The
sound system of
New York City English
New York City English, or Metropolitan New York English, is a regional dialect of American English spoken by many people in New York City and much of its surrounding metropolitan area. It is described by sociolinguist William Labov as the most ...
is popularly known as a New York accent. The
New York metropolitan accent is one of the most recognizable
accents of the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
, largely due to its popular stereotypes and portrayal in radio, film, and television. Several other common names exist for the accent based on specific location, such as a Bronx accent, Long Island accent, Brooklyn accent, or North Jersey accent.
The following is an overview of the phonological structures and variations within the accent.
Vowels
Consonants
While the following consonantal features are central to the common stereotype of a "New York City accent", they are not entirely ubiquitous in New York City. By contrast, the vocalic (vowel) variations in pronunciation as described above are far more typical of New York City area speakers than the consonantal features listed below, which carry a much greater stigma than do the dialect's vocalic variations:
*Non-rhoticity (or ''r''-lessness): The traditional metropolitan New York accent is
non-rhotic
Rhoticity in English is the pronunciation of the historical rhotic consonant by English speakers. The presence or absence of rhoticity is one of the most prominent distinctions by which varieties of English can be classified. In rhotic variet ...
; in other words, the sound does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant. Thus, there is no in words like ''park'' (with the vowel rounded due to the low-back chain shift, though in earlier twentieth-century speakers), ''butter'' , or ''here'' . However, modern New York City English is variably rhotic for the most part. The New York City accent also varies between pronounced and silenced in similar phonetic environment, even in the same word when repeated. Non-rhotic speakers usually exhibit a
linking or intrusive ''R'', similar to other non-rhotic dialect speakers.
*
Rhoticity: In more modern times, the post-vocal /r/ has become more prominent. When Metro New Yorkers are more conscious of what they are saying, the /r/ is more evident in their speech. In terms of
social stratification
Social stratification refers to a society's categorization of its people into groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power (social and politi ...
, the lower class tends to use rhoticity less than the upper and middle
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
classes. Also, rhoticity is noticeably based on age since younger generations will pronounce /r/ at the end of their sentences (coda position).
*
Laminal
A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact
with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...
alveolar consonant
Alveolar (; UK also ) consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the upper teeth. Alveolar consonants may be articulated wit ...
s: The
alveolar consonant
Alveolar (; UK also ) consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the upper teeth. Alveolar consonants may be articulated wit ...
s , , , and may be articulated with the tongue blade rather than the tip. Wells (1982) indicates that this articulation may, in some cases, also involve affrication, producing and . Also and are often pronounced with the tongue touching the teeth rather than the alveolar ridge (just above the teeth), as is typical in most varieties of English. With ,
glottalization
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice (partial closure). Glottalization of obstruent consonan ...
is reported to sometimes appear in a wider range of contexts in New York City speech than in other American dialects, appearing, for example, before
syllabic
Syllabic may refer to:
*Syllable, a unit of speech sound, considered the building block of words
**Syllabic consonant, a consonant that forms the nucleus of a syllable
*Syllabary, writing system using symbols for syllables
*Abugida, writing system ...
(e.g., ''bottle'' ). At the same time, before a pause, a released final stop is often more common than a glottal stop in New York City accents than in General American ones; for example, ''bat'' as rather than .
**The universal usage of "
dark L
The voiced alveolar lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral approximants is , and th ...
", , common throughout the U.S., is also typical of the New York City accent. Newman (2014) reports even in initial position to be relatively dark for all accents of the city except the
accents of Latinos. However, in the mid-twentieth century, both dark and "not quite so 'dark'" variants of are reported. The latter occurs initially or in initial
consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
s, pronounced with the point or blade of the tongue against the
alveolar ridge
The alveolar process () or alveolar bone is the thickened ridge of bone that contains the tooth sockets on the jaw bones (in humans, the maxilla and the mandible). The structures are covered by gums as part of the oral cavity.
