A detail from the interactive feature on the New York accent by amNewYork. Go to the feature. Writing in amNewYork today, Rolando Pujol takes a fascinating look at “the New York accent” and concludes that the accent, while subject to the forces of homogenization, is alive and, if not well, then at least evolving. (And most experts do not think it varies by borough or neighborhood.)
The article — accompanied by an interactive graphic — quotes a variety of linguistic authorities. Here is a recap of some of their
observations, as cited by amNewYork:
- William Labov, University of Pennsylvania professor of linguistics who conducted seminal studies of the New York accent in the 1960s: “The main picture is one of stability.”
- George Jochnowitz, emeritus professor of linguistics at the College of Staten Island: The New York accent is “hanging on,” but “compared with certain other regional accents, it’s hanging on less.”
- Walt Wolfram, professor of English linguistics at North Carolina State University: “It’s still a part of New York identity and in part is perpetuated by the outside world. And so there’s a sense in which New Yorkers buy into that.”
- Kara Becker, New York University doctoral candidate in linguistics, who discounted the view that accents vary from borough to borough: “Linguistically we haven’t been able to identify these borough differences. What we find is that we’ve got this New York City dialect that’s accentuated by more working-class speakers.”
- Robert M. Vago, chairman of the Linguistics Department at Queens College, who believes the New York accent endures. “It’s not going anywhere, it’s distinctive, and it’s going to be around.”
Not all the experts were in agreement. Professor Jochnowitz, for example, argued not only that homogenization has prompted the gradual fading of the New York accent but that its force was perhaps most acutely felt in Manhattan, while Ms. Becker asserted that significant differences among the boroughs could not be identified.
Just what characterizes the New York accent seems to be in flux. An “aw” sound in words like “coffee” has long been heard along the East Coast, from Providence to Baltimore, but is becoming less prominent. Those pesky R’s at the end of words seem to be enunciated more and more.
This City Room reporter — who grew up in a Chinese immigrant family in three of the five boroughs, moved around a lot, and has been told he does not have an identifiable New York accent — has a few theories of his own as to why the New York accent is weakening.
First, not only the volume, but also, the nature of immigration to the city has influenced accents. New Yorkers of Jewish, Italian or Irish ancestry in decades past were more likely to go up in fairly uniform ethnic enclaves; heavily immigrant neighborhoods today like Jackson Heights or Richmond Hill, Queens, by contrast, tend to have a greater variety of nationalities coexisting in close proximity.
Second, geographic mobility — among the relatively affluent and well-educated — has made New York a less stable community than it has been in years past. If Manhattan is losing its accent, that may have more to do with the fact that so many Manhattanites are transplants from elsewhere than because of cultural homogenization.
Third, the influence of television may be more powerful today at reducing accents, but not so much because programming has become more generic — if anything, programming is far more varied and reflective of social diversity today than in the period right after World War II — but because the amount of time spent watching television has increased so much.
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