An Accent Of New Jersey!????

Guest   Thu Sep 22, 2005 4:56 am GMT
Jealousy, you all live in places less important than the NY/NJ Metro area and your accents are all the same. To tell you the truth nobody here talks like that, its mostly sterotypes...
Kirk   Thu Sep 22, 2005 5:13 am GMT
<<To tell you the truth nobody here talks like that, its mostly sterotypes...>>

Like what? Which feature or phonological phenomenon were you referring
to?

<<Jealousy, you all live in places less important than the NY/NJ Metro area and your accents are all the same.>>

Haha. I'd like to visit the NY area someday but I'm perfectly content to live here in San Diego ;)
Tiffany   Thu Sep 22, 2005 6:29 am GMT
You know, I was in Florida visiting my family just a few weeks ago and we went up to Orlando to go to Disney (ok, technically we went to Kissimmee, but anyway). We went to IHOP for breakfast close to our last day and our waitress had just that accent. Made her O's A's. I could have sworn she was from from somewhere else, but when I asked, she said she was from Ocala (North or Orlando, but still in Florida)!

Where were you Uriel? Did she say she was originally from the part of the state (whatever part of the state you were in)?
_________________________________________
And who protests that dual citizenship isn't allowed in the US? I'm dual American and Canadian. However, I think you can only be dual (and have it recognized by America) if its dual by birth. Of course, you can always become naturalized, renounce and turn in your passport, but then go to the country of your previous citizenship and get another passport. Many countries don't recognize the American "renouncement".

I'm eligible to be both a citizen of Jamaica (through my parents) and Italy (through my husband), but I'd definitely apply for those as a Canadian citizen because they allow multiple citizenships.
Uriel   Thu Sep 22, 2005 6:54 pm GMT
She was from Orlando itself (not far from Kissimmee!), and that's where I went to visit her.

I mentioned that bit about the dual-citizenship because I've heard that old BS plenty of times -- "The US doesn't recognize it!" Yes, it does (as you know).

How was Mouschwitz? I've never been to either of the American ones, but went to the one in Tokyo a few times as a teenager. It was THE place to go for New Year's Eve if you were Japanese -- you could die of old age waiting to get onto Space Mountain on that night!
Al   Thu Sep 22, 2005 10:12 pm GMT
<<To tell you the truth nobody here talks like that, its mostly sterotypes...>>

<<Like what? Which feature or phonological phenomenon were you referring
to?>>

''boid'' for ''bird''. No one here pronounces it that way. It's definitely /b3`d/.
Kelly   Fri Sep 23, 2005 1:01 am GMT
I live in new jersey and no one says joisey. I dont know where people get that from. There is an accent but its nothing like that.
Kelly   Fri Sep 23, 2005 1:03 am GMT
No one from NJ talks like that. Take it from someone who lives there. It is all a stereotype.
Al   Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:30 am GMT
I don't know either. No one here in New York says ''woild'' for ''world''.
New Jerseyan   Fri Sep 23, 2005 3:10 am GMT
<<No one here in New York says ''woild'' for ''world''.>>

Only Chicago gangsters in the 1930s talk like that.
Uriel   Fri Sep 23, 2005 3:23 am GMT
And don't forget Bugs Bunny.
Kirk   Fri Sep 23, 2005 3:55 am GMT
The "boid" for "bird" thing is indeed a caricaturization, as even the speech with that feature didn't have /OI/ there but some other vowel that people just wrote as "oi." However, I've read that that pronunciation has been dying out over the past several decades. Anyway, was anyone even arguing on here that New Jerseyans talked like that? We were talking about things like ["hAr\Ib5=] for "horrible" which is a reliably well-documented feature of some dialects like NJ English.
Alyson   Thu Jul 06, 2006 5:27 am GMT
I live in North Jersey and imo, there really isn't an accent. The supposed NJ accent is just a New York accent and can only really be found in Bergen Country, directly across from NYC. However, isn't it possible that it's just New Yorkers moving to NJ rather than the accent jumping states? People that commute back and forth or those that used to live in NYC but moved to NJ most likely live in that county.
Outside of there, no one really had an accent or the strong one that many people seem to think Jersey natives have.

When people speak w/ that heavy New York, supposed NJ accent, I can hear it which means that I am def. not speaking like that. I don't say 'Cah' for Car, 'Weatha' for weather and no one says Joisey ever, anywhere in the state.

The only accent that I know I have since people have told me is that I do say Cawfee (coffee), Tawk (talk), Baws (boss), etc..
Travis   Thu Jul 06, 2006 7:11 am GMT
>>The only accent that I know I have since people have told me is that I do say Cawfee (coffee), Tawk (talk), Baws (boss), etc..<<

I don't think those're particular to NJ at all, considering that we have all those pronunciations over here in southeastern Wisconsin, them being, to be exact (using X-SAMPA):

coffee : ["k_hOfi:]
talk : ["t_hOk]
boss : ["bOs]
Alyson   Thu Jul 06, 2006 8:12 am GMT
After reading the rest of the posts, had to add..

I also say Florida, horrible, forest, moral, corel w/ an AR sound.

Also, 'bath' and 'trap' don't have to same vowel sound. Bath has an ae sound to it, same w/ Math. I say Trap like Sap or Tap w/ a short a.

I have noticed that a lot of people that pronounce trash and bath w/ short a's say camera, manager, America differently that I do.
I say 'camera'/'manager' sounding out the short a (1st) like in 'tap' and 'America' w/ a short e as in 'ten' meanwhile others would say 'caemra', 'maenager' and 'Amearica much like I say 'baeth' only those people would say 'bath' w/ a short a.
andre in usa   Thu Jul 06, 2006 9:01 am GMT
<<I say 'camera'/'manager' sounding out the short a (1st) like in 'tap' and 'America' w/ a short e as in 'ten' meanwhile others would say 'caemra', 'maenager' and 'Amearica much like I say 'baeth' only those people would say 'bath' w/ a short a.>>

Me too; I'm from the Philadelphia area. We use the "short a," which is technically referred to as the lax a, for polysyllabic words like camera and manager. Meanwhile monosyllabic words like "man" have the tense a.

America gets the "short e" because of the unmerged mary-merry-marry sounds, unlike most of the US.

We say harrible and farist, too. The New York and Philly accents have a lot of similarities, but they're still very different. Most obvious being that we're rhotic and they're not, and we have those distinctly fronted O's, while New Yorkers O's are backed. But it seems like most Americans can't tell the difference between the two (or even know what a Philly accent sounds like).