New York 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 recognizable regional dialect in North America. Its pronunciation system—the New York accent—is widely represented in American media with many public figures and fictional characters. Major features of the accent include a high, gliding vowel (in words like ''talk'' and ''caught''); a split of the "short a" vowel into two separate sounds; variable dropping of ''r'' sounds; and a lack of the '' cot–caught'', '' Mary–marry–merry'', and '' hurry–furry'' mergers heard in many other American accents.

Today, New York City English is associated particularly with urban New Yorkers of lower or mid socioeconomic status, descended from 19th- and 20th-century European immigrants. It is spoken in all five boroughs of the City and Long Island's Nassau County, as well as in varying degrees among speakers in Suffolk County (Long Island), Westchester County, and Rockland County of New York State, plus Hudson and Bergen Counties in northeastern New Jersey.

History

The origins of many of New York City English's diverse features are probably not recoverable. New York City English, largely with the same major pronunciation system popularly recognized today, was first reproduced in literature and scientifically documented in the 1890s. It was then, and still mostly is, associated with ethnically diverse European-American native-English speakers. The entire Mid-Atlantic United States, including both New York City and the Delaware Valley (whose own distinct dialect centers around Philadelphia and Baltimore) shares certain key features, including a high vowel with a glide (sometimes called the ''aww'' vowel) as well as a phonemic split of the short ''a'' vowel, (making ''gas'' and ''gap'', for example, have different vowels sounds)—New York City's split not identical though to Philadelphia's. Linguist William Labov has pointed out that a similarly structured (though differently pronounced) split is found today even in the southern accents of England; thus, a single common origin of this split may trace back to colonial-era England.

New York City became an urban economic power in the eighteenth century, with the city's financial elites maintaining close ties with the British Empire even after the Revolutionary War. According to Labov, New York City speakers' loss of the ''r'' sound after vowels (incidentally, not found in the nearby Delaware Valley) began as a nineteenth-century imitation of the prestigious British feature, consistently starting among the upper classes in New York City before spreading to other socioeconomic classes. After World War II, social perceptions reversed and ''r''-preserving (rhotic) pronunciations became the new American prestige standard, rejecting East Coast and British accent features, while postwar migrations transferred rhotic speakers directly to New York City from other regions of the country. The result is that non-rhoticity, which was once a high-status feature and later a city-wide feature, has been diminishing and now, since the mid-twentieth century onward, largely remains only among lower-status New Yorkers. Today, New York City metropolitan accents are often rhotic or variably rhotic.

Other features of the dialect, such as the dental pronunciations of ''d'' and ''t'', and related ''th''-stopping, likely come from contact with foreign languages, particularly Italian and Yiddish, brought into New York City through its huge immigration waves of Europeans during the mid-to-late nineteenth century. Grammatical structures, such as the lack of inversion in indirect questions, similarly suggest contact with immigrant languages, plus several words common in the city are derived from such foreign languages.

Influence on other dialects

Philadelphians born in the twentieth century exhibit a short-''a'' split system that some linguists regard as a simplification of the very similar New York City short-''a'' split. Younger Philadelphians, however, are retreating from many of the traditional features shared in common with New York City. Due to an influx of immigrants from New York City and neighboring New Jersey to southern Florida, some resident southern Floridians now speak with an accent reminiscent of a New York accent. Additionally, as a result of social and commercial contact between New Orleans, Louisiana and New York City, the traditional accent of New Orleans, known locally as "Yat", bears distinctive similarities with the New York accent, including the (moribund) coil–curl merger, raising of to , a similar split in the short-''a'' system, and ''th''-stopping. Similarly, dialect similarities suggest that older New York City English also influenced Cincinnati, Ohio and Albany, New York, whose older speakers in particular may still exhibit a short-''a'' split system that linguists suggest is an expanded or generalized variant of the New York City short-''a'' system. Certain New York City dialect features also understandably appear in New York City Latino English.

Recent developments

Though William Labov argued in 2010 that the New York City accent is basically stable at the moment, some recent studies have revealed a trend of recession in most features of the accent, especially among younger speakers from middle-class or higher backgrounds. Documented loss of New York City accent features includes the loss of the coil–curl merger (now almost completely extinct), non-rhoticity, and the extremely raised long vowel (as in ''talk'', ''cough'', or ''law''). Researchers proposed that the motivation behind these recessive trends is the stigmatization against the typical New York City accent since the mid-1900s as being associated with a poorer or working-class background, often also corresponding with particular ethnic identities. While earlier projects detected trends of emphasizing New York City accents as part of a process of social identification, recent researches attribute the loss of typical accent features to in-group ethnic distancing. In other words, many of the young generations of ethnic groups who formerly were the most representative speakers of the accent are currently avoiding its features in order to not stand out socially or ethnically.

