Assessing the "Southerness" of Philly's Black Population

[pman]

Originally Posted by nephi215

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

the professor seems to disagree with you. the dialect ive heard is distinct from nyc though since im not a linguist i couldnt identify its origins. seems like some posters find any association with the south insulting and seek to dent any link. philadelphia had a large number of abolitionists but plenty of people have claimed the south started in Philly. there are no hard lines unless theres a physical barrier. as you go west the dialect changes gradually, the same goes for going south. if the professor is saying that the dialect has been dying since the advent of radio and tv then most of us on here are only slightly familiar. to be sure dc is and has always been more southern but the idea that the mason dixon line was some sort of wall is silly imo. dc is more northeastern now than it uses to be, in fact their accent is closer to philly than philly is to ny.

[gwillyfromphilly]

Originally Posted by pman

.... to be sure dc is and has always been more southern but the idea that the mason dixon line was some sort of wall is silly imo. dc is more northeastern now than it uses to be, in fact their accent is closer to philly than philly is to ny.

I agree with this statement. The DC dialect like Philadelphia is rhotic in speech.

[Duderino]

Originally Posted by pman

the professor seems to disagree with you. the dialect ive heard is distinct from nyc though since im not a linguist i couldnt identify its origins. seems like some posters find any association with the south insulting and seek to dent any link. philadelphia had a large number of abolitionists but plenty of people have claimed the south started in Philly. there are no hard lines unless theres a physical barrier. as you go west the dialect changes gradually, the same goes for going south. if the professor is saying that the dialect has been dying since the advent of radio and tv then most of us on here are only slightly familiar. to be sure dc is and has always been more southern but the idea that the mason dixon line was some sort of wall is silly imo. dc is more northeastern now than it uses to be, in fact their accent is closer to philly than philly is to ny.

What? Seriously, who in their right mind would ever claim that the South starts in Philly? Maybe some super-provincial New Englanders who probably think NY is part of the South, but c'mon. It's actually insulting the history of Philadelphia -- and Pennsylvania -- to suggest that it is within Southern territory. I presume you may be referring to the context of history of slavery in Philly, but might I remind you that slavery also existed in New York and New England.

In terms of this much-publicized article now about the changing Philly dialect, you have to realize that a couple dialectical similarities are just that -- similarities. R-dropping, for example, is a dialectal similarity that Boston has with New Orleans. Is Boston now Southern, or is New Orleans Northern? Of course not -- they are still distinct dialects from one another, just as Philly's dialect has always been/is distinct from a Southern dialect. Labov himself describes it as North Midland:

The American Midland Dialect - Home

The point is, you will find some similarities in certain places that have proximity to one another, but there are still distinct differences that create, in many ways, certain local cultures.

As someone currently living/has a lot of experience with the DC area but spent most of life in the Philly area, I can tell you with certainty that Philly has a unique local culture that makes it very distinctly different from DC.

[toobusytoday]

Let's continue the dialect conversation on this thread: //www.city-data.com/forum/phila...-changing.html

Closing this thread.