The Philadelphia dialect is the dialect of English spoken in Philadelphia; and extending into Philadelphia's suburbs in the Delaware Valley and southern New Jersey. It is one of the best-studied dialects of American English due to the fact that Philadelphia's University of Pennsylvania is the home institution of William Labov, one of the most productive American sociolinguists. Unlike the dialects found in much of the rest of Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia dialect shares some unusual features with the New York dialect and Southern American English, although it is a distinct dialect region. The Philadelphia dialect is, however, in most respects similar to the dialects of Wilmington, Delaware and Baltimore, together with which it constitutes what Labov describes as the "Mid-Atlantic Dialect".
Scope
Actual Philadelphia dialects are seldom heard nationally; Philadelphia natives who attain national prominence often make an effort to tone down or eliminate their dialects. However, Chris Matthews is a conspicuous example of the real thing. [1] Jim Cramer, the host of CNBC's Mad Money, is another. [2] This dialect is commonly heard on the show Parking Wars, which takes place in Philadelphia.
Movies and television shows set in the Philadelphia region generally make the mistake of imbuing the characters with a working class New York dialect (specifically heard in Philly-set movies such as the Rocky series, Invincible, and A History of Violence) which is not how Philadelphians actually speak. A contrary example is the character of Lynn Sear (played by Toni Collette) in The Sixth Sense, who speaks with an accurate Philadelphia dialect.
The use of geographically inaccurate dialects is also true in movies and television programs set in Atlantic City or any other region of South Jersey; the characters often use a supposed "Joisey" dialect, when in reality that New York-influenced dialect for New Jersey natives is almost always exclusive to the extreme northeastern region of the state nearest New York City. An important factor here is that in the real world, "local" TV, political, and sports personalities in South Jersey are Philadelphians, not New Yorkers.
Linguistic Features
Pronunciation
The precise realizations of features of the Philadelphia dialect vary to some degree among different ethnic groups, social classes, and parts of the Philadelphia region. The general phonological features of the dialect, however, are as follows:
Vowels
- Philadelphia is resistant to the cot-caught merger (unlike areas of the Midwest and West) because the vowel phoneme of words like caught, cloth, and dawn is raised to a high [ɔ], increasing its distance from the [ɑ] of cot. Philadelphia shares this feature with New York, and southern New England. (Other dialect regions, such as the South and Inland North distinguish between cot and caught also, but not in the same way that Philadelphia does.)
- On is pronounced /ɔn/, so that, as in the South and Midland varieties of American English (and unlike New York and the Inland North) it rhymes with dawn rather than don.citation needed
- The /oʊ/ diphthong of goat and boat is fronted, so it is pronounced [ɞʊ], the same way some speakers pronounce it in the Midland and South. The diphthong in house and loud (/aʊ/) is fronted as well —sometimes even more extremely than the /oʊ/, reaching as far as [ɛɔ] for some speakers (Labov, Ash, and Boberg 2006: 144, 237). Kurath & McDavid (1961) show /aʊ/ as being fronted (approaching [æʊ]) but less so than later studies by Labov and company.
- As in New York English, historical short-'a' has split into two phonemes: lax /æ/ (as in bat) and tense /eə/ (as in bath). Their distribution is however different from that of New York City: for instance, the words mad and sad do not rhyme in Philadelphia. For more details on both the Philadelphia and New York systems see: phonemic æ-tensing in the Mid-Atlantic region.
- As in New York, Boston, and most dialects of English outside North America, there is a three-way distinction between Mary [meəɹi], marry [mæɹi], and merry (sometimes [mɛɹi]). However, in Philadelphia some speakers have a merger of /ɛ/ and /ʌ/ before /r/ (the furry-ferry merger), so that merry is merged instead with Murray (both are pronounced as the latter, [mɝi]). Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006: 54) report that about one third of Philadelphia speakers have this merger, one third have a near-merger, and one third keep the two distinct. Relatedly, many words like orange, Florida, and horrible have /ɑ/ before /r/ rather than the /ɔr/ used in many other American dialects (See: Historic "short o" before intervocalic r).
- Canadian raising occurs for /aɪ/ (as in price) but not for /aʊ/ (as in mouth) (Labov, Ash, and Boberg 2006: 114-15, 237-38). Consequently, the diphthong in like [lʌɪk] differs from the diphthong in live [laɪv]. Canadian raising in Philadelphia occurs before voiceless consonants, and it is extended to occur before some voiced consonants as well, including intervocalic voiced stops as in tiger and spider. It has been argued1 that /aɪ/ has actually undergone a phonemic split in Philadelphia as a result of Canadian raising. The raising of /aɪ/ is unusual as the innovators of this change are primarily male speakers while the other changes in progress led by primarily females.
- There is a (non-phonemic) split of /eɪ/ (face) so in open syllables (for example, day) it has an open starting point and is similar to the [æɪ] found in Australian and New Zealand English (and some forms of English English), while in closed syllables (for example, date) it is pronounced more like the [i] in deet (Labov, Ash, and Boberg 2006: 237). Pairs of words which may be confused as a result of this development include eight and eat, snake and sneak, slave and sleeve. The earlier Kurath & McDavid (1961) report lowered /eɪ/ but the raising in open syllables.
