New York accent



The sound system of New York City English is popularly known as a New York accent. The New York metropolitan accent is one of the most recognizable accents of the United States, largely due to its popular stereotypes and portrayal in radio, film, and television. Several other common names exist for the accent that associate it with more specific locations in the New York City area, such as Bronx accent, Brooklyn accent, Queens accent, Long Island accent, North Jersey accent, etc.; however, no research has demonstrated significant linguistic differences between these locations.

The following is an overview of the phonological structures and variations within the accent.

Vowels
• Cot–caught distinction: The vowel sound (in words like talk, law, cross, and coffee) and the often homophonous in core and more are tensed and usually raised more than in General American, varying on a scale from  to  while typically accompanied by an inglide that produces variants like  or. These sounds are kept strongly distinct from the in words like lot, dot, bot, and hot; therefore, caught is something like, and cot is something like.

• Father–bother variability: Linguistically conservative speakers retain three separate low back vowels:,, and  , thus with words like father and bother not rhyming as they do for most other Americans. Among such conservative speakers, descendants of Middle English short o with certain or, perhaps, any and all final voiced consonants (e.g., cob, cod, cog, lodge, bomb) normally take on the rounded  sound; Labov et al. report that which words fall into the  class and which words fall into the  class may vary from speaker to speaker. Aside from such speakers with this relic feature, however, a majority of Metro New Yorkers today exhibit a father–bother merger.

• 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 the vowel; thus, in New York City, words like badge, class, lag, mad, and pan, for example, are pronounced with an entirely different vowel sound than are words like bat, clang, lack, map, and patch. In the former set of words, historical is raised and tensed to an ingliding diphthong of the type or even. Meanwhile, the latter set of words retains a more typical lax and low-front sound. A strongly related (but slightly different) split occurs likewise in Philadelphia and Baltimore accents.

• Conservative and : as in goat usually does not undergo fronting; instead, it remains  and may even have a lowered starting point. Relatedly, as in  is not fronted and remains a back vowel  or, although it may be more fronted following a coronal consonant, such as in loose, too, and zoom. This general lack of fronting of and  also distinguishes New York City from nearby Philadelphia. Some speakers have a separate phoneme in words such as tune, news, and duke (historically a separate class). The phonemic status of this vowel is marginal. For example, Labov (1966) reported that certain Metro New Yorkers regularly contrasted do with  dew but that certain others used the pronunciation  for both do and dew. Also, Labov et al. in 2006 reported that yod-dropping had diffused as a characteristic among the rest of New York City English's speakers (in which the vowel in dew and do is pronounced very far back in the mouth).

• Backed and fronted : The nucleus of the diphthong is traditionally a back and sometimes rounded vowel  or  (mean value ) (ride as ), while the nucleus of the  diphthong is a front vowel  (the mean value is open front ) (out as ). The sociolinguistic evidence suggests that both of these developments are active changes. The fronted nucleus in and the backed nucleus in  are most common among younger speakers, women, and the working and lower middle classes.

• Pre- distinctions: New York accents lack most of the mergers that occur with vowels before an, which are otherwise common in other varieties of North American English. There is typically a three-way Mary–marry–merry distinction, in which the vowels in words like marry, merry , and Mary do not merge. The vowels in furry and hurry  are commonly distinct. Also, words like orange, horrible, Florida and forest are pronounced with or, 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 :, as in Tory, bore, or shore merges with a tongue movement upward in the mouth to, as in tour, boor, or sure. This is followed by the possibility of, as in tarry or bar, also moving upward (with rounding) towards ~. In non-rhotic New York City speech, this means that born can be and barn can be. This shift also applies to instances of not before, so caught can be. However, unlike the firmness of this shift in Philadelphia English, the entire process is still transitioning and variable in New York City English and may be stigmatized and reversing among some younger speakers.

