How would you describe the New York accent?

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Robert S

I guess casapulla is not from NYC.

The New York dialect of the English language is spoken by most European Americans who were raised in New York City and much of its metropolitan area including the lower Hudson Valley, western Long Island, and in northeastern New Jersey. It is often considered to be one of the most recognizable accents within American English (Newman 2005).

The English spoken in northern New Jersey, although often confused with that of New York City, is (outside a few cities very close to New York) actually different from the New York City dialect. Similarly, a variety of unrelated dialects are spoken in those parts of New York State. [From Wikipedia

Vowels
The low back chain shift The [ɔ] vowel sound of words like talk, law, cross, and coffee and the often homophonous [ɔr] in core and more are tensed and usually raised more than in General American. This vowel is typically above [ɔ], the corresponding vowel in General American; in the most extreme New York accents, it is even higher and possesses an inglide: [ʊə]. [ɑ] in father and [ɑr] in car are tensed and move to a position abandoned by [ɔ]. The result is that car is often similar to core in parts of New England. Some words not originally from this word class, such as God, on and Bob join the [ɑ] group. This shift is robust and has spread to many non-European American New Yorkers.
The short a split There is a class of words, with a historical "short a" vowel, including plan, class, and bad, where the historical [æ] has undergone [æ]-tensing to [eə], or, in the most extreme accents, [ɪə], accompanied by an inglide. This class is similar to, but larger than, the class of words in which Received Pronunciation uses the so-called broad A. Other words, such as plaque, clatter, and bat, indicated as [æ], remain lax, with the result that bad and bat have different vowels. A similar (but distinct) split has occurred in the dialect of Philadelphia.
pre-r distinctions New York accents lack most of the mergers before medial [ɹ] that many other modern American accents possess:
The vowels in marry [mæɹi], merry [mɛɹi], and Mary [meəɹi] are distinct.
The vowels in furry [fɝi] and hurry [hʌɹi] are distinct
Words like orange and forest are pronounced [ɑɹəndʒ] and [fɑɹəst] with the same stressed vowel as pot, not with the same vowel as port as in much of the rest of the United States.
The General American [ɝ] and [ɔɪ] : 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 [ɜɪ]. 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). This particular speech pattern is no longer very prevalent; the character Archie Bunker from the 1970s show All in the Family was a good example of a speaker who had this feature. Younger New Yorkers (born since about 1950) are likely to use a rhotic [ɝ] in bird even if they use nonrhotic pronunciations of beard, bared, bard, board, boor, and butter. Similarly, the line-loin merger is sporadically heard in New York.

Consonants
r-lessness The traditional New York–area accent is non-rhotic; in other words, the sound [ɹ] does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant. Thus, there is no [ɹ] in words like park [pɔːk] (with vowel raised due to the low-back chain shift), butter [bʌɾə], or here [hiə]. This feature is slowly losing ground, as discussed above. Non-rhoticity now happens sometimes in New Yorkers with otherwise rhotic speech if r 's are located in unaccented syllables particularly in pre-vocalic position. Non-rhotic speakers usually exhibit an intrusive or linking r, similar to other non-rhotic dialect speakers.
Dark (l) onsets This feature has rarely been commented on but it is robust. A dark variant of (l) is used before vowels like the (l) used in most English after vowels. In other words, 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 rather than the alveolar ridge (just above the teeth), as is typical in most varieties of English. Also, these sounds become affricates (sounds with a burst and then a substantial frication, like [tʃ] (the sound frequently represented orthographically by <ch>) before r.
(dh/th) fortition Some speakers replace the dental fricatives [θ, ð] with dental variants of stops [t, d], so that words like thing and this sound similar to "ting" and "dis". This feature is highly stigmatized and is becoming less and less frequent. However affricate pronunciations are common.
Intrusive g. In most varieties of English, the velar nasal [ŋ], written as <ng> is pronounced as [ŋ] rather than [ŋɡ]. 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’’ being pronounced as popularly written, Lawn Guyland. Another very frequent pronunciation which does omit the [ɡ] is with the stress on the first syllable in Island and beginning with , as though it were Law Ngisland.

T-Bone

oh/ah = au/aw

fefe917

Accent? What are you tawkin about? ha-ha

dracomalfoy_wants_harrypotter

Theres many different accents for such a small area. But in general i would describe them as s3xy.

CAT

Instead of "er", it's "uh". New Yorkuh. And the OR sound is more rounded. Love the guy on CSI NY. The one with the glasses that works in the lab and field..his accent is great. Sexy.

dinodino

There is no such thing as a typical pattern. There are Brooklyn Accents, Queens Accents, Bronx Accents, NewYorrican, etc.

tham153

As a native San Franciscan long resident in NYC, I can detect several different NY accents. There is the infamous Brooklynese (Yuhz guys meet me on duh cawnuh uv toity toid an toid), there is an affected Upper East Side, and a couple others. Plus, NY has so many immigrants that city law requires special classes in any school where 20 or more kids speak the same foreign language at home. I know one school in Flatbush with seven different ESL classes--Arabic, Bengali, Spanish. Urdu, etc. Talk about acents!
And then there is Eastern Parkway, where the population is split between Caribbean immigrants (and each island has a slightly different accent) and Hassidic Jews who sprinkle their English with glottal stops (a common affliction among non-Jewish New Yorkers) and words from Hebrew and Yiddish.

vixalle21

they dont pronouce their r's. "calenda, contracta, speaka, wata"

hydrozone03

i thnk its jz d same rite? i refer to csi ny

Daniyells

they drop the "R"..

born4mission

Sort of like italian but preety COOL.i love it:)

A HAI U DOING TONEY!!

CadiLLAc RiCk

THERE HOT DOG LANGUAGE,, WAT I LIKE TO CALL IT,, IS A REAL ESQUISITE MOBSTER LINGO....IT JUST GOES RIGHT IN WITH THE WHOLE CITY LOOK, FEEL AND SOUND.....

Chris M

My answer is kinda farfetched, but I think it is a mix between canadian and mexican in my opinion.

Nautalee

A New York accent sounds like the 7 year old kids who has to be placed into speech class because he/she cannot pronounce his/her "r's"

chieromancer

Da boid goes choirp choirp.

casapulla2001

The "new york accent" for the most part, doesn't exist in NYC anymore -- and is a parody of how people spoke in the 1920's to 40's (as immortalized by Bugs Bunny cartoons that are now 70+ yrs old). Rather is carried/used by suburbanites for the affected indentity that they are "from New York" vs. an ordinary mall-walker or typical, ordinary working guy. Meaning -- people that live in NEW JERSEY will be more inclined to speak with affecte/phony "new yawk" accents, so others might say they were NYers instead of midwesterners they actually are.

(For ex. If you're in Cancun a meet a guy or girl -- from Merrick, Long Island, does that have the same affect, then if they puts on the accent and say, "I'm from New Yawk", etc?)

just me #1

tough, rough, not really pleasant...sorry!

bassmeister-D

First I would say nauseating. More sepecifically, nasal and whiney with an inability to pronounce dipthongs and a tendency to add a syllable here or there.

this_is_my_fake_id18

annoying

Debbie Downer

annoying

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