledged at all and it is often claimed on citydata that there is no southern influence on New York AAVE and that New York AAVE is almost exactly like the European NYC accent and it’s variations.
When italian and irish new yorkers start adopting the above pronunciations along with Ma for My and Luh for Love which I can send songs to prove it does occur in New York AAVE and not only the south although up here it depends on where in the sentence you say love, I will then say the South had zero phonetic influence on black new yorkers. However the traditional NYC accent did have a huge influence on New York AAVE. The famous New York R, the AW sound, linking R as in Idear for Idea and deletion of TH at the beginning of words such as thin and thing whereas other communities of African Americans and otherwise black influenced could retain that TH in thin and thing are the hallmarks of this unique influence of a northern white accent on a black dialect when almost anywhere else migrants went they weren’t at all influenced by the native dialect of that city.
So obviously migrants in New York didn’t maintain their southern accents and yet maintenance of several non-standard pronunciations proves they didn’t just “assimilate” into NYC’s pre-existing black population but then what exactly happened here? Without a study this can’t be taken as fact but my hypothesis is that a substratum situation happened, with the traditional NYC accent of the city’s already pre-existing black population acting as the substratum language that was absorbed into the AAVE of the migrants. Residential segregation under redlining kept these migrant influences intact and the years of migration being significantly earlier than many other areas of the country, for us 1910-1930 while the entirety of the West Coasts migrants arrived from the 1940-1970 migration along with a lot of the Midwest's means that New York simply had more time to evolve accentually than say Chicago.
In addition to the substratum and the time difference, big Caribbean immigration and adoption of New York AAVE likely accelerated the distancing of New York AAVE from southern roots as the children of Caribbean immigrants had zero chance of adopting any southern speech pattern. This latter element is far more prominent than it might seem as a third of all black new yorkers in 2014 were found to have been born in the Caribbean, very close to majority status and wouldn’t include illegal immigration or the children of Caribbean immigrants born in New York. In short a bunch of historical migration events aligned just right to create the best accent ever and that’s not even including the mixed with spanish influence nuyorican version I got and yes, all the aforementioned pronunciations are things I actually say myself.
I know plenty of AAs in NY who sound vaguely Southern
Plenty of really older people will definitely sound kinda southern for sure, I remember watching the Eddie Murphy movie Harlem Nights and I don’t know how many of the actors were actually from New York but I was struck by the difference. Aside from that, if you’re hearing it in younger people you might simply be noticing the maintenance of uniquely African American melodic/prosodic elements in our speech. I’m not an expert on linguistics but Johnathan McWhorter is an African American linguist that can tell you a lot more about this intonation pattern that unifies virtually all African American derivative accents despite or maybe because of his complete lack of one.
Stress placement causing police to become PO-lice is the only example I covered in my original post which I apologize for as I should’ve covered it due to it’s importance. Goddamn becoming something more like got-dayyum when unconsciously emphasized is another example along with an obvious unique bass-baritone timbre. I don’t think the timbre is genetic as I’ve met non-american black people that grew up in white environments and sound just like any other white american but the reality is that data wise we don’t know due to there not being a lot of research in seeing if voice varies along with other physical features of race. As for me my spanish influenced intonation I would think outshines my AA influence but enough people have mistaken me as being black over the phone and enough have been able to tell I’m hispanic to know that it isn’t always true for me, I guess different people notice different things.
Plenty of really older people will definitely sound kinda southern for sure, I remember watching the Eddie Murphy movie Harlem Nights and I don’t know how many of the actors were actually from New York but I was struck by the difference. Aside from that, if you’re hearing it in younger people you might simply be noticing the maintenance of uniquely African American melodic/prosodic elements in our speech. I’m not an expert on linguistics but Johnathan McWhorter is an African American linguist that can tell you a lot more about this intonation pattern that unifies virtually all African American derivative accents despite or maybe because of his complete lack of one.
Stress placement causing police to become PO-lice is the only example I covered in my original post which I apologize for as I should’ve covered it due to it’s importance. Goddamn becoming something more like got-dayyum when unconsciously emphasized is another example along with an obvious unique bass-baritone timbre. I don’t think the timbre is genetic as I’ve met non-american black people that grew up in white environments and sound just like any other white american but the reality is that data wise we don’t know due to there not being a lot of research in seeing if voice varies along with other physical features of race. As for me my spanish influenced intonation I would think outshines my AA influence but enough people have mistaken me as being black over the phone and enough have been able to tell I’m hispanic to know that it isn’t always true for me, I guess different people notice different things.
Well the people I'm thinking of are young. One of them is like 30 and her mom is from either Virginia or North Carolina. If anything, the explictly non Southern accent seems to be more of a thing among people say, Mary J Blige's age. I know young black New York chicks who would not particularly stand out in the less country parts of the South and definitely not the mid Atlantic.
