The variety of the English language spoken in the New York City and North Jersey region is often considered to be one of the most recognizable accents within American English (Newman 2005). The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Nickname The Big Apple, The Capital of the World [1], Gotham Government Counties (Boroughs) Bronx (The Bronx) New York (Manhattan) Queens (Queens) Kings (Brooklyn) Richmond (Staten Island) Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Geographical characteristics Area  - City    - Land    - Water  - Urban  - Metro 1,214. ... North Jersey includes the New Jersey portion of the Hudson Valley in the United States. ... American English (AmE) is the dialect of the English language used mostly in the United States of America. ...

Macrosocial Extensions

Geographic factors

The dialect is closely confined to the geographically small but densely populated New York City Dialect Region, which consists of the city's five Boroughs, western and central Long Island, and certain neighboring New Jersey cities such as Newark, Jersey City, Bayonne, and Union City. However, the terms “New York English” and “New York dialect” are strictly speaking misnomers. The classic New York dialect is centered on middle and working class European Americans, and this ethnic cluster now accounts for less than half of the city’s population, although, the same "White Flight" that reduced their numbers in the city has led to expansion of the dialect in the outlaying areas to which they moved. Now, the most secure strongholds of the New York dialect are arguably the suburban areas of Nassau County, Suffolk County, northeastern and southwestern Queens, and parts of Northern New Jersey, although some strong New York dialect speakers do remain in urban sections of Queens, Staten Island, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and even Manhattan. It is often claimed that the dialect varies by neighborhood or borough, or that Lawn Guylanders (Long Islanders) speak in a particular manner. In particular, many 20th-century New Yorkers have claimed to perceive a difference between Brooklyn and Bronx accents. This may be true, although no published study has found any feature that varies in this way beyond local names. Impressions that the dialect changes may also be a byproduct of class and/or ethnic variation. European American is a term for an American of European descent, who are usually referred as White or Caucasian. ... Nassau County is a county located outside New York City in the state of New York. ... Suffolk County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. ... Queens Borough in New York City, in yellow Queens is the largest in area and second most populous of the five boroughs of New York City. ... Official language(s) None, English de facto Capital Trenton Largest city Newark Area  Ranked 47th  - Total 8,729 sq. ... Staten Island lies to the southwest of the rest of New York City. ... The Bronx is one of the five boroughs of United States. ... A map of New York City, highlighting Brooklyn. ... The Borough of Manhattan, highlighted in yellow, lies between the East River and the Hudson River. ... Mercator projection of Long Island Long Island is an island in New York, USA. At 1,377 square miles (3567 km²) and 7. ...

Ethnic and Racial Factors

The variations of the New York accent are a result of the layering of ethnic speech from the waves of immigrants that settled in the city, starting with the Dutch and English, followed by the Irish, the Italian and the European Jews, among other groups. Over time, these collective influences "ganged" together to give New York its distinctive accent. [1]

Some speakers claim that there are differences among speakers of European American New York English that break down along ethnic lines, particularly between the descendants of the Irish, Eastern European Jews, and Italians, the three main late 19th and early 20th Century immigrants. Evidence for this differentiation may be found in sociolinguistic research, in particular Labov's (1982), finding of differences in the rate and degree of the tensing and raising of (oh) and (aeh) of Italian American versus Jewish American New Yorkers. In the NPR interview linked below, Labov talks about Irish origin features being the most stigmatized. However, these differences are relatively minor, more of degree than kind. All groups share the relevant features. It is possible, of course, that there are substantial differences, but like geographic differences, these have not been found. Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used. ... Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from an article revision dated 2006-02-04, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ...

That said, Sam Chwat, a prominent speech therapist, shares the widely held belief of native New Yorkers that it is possible to make clear distinctions among the accents of different ethnic groups:

People talk about borough-defined New York accents, but, really, the different types of New York accents are ethnic," Mr. Chwat said. "You have the Jewish accent, as typified by Jackie Mason or Fran Drescher, the Italian accent -- Robert De Niro or Tony Danza. There's the Irish New York accent, like Rosie O'Donnell or Mayor Giuliani.[2]

