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Western Pennsylvania English

May 05, 2023

Western Pennsylvania English, known more narrowly as Pittsburgh English or popularly as Pittsburghese, is a dialect of American English native primarily to the western half of Pennsylvania, centered on the city of Pittsburgh, but potentially appearing in some speakers as far north as Erie County, as far west as Youngstown, Ohio, and as far south as Clarksburg, West Virginia.[1][2] Commonly associated with the working class of Pittsburgh, users of the dialect are colloquially known as "Yinzers".

Western Pennsylvania English
Pittsburgh English, Pittsburghese
RegionWestern Pennsylvania
Early forms
English alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3–
Glottologwest2919
Appalachia (in white) overlaid with dialect regions defined by the 2006 ANAE. Western Pennsylvania English can be seen in orange.
A sign using "Dahntahn" to mean "Downtown" in Downtown Pittsburgh.

Overview

Scots-Irish, Pennsylvania Dutch, Polish,[3] Ukrainian[4] and Croatian[5] immigrants to the area all provided certain loanwords to the dialect (see "Vocabulary" below). Many of the sounds and words found in the dialect are popularly thought to be unique to Pittsburgh, but that is a misconception since the dialect resides throughout the greater part of western Pennsylvania and the surrounding areas.[6][7] Central Pennsylvania, currently an intersection of several dialect regions, was identified in 1949 by Hans Kurath as a subregion between western and eastern Pennsylvania,[8][9] but some scholars have more recently identified it within the western Pennsylvania dialect region.[9][10] Since Kurath's study, one of western Pennsylvania's defining features, the cot–caught merger, has expanded into central Pennsylvania,[11] moving eastward until being blocked at Harrisburg.[12] Perhaps the only feature whose distribution is restricted almost exclusively to the immediate vicinity of Pittsburgh is /aʊ/ monophthongization in which words such as house, down, found, and sauerkraut are sometimes pronounced with an "ah" sound, instead of the more standard pronunciation of "ow", rendering eye spellings such as hahs, dahn, fahnd, and sahrkraht.

Speakers of Pittsburgh English are sometimes called "Yinzers" in reference to their use of the second-person plural pronoun "yinz." The word "yinzer" is sometimes heard as pejorative, indicating a lack of sophistication, but the term is now used in a variety of ways.[13] Older men are more likely to use the accent than women "possibly because of a stronger interest in displaying local identity...."[14]

Phonology

This section contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
Vowels of Western Pennsylvania English
Front Central Back
lax tense lax lax tense
Close ɪ i ʊ u
Mid ɛ ə
Open æ ʌ ɒ
Diphthongs eɪ   aɪ   ɔɪ   aʊ   oʊ

A defining feature of Western Pennsylvania English is the cot–caught merger, in which /ɑ/ (as in ah) and /ɔ/ (as in aw) merges to a rounded /ɒ/ (phonetically [ɒ~ɔ]). As in most other American dialects, the father–bother merger also occurs.[6][7][15] Therefore, cot and caught are both pronounced /kɒt/; Don and dawn are both /dɒn/. While the merger of the low back vowels is also widespread elsewhere in the United States, the rounded realizations of the merged vowel around [ɒ] is less common, except in Canada, California and Northeastern New England.[6][7]

/ɒ/ has a stylistic variant, which is open central unrounded [ä], as in the sarcastic pronunciation of I apologize as [aɪ əˈpʰäɫɨdʒaɪz]. It may also occur before /r/, as in start [stäɹʔt] or car [kʰäɹ], but a more common pronunciation is back and rounded: [stɒɹʔt] etc. The vowel in hoarse is the same as the one in horse, phonetically [ɔ]: [hɔɹs] but phonemically /oʊ/ due to the cot-caught merger: /hoʊrs/.[16][17]

/ʌ/ is backer and more open than [ɜ] found in Midland American English, being closer to [ɑ]. This makes STRUT an unrounded counterpart of LOT, with pairs such as nut [nɑʔt] vs. not [nɒʔt] or cut [kʰɑʔt] vs. cot [kʰɒʔt] contrasting mainly by roundedness. This is also found in contemporary Standard Southern British English, where nut [nʌʔt] also differs from not [nɔʔt] by rounding (though nought has a contrastive THOUGHT vowel instead: [no̞ːʔt], which falls together with [ɒ] in Pittsburgh). Earlier reports give [ɜ] as the norm for STRUT in Pittsburgh. The remaining checked vowels /ɪ/, /ʊ/, /ɛ/ and /æ/ are all within the General American norm.[18][19][20]

