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.^[1][2] The New York accent is confined to New York City proper, western Long Island, and northeastern New Jersey, directly across the Hudson River from Manhattan, though some of its features have diffused to many other areas. The New York accent is not spoken in the rest of New York State, whose regional accents fall under the Hudson Valley and Inland Northern dialects. The New York accent is predominantly characterized by the following sounds and speech patterns:

Vowels

Pure vowels (Monophthongs)
English diaphoneme	New York realization	Example words
/æ/	[æ]  listen	act, pal, trap
	[ɛə~eə~ɪə]  listen	ham, pass, yeah
/ɑː/	[ɑː~ä]	blah, father
/ɒ/	[ä]  listen	bother, lot, wasp
	[ɔə~oə~ʊə]	dog, loss, cloth
/ɔː/		all, bought, taught, saw
/ɛ/	[ɛ]	dress, met, bread
/ə/	[ə~ɜ]	about, syrup, arena
/ɪ/	[ɪ~ɪ̈]	hit, skim, tip
/iː/	[iː~ɪi][3][4]	beam, chic, fleet
/ɪ/	[ɪ~ɪ̈~ə]	island, gamut, wasted
/ʌ/	[ʌ]	bus, flood, what
/ʊ/	[ʊ]	book, put, should
/uː/	[u] or [ʊu]~[ɤʊ]~[ɤu][4]	food, glue, new
Diphthongs
/aɪ/	[ɑɪ~ɒɪ~äɪ]  listen	ride, shine, try
	[äɪ]  listen	bright, dice, pike
/aʊ/	[a̟ʊ~æʊ][5]	now, ouch, scout
/eɪ/	[eɪ~ɛɪ]  listen	lake, paid, rein
/ɔɪ/	[ɔɪ~oɪ]	boy, choice, moist
/oʊ/	[oʊ~ʌʊ]	goat, oh, show
R-colored vowels
/ɑːr/	[ɒə]  listen (rhotic: [ɒɹ~ɑɹ]; older: [äə])	barn, car, park
/ɪər/	[ɪə~iə]  listen (rhotic: [ɪɹ~iɹ])	fear, peer, tier
/ɛər/	[ɛə~eə] (rhotic: [ɛɹ~eɹ])	bare, bear, there
/ɜːr/	[ɚ~ɝ]  listen (older: [ɜɪ~əɪ])	burn, first, herd
/ər/	[ə~ɜ] (rhotic: [ɚ])	doctor, martyr, pervade
/ɔːr/	[ɔə~oɐ] (rhotic: [ɔɹ~oɚ])	hoarse, horse, poor score, tour, war
/ɔər/
/ʊər/
/jʊər/	[jʊə~jʊɐ] (rhotic: [jʊɚ])	cure, Europe, pure

• Cot–caught distinction: The /ɔ/ vowel sound of words like talk, law, cross, and coffee and the often homophonous /ɔːr/ in core and more are tensed and usually raised more than in General American, varying on a scale from [ɔ] to [ʊ],^[6] while typically accompanied by an inglide that produces variants like [oə] or [ʊə].^[7] These sounds are kept strongly distinct from the /ɑː/ in words like father, palm, wash, and bra; therefore, cot is something like [kʰät] and caught is something like [kʰoət].
• Father–bother variability: Conservative speakers retain three separate low back vowels: lot, palm, and thought, thus with no father-bother merger. In addition, the palm class contains a number of words that are lot in most U.S. varieties. These include descendants of Middle English short o with final voiced consonants, /dʒ/, or /m/ (e.g., cob, cod, cog, lodge, bomb), and some Middle English short a words such as, wash.^{[8][7][9][10]} However, Labov et al report that which words fall into the lot class and which words fall into the palm class may vary from speaker to speaker.^[10]
• 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 this vowel; thus, for example, words like badge, class, lag, mad, and pan are pronounced with an entirely different vowel than words like bat, clap, lack, map, and patch. In the former set of words, historical /æ/ is raised and tensed to an ingliding gliding vowel of the type [ɛə~eə] or even [ɪə]. The latter set of words, meanwhile, retains a lax, low-front, typical [æ] sound. A strongly related (but slightly different) split has occurred in the Philadelphia and Baltimore dialects. Although the lax and the tense reflexes of /æ/ are separate phonemes in these dialects, their distribution is largely predictable. Click "show" below for specific details of this short-a system.