One area that is likely to reveal robust patterns, however, is usage among Orthodox Jews, sometimes referred to as Yeshivish, for the parochial high schools members of this community attend. 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. However, 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. Jackie Mason (born Jacob Maza on June 9, 1931, in Sheboygan, Wisconsin) is an ordained rabbi and an American stand-up comedian. ... Francine Joy Drescher (born in Flushing, Queens, New York City on September 30, 1957) is a American film and television actress. ... Robert De Niro at the Berlin International Film Festival, 1998 Robert De Niro Jr. ... Link title Tony Danza Tony Danza (born April 21, 1951) is an American actor and former boxer. ... Rosie ODonnell (on right) and life-partner Kelli Carpenter-ODonnell speaking after their legal union on February 26, 2004 in San Francisco. ... Rudy Giuliani Rudolph William Louis Rudy Giuliani III (born May 28, 1944 in Brooklyn, New York) served as the Mayor of New York City from January 1, 1994 through December 31, 2001. ... Yeshivish is spoken mainly by English-speaking Orthodox Jews who attend or have attended a yeshiva or bais yaakov, and is the working language of those schools. ... Yiddish (ייִדיש, Jiddisch) is a Germanic language spoken by about four million Jews throughout the world. ...

African American New Yorkers often speak African American Vernacular English (AAVE), though with some New York Dialect features, as do most children of Black Caribbean immigrants. Many Latinos speak another distinct ethnolect, New York Latino English, characterized by a varying mix of traditional New York dialect and AAVE features along with features of Portuguese and Spanish origin. There is a tendency for middle and upper middle class members of both groups to use more New York dialect features and lower income residents to use fewer. Many East Asian American and Middle Eastern New Yorkers may also speak a recognizable variety, though one much closer to standard American English. Thus, within the dialect region, the dialect is predominantly, though not exclusively, European American. An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black), is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ... African American Vernacular English (AAVE), also called Black English, Black Vernacular, or Black English Vernacular (BEV), is a type variety (dialect, ethnolect and sociolect) of the American English language. ... The word Latino derives from the Spanish word Latinoamericano and is generally applied to inhabitants of Latin America and their descendents living outside of Latin America. ... Nuyorican English is a name sometimes applied to New York Latino English, a form of New York dialect historically spoken by Puerto Rican immigrants and their follwowing generations in the New York dialect region but now by many Hispanic-Americans of diverse national heritages in the New York metropolitan area... An Asian American is a person of Asian ancestry or origin who was born in or is an immigrant to the United States. ... A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ...

Social Class Factors

Nevertheless, not even all European American New Yorkers use this variety. Upper-middle class European American New Yorkers and suburban residents from educated backgrounds often speak with less conspicuous accents; in particular, many, though hardly all, use rhotic pronunciations instead of the less prestigious non-rhotic pronunciations while maintaining some less stigmatized features such as the low back chain shift and the short a split (see below). English pronunciation is divided into two main accent groups, the rhotic and the non-rhotic, depending on when the phoneme (the letter r, equivalent to Greek rho) is pronounced. ...

Similarly, the children of professional white migrants from other parts of the US frequently do not have many New York dialect features, and as these two populations come to dominate the southern half of Manhattan and neighboring parts of Brooklyn, the dialect is retreating from their neighborhoods. Many teens attending expensive private prep schools are barely linguistically recognizable as New Yorkers. Nevertheless, many New Yorkers, particularly those of Southern and Eastern European descent from the middle- and working-class, retain varying degrees of what has been coined New Yorkese or Brooklynese, within their daily regular speech.