The GOAT vowel often has an unrounded central or fronted starting point in Pittsburgh: [əʊ]. Outside of the city itself, [oʊ] is more common. GOOSE is sometimes also fronted, to [ɨu] (more usual value: [ʊu]). As in other American dialects, FLEECE and FACE are narrow diphthongs [ɪi, ee̝]. CHOICE is also within GenAm norm: [ɔ̟ɪ].[21]

The PRICE vowel alone undergoes Canadian raising to [ɜɪ] before voiceless consonants, as in ice [ɜɪs]. Johnson notes that the auxiliary verb might is typically pronounced with nasalization, as [mɜ̃ɪ̃ʔt].[22]

The MOUTH vowel typically begins front in the mouth [æʊ]. A less common variant has a central starting point, [äʊ], matching the starting point of PRICE ([äɪ]).[16] It is monophthongized to [aː] in some environments (sounding instead like ah), namely: before nasal consonants (downtown [daːnˈtʰaːn] and found [faːnd]), liquid consonants (fowl, hour) and obstruents (house [haːs], out, cloudy).[6][7][15] The monophthongization does not occur, however, in word-final positions (how, now), and the diphthong then remains [æʊ].[23] That is one of the few features, if not the only one, restricted almost exclusively to western Pennsylvania in North America, but it can sometimes be found in other accents of the English-speaking world, such as Cockney and South African English.[6][7] The sound may be the result of contact from Slavic languages during the early 20th century.[7] Monophthongization also occurs for the sound /aɪ/, as in eye, before liquid consonants,[6][7][15][24] so that tile is pronounced [tʰɑːɫ]; pile is pronounced [pʰɑːɫ]; and iron is pronounced [ɑːɹn]. That phenomenon allows tire to merge with the sound of tar: [tʰɑːɹ].

The NURSE vowel (phonemically an /ər/ sequence) is phonetically close-mid [ɘ˞].[25]

Johnson (1971:72) notes a tendency to diphthongize /æ/ to [ɛə] not only before nasals (as in GenAm) but also before all voiced consonants (as in bad [bɛəd]) and voiceless fricatives (as in grass [ɡɹɛəs]). This has since been reversed and now [ɛə] is confined to the environment of a following nasal, matching the GenAm allophony.[26]

An epenthetic (intruding) /r/ sound may occur after vowels in a few words, such as water pronounced as [ˈwɔɹɾɚ], and wash as [wɔɹʃ].[6][7]

A number of vowel mergers occur uniquely in Western Pennsylvania English before the consonant /l/. The pair of vowels /i/ and /ɪ/ may merge before the /l/ consonant,[6][7][15][27] cause both steel and still to be pronounced as something like [stɪɫ]. Similarly, /u/, /oʊ/, and /ʊ/ may merge before /l/, so that pool, pull, and pole may merge to something like [pʰʊɫ]. On the /il/~/ɪl/ merger, Labov, Ash and Boberg (2006) note "the stereotype of merger of /ɪl ~ il/ is based only on a close approximation of some forms, and does not represent the underlying norms of the dialect."[28] The /i/~/ɪ/ merger is found in western Pennsylvania,[6][7][15][27] as well as parts of the southern United States, including Alabama, Texas and the west (McElhinny 1999). On the other hand, the /u/~/ʊ/ merger is consistently found only in western Pennsylvania. The /i/~/ɪ/ merger towards [ɪ] may also appear before /ɡ/: eagle then sounds to outsiders like iggle.[6][7][15]

L-vocalization is also common in the Western Pennsylvania dialect; an /l/ then sounds like a /w/ or a cross between a vowel and a "dark" /l/ at the end of a syllable.[6][7][29] For example, well is pronounced as [wɛw]; milk as [mɪwk] or [mɛwk]; role as [ɹʊw]; and cold as [ˈkʰʊwd]. The phenomenon is also common in African-American English.

