New York City English

History

The origins of New York City English are diverse, and the sources of many 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 also scientifically documented in the 1890s. It was then, and still mostly is, associated with ethnically diverse European-American native-English speakers. New York City English likely evolved from an older English variety that encompassed much of the larger Middle Atlantic region, including the Delaware Valley (whose unique dialect today centers around Philadelphia and Baltimore), since the New York City dialect and the Delaware Valley dialectal offshoots all still share certain key features originating nowhere else the United States, such as a high /ɔː/ vowel with a glide (sometimes called the aww vowel) as well as a phonemic split of the short a vowel, /æ/ (making gas and gap, for example, have different vowels sounds), though the New York City variant of this split remains distinct from the Delaware Valley variants. Linguist William Labov has pointed out that a similarly-structured but distinct-sounding short-a split, often called the trap–bath split, is found today in the southern half of England, including London, and that both this short-a split and the distinctive one now heard in the New York City and Delaware Valley dialects may therefore have a common ancestor originating in the 1800s.

The more linguistically conservative features of New York City English remained from the prestigious social status of English colonists in the city after it became an urban economic power in the 1700s, with the city's financial elites maintaining close ties with the British Empire even after the Revolutionary War. According to Labov, New York speakers' loss of the r sound after vowels (which, incidentally, is not found in the nearby Delaware Valley) is an imitation of the prestigious British pronunciation, consistently starting among the upper classes in New York City in the 1800s before spreading to other socioeconomic classes. This non-rhotic (r-dropping) aristocratic pronunciation can be heard, for instance, in recordings of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. After World War II, perceptions reversed, and the r-ful (rhotic) pronunciation became the prestige norm throughout the whole United States; what was once the upper-class pronunciation then became perceived as more of a vernacular one, due to the loss of Britain's imperial status, the mainstreaming of a more rhotic American accent that originated away from the British-influenced East Coast, and widespread postwar migrations of rhotic speakers directly to New York from other regions of the country. Today, most New York City English is variably rhotic, a remnant of the older non-rhotic pronunciation.

Other vernacular pronunciations, such as the dental d and t, as well as th-stopping, may come from contact with languages such as Italian and Yiddish as brought into New York City by its huge immigration waves of the past century and before. Grammatical structures, such as the lack of inversion in indirect questions, have the flavor of contact with an immigrant language. As stated above, many words common in the city are of immigrant roots.

Although some of New York City English's features are receding among younger generations of speakers, Labov concludes that, in terms of any major recent developments, the New York accent appears to be stable.

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 similar New York City short-a system; therefore, New York City English is a possible influence on Philadelphia English. The Philadelphia dialect is now retreating away from many of the traditional features it once shared in common with New York City.

Due to an influx of immigrants from New York City and neighboring New Jersey to Florida, some residents of southern Florida now speak with an accent reminiscent of New York City English. Additionally, as a result of social and commercial contact between the two cities, and the influx of immigrants from the same countries, the traditional dialect of New Orleans, Louisiana, known locally as Yat, bears distinctive similarities with the New York dialect, including the (moribund) coil–curl merger, raising of /ɔː/ to [ɔə], a similar split in the short-a system, and th-stopping. Therefore, older New York City English presumably influenced dialect evolution in the white working class of New Orleans (and possibly vice versa), as well as in Cincinnati, Ohio and Albany, New York, whose older speakers today may still exhibit a short-a split system that appears to be an expanded or generalized variant of the New York City short-a system. Unsurprisingly, some New York City dialect features also appear in New York Latino English.

Recent developments

Though William Labov argues that the New York accent is generally stable at the moment, some recent studies have revealed a trend of recession in certain 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 [ɔː] (as in talk, cough, or law). Researchers proposed that the motivation behind these recessive trends is the stigmatization against the typical New York 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 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 and/or ethnically. While some linguists are concerned about the recession of New York City accent as a loss of linguistic diversity, others view it as a natural process in language change and evidence that language faithfully reflects the social and cultural characteristics of their speakers.