Beyond New York

Many Jewish-Americans, both Ashkenazic and Sephardic, throughout the United States have some features of a New York accent. This is the case even among some Jewish-Americans who have never lived in New York or New Jersey. This phenomenon is somewhat parallel to the spread of African American Vernacular English to the rest of the United States from its original location in the US South. Because so many Jewish-Americans have a New York-sounding accent, some people may mistakenly believe that a New York accent is a "Jewish accent," when actually, non-Jewish White New Yorkers have the same accent. Similarly, many Mafia films, most of them set in the 1940s, show many characters speaking English with a New York accent. A Jewish American (also commonly American Jew) is an American (a citizen of the United States) of Jewish descent who maintains a connection to the Jewish community, either through actively practicing Judaism or through cultural and historical affiliation. ... Ashkenazi (אַשְׁכֲּנָזִי, Standard Hebrew Aškanazi, Tiberian Hebrew ʾAškănāzî) Jews or Ashkenazic Jews, also called Ashkenazim (אַשְׁכֲּנָזִים, Standard Hebrew Aškanazim, Tiberian Hebrew ʾAškănāzîm), are Jews who are descendants of Jews from Germany, Poland, Austria and Eastern Europe. ... In the strictest sense, a Sephardi (ספרדי, Standard Hebrew Səfardi, Tiberian Hebrew Səp̄ardî; plural Sephardim: ספרדים, Standard Hebrew Səfardim, Tiberian Hebrew Səp̄ardîm) is a Jew original to the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal: ספרד, Standard Hebrew Səfárad, Tiberian Hebrew Səp̄áraḏ / Səp̄āraḏ), or whose ancestors were among the Jews expelled from... African American Vernacular English (AAVE), also called Black English, Black Vernacular, or Black English Vernacular (BEV), is a type variety (dialect, ethnolect and sociolect) of the American English language. ... The Mafia, also referred to in Italian as Cosa Nostra (Our Thing or This Thing of Ours), is a secret society that evolved from Italian Organized Crime in mid-19th century Sicily. ... Film may refer to: photographic film a motion picture in academics, the study of motion pictures as an art form a thin skin or membrane, or any covering or coating, whether transparent or opaque a thin layer of liquid, either on a solid or liquid surface or free-standing Film... // Events and trends World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrination, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons such as the atomic bomb. ...

Linguistic Features

Pronunciation

See the article International Phonetic Alphabet for explanations of the phonetic symbols used, as indicated between square brackets. These represent actual pronunciations. The symbols in curved parentheses () are variables, in this case historical word classes that have different realizations between and within dialects. This system was developed by William Labov. A link to a site with an example text read in various accents, including New York, can be found under external links. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ... Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from an article revision dated 2006-02-04, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ...

New York Dialect is predominantly characterized by the following sounds and speech patterns:

Vowels

• The low back chain shift The (oh) vowel sound of words like talk, law, cross, and coffee and the often homophonous (ohr) in core and more are tensed and usually raised, higher than its equivalent in many other U.S. dialects. This vowel is typically above [ɔː], the corresponding vowel in Received Pronunciation; in the most extreme New York accents, it is even higher and possesses an inglide: [ʊə]. (ah) in father and (ahr) in car are tensed and move to a position abandoned by (oh). The result is that car is often similar to core in parts of New England. Some words not originally from this word class, such as on, god and Bob join the (ah) group. This shift is robust and has spread to many non European American New Yorkers.

• The short a split There is a class of words, indicated with (aeh) with a historical "short a" vowel, including plan, class, and bad, where the historical [æ] has undergone [æ]-tensing to [eə], or, in the most extreme accents, [ɪə], accompanied by an inglide as with (oh). This class is similar to, but larger than, the class of words in which Received Pronunciation uses the so-called broad A.Other words, such as plaque, clatter, and bat, indicated as (ae), remain lax, with the result that bad and bat have different vowels. Versions of the short a split are found from Philadelphia to Southern New England.

• pre-r distinctions New York accents lacks most of the mergers before medial [ɹ] that many other modern American accents possess:
  • The vowels in marry [mæɹi], merry [mɛɹi], and Mary [meəɹi] are distinct.
  • The vowels in furry [fɝi] and hurry [hʌɹi] are distinct
  • Words like orange and forest are pronounced [ɑɹəndʒ] and [fɑɹəst] with the same stressed vowel as pot, not with the same vowel as port as in much of the rest of the United States.

• er/oy In the most old-fashioned and extreme New York–area accents, the vowel sounds of words like girl and of words like oil both become a diphthong [ɜɪ]. This is often misperceived by speakers of other accents as a "reversal" of the "er" and "oy" sounds, so that girl is pronounced "goil" and oil is pronounced "erl"; this leads to the caricature of New Yorkers saying things like "Joizey" and "terlet". This particular speech pattern is no longer very prevalent; the character Archie Bunker was a good example of a speaker who had this feature. Younger New Yorkers (born since about 1950) are likely to use a rhotic [ɝ] in bird even if they use nonrhotic pronunciations of beard, bared, bard, board, boor, and butter.