Western Pennsylvania English speakers may use falling intonation at the end of questions,[6][7][30] for example, in "Are you painting your garage?" [↗ˈɒɹ jə ˈpʰeɪɾ̃ɪŋ jɚ ɡə↘ˈɹɒdʒ] (with pitch rising in intonation up to just before the last syllable and then falling precipitously).[30] Such speakers typically use falling pitch for yes-no questions for which they already are quite sure of the answer. A speaker uttering the above example is simply confirming what is already thought: yes, the person spoken to is painting their garage. It is most common in areas of heavy German settlement, especially southeastern Pennsylvania,[30] hence its nickname, the "Pennsylvania Dutch question", but it is also found elsewhere in Pennsylvania, including Pittsburgh[6][7][30] (Maxfield 1931; Layton 1999; Wisnosky 2003; Johnstone, Andrus and Danielson 2006). It is of German origin.[30]

Vocabulary

 
City of Pittsburgh Recycling Drop-Off Center sign using the term "redd up," illustrating an example of Western Pennsylvania English.
  • babushka - (n.) headscarf[3][31]
  • buggy - (n.) shopping cart[32]
    • baby buggy - (n.) baby carriage
  • the 'Burgh - (n.) Pittsburgh[7][33]
  • beal - (v.) to fester or suppurate[3]
  • bealed - (adj.) usually of an ear: infected or abscessed[3]
  • belling - (n.) noisy celebration or mock serenade for newlyweds; a shivaree[3]
  • berm - (n.) edge of the road, curb: an accepted alternative to "shoulder of the road"[3]
  • carbon oil - (n.) kerosene[34]
  • chipped ham - (n.) very thinly sliced chopped ham loaf for sandwiches (from a local brand name)[6][7] (see chipped chopped ham)
  • city chicken - (n.) cubes of pork loin and/or veal on a short wooden skewer, breaded, then fried or baked[35][36]
  • cubberd - (n.) closet[37]
  • craw - (n.) crawfish[3]
  • crick - (n.) Creek
  • cruds, crudded milk, or cruddled milk - (n.) cottage cheese[38][39]
  • diamond - (n.) town square[37]
  • dippy - (adj.) appropriate for dipping into, such as gravy, coffee, egg yolks, etc.[40]
  • doll baby - (n.) complimentary term for an attractively childlike girl or woman (reversal of "baby doll")
  • drooth - (n.) drought[3][41]
  • Dubbya - (n.) Letter "W", Often used when saying "www." Or a local station
  • dupa - (n.) parental term (of Polish origin) for a child's backside
  • feature - (v.) to think about, understand, or imagine
  • grinnie - (n.) chipmunk[42]
  • gumband - (n.) rubber band;[6][7][40] elastic fastener[37]
  • gutchies; or undergutchies (n.) term used to describe undergarments of any variety.
  • hap - (n.) comfort; or, comforter or quilt:[38][43]
  • hoagie - (n.) a sub (i.e., submarine sandwich; used throughout Pennsylvania)[40]
  • jag - (v.) to prick, stab, or jab;[44] to tease[45] (often, jag off or jag around)[46][44]
    • jagger - (n./adj.) any small, sharp-pointed object or implement,[44] usually thorns, spines, and prickles (as in a jagger bush or "I got a jagger in my finger").
    • jaggerbush - (n.) briar[37]
    • jagoff - (n.) an idiot, fool, or unlikeable person[46]
  • jimmies - (n.) sprinkles[47]
  • jumbo - (n.) bologna lunch meat[6][7][44][48]
  • "Kennywood's open" - idiom used to inform someone that their fly is open ("Kennywood" referring to the Kennywood amusement park in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania)
  • Klondike - (n.) ice cream bar (from a local brand name)[37]
  • kolbusy or kolbassi - (n.) variant pronunciation of kielbasa[44] (/kʊlˈbɒsi/)[49]
  • meer - (n.) mirror
  • monkey ball - (n.) fruit of the Maclura pomifera or monkey ball tree[50]
  • n'at (/əˈnæt/) - et cetera; and so on; a "general extender";[6][7] literally, a contraction of "and (all) that"[51][52]
  • neb - (v.) to pry into a conversation or argument intrusively or impertinently[44] (this term and its derivatives are common to Pennsylvania, but especially southwestern Pennsylvania, from Scots-Irish English)
    • neb out - to mind one's own business
    • neb-nose or nebby-nose (also nebshit) - (n.) the kind of person who is always poking into people's affairs;[44] inquisitive person[37]
    • nebby - (adj.) given to prying into the affairs of others; nosey;[6][7][51] inquisitive[37]
  • onion snow - (n.) early spring snow[37]
  • redd up (also ret, rid, ridd, or redd out) - (v.) to tidy up, clean up, or clean out (a room, house, cupboard, etc.); to clean house, tidy up (hence v bl. redding up house-cleaning; tidying up)[53][54][55][56][57]
  • reverend - (adj.) extreme;[37] extraordinary, powerful[41]
  • slippy - (adj.) slippery (from Scots-Irish English)[6][7]
  • spicket - (n.) alternate pronunciation of spigot, specifically an outdoor faucet used to connect to a garden hose[58]
  • Stillers - (n.) alternate pronunciation of the Pittsburgh Steelers[59]
  • sweep - (v.) to vacuum
  • sweeper - (n.) vacuum cleaner (also used in Ohio and Indiana; from carpet sweeper)
  • tossle cap - (n.) knit hat designed to provide warmth in cold weather
  • trick - (n.) a job shift (as used in West-Central Pennsylvania)[60]
  • yins, yinz, yunz, you'uns, or youns - (pronoun) plural of you (second-person personal plural pronoun from Scots-Irish English)[6][7][38][61][13][62][63]