• Up-gliding : Among the various stereotypes of New York City speech is the use of a front-rising diphthong in words with, or the vowel. This stereotype is popularly represented in stock phrases like "toity-toid" for thirty-third. The phonetic reality of this variant is actually unrounded, thus making the true pronunciation of the popular phrase. The unrounded sound has also been used for the vowel  sometimes. As a variant of, however, it may only occur when followed by a consonant within the same morpheme, so, for example, stir may be but never. William Labov's data published in 1966 indicate that this highly stigmatized diphthongal form of was recessive even then. Only two of Labov's 51 speakers under age 20 used the form, in contrast to his speakers age 50 and over, of whom 23 out of 30 used the non-rhotic form. Younger Metro New Yorkers (born since about 1950) are consequently likely to use the rhotic sound (as in General American) for the diaphoneme  when preconsonantal (as in bird), even if they use non-rhotic pronunciations of beard, bared, bard, board, boor, buttered, or even burred. Still, Labov considers that the stigmatized variant "lingers on in a modified form." In other words, Labov believes that the rhotic of many Metro New Yorkers today remains slightly raised compared to that of other Americans. In addition, despite the near-extinction of the diphthongal, up-gliding variant, Michael Newman in 2014 found  variably in two of his research participants, one born as late as the early 1990s. Related to the non-rhotic variant as used for, a form of intrusive R has as well been reported in words whereby  might occur with r-coloring in the same fashion as  (e.g.,  toilet,  oil), apparently as a result of hypercorrection.

Consonants
While the following consonantal features are central to the common stereotype of a "New York City accent", they are not entirely ubiquitous in New York City. By contrast, the vocalic (vowel) variations in pronunciation as described above are far more typical of New York City–area speakers than the consonantal features listed below, which carry a much greater stigma than do the dialect's vocalic variations:
 * Pronunciation of : The consonant, when pronounced, is usually postalveolar and is often strongly labialized  in New York City English, particularly when it appears as the first consonant in a syllable.


 * Non-rhoticity (or r-lessness): The traditional metropolitan New York accent is non-rhotic; in other words, the sound does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant. Thus, there is no  in words like here, butter , layer , or park  (with the vowel rounded due to the low-back chain shift, though  for earlier twentieth-century speakers). However, modern New York City English is variably rhotic for the most part; in fact, the New York accent can vary between pronounced and silenced  in similar phonetic environments, even in the same word when repeated. Also, while a significant number drop r-coloring from the schwa  and most other vowels at least some of the time, as in butter, most current speakers retain r-coloring in the sequence  (e.g., worker ), as detailed in the previous section. Non-rhotic speakers usually exhibit a linking R and frequently an intrusive R as well, like speakers of most other non-rhotic dialects.
 * Rhoticity (or r-fulness): In more modern times, the post-vocalic has become more prominent, with many current New York City speakers using rhoticity to at least some degree. When Metro New Yorkers are more conscious of what they are saying, the  typically becomes more evident in their speech. In terms of social stratification, the lower class of New York City tends to use rhoticity less than the middle and upper classes. Also, rhoticity is noticeably based on age since younger generations are more likely to pronounce  in coda position.
 * Laminal alveolar consonants: The alveolar consonants, , , and 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  and . Also,  and  are often pronounced with the tongue touching the teeth instead of the alveolar ridge (just above the teeth) as is typical in most varieties of English. Such an articulation may be used in the cluster /tr/, producing possible homophones such as three and tree , and may even appear intervocalically, including when  or  is pronounced as a tap , according to a report from the mid–twentieth century. As in other American dialects,  may be elided  or glottalized following  in words like painting  and fountain ; glottalization, in particular, is reported to sometimes appear in a wider range of contexts in New York City speech than in other American dialects, appearing, for example, before syllabic  (e.g., bottle ).  At the same time, before a pause, a released final stop is often more common than a glottal stop in New York City accents than in General American ones; for example, bat as  rather than.
 * The universal usage of "dark L",, common throughout the U.S., is also typical of the New York City accent. Newman (2014) reports even in initial position to be relatively dark for all accents of the city except the accents of Latinos. However, in the mid–twentieth century, both dark and "not quite so 'dark variants of  were reported. The latter occurred initially or in initial consonant clusters and was pronounced with the point or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, though this variant was not as "clear" as in British Received Pronunciation.
 * Also, is reported as commonly becoming postalveolar before, making a word like William for some speakers  or even.
 * Vocalization of : L-vocalization is common in New York City though it is perhaps not as pervasive as in some other dialects. Like its fellow liquid, it may be vocalized when it appears finally or before a consonant (e.g., sell,  milk).
 * Th-stopping: As in many other dialects, the interdental fricatives and  are often realized as dental or alveolar stop consonants, famously like  and, or affricates  and . 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 , the variation with  and  appears to be stable. Historical dialect documents suggest th-stopping probably originated from the massive influence of German, Italian, Irish, and Yiddish speakers who immigrated to the city starting in the mid–nineteenth century.
 * Pronunciation of $⟨ng⟩$: Some speakers might replace with the sequence  categorically or at least use  as an optional variant of, as stereotyped in the pronunciation spelling "Lawn Guyland" for "Long Island" ( rather than the more General American ). This pronunciation occurs most strongly among Lubavitcher Jews but has also, at least in the past, been used in the speech of Italians, and it has become a stereotype of the New York City accent in general. Speakers with and without this feature may realize  as  in unstressed -ing endings.
 * Reduction of to : Metro New Yorkers typically do not allow  to precede ; this gives pronunciations like yuman  and yooge  for human and huge.