Received Pronunciation (RP) is a form of pronunciation of the English language, sometimes defined as the educated spoken English of southeastern England. ... // Trap-bath split The trap-bath split is a vowel split that occurs mainly in southern varieties of English English (including Received Pronunciation), in the Boston accent, and in the Southern Hemisphere accents (Australian English, New Zealand English, South African English), by which the Early Modern English phoneme was lengthened... The trap-bath split is a vowel split that occurs mainly in southern varieties of English English, in the Boston accent, and in the Southern Hemisphere accents (Australian English, New Zealand English, South African English), by which the Early Modern English phoneme was lengthened in certain environments and ultimately merged... The English language has undergone a number of phonological changes before the historic phoneme . ... Archie Bunker on the cover of TV Guide (August 8-14, 1981) Archie Bunker was a fictional character in the long-running and top-rated American television sitcoms All in the Family and Archie Bunkers Place. ... Spectrogram of a regular vowel and its rhotacized counterpart. ...

Consonants

• r-lessness The traditional New York–area 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 [pɔːk] (with vowel raised due to the low-back chain shift), butter [bʌɾə], or here [hiə]. This feature is slowly losing ground, as discussed above. Non-rhoticity now happens sometimes in New Yorkers with otherwise rhotic speech if r 's are located in unaccented syllables particularly in pre-vocalic position. Non-rhotic speakers usually exhibit an intrusive or linking r, similar to other non-rhotic dialect speakers.

• Dark (l) onsets This feature has rarely been commented on but it is robust. A dark variant of (l) is used before vowels like the (l) used in most English after vowels. In other words, in New York dialect, the (l) is made before vowels with the tongue bunched towards the back of the mouth as it is after vowels. In much US English, the prevowel version has a light variant, with the tongue bunched more towards the front. In effect, this means that the beginning sound of lull and level approximates the final one.

• Dentalization (t) and (d) are often pronounced with the tongue tip touching the teeth rather than the alveolar ridge (just above the teeth), as is typical in most varieties of English. Also, these sounds become affricates (sounds with a burst and then a substantial frication, (like ch) before r.

• (dh/th) fortition Some speakers replace the dental fricatives [θ, ð] with dental variants of stops [t, d], so that words like thing and this sound similar to "ting" and "dis". This feature is highly stigmatized and is becoming less and less frequent. However affricate pronunciations are common.

• Intrusive g. In most varieties of English, the velar nasal (ng), written as ‘’ng’’ has no g sound in it. However, in strong versions of New York dialect, it appears that it does get pronounced before a vowel as a velar stop. This leads to the stereotype of ‘’Long Island’’ being pronounced as [lʊɘŋgɑɪlɘnd] popularly written, Lawn Guyland.

English pronunciation is divided into two main accent groups, the rhotic and the non-rhotic, depending on when the phoneme (the letter r, equivalent to Greek rho) is pronounced. ... The linking R, also known as the intrusive R, is a phenomenon found in certain dialects of English, such as Estuary English and Eastern New England English, whereby an R sound is inserted to separate two words which would otherwise run together, rather than make use of a glottal stop. ... // H-cluster reductions The h-cluster reductions are various consonant clusters beginning with /h/ that have in the occurred in the history of English that have lost the /h/ in certain dialects. ... A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ...

Syntax

• Indirect questions The question order is preserved in indirect questions, at least those introduced by wh-words. 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.

Lexicon

There are numerous words used mainly in New York, mostly associated with immigrant languages. A few examples include:

• Hero: the local name of the submarine sandwich, perhaps etymologically related to Greek gyro, though with a different meaning.
• Bodega: the local name for a small market, known in other parts of the US as a convenience store. Its use is general for stores owned by Latinos, but it has been extended to stores owned by members of other immigrant groups such as Middle Easterners.
• A new contribution, papichulo for a kind of suave ladies' man, is starting to spread.

A curious split in usage, reflective of the city's racial divide, involves the word punk. In the African American and Latino communities, the word tends to be used as a synomym for weak, someone unwilling or unable to defend her or usually 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. Although this loser sense is expanding to younger European American and perhaps Asian American speakers with considerable contact with AAVE culture, an older usage, in which the term means youthful delinquent is probably still more common. Thus a newspaper article that refers to, say, some arrested muggers, as punks can have two different meanings to two different readers. Of course, the term also unambiguously means the follower of a particular musical and fashion peer cultural style (i.e. Punk rock). Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ...