Grammar

  • All to mean all gone: When referring to consumable products, the word all has a secondary meaning: all gone. For example, the phrase the butter's all would be understood as "the butter is all gone." This likely derives from German.[64]
  • "Positive anymore": In addition to the normal negative use of anymore it can also, as in the greater Midland U.S. dialect, be used in a positive sense to mean "these days" or "nowadays".[65] An example is "I wear these shoes a lot anymore". While in Standard English anymore must be used as a negative polarity item (NPI), some speakers in Pittsburgh and throughout the Midland area do not have this restriction.[62] This is somewhat common in both the Midland regions (Montgomery 1989) and in northern Maryland (Frederick, Hagerstown, and Westminster), likely of Scots-Irish origin (Montgomery 1999).
  • Reversed usage of leave and let:[6][7][66] Examples of this include "Leave him go outside" and "Let the book on the table". Leave is used in some contexts in which, in standard English, let would be used; and vice versa. Used in Southwestern Pennsylvania and elsewhere, this is either Pennsylvania Dutch or Scots-Irish.[66]
  • "Need, want, or like + past participle":[6][7][67] Examples of this include "The car needs washed", "The cat wants petted", and "Babies like cuddled". More common constructions are "The grass needs cutting" or "The grass needs to be cut" or "Babies like cuddling" or "Babies like to be cuddled"; "The car needs washing" or "The car needs to be washed"; and "The cat wants petting" or "The cat wants to be petted." Found predominantly in the North Midland region, this is especially common in southwestern Pennsylvania (Murray, Frazer and Simon 1996; Murray and Simon 1999; Murray and Simon 2002). Need + past participle is the most common construction, followed by want + past participle, and then like + past participle. The forms are "implicationally related" to one another (Murray and Simon 2002). This means the existence of a less common construction from the list in a given location entails the existence of the more common ones there, but not vice versa. The constructions "like + past participle" and "need + past participle" are Scots-Irish (Murray, Frazer, and Simon 1996; Murray and Simon 1999; Montgomery 2001; Murray and Simon 2002). While Adams[66] argues that "want + past participle" could be from Scots-Irish or German, it seems likely that this construction is Scots-Irish, as Murray and Simon (1999 and 2002) claim. like and need + past participle are Scots-Irish, the distributions of all three constructions are implicationally related, the area where they are predominantly found is most heavily influenced by Scots-Irish, and a related construction, "want + directional adverb", as in "The cat wants out", is Scots-Irish.[38][62]
  • "Punctual whenever": "Whenever" is often used to mean "at the time that" (Montgomery 2001). An example is "My mother, whenever she passed away, she had pneumonia." A punctual descriptor refers to the use of the word for "a onetime momentary event rather than in its two common uses for a recurrent event or a conditional one". This Scots-Irish usage is found in the Midlands and the South.