The synonymous ...
, though this variant is not as "clear" as in British
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the accent traditionally regarded as the standard and most prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been argument over such questions as the definition of RP, whether it is geo ...
.
[Hubbell, Allan Forbes (1950)]
''The pronunciation of English in New York City: consonants and vowel''
King's Crown Press.
**Also, is reported as commonly becoming
postalveolar
Postalveolar or post-alveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the ''back'' of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but n ...
before , making a word like ''William'' for some speakers or even .
**Vocalization of :
''L''-vocalization is common in New York City though it is perhaps not as pervasive as in some other dialects. Like its fellow liquid , it may be vocalized when it appears finally or before a consonant (e.g., sell, milk).
*
''Th''-stopping: As in many other dialects, the interdental fricatives and are often realized as
dental or
alveolar stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), li ...
s, famously like and , or affricates and . Labov (1966) found this alternation to vary by class with the non-fricative forms appearing more regularly in lower and working class speech. Unlike the reported changes with , the variation with and appears to be stable.
Historical dialect documents suggest ''th''-stopping probably originated from the massive influence of immigrant German, Italian, Irish, and Yiddish speakers to the city starting in the mid-19th century.
*Reduction of to : Metro New Yorkers typically do not allow to precede ; this gives pronunciations like ''yuman'' and ''yooge'' for ''human'' and ''huge''.
Variability
Social and geographic variation
Despite common references to a "
Bronx
The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...
accent", "
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
accent", "
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18 ...
accent", etc., which reflect a popular belief that different boroughs or neighborhoods of the New York metropolitan area have different accents, linguistic research fails to reveal any features that vary internally within the dialect due to specific geographic differences.
[Becker, Kara, and Luiza Newlin-Lukowicz.]
The Myth of the New York City Borough Accent: Evidence from Perception
. 24 Vol. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, Department of Linguistics, 2018. ProQuest. Web. 10 Oct. 2020. Impressions that the dialect varies geographically are likely a byproduct of
class
Class or The Class may refer to:
Common uses not otherwise categorized
* Class (biology), a taxonomic rank
* Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects
* Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differently ...
or ethnic variation, and even some of these assumptions are losing credibility in light of accent convergences among the current younger generations of various ethnic backgrounds.
Speakers from
Queens
Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
born in the 1990s and later are showing a
cot–caught merger
The ''cot''–''caught'' merger or merger, formally known in linguistics as the low back merger, is a sound change present in some dialects of English where speakers do not distinguish the vowel phonemes in "cot" and "caught". "Cot" and "caug ...
more than in other
boroughs
A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.
History
In the Middle Ag ...
, though this too is likely class- or ethnic-based (or perhaps even part of a larger trend in the whole city) rather than location-based. Increasing levels of the
cot–caught merger
The ''cot''–''caught'' merger or merger, formally known in linguistics as the low back merger, is a sound change present in some dialects of English where speakers do not distinguish the vowel phonemes in "cot" and "caught". "Cot" and "caug ...
among these Queens natives also appeared correlated with the fact of their majority foreign parentage. A lowering of New York City's traditionally raised ''caught'' vowel is similarly taking place among younger residents of Manhattan's
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets.
Traditionally an im ...
. This is seen most intensely among Western European (and
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
) New Yorkers, fairly intensely among Latino and Asian New Yorkers, but not among African-American New Yorkers. Therefore, this reverses a trend documented amongst Western European Lower East Siders in the 20th century.
Ethnic variation
The classic New York City dialect is centered on middle- and working-class
European Americans
European Americans (also referred to as Euro-Americans) are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent Eu ...
, and this ethnic cluster now accounts for less than half of the city's population, within which there are degrees of ethnic variation. The variations of New York City English are a result of the waves of
immigrant
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
s that settled in the city, from the earliest settlement by the
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
and English, followed in the 19th century by the
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
and western Europeans (typically of French, German, and
Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...
n descent). Over time these collective influences combined to give New York City its distinctive accent.
