Characteristics

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

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 [ɜ ɪ ]. 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" (Jersey) and " terlet" (toilet).

r-lessness The traditional New York–area accent is non-rhotic; in other words, the sound “r” does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant. Thus, there is no “r” in words like park [paak], butter [buttə ], or here [hiə ].

Dark (l) onsets 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 so that words like thing and this sound similar to " ting" and " dis".

Intrusive g. In most varieties of English, the velar nasal sound [ŋ ], written as < ng> is pronounced as [ŋ ] rather than [ŋ -g]. However, in strong versions of New York dialect, the [ɡ ] is variably pronounced before a vowel as a velar stop. This leads to the stereotype of ‘’Long Island’’.

Syntax

Indirect questions. Word order of the original question is preserved in indirect questions, at least those introduced by wh-words, for example: 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. For instance, a " stoop" (from Dutch), is the front steps of a building entrance.

New York has been a major area for sociolinguistic study in the U.S. As mentioned above, William Labov has worked extensively here, but New York is not just known for the R-less dialect—it is also home to a number of other dialects such as, African American Vernacular English, which we will discuss in a minute, spanglish, spoken by Porto Ricans, and it is a mixing pot of multilingual people from all over the world.

Again, remember our New York Taxi driver?

In any given day, a immigrant New York taxi driver may speak his social dialect, in this case R-less New York (working-class) English, and maybe a different native language, for example Arabic, while speaking to someone who has a more Standard English dialect at the same time as someone who speaks African American Vernacular English—New York is an enormous and varied speech community.

Now, let’s turn our attention to another social dialect spoken in New York and many other major cities called African American Vernacular English, or AAVE.

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AFRICAN AMERICAN VERNACULAR ENGLISH (AAVE): all of U.S.A. (ethnicall based social dialect)

A more frequently discussed social dialect in the United States is African American Vernacular English it is also sometimes called Black English Vernacular, or Ebonics, or its older and derogatory name, “jive.” We will refer to it simply as AAVE.

This is not a class based social dialect like R-less New York or Cockney, but rather an ethincally based social dialect.

About 80 to 90 percent of American blacks speak AAVE at least some of the time. Additionally, AAVE shares many characteristics with various Creole English dialects spoken by black people throughout much of the world. AAVE also has pronunciation, grammatical structures, and vocabulary in common with various West African languages.

Speakers of AAVE are often bidialectal—which means they speak BOTH standard English and AAVE. They code-switch [REMEMBER CODE-SWITCHING? ] between Standard English and AAVE and like any form of language, age, status, topic, and setting influence the use of AAVE. For example, research has found that AAVE is used more often when discussing abstract concepts, such as feelings, and when people speak to their friends and other African Americans.

The preponderance of code-switching indicates that AAVE and SAE are met with different reactions or discernments. AAVE is often perceived by members of mainstream American society as indicative of low intelligence or limited education. Furthermore, as with many other non-standard dialects and especially creoles, AAVE sometimes has been called " lazy" or " bad" English, although among linguists there is no such controversy, since AAVE, like all dialects, shows consistent internal logic and structure.

That is why AAVE is considered a dialect—AAVE has rules that speakers follow. It is not just a misunderstanding of how to speak Standard English.

AAVE and its cultural history serve as a symbol of ethnic identity and pride for African Americans. AAVE's resistance to assimilation into Standard American English or other more standard dialects is because of the cultural differences between blacks and whites—and a long history of discrimination on the part of white people in the United States. Discrimination against blacks has created some obvious tension, and Standard English can sometimes be seen as a more “White” form of speaking English.

One of the most interesting aspects of AAVE is its uniformity across the country. AAVE is spoken by African Americans from the West Coast to the East Coast with few differences in the dialect. This is one way that linguists know it is not just incorrect English. The rules and changes are so consistent that it is obvious there is a system for speaking in the dialect. The rules for speaking AAVE in California are basically the same as in Boston. It is for this same reason that some scholars have argued AAVE was once a creole language—this is a very interesting topic we do not have time for here. You might want to write a research paper on it.

AAVE has survived and thrived through the centuries also as a result of various degrees of isolation from Southern American English and Standard American English — through both self-segregation from and marginalization—that is racism—by mainstream American society.

The traits of AAVE that separate it from Standard American English (SAE) include:

• changes in pronunciation along definable patterns.
• distinctive vocabulary, for example AAVE slang.
• differences in the use of tenses.

Let’s start with the sounds in the language.

Phonology

The uniformity of AAVE pronunciation, despite vast geographic area, may be due in part to relatively recent migrations of African Americans out of the south as well as long-term racial segregation. Phonological features that set AAVE apart from forms of " Standard English" (such as General American) include:

Cab goes to cup

Word-final devoicing of /b/, /d/ and /g/ sounds, whereby for example cab sounds like cup. ^[2]

Thin goes to θ in or din or dis

AAVE speakers may use alternatives in what in SE are contexts for dental fricatives [θ ] (the th in thin) and [ð ] (the th of then). This depends on the sound's position in a word.^[3]

Word-initially, /θ / is normally as in SE (so " thin" is [θ ɪ n]).

Word-initially, /ð / is [d] (so " this" is [dɪ s]).

Word-medially and -finally, /θ / is realized as either [f] or [t] (so [mʌ nf] or [mʌ nt] for " month"); /ð / as either [v] or [d] (so [smuː v] for " smoothe").

Non-Rhotic: Story goes to stoi