Notable examples of lifelong speakers

See also

References

  1. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:130, 133)
  2. ^ "Do You Speak American . Sea to Shining Sea . American Varieties . Pittsburghese - PBS". PBS.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Cassidy, F. G., ed. (1985). Dictionary of American Regional English, Vol. I: A-C. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-20511-6.
  4. ^ Wolowyna, Oleh (January 9, 2000). "Demographic, social, cultural characteristics of persons of Ukrainian ancestry in Chicago". The Ukrainian Weekly No. 2, Vol. LXVIII. Retrieved May 16, 2008. (based on 1990 US Census)
  5. ^ LeMay, Michael C. (2012-12-10). Transforming America: Perspectives on U.S. Immigration [3 volumes]: Perspectives on U.S. Immigration. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9780313396441.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Johnstone, Barbara; Baumgardt, Dan (2004). ""Pittsburghese" Online: Vernacular Norming in Conversation". American Speech. 79 (2): 115–145. doi:10.1215/00031283-79-2-115. JSTOR 40281107. S2CID 3861413.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Johnstone, Barbara; Bhasin, Neeta; Wittkofski, Denise (2002). ""Dahntahn" Pittsburgh: Monophthongal /aw/ and Representations of Localness in Southwestern Pennsylvania". American Speech. 77 (2): 148–166. doi:10.1215/00031283-77-2-148. JSTOR 40281028. S2CID 2783229.
  8. ^ Kurath, Hans (1949). A Word Geography of the Eastern United States. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 9780472085323. Retrieved 21 October 2012.
  9. ^ a b Salvucci, Claudio (1999). "Linguistic Geography of Pennsylvania". Evolution Publishing. Retrieved 2012-10-21.
  10. ^ Thomas, Charles (1958). An Introduction to the Phonetics of American English. Ronald Press. ISBN 9780826086303. Retrieved 21 October 2012.
  11. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:66)
  12. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:123)
  13. ^ a b Johnstone, Barbara (2011). "Place, language, and semiotic order. Paper presented at Urban Symbolic Landscapes conference, Helsinki, Finland, May 3, 2011". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  14. ^ "Questions and Answers: Who Uses Pittsburgh Speech the Most?". Pittsburgh Speech and Society. University Library System, University of Pittsburgh. Retrieved 16 May 2013.
  15. ^ a b c d e f Gagnon, C. L. (1999). Language attitudes in Pittsburgh: 'Pittsburghese' vs. standard English. Master's thesis. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh.
  16. ^ a b Johnson (1971), pp. 71–2.
  17. ^ Wells (1982), p. 484.
  18. ^ Johnson (1971), p. 70.
  19. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 88–9.
  20. ^ Cruttenden (2014), pp. 122, 126–128, 130.
  21. ^ Johnson (1971), pp. 70–2.
  22. ^ Johnson (1971), pp. 72–3.
  23. ^ Kortmann, Bernd and Edgar W. Schneider, eds. (2004). A Handbook of Varieties of English, Volume 1: Phonology. De Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-017532-5. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  24. ^ Hankey, Clyde T. (1965). "Miscellany: 'tiger,' 'tagger,' and [aɪ] in western Pennsylvania". American Speech. 40 (3): 226–229. doi:10.2307/454074. JSTOR 454074.
  25. ^ Johnson (1971), p. 72.
  26. ^ Duncan (2016), pp. 1–2.
  27. ^ a b Brown, C (1982). A search for sound change: A look at the lowering of tense vowels before liquids in the Pittsburgh area. Master's thesis. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh.
  28. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:72)
  29. ^ Hankey, Clyde T. (1972). Notes on west Penn-Ohio phonology. In: Studies in Linguistics in Honor of Raven I. McDavid, Jr., ed. by L.M. Davis. University of Alabama Press. pp. 49–61. ISBN 978-0-8173-0010-4.
  30. ^ a b c d e Fasold, Ralph W. (1980). "The conversational function of Pennsylvania Dutch intonation". Paper Presented at New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAVE IX) at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
  31. ^ In Russian, Slovak, and many other Slavic languages, the word babushka (a familial/cute extension of the word baba) means "grandmother" or (endearingly) "old woman." In Pittsburgh and much Northern U.S. English, the word also denotes a type of headscarf that might be worn by an old woman. Predominantly used in the northeast United States, babushka is most heavily in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan. It is sometimes used as a derogatory term for an elderly woman, similar to calling someone an "old hag."[citation needed]
  32. ^ Kurath (1949) mentions that speakers in a large portion of Pennsylvania use the term, but that it is "very common in the Pittsburgh area[,]...[in] the adjoining counties of Ohio and on the lower Kanawha"
  33. ^ Johnstone, Barbara; Andrus, Jennifer; Danielson, Andrew E. (2006-06-01). (PDF). Journal of English Linguistics. 34 (2): 77–104. doi:10.1177/0075424206290692. ISSN 0075-4242. S2CID 3851451. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-02-28.
  34. ^ (Kurath 1949); this may be heard from the western edge of the Alleghenies to beyond the Ohio line
  35. ^ "Something different, Something delicious: City Chicken", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, p. 4, 2 November 1932, retrieved 16 September 2016
