Instructor: Dr. Sara Trechter

English 475 History of English (HEL)

Instructor: Dr. Sara Trechter

05/05/2015

The accent is commonly heard amongst the Irish American and Italian American working-class neighborhoods and its surrounding cities and suburbs.

Philadelphians say "Iggle" for Eagle. Linguists have discovered a Philadelphia Dialect Rule: Shorten both long -e and long -a sounds before -g. Eagle rhymes with Iggle. League rhymes with big. For most of Americans vague and plague rhyme with Peg. For some Philadelphians, colleague and fatigue also rhyme with big. But these are words learned later, so many of them use the standard American "coleeg" and "fateeg."

Before -r and -l, "ou" and "ow" both sound like a simple flat "a." “Our" sounds like "are." "Owl" is "Al." "Towel" and "Powel" become "tal" and "pal." Double sounds get simplified: "mayor" and "prayer" become "mare" and "prare."

One of the famous features of "Brooklynese" (actually New York City Working Class Dialect) was "bah-ul" for bottle. Linguists call that odd sound a glottal stop. Philadelphians use the same sound, but only before consonants like -m and -n and-l: Women for Whitman, Dennis for dentist, Clin'in for Clinton, par'ly for partly, foun'in and moun'in and accoun'in' (for accountant). Local politicians used to say "commi'men'" for commitment, but the word's gone out of fashion.

In Philadelphia they say "shore" for "sure." For them, "tour" is "tore," rather than "tooer.""You're" and "your" sound exactly like "yore"; "pour" and "poor" the same as "pore."

Standard British Dialect does not pronounce its -r's. Most of the East Coast of the United States still follows British practice: "worker" is r-. The Midwest and West, where British influence got lost long ago, pronounces all its -r's.

Philadelphia has its own Britishisms. They say "pavement" as they do in London, not "sidewalk" as in New York.

In Philadelphia they use sounds made like 'au,' in the middle of the mouth. This is one of the richest sounds in the Philadelphia repertoire.

"Come AUWN!" or "Oh no, I cauweaught a cold." Nowhere is there an "au" to compare with Philadelphia. The further west you go, the more this sound gets smoothed out and toned down. By the time it gets to California, people say, "Come ahn," and "I cot a cold."

The Philadelphia A

A man named Ian and a woman named Ann go through life hearing their names pronounced exactly the same way. A is the most complicated Philadelphians’ sound of all. Most Philadelphians pronounce both as "Ian," something like "Ee-yan" squeezed into one syllable. In the Midwest, all -a's are pronounced like that; it's called a tense -a. In Boston, all -a's have a sound closer to upper-class British: "ah," or a lax -a. Boston: "I rahn from the bahd mahn holding a fahn, a hahm and a hahmmer." Midwest (ran here rhymes with Ian):"I ran from a bad man holding a fan, a ham and a hammer." Philladelphian: "I rahn from a bad man holding a fan, a ham and a hahmmer." Philadelphia mixes the two -a's.

There's a rule for this. This is a real life rule, one that simply describes what they do without thinking.

You use tense -a:

— Before -m and -n: e.g., ham, man, fan, pecan

— Before -f, -th, -s: laugh, staff, bath, glass.

— In three words ending in -d: mad, bad, glad (but lahd, pahd, brahd, gahd about).

Exceptions:

— -ng gets lax -a: fan is tense, fang is fahng.

— Irregular verbs get lax a: can (a can of peas) is tense; can (I cahn do it) is lax. So are ran, swam, began, am. And the sub-literate dialect word wan, as in "We wahn the war."

— Exception to the exception: can the verb is lax, can't is tense.

— The article "an" is lax.

— If a vowel comes after -m or -n in the word, the "a" turns lax: ham is tense, hammer is lax. Fan tense, fanny lax.

It's probably the complicated Philly A that makes them pronounce radiator to rhyme with gladiator.

Lexicon

For example, a sandwich consisting of a long bread filled with lunch meat, cheese, and lettuce, onion and tomato, variously called a "sub" or "submarine sandwich" in other parts of the United States, is called a hoagie. Olive oil, rather than mayonnaise, is used as a topping, and "hot" or "sweet" peppers are used for spice. The term 'hoagie' originated in Philadelphia

Many Philadelphians are known to use the expression "youse" both as second person plural and (rarely) second person singular pronoun, much like the mostly Southern / Western expression "y'all" or the Pittsburgh term, "yinz". "Youse" (often "youse guys" when addressing multiple people) is common in many working class northeastern areas, but is often associated with Philadelphia especially. The pronunciation reflects vowel reduction more often than not, yielding /jəz/ and /jɨz/ ("yiz") just as often as the stereotypical/juːz/. (ex: "Yiz want anything at the store?" "Yiz guys alright over there?"). Second person singular forms commonly are heard as /jə/ and /jɨ/. Although enthusiasts celebrating the accent's distinctiveness like to point out that instances of terminal /z/ in singular use occur, it is inaccurate to say they are common.

Anymore is used as a positive, e.g. "Jimmy's hoagies taste different anymore."

References:

Jim Quinn's guide to Philadelphia English — spoken here like nowhere else in the world. http://citypaper.net/articles/081497/article008.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_English