- Back vowels preceding /r/ are shifted: /ur/ as in tour is loweredcitation needed to the vicinity of /ɔr/ and merges or comes close to merging with /ɔr/ as in tore. In phonetics, a lowered sound is articulated with the tongue or lip lowered (the mouth more open) than some reference point. Relatedly, /ɑr/ as in tar is raised and rounded to [ɔr]. In earlier work, /ɑr/ was found to be rounded but not raised [ɒr].2
- The /ʌ/ vowel is phonetically backed.
Consonants
- Unlike many of the urban areas of the eastern seaboard (Boston, Providence, New York, Richmond, Charleston), Philadelphia has never had non-rhoticity as a widespread feature among white speakers; however, there is some sporadic non-rhoticity found especially in South Philadelphia. It has been conjectured that the reason non-rhoticity is only found in South Philadelphia has to do with the Italian immigrants to the area: Italians pronounce r as an alveolar trill (informally called a rolled R), and second-generation kids, wanting to avoid their parents' foreign dialect (heavily stigmatized by establishment Philadelphia), solved the problem by leaving most r's completely out of their speech.citation needed
- The sibilant /s/ is palatalized to [ʃ] (as in she) before /tɹ/. Thus, the word streets might be pronounced "shtreets" [ʃtɹits].3
- Many Philadelphians use the dark l for /l/ in all positions. This leads in part to the stereotypical local pronunciation of Philadelphia as "Fluffya"4.
Phonemic incidence
- The word water is commonly pronounced /wʊdər/ (with the first syllable identical to the word wood, so that it sounds somewhat like wooder.)56 This is considered by many to be the defining characteristic of the Philadelphia dialect.
- Both long-e and long-a sounds are shortened before /g/. Eagle rhymes with giggle /ˈɪgəl/ (as in "the Iggles"); league rhymes with big /lɪg/; vague and plague rhyme with peg (pronounced /vɛg/ and /plɛg/, respectively). For some Philadelphians, colleague and fatigue also have /ɪ/ (pronounced /ˈkɑlɪg/ and /fəˈtɪg/, respectively). However, these are words learned later, so many use the standard American /ˈkɑlig/ and /fəˈtig/.
- In words like gratitude, beautiful, attitude, Baltimore, and prostitute, the i may be pronounced with a long ee sound [i], as in bee.
- Many words ending in -ow or -no, such as window, widow, tomato, or casino, are pronounced with a schwa ending (like the indistinct vowel sound at the end of the word coda). Thus, windows would be pronounced windas [ˈwɪndəz] and tomorrow would be pronounced tomorrah.citation needed
Lexicon
- The interjection yo was popularized (and possibly originated in its current meaning) in the Philadelphia dialect among Italian American and African American Philadelphians. Today, Philadelphia natives in general are known to commonly use the interjection.
- Many Philadelphians are known to use the expression "youse" both as second person plural and sometimes second person singular,much like the mostly Southern / Western espression "y'all." "Youse" (often "youse guys" when addressing multiple people) is common in many working class northeastern areas, but is often associated with Philadelphia and is often pronounced "yiz" in the Philadelphia area.7849
- Long sandwiches are known as hoagies as opposed to subs or grinders.
External links
Bibliography
- Hindle, Donald. (1980). The social and structural conditioning of phonetic variation. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania).
- Kroch, Anthony. (1996). Dialect and style in the speech of upper class Philadelphia. In G. R. Guy, C. Feagin, D. Schiffrin, & J. Baugh (Eds.), Towards a social science of language: Papers in honor of William Labov (pp. 23-45). Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science (Series 4). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
- Kurath, Hans; & McDavid, Raven I., Jr. (1961). The pronunciation of English in the Atlantic states. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
- Labov, William. (1980). The social origins of sound change. In W. Labov (Ed.), Locating language in time and space (pp. 251-265). Qualitative analyses of linguistic structure (No. 1). New York: Academic.
- Labov, William. (1989). Exact description of the speech community: Short a in Philadelphia. In R. W. Fasold & D. Schiffrin (Eds.), Language change and variation (pp. 1-57). Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science (Series 4), Current issues in linguistic theory (No. 52). Amsterdam: John Bengamins.
- Labov, William. (1994). Principles of linguistic change: Internal factors (Vol. 1). Language in society (no. 20). Oxford: Blackwell.
- Labov, William. (2001). Principles of linguistic change: Social factors (Vol. 2). Language in society (no. 29). Oxford: Blackwell.
- Labov, Willam; Karen, Mark; & Miller, Corey. (1991). Near-mergers and the suspension of phonemic contrast. Language Variation and Change, 3, 33-74.
- Labov, William; & Ash, Sharon. (1997). Understanding Birmingham. In C. Bernstein, T. Nunnally, & R. Sabino (Eds.), Language variety in the South revisited (pp. 508-573). Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
- Labov, Wiliam, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg (2006). The Atlas of North American English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-016746-8.
- Payne, Arvilla. (1980). Factors controlling the acquisition of the Philadelphia dialect by out-of-state children. In W. Labov (Ed.), Locating language in time and space (pp. 143-178). Orlando: Academic.
- Roberts, Julie. (1997). Hitting a moving target: Acquisition of sound change in progress by Philadelphia children. Language Variation and Change, 9, 249-266.
- Thomas, Erik R. (2001). An acoustic analysis of vowel variation in New World English. Publication of the American Dialect Society (No. 85). Duke University Press for the American Dialect Society.
- Tucker, Whitney R. (1944). Notes on the Philadelphia dialect. American Speech, 19, 39-42.