I find that a lot of Hispanics in general have obviously black influenced accents. I was at a Kennedy's chicken in Woodside and I hear this guy complain to the clerk, I could have sworn he was black. I turn around and it's a fat Mexican looking guy.
And you're right that it's not genetic. It's a product of upbringing, but in recent years the internet as well.
I think your idea of a white New York accent is extremely outdated, though. Not even my relatives born in the 30s and 40s talk like that.
I always thought the "New Yawk" accent was derived from Italian accent. I also always thought Ebonics (in NYC or anywhere) derived from the accent of the Deep South. Both of them just sound that way to me (as a non-native English speaker), but I could be wrong.
In response to the poster who thinks that the NYC accent is influenced by Slavic accents of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, I can say that is definitely not the case. As a native Slavic speaker, I do not hear any Slavic element in the NYC accent.
I always thought the "New Yawk" accent was derived from Italian accent. I also always thought Ebonics (in NYC or anywhere) derived from the accent of the Deep South. Both of them just sound that way to me (as a non-native English speaker), but I could be wrong.
In response to the poster who thinks that the NYC accent is influenced by Slavic accents of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, I can say that is definitely not the case. As a native Slavic speaker, I do not hear any Slavic element in the NYC accent.
If you meet Italian immigrants/tourists who can speak English, their accents don't resemble stereotypical New York accents at all. So that's not it either.
I remember reading that the old "Dose and Dems" type of speech, users of which are probably all now dead, came from the Dutch influence, since Dutch has no "th" sound.
Don't think it's Italian, though, since Italians are relative newcomers to the New York City scene, not much more than the last hundred years, and were sort of kept in their own conclaves since they weren't really considered white back then by the residents of northern European ancestry who preceded them.
I remember reading that the old "Dose and Dems" type of speech, users of which are probably all now dead, came from the Dutch influence, since Dutch has no "th" sound.
Don't think it's Italian, though, since Italians are relative newcomers to the New York City scene, not much more than the last hundred years, and were sort of kept in their own conclaves since they weren't really considered white back then by the residents of northern European ancestry who preceded them.
Many languages (including actually Italian) don't have TH sound. The large Italian migration happened between 1880 and the early 1920s, and I don't know (does anyone actually know?) when the New Yawk accent originated, is it actually older than the large Italian migration. The earliest phonograph records were made in the 1860s, so theoretically there could be a record of pre-Italian-migration NYC speech, I just don't know anything about that. But all British accents I have heard in my lifetime sound to me very different from the NYC accent. I have heard both Queen Elizabeth II and Robert De Niro speak, and their accents do not sound similar to me, especially when De Niro speaks as a NYC movie character :-).
Does anybody know? Blacks in New York speak different from other blacks in the other regions of this country. You have to remember that blacks in the north migrated from the rural south during the Great Migration. The thing that is interesting is that many blacks in regions in the west and mid west still hold on to their southern twang that their grandparents brought with them. However, New York City is different. Blacks and Puerto Ricans have this distinct accent. Why is that?
Whites, Middle-Eastern, East Asians, and so on, who are not Midwest or Cali transplants have the thickest NY accent too, this is not limited to blacks and Puerto Ricans, even some recent immigrants end up catching it, I know this Middle Eastern kid, 8 years in the US, he opens his mouth you would swear he was born and raised in Brooklyn. Now I understand if you live in the city or gentrified North Brooklyn, the only people you hear with the accent are blacks and Puerto Ricans. And I would add that your average Black-American from NY has a mix of NY accent with a tidbit of Southern intonations.
I remember reading that the old "Dose and Dems" type of speech, users of which are probably all now dead, came from the Dutch influence, since Dutch has no "th" sound.
Don't think it's Italian, though, since Italians are relative newcomers to the New York City scene, not much more than the last hundred years, and were sort of kept in their own conclaves since they weren't really considered white back then by the residents of northern European ancestry who preceded them.
Okay, per my previous post above, I was intrigued enough about the question of how old this characteristic "NYC accent" was, that I tried to see what could be found on You Tube. I found recordings of Walt Whitman and Theodore Roosevelt, both of them born and raised New Yorkers. Whitman must have been recorded before 1892, and Roosevelt before 1919, because they died in these two years, respectively. The recordings are very scratched, but it is nevertheless obvious that neither of the two had the "NYC accent" which we are discussing. Roosevelt's speech indeed did pull towards the British accent (which is what I assume your link is talking about), but it did not in any way resemble what is considered the "NYC accent" that we are discussing here. Whitman's accent was neutral, sounding sort of like an accentless news anchor on tv (and if anything, one would expect Walt Whitman to have had the ordinary NYC folk accent of that time). So it is conceivable that "the New Yawk" accent is a later, post-1920, phenomenon, which may have actually lived for only about 100 years, and is largely on its way out now... which would correspond to my impression that the accent could have been an artefact of NYC being the port of arrival for Italian immigrants circa 1880-1925.
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