Social and geographic variation
Despite common references to a "Bronx accent", "Brooklyn accent", "Long Island accent", etc., which reflect a popular belief that different boroughs or neighborhoods of the New York metropolitan area have different accents, linguistic research fails to reveal any features that vary internally within the dialect due to specific geographic differences. Impressions that the dialect varies geographically are likely a byproduct of class or ethnic variation, and even some of these assumptions are losing credibility in light of accent convergences among the current younger generations of various ethnic backgrounds. Speakers from Queens born in the 1990s and later are showing a cot–caught merger more than in other boroughs, though this too is likely class- or ethnic-based (or perhaps even part of a larger trend spanning the whole city) rather than location-based. The increasing extent of the cot–caught merger among these Queens natives has also appeared to be correlated with their majority foreign parentage. A lowering of New York City's traditionally raised caught vowel is similarly taking place among younger residents of Manhattan's Lower East Side. This is seen most intensely among Western European (and Jewish) New Yorkers, fairly intensely among Latino and Asian New Yorkers, but not among African American New Yorkers. Therefore, this reverses the trend that was documented among Western European Lower East Siders in the twentieth century.

In New Jersey
Though geographic differences are not a primary factor in the internal variation of features within the dialect, the prevalence of the dialect's features as a whole does vary within the metropolitan area based on distance from the city proper, notably in northeastern New Jersey. East of the Passaic and Hackensack Rivers (closest to the city proper) and in Newark, the short-a split system is identical to that used in the city itself. West of the Hackensack but east of the Passaic, the New York City system's function word constraint is lost before nasal codas, and the open syllable constraint begins to vary in usage. West of both rivers (farthest from the city proper), a completely different short-a system is found. Furthermore, New York City's closest New Jersey neighbors, like Newark and Jersey City, may be non-rhotic like the city itself. Outside of these cities, however, the New York metropolitan speech of New Jersey is nowadays fully rhotic, so the phrase "over there" might be pronounced "ovah deah" by a native of Newark but "over dare"  by a native of Elizabeth.

Ethnic variation
The classic New York City 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, within which there are degrees of ethnic variation. The variations of New York City English are a result of the waves of immigrants that have settled in the city, from the earliest settlement by the Dutch and English followed in the nineteenth century by the Irish and Western Europeans (typically of French, German, and Scandinavian descent) settling. Over time, these collective influences combined to give New York City its distinctive traditional accent; William Labov argued that Irish New Yorkers, in particular, contributed the accent's most stigmatized features.

The many Eastern European Jewish and Italian immigrants who came, for the most part, until the immigration acts of 1921 and 1924 restricted Southern and Eastern European immigration further influenced the city's speech. Ongoing sociolinguistic research suggests that some differentiation between these last groups' speech may exist. For example, Labov found that Jewish American New Yorkers were more likely than other groups to use the closest variants of (meaning towards ) and perhaps fully released final stops (for example, pronunciation of sent as  rather than the more General American  or ), while Italian American New Yorkers were more likely than other groups to use the closest variants of  (meaning towards ). Still, Labov argues that these differences are relatively minor, more of degree than kind. All noted Euro-American groups share the relevant features.

One area revealing robustly unique patterns is New York City English among Orthodox Jews, overlapping with Yeshiva English, which can also exist outside of the New York City metropolitan area. Such patterns include certain Yiddish grammatical contact features, such as topicalizations of direct objects (e.g., constructions such as Esther, she saw! or A dozen knishes, you bought!), and the general replacement of with. There is also substantial use of Yiddish and particularly Hebrew words.

African American New Yorkers typically speak a New York variant of African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) that shares the New York accent's raised vowel. Many Latino New Yorkers speak a distinctly local ethnolect, New York Latino English, characterized by a varying mix of New York City English and AAVE features, along with some Spanish contact features. Euro-American New Yorkers alone, particularly Anglo-Americans, have been traditionally documented as using a phonetic split of as follows:  before voiceless consonants but  elsewhere. Asian American New Yorkers are not shown by studies to have any phonetic features that are overwhelmingly distinct.