History

The origins of the dialect are diverse, and the source of many features is probably not recoverable. Labov has pointed out that the short a split is found in southern England as mentioned above. He also claims that the vocalization and subsequent loss of (r) was copied from the prestigious London pronunciation, and so it started among the upper classes in New York and only later moved down the socioeconomic scale. This aristocratic r-lessness can be heard, for instance, in recordings of Franklin Roosevelt. After WWII, the r-ful pronunciation became the prestige norm, and what was once the upper class pronunciation became a vernacular one.

Other vernacular pronunciations, such as the dental (d)'s and (t)'s may come from contact with languages such as Italian and Yiddish. 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 New York are of immigrant roots.

Celebrities with New York Accents

Many celebrities have New York accents; a famous example of a very strong New York-New Jersey accent is often attributed to Joe Pesci, who was born in Newark. Others include Artie Lange, Danny DeVito, Joe Paterno, Billy Joel, Jeff Velocci, Muhammad Hassan, Bruce Willis, Paul Heyman, Regis Philbin, Woody Allen, Howard Stern, Ray Romano, Fran Drescher, Jerry Seinfeld, Mel Brooks, Barbra Streisand, Rodney Dangerfield, Bea Arthur, George Carlin, Gilbert Gottfried, Ed Koch, Rosie O'Donnell, Jennifer Lopez, Peter Gallagher, Penny Marshall, "Mistress" Juliya Chernetsky, Bruce Arena, Andy Milonakis, Wendy Kaufman ("The Snapple Lady"), Gabe Kaplan, Colin Quinn, Bugs Bunny, Al Goldstein, Cyndi Lauper, Robert Pastorelli, Carmine Giovinazzo, Joy Behar, Eddie Cahill, Ron Palillo, and Vanessa Ferlito. Sportscaster Al Michaels also speaks with a New York accent sometimes, despite attending high school in Los Angeles. Famous bands with New York accents include The Beastie Boys, The Ramones, The Velvet Underground, Anthrax, and M.O.D. Joe Pesci as Nicky Santoro in Casino. ... Skyline of downtown Newark as seen from the Newark Bay Bridge. ... Artie Lange Arthur Steven Lange (born October 11, 1967) is an American television and movie actor, stand up comedian and radio personality. ... Danny DeVito as Louie in Taxi. ... Joe Paterno featured in Sports Illustrated Joseph Vincent Paterno (born December 21, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York), nicknamed JoePa, has been the head coach of Pennsylvania State Universitys college football team since 1966. ... Billy Joel was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999. ... Jeff Velocci is an American professional wrestler. ... Categories: Stub | Professional wrestlers ... Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955 as Walter Bruce Willis in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany) is an American actor. ... Paul Heyman Paul Heyman (born September 11, 1965, Scarsdale, New York) is a professional wrestling manager, on-air talent, and former promoter. ... Regis Philbin as a guest on The Late Show with David Letterman Regis Francis Xavier Philbin (born August 25, 1931) is an experienced American talk show host whose career has included stints as a game show host and all-purpose television personality. ... Woody Allen. ... Howard Stern Howard Allen Stern (born January 12, 1954) is an American radio and TV personality, humorist and author. ... Ray Romano Raymond Romano (born December 21, 1957 in Queens, New York) is an American actor and comedian. ... Francine Joy Drescher (born in Flushing, Queens, New York City on September 30, 1957) is a American film and television actress. ... Jerry Seinfeld Jerome Jerry Seinfeld (born April 29, 1954) is an American actor, writer and observational comedian from Massapequa, New York, a hamlet on Long Island. ... Mel Brooks on the talk show Parkinson. ... Barbra Streisand (born April 24, 1942) is an iconic two-time Academy Award-winning American singer, theatre and film actress, composer, film producer and director. ... For the UK TV series, see Dangerfield (TV program) Rodney Dangerfield in 1997 Rodney Dangerfield (November 22, 1921 – October 5, 2004), born Jacob Cohen, was an American comedian and actor, best known for the line I dont get no respect and his monologues on that theme. ... Beatrice Arthur as Maude Findlay on Maude. ... George Dennis Carlin (born May 12, 1937) is a Grammy-winning American stand-up comedian, actor, and author, noted especially for his irreverent attitude and his observations on language, psychology and religion along with many taboo subjects. ... Gilbert Gottfried (born February 28, 1955, in Brooklyn, New York) is a Jewish American stand-up