Up until the immigration acts of 1920 and 1924 that restricted Asian as well as Southern and Eastern European immigration, many
Eastern European Jewish and
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
immigrants, as well as some later immigrants, arrived and further affected the region's speech.
Sociolinguistic research, which is ongoing, suggests that some differentiation between these last groups' speech may exist. For example,
William Labov
William Labov ( ; born December 4, 1927) is an American linguist widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of ...
found that Jewish-American Metro New Yorkers were more likely than other groups to use the closest variants of (meaning towards ) and perhaps fully released final stops (for example, pronunciation of ''sent'' as rather than the more
General American
General American English or General American (abbreviated GA or GenAm) is the umbrella accent of American English spoken by a majority of Americans. In the United States it is often perceived as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or so ...
or ), while
Italian-American
Italian Americans ( it, italoamericani or ''italo-americani'', ) are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas, w ...
Metro New Yorkers were more likely than other groups to use the closest variants of (meaning towards ). Labov also discusses Irish originating features being the most stigmatized. Still, Labov argues that these differences are relatively minor, more of degree than kind. All noted Euro-American groups share the relevant features.
One area likely to reveal robust patterns is New York City English among
Orthodox Jews
Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Jewish theology, Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Torah, Written and Oral Torah, Or ...
, overlapping with
Yeshiva English, which can exist outside of the New York City metropolitan area as well. Such features include certain
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
grammatical contact features, such as
topicalization
Topicalization is a mechanism of syntax that establishes an expression as the sentence or clause topic by having it appear at the front of the sentence or clause (as opposed to in a canonical position further to the right). This involves a phrasal ...
s of
direct objects (e.g., constructions such as ''Esther, she saw!'' or ''A dozen
knish
A knish is a traditional Ashkenazi Jewish snack food consisting of a filling covered with dough that is typically baked or sometimes deep fried.
Knishes are often purchased from street vendors in urban areas with a large Jewish population, som ...
es, you bought!'') or the general replacement of with , as stereotyped in the
eye-dialect phrase "Lawn Guyland" for "
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18 ...
" ( rather than General American's ),
strongly used among
Lubavitch
Chabad, also known as Lubavitch, Habad and Chabad-Lubavitch (), is an Orthodox Jewish Hasidic dynasty. Chabad is one of the world's best-known Hasidic movements, particularly for its outreach activities. It is one of the largest Hasidic groups ...
er Jews, but a stereotype for the New York City accent in general. There is also substantial use of Yiddish and particularly
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
words.
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
Metro New Yorkers typically speak a New York variant of
African-American Vernacular English
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE, ), also referred to as Black (Vernacular) English, Black English Vernacular, or occasionally Ebonics (a colloquial, controversial term), is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban ...
(AAVE), sharing the New York City accent's raised vowel.
[Fought, Carmen ''Language and Ethnicity'' Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press 2006, p. 19] Many
Latino
Latino or Latinos most often refers to:
* Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America
* Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States
* The people or cultures of Latin America;
** Latin A ...
New Yorkers speak a distinctly local
ethnolect
An ethnolect is generally defined as a language variety that mark speakers as members of ethnic groups who originally used another language or distinctive variety. According to another definition, an ethnolect is any speech variety (language, diale ...
,
New York Latino English
The English language as primarily spoken by Hispanic Americans on the East Coast of the United States demonstrates considerable influence from New York City English and African-American Vernacular English, with certain additional features borrow ...
, characterized by a varying mix of New York City English and
AAVE features, along with some
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
contact features.
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...
New Yorkers are not shown by studies to have any phonetic features that are overwhelmingly distinct. Anglo-American or Euro-American New Yorkers alone have been traditionally documented as using a phonetic split of as follows: before
voiceless consonant
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
s but elsewhere.
[Newman, 2014, pp. 72-3.]
References
Bibliography
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{{English dialects by continent
North American English
Accent
City colloquials