Pronunciation

The pronunciation system of New York City English, popularly known as a New York accent, is heard in New York City, western Long Island, and northeastern New Jersey. See the article International Phonetic Alphabet for explanations of the phonetic symbols used, as indicated between square brackets [ ]. The New York metropolitan dialect is predominantly characterized by the following sounds and speech patterns:

Vowels

Cot–caught distinction: The /ɔ/ vowel sound of words like talk, law, cross, and coffee and the often homophonous /ɔːr/ in core and more are tensed and usually raised more than in General American, varying on a scale from [ɔ] to [ʊ] (Labov 1966), while typically accompanied by an inglide that produces variants like [oə] or [ʊə]. These sounds are kept strongly distinct from the /ɑː/ in words like father, palm, wash, and bra; therefore, cot is something like [kʰät] and caught is something like [kʰoət].

Variability based on social register: Labov (1966) suggests after studying his department store experiment that not only general social background can influence the presence of linguistic features, the more specific context of the speech can also change speech realization. Labov concludes that speakers tend to display more accent features in a more relaxed conversation, while they tend to reserve their accent features in more formal situations.

Father–bother variability: Conservative speakers retain three separate low back vowels: lot, palm, and thought, thus with no father-bother merger. In addition, the palm class contains a number of words that are lot in most US varieties. These include descendants of Middle English short 'O' with final voiced consonants, /dʒ/, or /m/ (e.g., cob, cod, cog, lodge, bomb), and some Middle English short A words such as, wash), (Wells 1982: 514). However, Labov et al do report that which words fall into the lot class and which words fall into the palm class may vary from speaker to speaker.

Short-a split system: New York City English uses a complicated short-a split system, in which all words with the "short a" can be split into two separate classes on the basis of the sound of this vowel; thus, for example, words like badge, class, lag, mad, and pan are pronounced with an entirely different vowel than words like bat, clap, lack, map, and patch. In the former set of words, historical /æ/ is raised and tensed to an ingliding gliding vowel of the type [ɛə~eə] or even [ɪə]. The latter set of words, meanwhile, retains a lax, low-front, typical [æ] sound. A strongly related (but slightly different) split has occurred in the Philadelphia and Baltimore dialects. Although the lax and the tense reflexes of /æ/ are separate phonemes in these dialects, their distribution is largely predictable. Click "show" below for specific details of this short-a system.

Conservative /oʊ/ and /u/: /oʊ/ as in goat does not undergo fronting; instead, it remains [oʊ] and may even have a lowered starting point. This groups New York with the "North" class of dialects rather than the "Midland", in which /oʊ/ is fronted. Relatedly, /u/ as in goose is not fronted and remains a back vowel [uː] or [ʊu]. This lack of fronting of /oʊ/ and /u/ also distinguishes New York from nearby Philadelphia. Some speakers have a separate phoneme /ɪu/ in words such as tune, news, duke (historically a separate class). The phonemic status of this vowel is marginal. For example, Labov (1966) reports that New Yorkers may contrast [duː] do with [dɪu] dew though they may also have [dɪu] do. Also, Labov et al. report yod-dropping also to have diffused as a characteristic for other speakers of New York English (in which the vowel in dew is pronounced very far back in the mouth).

Backed /aɪ/ and fronted /aʊ/: The nucleus of the /aɪ/ diphthong is traditionally a back and sometimes rounded vowel [ä~ɑ] or [ɒ] (mean value [ɑ̟]) (ride as [ɹɑɪd]), while the nucleus of the /aʊ/ diphthong is a front vowel [æ~a] (mean value [a̟] (out as [æʊt~aʊt]). The sociolinguistic evidence (Labov 1966) suggests that both of these developments are active changes. The fronted nucleus in /aʊ/ and the backed nucleus in /aɪ/ are more common among younger speakers, women, and the working and lower middle classes.

Pre-/r/ distinctions: New York accents lack most of the mergers that occur with vowels before an /r/, which are otherwise common in other varieties of North American English:

Mary–marry–merry three-way distinction: The vowels in words like marry [ˈmæɹi], merry [ˈmɛɹi], and Mary [ˈmeɹi] ~ [ˈmɛəɹi] do not merge, instead showing either a two- or three-way contrast.

The vowels in furry [ˈfəɹi] and hurry [ˈhʌɹi] are distinct.