comedian and actor noted for his grating voice, his squint, his Brooklyn accent and his tendency to shout. ... Ed Koch Edward Irving Koch (born December 12, 1924; pronounced kotch) was a U.S. Congressman and the Mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989. ... Rosie ODonnell (on right) and life-partner Kelli Carpenter-ODonnell speaking after their legal union on February 26, 2004 in San Francisco. ... Jennifer Lynn López (born July 24, 1969) is a well-known American actress, pop/latin/R&B singer, fashion designer, and dancer. ... Peter Gallagher At i Cucini Restaurant, Santa Monica. ... Marshall in People Magazine Penny Marshall (born October 15, 1942) is an American actress, producer and director. ... Juliya Chernetsky — usually just Juliya or Mistress Juliya to her fans — born July 10, 1982, is a television personality best known for her stint on the music-themed network Fuse, formerly known as MuchMusicUSA. (The name was changed in May 2003. ... Bruce Arena was a winning college soccer coach at the University of Virginia for 18 years, ultimately achieving five NCAA Championships at Virginia (in 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1994). ... Andy Milonakis Andrew Michael Andy Milonakis (born January 30, 1976, in Katonah, New York) is a Greek-American, comedian who plays the role of a pre-pubescent boy on his television show on MTV2, The Andy Milonakis Show. ... Wendy Kaufman (b. ... Cactus Iced Tea Snapple label, a flavor of Snapple that has been retired Snapple is a company based in Rye Brook, New York that produces a variety of beverages which are sold in glass bottles, soda-style cans, and plastic bottles. ... Gabe Kaplan at the 1979 World Series of Poker Gabe Kaplan (born March 31, 1945 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American actor and professional poker player. ... Colin Quinn Colin Quinn (born June 6, 1959) is an Irish-American comedian, best known for his five years on the cast of Saturday Night Live. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Al Goldstein (born Alvin Goldstein, January 10, 1936) is an American publisher and pornographer. ... Cyndi Lauper Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper (born June 22, 1953), better known as Cyndi Lauper, is an American pop singer and actress whose melodic voice and wild costumes have come to epitomize the 1980s, the decade in which she first came to fame. ... Robert Pastorelli (June 21, 1954 – March 8, 2004) was an American actor from New Brunswick, New Jersey. ... Carmine Giovinazzo (photo credit: Emilia Sparagna). ... Comedian & Co-host Joy Behar Joy Behar (christened Josephina Victoria Occhiuto) was born on October 7, 1943, in Brooklyn, New York. ... Edward Eddie Cahill (born January 15, 1978 in New York City) is an American actor best known for playing the role of Det. ... Ron Palillo (born April 2, 1949) is an American television and film actor best known for his role as high school student Arnold Horshack on the ABC sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, which aired from 1975 to 1979. ... Alan Richard Michaels (born November 12, 1944 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American television sportscaster. ... The Beastie Boys as depicted on the cover of their 1992 album Check Your Head. ... The Ramones (L-R, Johnny, Tommy, Joey, Dee Dee) on the cover of their debut self-titled album (1976), cementing their place at the dawn of the punk movement. ... The Velvet Underground (sometimes abbreviated as The Velvets or V.U.) was one of the most influential and important rock bands in music history, whose influence has left a mark across several genres and different types of music. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

New Jersey Dialects

For a small state, New Jersey is dialectally quite diverse, with two regions of the state ovelapping with other dialect areas, New York and Philadelphia, and several autochthonous dialects. Official language(s) None, English de facto Capital Trenton Largest city Newark Area  Ranked 47th  - Total 8,729 sq. ...

Generally, only the European American residents of areas immediately closest to New York City are New York dialect speakers.

European Americans in much of southern New Jersey generally speak with an accent that is closely related if not identical to the Philadelphia dialect. The southwestern section of New Jersey along the Deleware River is a suburb of Philadelphia and has large numbers of transplanted Philadelphians who moved to the growing area during Philadelphia's decline. The situtation is very similar to the Northern New Jersey-New York City relationship.