Pronunciation

The pronunciation of New York City English, most popularly acknowledged by the term ''New York accent'', is readily noticed and stereotyped, garnering considerable attention in American culture.Labov et al., 2006, p. 233 Some distinctive phonological features include its traditional dropping of ''r'' except before vowels, a short-''a'' split system (in which, for example, the ''a'' in ''gas'' is not assonant to the ''a'' in ''gap''), a high gliding vowel (in words like ''talk'', ''thought'', ''all'', etc. and thus an absence of the cot–caught merger), absence of the Mary–marry–merry merger, and the highly stigmatized (and largely now-extinct) coil–curl merger.

Vocabulary and grammar

There are some words or grammatical constructions used mainly in Greater New York City:
*': a small neighborhood convenience store; used in recent decades, particularly in New York City though not on Long Island generally, it comes from Spanish, originally meaning "a wine storehouse" via the Puerto Rican Spanish term for "small store; corner store"; by extension, "bodega cats" is the term for the cats that inhabit such establishments. These small stores may also be called , which is the short form of ''delicatessens''.
*''bubkes'' : a worthless amount; little or nothing (from Yiddish; probably an abbreviation of ''kozebubkes'', literally, "goat droppings")Newman, Michael (2014). ''New York City English''. De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 113-114
*''dungarees'': an older term for blue jeans
*''egg cream'': a mixture of cold milk, chocolate syrup, and seltzer ( carbonated water)
*''have a catch'': to play a game of catch
*''hero'': a footlong sandwich or " sub"
*''Mischief Night'': the night before Halloween
*''on line'': Metro New Yorkers tend to say they stand ' line, whereas most other New York State and American English speakers tend to stand ''in'' line.
*': the small front staircase or steps up to a building (from the Dutch word "")
*''punchball'' and ''stickball'': street variants of baseball, suitable for smaller urban areas, in which a fist or stick substitutes for the bat and a rubber ball (a "Spaldeen") is used
*'' skel(l)'': a vagrant, beggar, or small-time street criminal
*''s(c)hmuck'': an insulting term for an unlikeable man (from Yiddish ''shmok'': "penis")
*''yous(e)'' (often ): the plural form of ''you'', in addition to ''you guys'' or, possibly performatively, ''yous guys''

The word ' tends to be used as a synonym for "weak", "someone unwilling or unable to defend himself" or perhaps "loser", though it appears to descend from an outdated New York African-American English meaning of ''male receptive participant in anal sex''.

Conversational styles

New York City speakers have some unique conversational styles. Linguistics professor Deborah Tannen notes in a ''New York Times'' article it has "an emphasis to involve the other person, rather than being considerate. It would be asking questions as a show of interest in the other person, whereas in other parts of hecountry, people don't ask because it might put the person on the spot." Metro New Yorkers "stand closer, talk louder, and leave shorter pauses between exchanges," Tannen said. "I call it 'cooperative overlap'. It's a way of showing interest and enthusiasm, but it's often mistaken for interrupting by people from elsewhere in the country." On the other hand, linguist William Labov demurs, "there's nothing known to linguists about 'normal New York City conversation'".

Notable speakers

The accent has a strong presence in media; pioneer variationist sociolinguist William Labov describes it as the most recognizable variety of North American English. The following famous people are native New York City area speakers, demonstrating typical features of the accent.

* Bella Abzug
* Eric Adams
* Danny Aiello
* Alan Alda
* Woody Allen
* Jack Armstrong (basketball)
* Mel Brooks
* James Caan
* James Cagney
* Mariah Carey
* George Carlin
* Andrew Dice Clay
* Michael Cohen
* Howard Cosell
* Mario Cuomo
* Tony Curtis
* Larry David
* Rodney Dangerfield
* Tony Danza
* Dead End Kids
* Billy Donovan
* Robert De Niro
* Alan Dershowitz
* Kevin Dobson
* Fran Drescher
* Jimmy Durante
* Anthony Fauci
* Mike Francesa
* John Garfield
* Ruth Bader Ginsburg
* Rudy Giuliani
* Whoopi Goldberg
* Gilbert Gottfried
* Buddy Hackett
* Judd Hirsch
* Meir Kahane
* Wendy Kaufman
* Harvey Keitel
* Ed Koch
* Burt Lancaster
* Cyndi Lauper
* John Leguizamo
* Vince Lombardi
* Bernard Madoff
* Barry Manilow
* Garry Marshall
* Penny Marshall
* The Marx Brothers; prominently Groucho Marx
* Jackie Mason
* Walter Matthau
* Debi Mazar
* John Mearsheimer
* Al Michaels
* Chris Mullin
* Al Pacino
* Joe Paterno
* Rosie Perez
* Rhea Perlman
* Regis Philbin
* Colin Quinn
* George Raft
* Charles Rangel
* Michael Rapaport
* Paul Reiser
* Leah Remini
* Linda Richman
* Don Rickles
* Thelma Ritter
* Joan Rivers
* Ray Romano
* Maxie Rosenbloom
* Adam Sandler
* Michael Savage
* Bernie Sanders
* Vin Scully
* Phil Silvers
* Al Smith
*Sebastian Stan
* Arnold Stang

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