• Conservative /oʊ/ and /u/: /oʊ/ as in goat does not undergo fronting; instead, it remains [oʊ] and may even have a lowered starting point. This groups New York with the "North" class of dialects rather than the "Midland", in which /oʊ/ is fronted. Relatedly, /u/ as in goose is not fronted and remains a back vowel [uː] or [ʊu]. This lack of fronting of /oʊ/ and /u/ also distinguishes New York from nearby Philadelphia. Some speakers have a separate phoneme /ɪu/ in words such as tune, news, duke (historically a separate class). The phonemic status of this vowel is marginal. For example, Labov (1966) reports that New Yorkers may contrast [duː] do with [dɪu] dew though they may also have [dɪu] do. Also, Labov et al. report yod-dropping also to have diffused as a characteristic for other speakers of New York English (in which the vowel in dew is pronounced very far back in the mouth).^[13]
• Backed /aɪ/ and fronted /aʊ/: The nucleus of the /aɪ/ diphthong is traditionally a back and sometimes rounded vowel [ä~ɑ] or [ɒ] (mean value [ɑ̟])^[14] (ride as [ɹɑɪd]), while the nucleus of the /aʊ/ diphthong is a front vowel [æ~a] (mean value [a̟])^[14] (out as [æʊt~aʊt]). The sociolinguistic evidence suggests that both of these developments are active changes.^[14] The fronted nucleus in /aʊ/ and the backed nucleus in /aɪ/ are more common among younger speakers, women, and the working and lower middle classes.^[15]
• Pre-/r/ distinctions: New York accents lack most of the mergers that occur with vowels before an /r/, which are otherwise common in other varieties of North American English. There is typically a Mary–marry–merry three-way distinction, in which the vowels in words like marry [ˈmæɹi], merry [ˈmɛɹi], and Mary [ˈmeɹi] ~ [ˈmɛəɹi] do not merge.^[16] The vowels in furry [ˈfəɹi] and hurry [ˈhʌɹi] are distinct. Also, words like orange, horrible, Florida and forest are pronounced with /ɒ/ or /ɑː/, the same stressed vowel as part, not with the same vowel as port as in much of the rest of the United States.^[16]
• Back vowel chain shift before /r/: /ɔːr/, as in Tory, bore, or shore merges with a tongue movement upward in the mouth to /ʊər/, as in tour, boor, or sure. This is followed by the possibility of /ɑːr/, as in tarry or bar, also moving also upward (with rounding) towards /ɒr/~/ɔːr/. In non-rhotic New York speech, this means that born can be [bʊən] and barn can be [bɒən]. However, unlike the firmness of this shift in Philadelphia English, the entire process is still transitioning and variable in New York City English.^[17]
• Coil–curl merger: One of the stereotypes of New York speech is the use of a front-rising diphthong in words with /ɜːr/ (or the NURSE vowel). This stereotype is popularly represented in stock phrases like "toity-toid" for thirty-third. The phonetic reality of this variant is actually unrounded [əɪ~ɜɪ]; thus, [ˈt̪əɪɾi ˈt̪əɪd]. This vowel was also used for the vowel /ɔɪ/. Labov's data from the mid-1960s indicated this highly stigmatized form was recessive even then. Only two of his 51 speakers under age 20 used the form as compared with those over age 50 of whom 23 out of 30 used the r-less form.^[18] Younger New Yorkers (born since about 1950) are consequently likely to use a rhotic [əɹ~ɜɹ] (like in General American) for the diaphoneme /ɜːr/ (as in bird), even if they use non-rhotic pronunciations of beard, bared, bard, board, boor, and butter. Labov considers that the phoneme "lingers on in a modified form".^[19] In other words, Labov is saying that the /ɜːr/ in New York is slightly raised compared to other dialects. Despite the near-extinction of this feature, Newman (2014) found [əɪ~ɜɪ] variably in one of his participants born in the late 1980s.^[9] Related to the non-rhotic variant, a form of intrusive r was also once reported for CHOICE words so that /ɔɪ/ may occur with an r-colored vowel (e.g., [ˈtʰɜɹlət] toilet), apparently as a result of hypercorrection.^[20]

