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the accent has evolved into the Strong Guyland, and the Dirty Jerz
Does Westchester have an accent?
You wont hear accents in the moneyed nabes like lower Manhattan
Some areas of Westchester, like Yonkers, have the NY accent. In other parts of Westchester, we may not have the stereotypical non-rhotic NY accent, but we still maintain the caught/cot difference, which most of the country does not (in other words, we still produce a lower mid back rounded vowel, although it's less pronounced than it is in the boroughs). My friends at college would occasionally tease me about the way I said words, but my NY accent is usually only noticeable when I am exaggerating a word. Then you can really hear that "au" sound (but my dialect is still rhotic, like most of Westchester).
I don't know about Manhattan. They definitely don't have the typical, non-rhotic NY accent, but it's possible that they still maintain that extra vowel like we do in Westchester.
The main thing I was teased about wasn't pronunciation actually, but rather saying "on line" when they would say "in line" (for instance, waiting on line at the store). Apparently that is a NY thing.
The main thing I was teased about wasn't pronunciation actually, but rather saying "on line" when they would say "in line" (for instance, waiting on line at the store). Apparently that is a NY thing.
I noticed this immediately when I moved here. However, people I know from central/north New Jersey pretty much ALL say in line, as well as most people from Long Island that I know. I've noticed that people from the boroughs and from Westchester tend to say on line, though. I wonder why. I have never heard this difference anywhere else in the Anglophone world so it was completely new to me!
I read somewhere that across the US accents are not as strong as they were, say, 50-100 years ago. Could this be because of the advent of TV, where most newscasters and commercials feature people with the "neutral" midwest accent? Queens-based celebrities like Cyndi Lauper and Fran Drescher have a thick accent, but they are both at least 50, and I never hear someone younger have such a thick Queens accent.
I interacted mostly with assimilated Jews and immigrant Hispanics and Asians when I was a kid. But I moved out of NYC for college, and never moved back for an extended time. I lived in the South for a while, now the Midwest. I do not drop my "R"s, but I still go "New Yawk" and "cawfee". Once in a while I get called out on my accent, ID'd as either "New York" or "Northeast".
The thing that concerns me is that the New York accent is deemed by many in other parts of the US (and world) as being low-class. While doing a contract in Chicago, my supervisor told me that he took speech classes to neuter his Northeast (not NYC) accent, because he was afraid it was costing him gigs. I hope he was just being paranoid.
What is interesting is that Rudolph Giuliani does not have a typical Italian-American accent. Perhaps it is that Manhattan "neutral" accent, or even an Irish-American accent.
Last edited by kuvopolis; 01-06-2009 at 07:23 AM..
I read somewhere that across the US accents are not as strong as they were, say, 50-100 years ago. Could this be because of the advent of TV, where most newscasters and commercials feature people with the "neutral" midwest accent? Queens-based celebrities like Cyndi Lauper and Fran Drescher have a thick accent, but they are both at least 50, and I never hear someone younger have such a thick Queens accent.
Yeah. TV and movies have absolutely flattened accents all over the country. Also, greater mobility and an influx of immigrants have contributed to this demise. I have met a couple of people from Cajun country in Louisiana over the last few weeks...the way they spoke, they might as well have been from Ohio.
The New York accent is still alive and kicking, although I think among people say, 30 and under, it is relatively rare.
Most if not all teenagers of ethnicity have a new york accent these days. Then again most of us live in the bronx brooklyn and queens. So that might be a factor. The new york accent is only gone in manhattan
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One of my cousins in particular has an accent similar to Cyndi Lauper, lol. Thicker than my accent probably since her's is noticeable. They all grew up in Queens. She now lives on Long island.
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