  36. ^ This is heard in Southwestern Pennsylvania and Northern West Virginia. It origins are not entirely known, but rumored to have begun during the Depression Era, when people took meat scraps and fashioned a makeshift drumstick out of them.
  37. ^ a b c d e f g h i Johnstone, Barbara (2013). Speaking Pittsburghese: The Story of a Dialect. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-199-94568-9.
  38. ^ a b c d Crozier, Alan (1984). "The Scotch-Irish influence on American English". American Speech. 59 (4): 310–331. doi:10.2307/454783. JSTOR 454783.
  39. ^ Kurath (1949) claims these forms are used from the western edge of the Alleghenies to beyond the Ohio line; and Crozier claims that they are restricted to southwestern Pennsylvania, from Scots-Irish English origins.
  40. ^ a b c Cassidy, F. G. and. J.H. Hall., Eds. (1991). Dictionary of American Regional English, Vol. II: D-H. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-20512-3.
  41. ^ a b Johnstone, Barbara (2015). Pittsburgh Speech and Pittsburghese. Walter de Gruyter GmbH. ISBN 978-1-614-51178-6.
  42. ^ Kurath 1949): This term is used from the western edge of the Alleghenies to beyond the Ohio line.
  43. ^ This can mean "comfort", as in "He's been in poor hap since his wife died" (Maxfield 1931), or "comforter or quilt," as in "It was cold last night but that hap kept me warm." Hap is used for "comfort" in western Pennsylvania (Maxfield 1931); and a "quilt" is known as a hap only in western Pennsylvania.
  44. ^ a b c d e f g Cassidy, F. G. and J. H. Hall, Eds. (1996). Dictionary of American Regional English, Volume III: I-O. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-20519-2.
  45. ^ Johnstone, Andrus and Danielson 2006
  46. ^ a b The word is often followed by off to mean (as a verb) "to annoy, irritate, play tricks on; to disparage; to reject", or (as a noun) "an annoying or irritating person;" as well as around to mean "annoy, tease, or engage in a frivolous endeavor." These phrases are probably influenced by jack off and jack around, respectively. "Jus' jaggin'" is a common expression, the same as standard "just kidding". Descended from Scots-Irish usage in English, this is chiefly a Pennsylvania term, especially southwestern Pennsylvania, but also portions of Appalachia.
  47. ^ Freeman, Jan. "The jimmies story". Boston.com.
  48. ^ Wisnosky 2003; Johnstone, Andrus and Danielson 2006
  49. ^ The OED (1991) lists kolbasa as a variable pronunciation of kielbasa, and notes that the former pronunciation is Polish and the latter Russian.
  50. ^ Parker, Jeanie (September 2, 2000). "Gardening: The fruit of the Osage orange tree has many odd reputed uses". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. PG Publishing. Retrieved 26 February 2014.
  51. ^ a b McElhinny 1999; Wisnosky 2003; Johnstone, Andrus and Danielson 2006
  52. ^ The distribution of n'at is Southwestern Pennsylvania, possibly Scots-Irish. Macaulay (1995) finds it in the regular speech and narratives of Scottish coal miners in Glasgow, a principal area from which Scottish settlers emigrated to Northern Ireland, and from there, to the American colonies.
  53. ^ Hall, J. H., ed. (2002). Dictionary of American Regional English, Volume IV: P-Sk. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-00884-7.
  54. ^ Dressman, Michael R. (1979). "Redd up". American Speech. 54 (2): 141–145. doi:10.2307/455213. JSTOR 455213.
  55. ^ Also see McElhinny (1999); Johnstone, Andrus and Danielson (2006).
  56. ^ An example of this term is "Yinz better redd up this room". Dressman notes that it is common to the Pittsburgh area and throughout Pennsylvania, but less so in Philadelphia. It is also scattered about New England States and in New Brunswick, though its occurrence is heaviest in Pennsylvania. Hall states that its distribution is "scattered, but chiefly N. Midland, esp PA". Dressman suggested that it was brought to the U.S. by Scots. It's almost certainly of Scandinavian/Viking origin; the Danish "rydde op" means to clean up. "Redd up" and its associated variants probably entered the English language from old Norse.
  57. ^ Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries (2006). The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth ed.). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-618-70173-5. Retrieved 26 October 2012.
  58. ^ "Definition of SPICKET".
  59. ^ Yinzer Basics: Pittsburghese for Beginners
  60. ^ . tomtwine.com. Thomas H. Twine. Archived from the original on 23 September 2009. Retrieved 19 April 2022.
  61. ^ McElhinny 1999; Wisnosky 2003; Johnstone, Andrus and Danielson 2006: Used Southwestern Pennsylvania and elsewhere in Appalachia, yinz is a particularly salient feature of Pittsburgh speech
  62. ^ a b c Robert P. Marzec (30 December 2004). The Mid-Atlantic Region. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 271. ISBN 978-0-313-32954-8. Retrieved 1 November 2012.
  63. ^ Montgomery 2001
  64. ^ Metcalf, Allan (2000). How We Talk: American Regional English Today. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 92. ISBN 978-0-618-04362-0. Retrieved 26 October 2012.
  65. ^ Montgomery 1989; McElhinny 1999; Montgomery 1999
  66. ^ a b c Adams, Michael (2003). "Lexical Doppelgängers". Journal of English Linguistics. 28 (3): 295–310. doi:10.1177/00754240022005054. S2CID 220752970.
  67. ^ Still, Brian (15 October 2010). Usability of Complex Information Systems: Evaluation of User Interaction. CRC Press. p. 57. ISBN 978-1-4398-2894-6. Retrieved 1 November 2012.