Words like orange, horrible, Florida and forest are pronounced [ˈɑɹəndʒ] and [ˈfɑɹəst] with the same stressed vowel as part, not with the same vowel as port as in much of the rest of the United States.

Back vowel chain shift before /r/: /ɔːr/~/ɔər/, as in Tory, bore, or shore merges with a tongue movement upward in the mouth to /ʊər/, as in tour, boor, or sure. This is followed by the possibility of /ɑːr/, as in tarry or bar, also moving also upward (with rounding) towards /ɒr/~/ɔːr/. In non-rhotic New York speech, this means that born can be [bʊən] and barn can be [bɒən]. However, unlike the firmness of this shift in Philadelphia English, the entire process is still transitioning and variable in New York City English.

Coil–curl merger: One of the stereotypes of New York speech is the use of a front-rising diphthong in words with /ɜːr/ i.e., the NURSE vowel in Wells's lexical sets. This stereotype is popularly represented in stock phrases like "toity-toid" for thirty-third. The phonetic reality of this variant is actually unrounded [əɪ~ɜɪ]; thus, [ˈt̪əɪɾi ˈt̪əɪd]. This vowel was also used for the vowel /ɔɪ/. Labov's data from the mid-1960s indicated this highly stigmatized form was recessive even then. Only two of his 51 speakers under age 20 used the form as compared with those over age 50 of whom 23 out of 30 used the r-less form. Younger New Yorkers (born since about 1950) are consequently likely to use a rhotic [əɹ~ɜɹ] (like in General American) for the diaphoneme /ɜːr/ (as in bird), even if they use non-rhotic pronunciations of beard, bared, bard, board, boor, and butter. However, according to Labov:

In other words, Labov is saying that the /ɜːr/ in New York is slightly raised compared to other dialects. Despite this report of extinction, Newman (2014) found [əɪ~ɜɪ] variably in one of his participants born in the late 1980s. Related to the r-less NURSE vowel variant, a form of intrusive R has been reported for CHOICE words so that /ɔɪ/ may occur with an r-colored vowel (e.g., /ˈtʰɝlət/ toilet), apparently as a result of hypercorrection. Newman (2014) has no examples of this variant.

Consonants

While the following consonantal features are central to the common stereotype of a "New York accent", they are not entirely ubiquitous in New York. By contrast, the vocalic (vowel) variations in pronunciation as described above are far more typical of New York 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; in other words, the sound [ɹ] does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant. Thus, there is no [ɹ] in words like park [pʰɒək] (with the vowel rounded due to the low-back chain shift), butter [ˈbʌɾə], or here [hɪə]. However, modern New York City English is variably rhotic for the most part, speakers with noticeable New York City accent also varies between pronounced and silenced [ɹ] 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.

Vocalization of /l/: L-vocalization is common in New York though it is perhaps not as pervasive as in other dialects. Like its fellow liquid /r/, it may be vocalized when it does not appear before a vowel (e.g., [sɛo] sell, [mɪok] milk).

Lack of velarization of initial /l/: Although General American typically has velarized l in all positions, Wells report a lack of velarization of the initial /l/. The /l/ is typically pronounced with the blade of the tongue touching the teeth. (See further in the bullet below.)

Laminal alveolar consonants: The alveolar consonants /t/, /d/, /n/, and /l/ 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 [tˢ] and [dᶻ]. Also /t/ and /d/ 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 /t/, glottalization is reported to be more common in New York speech than in other American dialects, appearing, for example, before syllabic /l/ (e.g., bottle [ˈbɑʔɫ̩]).

Th-fortition: As in many other dialects, the interdental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ are often realized as dental or alveolar stop consonants, famously like [t] and [d], or affricates [tθ] and [dð]. 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 /r/, the variation with /θ/ and /ð/ appears to be stable.

Intrusive /g/: In addition to the ubiquitous alternation of [ŋ] and [n] in -ing endings, the speech of some New Yorkers shows [ŋɡ] as a variant of /ŋ/. This variant is another salient stereotype of the New York accent and is commonly mocked with "Long Island" being pronounced [lɔəŋˈɡɑɪɫɪ̈nd] (rather than General American's [ɫɒŋˈäɪɫɪ̈nd]) popularly written Lawn Guyland.

