To all you New Yawkers...

Fox

Thu, Aug 02 2012, 6:28 pm

gp2.0 wrote:

Fox wrote:

Just out of curiosity, am I the only one who drives her kids nuts making sure that they speak as closely as possible to the "Upper Midwest" accent that characterizes professional announcers?

I've seen so many cases where a strong regional accent of any type really held someone back or at least limited his/her opportunities.

So. Does the upper midwest accent emphasize the Ts or not? Smile

Truthfully, I don't know. I'm not familiar enough with linguistics to break down the components of regional accents. I just know enough to harass my kids if they try to eat "aw-ranges" instead of "oar-anges." But then, I also don't allow them to "stand on line" (NY usage). I do, however, encourage them to be "bilingual" when it comes to "soda" and "pop" and even "Coke."

enneamom

Thu, Aug 02 2012, 10:31 pm

Fox wrote:

gp2.0 wrote:

Fox wrote:

So. Does the upper midwest accent emphasize the Ts or not? Smile

I thought NYres say "ah-ranges"?
(It's funny, NYers say "wawk" and "tawk", but also "ah-range" and "frahg", while OOTers say "wak" and "tak", but also "frawg" and "aw-range". Isn't that a contradiction?)

nylon

Fri, Aug 03 2012, 9:14 am

NY is ah-range and Flahrida.

When people say "I don't have a NY accent" what they mean is, "I don't sound like Fran Drescher." Very few New Yorkers erase it completely and a linguist would be able to tell. For example, you don't say cawfee, but you also don't say cahfee (in linguistics, this is the cot/caught merger, and I have watched New Yorkers dissolve into laughter when hearing a Californian say "I cot the ball."). It's still aw, just soft. Marry, merry, and Mary are still 3 different words (ditto Aaron and Erin; it confuses me that people think they are the same name in the Midwest). Say cat. Now say cab or ball. Same vowel? If you have a NY accent, not. (This is one that people who work on their accents are most likely to lose; the other vowels stay distinct, because they're commonplace throughout the Northeast.)

I moved out of town and I caught myself saying Florida, but Aaron and Erin are still different names Smile

crl

Fri, Aug 03 2012, 10:10 am

Well, even within Judaism, there are cultural linguistic differences that some could find strange. For example, before I met many Syrians/Sephardim, I had heard "Sha-BOT" Shalom, (Like Sha-Bottle) but never "Sha-Bat" (Like Sha-Batman) and it always threw me off. I could be wrong, but I've found that's a pronunciation that many Sephardi people use even if they aren't necessarily from the NY area. Now, I hear it all the time -- still sounds funny to me, but the fact that I say "Sha-bus" sounds strange to them too, so whatever. Smile

5*Mom

Sun, Aug 05 2012, 9:36 am

Fox wrote:

gp2.0 wrote:

Fox wrote:

So. Does the upper midwest accent emphasize the Ts or not? Smile

This is funny cuz I've recently been harassing my dd about her pronunciation of oar-anges to match her friends, since I'm from NY and I taught her to say ahr-ange! Other than that, I've been told you can't tell I'm a Brooklyn girl from listening to me speak, but my dh's California family really do sound like they're speaking a different language.

yo'ma

Sun, Aug 05 2012, 9:46 am

5*Mom wrote:

Other than that, I've been told you can't tell I'm a Brooklyn girl from listening to me speak, but my dh's California family really do sound like they're speaking a different language.

My mother once had a woman with a very southern accent come into her store. My mother could hardly understand her, but the russian woman who worked there understood her better than my mother. The russian woman couldn't tell the difference between the accents, so for her it was just as easy to understand her than it was to understand my mother.

yo'ma

Sun, Aug 05 2012, 9:48 am

Fox wrote:

Just out of curiosity, am I the only one who drives her kids nuts making sure that they speak as closely as possible to the "Upper Midwest" accent that characterizes professional announcers?

I encourage my kids not to have a spanish accent Wink

amother

Sun, Aug 05 2012, 6:59 pm

I lived in the Big Apple for over 50 years and have no idea what many of you are talking about. Maybe you're talking quasi-chassidish brooklyn, not New York. Manhattanites neither drop the T in Manhattan (pronounced manHAT'n, not manhaTTAN--I never heard ANYONE call it that) nor put undue emphasis on T's and D's. ChassiDim do that. Manhattanites call them Chassiddim with a soft blurred D just this side of a rolled R. They also wawlk the dawg and stop for chawcolate, But the frum Brooklyn accent, I can't even mimic it! I recognize it, it's unmistakable, but for the life of me I can't do it. Thank G-d. Folks from FFolkestone are surprised to learn I'm a native New Yorker, seeing as I don't have the accent. They're wrong, of course--I do have the accent, slightly modified thanks to mussar from a michigander, marriage to a midwesterner, a semester of speech in college, and a lot of hard work remembering to respect the letter R at the end of a word . What I don't have is the stereotypical BROOKLYN accent that non-New Yorkers think is THE New York accent.

I'm probably doomed to revert eventually to my native tongue., though. I recently caught myself tawking to my mothah, something that hasn't happened since sixth grade.

zaq

Sun, Aug 05 2012, 7:11 pm

What perplexes me is how quickly a third-generation American-born lad from Dubuque suddenly forgets how to speak English and starts to sound like a greenhorn bocher from BP when he enrolls in an Eastern black-hat yeshiva. Kind of like Cockney rock stars who speak an unintelligible London-slum patois when interviewed but haaaaoooowl abaaaauuuut haaaaooow they laaaoooost mah gal an' mah bagel an' mah truuuhck to a durn durty low-daaaaooown sneak.

Fox

Mon, Aug 06 2012, 12:37 pm

yo'ma wrote:

I encourage my kids not to have a spanish accent Wink

Well, your kids have a good excuse!

granolamom wrote:

I knew a preschool morah who used to complain about all the kids coming in with spanish accents.

Yup! It's apparently almost a joke among primary school teachers at expensive private schools. The kids come to school sounding like the nanny. Of course, the wealthiest parents pay a premium to secure the services of college-educated, native-English-speaking nannies from the US, UK, etc. And the money thrown at nannies who are educated, native-English-speaking, Jewish, and frum? Unreal!

zaq wrote:

Kind of like Cockney rock stars who speak an unintelligible London-slum patois when interviewed but haaaaoooowl abaaaauuuut haaaaooow they laaaoooost mah gal an' mah bagel an' mah truuuhck to a durn durty low-daaaaooown sneak.

Yeah, every time I see photos of Mick Jagger, I wonder his moves were part of the curriculum at the London School of Economics. LOL