Bibliography

  • Cruttenden, Alan (2014). Gimson's Pronunciation of English (8th ed.). Routledge. ISBN 9781444183092.
  • Duncan, Daniel (2016). "'Tense' /æ/ is still lax: A phonotactics study" (PDF). In Hansson, Gunnar Ólafur; Farris-Trimble, Ashley; McMullin, Kevin; Pulleyblank, Douglas (eds.). Supplemental Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Meeting on Phonology. Proceedings of the Annual Meetings on Phonology. Vol. 3. Washington, D.C.: Linguistic Society of America. doi:10.3765/amp.v3i0.3653.
  • Johnson, Bruce Lee (1971), "The Western Pennsylvania dialect of American English", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 1 (2): 69–73, doi:10.1017/S0025100300000268, JSTOR 44526647
  • Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (2006), The Atlas of North American English, Berlin: Mouton-de Gruyter, pp. 187–208, ISBN 978-3-11-016746-7
  • Wells, John C. (1982). Accents of English. Volume 3: Beyond the British Isles (pp. i–xx, 467–674). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-52128541-0 .

Further reading

  • Johnstone, B.; Andrus, J.; Danielson, A. (2006). "Mobility, indexicality, and the enregisterment of "Pittsburghese"". Journal of English Linguistics. 34 (2): 77–104. doi:10.1177/0075424206290692. S2CID 3851451.
  • Kurath, H. (1949). Western Pennsylvania. A Word Geography of the Eastern United States. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press: 35-36.
  • Kurath, H. and R. I. McDavid. (1961). Western Pennsylvania. The pronunciation of English in the Atlantic United States. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press: 17-18.
  • Labov, W., S. Ash and C. Boberg. (2005). The atlas of North American English: phonetics, phonology, and sound change. Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Layton, N. N. (1999). The dialect of western Pennsylvania: evaluation of ten sounds. Master's thesis. Goteburg, Sweden: University of Goteburg.
  • Macauley, R. (1985). The narrative skills of a Scottish coal miner. Focus on: Scotland. Ed. by M. Gorlach. Philadelphia, John Benjamins: 101-124.
  • Maxfield, E. K. (1931). "The speech of south-western Pennsylvania". American Speech. 7 (1): 18–20. doi:10.2307/451308. JSTOR 451308.
  • McElhinny, B (1999). "More on the third dialect of English: linguistic constraints on the use of three phonological variables in Pittsburgh". Language Variation and Change. 11 (2): 171–195. doi:10.1017/s0954394599112031. S2CID 145656857.
  • Montgomery, M. B. (1997). A tale of two Georges: the language of Irish Indian traders in colonial North America. Focus on: Ireland. Ed. by J. Kallen. Philadelphia, John Benjamins. 21: 227-254.
  • Montgomery, M. B. (1989). "Exploring the roots of Appalachian English". English World-Wide. 10 (2): 227–278. doi:10.1075/eww.10.2.03mon.
  • Montgomery, M. B. (2001). ""My mother, whenever she died, she had pneumonia": The history and functions of whenever". Journal of English Linguistics. 29 (3): 234–249. doi:10.1177/00754240122005350. S2CID 143776545.
  • Montgomery, M. B. (2002). "The structural history of y'all, you all, and you'uns". Southern Journal of Linguistics. 26: 19–27.
  • Murray, T. E.; Frazer, T. C.; Simon, B. L. (1996). "Need + past participle in American English". American Speech. 71 (3): 255–271. doi:10.2307/455549. JSTOR 455549.
  • Murray, T. E.; Simon, B. L. (1999). "Want + past participle in American English". American Speech. 74 (2): 140–164. JSTOR 455576.
  • Murray, T. E.; Simon, B. L. (2002). "At the intersection of regional and social dialects: the case of like + past participle in American English". American Speech. 77 (1): 32–69. doi:10.1215/00031283-77-1-32. S2CID 143892781.
  • Newlin, C (1928). "Dialects on the western Pennsylvania frontier". American Speech. 4 (2): 104–110. doi:10.2307/452864. JSTOR 452864.
  • Shields, K. Jr. (1985). "Germanisms in Pennsylvania English: an update". American Speech. 60 (3): 228–237. doi:10.2307/454887. JSTOR 454887.
  • Simpson, J.A. and E.S.C. Weiner, Eds. (1991). Compact Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd Ed. Cambridge: Oxford UP.
  • Tenny, C (1998). "Psych verbs and verbal passives in Pittsburghese". Linguistics. 36: 591–597.
  • Thomas, E. (2001). An acoustic analysis of vowel variation in New World English. Durham, Duke UP.
  • Wisnosky, M. (2003). 'Pittsburghese' in Pittsburgh humor. Master's thesis in Linguistics. Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh.
  • Heinz History Center staff (2015). Pittsburghese from Ahrn to Yinz. Senator John Heinz History Center. ISBN 978-0936340210.
  • Blackley, Katie (28 September 2017). "Redd Up Your Pittsburghese: A Deep Dive Into How Yinz Talk". WESA-FM. Retrieved 22 November 2021.