Reduction of /hj/ to /j/: New Yorkers typically do not allow /h/ to be followed by /j/; this gives pronunciations like yuman /ˈjumən/ and yooge /judʒ/ for human and huge.

Vocabulary and grammar

There are numerous words used mainly in Greater New York City, mostly associated with immigrant languages. For instance, a "stoop" (from the Dutch word "stoep") is the front steps of a building entrance. A curious split in usage, reflective of the city's racial differences, involves the word punk. In the Black and Latino communities, the word tends to be used as a synonym for weak, someone unwilling or unable to defend himself or perhaps loser. That usage appears to descend from the AAVE meaning of male receptive participant in anal sex, a meaning which, in turn, may be largely lost among youth. Thus, a newspaper article that refers to, say, some arrested muggers as punks can have two different meanings to two different readers.

New Yorkers tend to stand "on line," whereas most other American-English speakers tend to stand "in line." Small convenience stores are, in recent decades, often called bodegas, from the Spanish term originally meaning "a wine storehouse" via the Puerto Rican Spanish term for "small store; corner store", or delis, which is the short form of delicatessens.

Grammatically speaking, word order of the original question is often preserved in indirect questions, at least those introduced by "wh"-words, for example: He wanted to know when will he come instead of He wanted to know when he will come; or, She asked why don't you want any instead of the standard She asked why you don't want any.

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 or fictional characters are often heard in public as speaking with features typical of a New York accent. Most, but not all, are native New Yorkers. Their pronunciation and vocabulary can be useful guides to the subtleties of speaking New York.

New York State

New York City English is confined to a geographically small but densely populated area, including all five boroughs of New York City, but not all of New York State; an entirely separate dialect predominates in central and western New York State, especially along the Great Lakes. However, New York City English does extend beyond the city proper, including in western Long Island (although the boundaries there are not clearly established). Moreover, the English of the Hudson Valley forms a continuum of speakers who gather more features of New York City English the closer they are in geographic relation to the city itself; some of the dialect's features may be heard as far north as the city of Albany.

New Jersey

The northeast quarter of New Jersey, prominently Bergen, Hudson, and Passaic counties, including the cities Weehawken, Hoboken, Jersey City, Bayonne, and Newark, plus Middlesex and Monmouth Counties, are all within the New York City metropolitan area and thus also home to the major features of New York City English. With the exception of New York City's immediate neighbors like Jersey City and Newark, the New York metropolitan dialect as spoken in New Jersey is rhotic (or fully r-pronouncing), so that, whereas a Brooklynite might pronounce "over there" something like "ovah theah/deah" [oʊvə ˈd̪ɛə], an Elizabeth native might say "over there/dare" [oʊvɚ ˈd̪ɛɚ]. Also, New Jersey lacks a phonemic short-a split in some places, though the Atlas of North American English by William Labov et al. shows that the New York City short-a pattern has diffused to many r-pronouncing communities in northern New Jersey like Rutherford (Labov's birthplace) and North Plainfield. However, in these communities,function word constraint is lost and the open syllable constraint is variable. Regarding vocabulary, New York City shibboleths like hero (for a submarine sandwich) are less used than the more widespread sub or submarine, but it is sometimes found.

Notable speakers

The following is a list of notable lifelong native speakers of the rhotic New York City English of northeastern New Jersey:

Jon Bon Jovi

Danny DeVito

Mike Francessa

James Gandolfini

Ed Harris

William Labov

Ray Liotta

Joe Pesci

Bruce Springsteen

Connie Francis

Frank Sinatra

Geographic variation

Despite common references to a "Bronx accent" or a "Brooklyn accent," no published study has found any feature that varies internally within the dialect due to any sort of geographic differences. Impressions that the dialect varies geographically may be a byproduct of class and/or ethnic variation.