The so-called North Jersey accent spoken in northern New Jersey is found in the northeast quarter of New Jersey, and is basically the part of the state which is in New York City's metropolitan area, including cities such as Rutherford and Rahway. However, it is not part of the New York Dialect area. For instance, it is rhotic and lacks a short a split. NYC shibboleths such as hero are less used than the less regionally distinct sub (sandwich on baguette style bread). A curious example of a speaker of this dialect is the founder of variationist sociolinguistics William Labov. An exaggerated version of this accent is spoken by many characters on the television series The Sopranos, the best example being mob boss Tony Soprano. North Jersey includes the New Jersey portion of the Hudson Valley in the United States. ... Map highlighting Rutherfords location within Bergen County. ... Rahway is a city located in Union County, New Jersey. ... The Sopranos is a very popular American television drama broadcast on HBO about a fictional Mafia family in Northern New Jersey. ... Anthony John Soprano, Sr. ...

The present accent of the Jersey Shore is heavily influenced by the populations of summer visitors from North Jersey, New York, and Philadelphia from which it was principally settled. However, prior to the influence of the tourism industry on the area, the situation was different. Presently the beachfront communities north of Atlantic City tend to have a heavy New York influence and those to the south have a Philadelphia influence due to the large number of residents from those areas who spend their summer "down the shore". The Jersey Shore is a colloquial term used in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States to refer to the ocean-facing coast of New Jersey, together with the adjacent resort and residential communities. ...

The "Piney" accent of the Jersey Pine Barrens and parts of the Pine Belt has a unique vowel formation of its own. "House" is pronounced "huose," much as in today's Cape Breton accent, stressing the "u." Some have said that it is due to lingering Dutch and Swedish features, but the heavy Irish and Scots immigration may be a factor as well.

Cape May was first a Dutch town, which is still reflected in the Dutch names of some local businesses and streets. The only road to Cape May was from Philadelphia, so Philadelphia English mixed in with the Dutch. The Cape May accent is fading away now as more residents from North Jersey, New York and Philadelphia populate the area. Cape May City highlighted in Cape May County. ... Philadelphia is a village located in Jefferson County, New York. ...

Contrary to popular belief, hardly anyone in any part of New Jersey refers to their state as Joisey. This word is generally a mistaken attempt by non-New Jersey residents to speak with a New Jersey accent.

See also

• Regional Vocabularies of American English

A number of regional vocabularies of American English exist throughout the United States. ...

External links

• Varieties of English: New York City phonology from the University of Arizona's Language Samples Project
• William Labov's webpage There are links to many sites related to dialects, including references to his early work on New York dialect and the Atlas of North American English.
• [3] A paper by Labov on dialect diversity, including information on NY dialect phonology.
• [4] A link to an NPR interview with Professor Labov on NY dialect.
• The New York Latino English Project The site of the New York Latino English project, which studies the native English spoken by New York Latinos.
• [5] A site with samples of speech in various dialects, including New York.

The University of Arizona (UA or U of A) is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona. ...

References

• Labov, William (1982) The social stratification of English in New York City Center for Applied Linguistics isbn: 0872811492
• Labov, William (1973) Sociolinguistic Patterns U. of Pennsylvania Press isbn: 0812210522*
• Labov, William (1994) Principles of Linguistic Change: Volume 1: Internal Factors Blackwell isbn: 0631179143
• Labov, William (2001) Atlas of North American English DeGruyter isbn: 3110167468
• Labov, William (2001) Principles of Linguistic Change: Volume 2: Social Factors Blackwell isbn: 063117916X
• Newman, Michael (2005) "New York Talk" in American Voices Walt Wolfram and Ben Ward (eds). p.82-87 Blackwell isbn 1405121092
• Slomanson, Peter & Michael Newman (2004) “Peer Group Identification and Variation in New York Latino English Laterals” English Worldwide, 25 (2) pp. 199-216 (http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_seriesview.cgi?series=EWW)
• Wolfram, Walt & Nancy Schilling Estes (2005) American English 2nd edition Blackwell isbn: 1405112654
• Wolfram, Walt & Ward, Ben (2005) American Voices: How Dialects Differ from Coast to Coast Blackwell isbn: 1405121092