Consonants

While the following consonantal features are central to the common stereotype of a "New York accent", they are not entirely ubiquitous in New York. By contrast, the vocalic (vowel) variations in pronunciation as described above are far more typical of New York area speakers than the consonantal features listed below, which carry a much greater stigma than do the dialect's vocalic variations:

• Non-rhoticity (or r-lessness): The traditional metropolitan New York 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 [pʰɒək] (with the vowel rounded due to the low-back chain shift), butter [ˈbʌɾə], or here [hɪə]. However, modern New York City English is variably rhotic for the most part, speakers with noticeable New York City accent also varies between pronounced and silenced [ɹ] in similar phonetic environment, even in the same word when repeated.^[21] Non-rhotic speakers usually exhibit a linking or intrusive R, similar to other non-rhotic dialect speakers.^[22]
• Laminal alveolar consonants: The alveolar consonants /t/, /d/, /n/, and /l/ 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 [tˢ] and [dᶻ]. Also /t/ and /d/ are often pronounced with the tongue touching the teeth rather than the alveolar ridge (just above the teeth), as is typical in most varieties of English. With /t/, glottalization is reported to be more common in New York speech than in other American dialects, appearing, for example, before syllabic /l/ (e.g., bottle [ˈbäʔɫ̩]).^[23] The universal usage of "dark L", common throughout the U.S., is also possible in the New York accent. Newman (2014) reports /l/ even in initial position to be relatively dark for all accents of the city except the accents of Latinos.^[24] However, in the mid-twentieth century, both dark and "not quite so 'dark'" variants of /l/ are reported. The latter occurs initially or in initial consonant clusters, pronounced with the point or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, though this variant is not as "clear" as in British Received Pronunciation.^[25] Also, /l/ was reported as commonly becoming postalveolar before /j/, making a word like William for some speakers [ˈwɪʎjəm] or even [ˈwɪjəm].^[25]
  • Vocalization of /l/: L-vocalization is common in New York though it is perhaps not as pervasive as in some other dialects. Like its fellow liquid /r/, it may be vocalized when it appears finally or before a consonant (e.g., [sɛo] sell, [mɪok] milk).^[26]
• Th-fortition: As in many other dialects, the interdental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ are often realized as dental or alveolar stop consonants, famously like [t] and [d], or affricates [tθ] and [dð].^[27] 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 /r/, the variation with /θ/ and /ð/ appears to be stable.^[28]
• Intrusive /g/: In addition to the ubiquitous alternation of [ŋ] and [n] in -ing endings, the speech of some New Yorkers shows [ŋɡ] as a variant of /ŋ/. This variant is another salient stereotype of the New York accent and is commonly mocked with "Long Island" being pronounced [lɔəŋˈɡɑɪɫɪ̈nd] (rather than General American's [ɫɒŋˈäɪɫɪ̈nd]) popularly written Lawn Guyland.^[26]
• Reduction of /hj/ to /j/: New Yorkers typically do not allow /h/ to be followed by /j/; this gives pronunciations like yuman /ˈjumən/ and yooge /judʒ/ for human and huge.^[26]

References

Bibliography

• Gordon, Matthew (2004). Kortmann, Bernd; Schneider, Edgar W., eds. New York, Philadelphia and other Northern Cities. Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3110175320. 
• Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (2006). The Atlas of North American English. Berlin: Mouton-de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-016746-8. 
• Labov, William (1966), The Social Stratification of English in New York City (PDF) (2nd ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press