Ethnic variation

The classic New York dialect is centered on middle- and working-class White Americans, and this ethnic cluster now accounts for less than half of the city's population, within which there is even some degree of ethnic variation. The variations of New York City English are a result of the layering of ethnic speech starting with the native Lenape tribe and the influence from the waves of immigrants that settled in the city, from the earliest settlement by the Dutch and English, followed in the 1800s by the Irish and western Europeans (typically of French, German, and Scandinavian descent). Over time these collective influences combined to give New York its distinctive accent. Up until the immigration acts of 1920 and 1924 that restricted southern and eastern European immigration, many Eastern European Jewish and Italian immigrants, as well as some later immigrants, arrived and further affected the region's speech. Sociolinguistic research, which is ongoing, suggests some differentiation between these last groups' speech may exist. For example, William Labov found differences in the rate and degree of the tensing and raising of /ɔː/ (often, [ɔə~oə]) and the split /æ/ (often, [ɛə~eə]) of Italian American versus Jewish American New Yorkers. Jewish Americans were more likely than other groups to use the closest variants of /ɔː/ (meaning towards [ʊə]) and Italian Americans were more likely than other groups to use the closest variants of /æ/ (meaning towards [ɪə]). In the NPR interview linked below, Labov talks about Irish origin features being the most stigmatized. Still, Labov argues that these differences are relatively minor, more of degree than kind. All European American groups share the relevant features.

One area that is likely to reveal robust patterns is usage among Orthodox Jews. Such features include fully released final stops and certain Yiddish contact features, such as topicalizations of direct objects (e.g., constructions such as Esther, she saw! or A dozen knishes, you bought!). There is also substantial use of Yiddish and particularly Hebrew words. It could be argued that such features are not characteristic of New York dialect because they exist among Orthodox Jews in other dialect regions. Still, in combination with other New York dialect features they are characteristic of a specific local ethno-religious community. There is no research, however, establishing these facts in the New York dialect literature.

Many African American New Yorkers speak African American Vernacular English (AAVE), though with some New York City English features,. Many Latino Americans speak another distinct ethnolect, New York Latino English, characterized by a varying mix of traditional New York dialect and African American vernacular features, along with some features of Spanish origin. However, Labov et al report "A thorough and accurate study of geographic differences in the English of Latinos from the Caribbean and various countries of Central and South America is beyond the scope of the current work," largely because "consistent dialect patterns are still in the process of formation." Middle Eastern Americans, especially those of Syrian descent speak their own version of the accent.

New York Latino English

Like Spanish, the rhythm tends to be syllable-timed rather than stress-timed.

Devoicing of voiced obstruent codas (e.g., characterize may be realized with a final [s])

Consonant cluster simplifications such as the loss of dental stops after nasals (bent) and fricatives, (left, test). That leads to a characteristic plural, in which words like tests are pronounced [t̪ɛst̪ɪs], sometimes written as testes.

Lack of inversion or do support particularly in first- and second-person questions (I can go to the bathroom? rather than Can I go to the bathroom?)

Calques and direct translations of Spanish expressions and words (owned by the devil, instead of possessed by the devil, closed meaning locked).

Potential glide deletions of /aɪ/, /eɪ/, and /oʊ/

Notable speakers

John Leguizamo

Mario Vazquez

Lumidee

Rosie Perez

Rick Gonzalez

Cuban Link

Tru Life

Marc Anthony

Fat Joe

Shaggy Flores

Immortal Technique

Joell Ortiz

Victor Rasuk

Prince Royce

Glen Tapia

Lauren Vélez

David Zayas

Social-class variation

Many professional-class New Yorkers from high socioeconomic backgrounds often speak with less conspicuous accents; in particular, many use rhotic pronunciations instead of the non-rhotic pronunciations, while maintaining some less stigmatized features such as the short-a split (see below).

Similarly, the children of professional migrants from other parts of the U.S. usually do not have many, if any, New York dialect features. As these two populations come to dominate the southern half of Manhattan and neighboring parts of Brooklyn, the dialect is in retreat in some of the more gentrified parts of the city. Many New Yorkers from affluent socioeconomic backgrounds are barely linguistically recognizable as New Yorkers except in their pronunciation of the broad a in "water" and other Northeastern characteristics. Nevertheless, many New Yorkers, particularly from the middle and working class, maintain a clear New York accent.