External links

  • Pittsburgh Speech & Society, University of Pittsburgh
  • "It's Not the Sights, It's the Sounds", New York Times article, March 17, 2006 /9"Pittsburgh is the Galapagos Islands of American dialect")
  • "American Varieties: Steel Town Speak", part of PBS's Do You Speak American?
  • Pittsburghese: Welcome!, Duquesne University
  • Pittsburghese.com

May 05, 2023
western, pennsylvania, english, known, more, narrowly, pittsburgh, english, popularly, pittsburghese, dialect, american, english, native, primarily, western, half, pennsylvania, centered, city, pittsburgh, potentially, appearing, some, speakers, north, erie, c. Western Pennsylvania English known more narrowly as Pittsburgh English or popularly as Pittsburghese is a dialect of American English native primarily to the western half of Pennsylvania centered on the city of Pittsburgh but potentially appearing in some speakers as far north as Erie County as far west as Youngstown Ohio and as far south as Clarksburg West Virginia 1 2 Commonly associated with the working class of Pittsburgh users of the dialect are colloquially known as Yinzers Western Pennsylvania EnglishPittsburgh English PittsburgheseRegionWestern PennsylvaniaLanguage familyIndo European GermanicWest GermanicIngvaeonicAnglo FrisianAnglicEnglishNorth American EnglishAmerican EnglishWestern Pennsylvania EnglishEarly formsOld English Middle English Early Modern EnglishWriting systemEnglish alphabetLanguage codesISO 639 3 Glottologwest2919Appalachia in white overlaid with dialect regions defined by the 2006 ANAE Western Pennsylvania English can be seen in orange A sign using Dahntahn to mean Downtown in Downtown Pittsburgh Contents 1 Overview 2 Phonology 3 Vocabulary 4 Grammar 5 Notable examples of lifelong speakers 6 See also 7 References 8 Bibliography 9 Further reading 10 External linksOverview EditScots Irish Pennsylvania Dutch Polish 3 Ukrainian 4 and Croatian 5 immigrants to the area all provided certain loanwords to the dialect see Vocabulary below Many of the sounds and words found in the dialect are popularly thought to be unique to Pittsburgh but that is a misconception since the dialect resides throughout the greater part of western Pennsylvania and the surrounding areas 6 7 Central Pennsylvania currently an intersection of several dialect regions was identified in 1949 by Hans Kurath as a subregion between western and eastern Pennsylvania 8 9 but some scholars have more recently identified it within the western Pennsylvania dialect region 9 10 Since Kurath s study one of western Pennsylvania s defining features the cot caught merger has expanded into central Pennsylvania 11 moving eastward until being blocked at Harrisburg 12 Perhaps the only feature whose distribution is restricted almost exclusively to the immediate vicinity of Pittsburgh is aʊ monophthongization in which words such as house down found and sauerkraut are sometimes pronounced with an ah sound instead of the more standard pronunciation of ow rendering eye spellings such as hahs dahn fahnd and sahrkraht Speakers of Pittsburgh English are sometimes called Yinzers in reference to their use of the second person plural pronoun yinz The word yinzer is sometimes heard as pejorative indicating a lack of sophistication but the term is now used in a variety of ways 13 Older men are more likely to use the accent than women possibly because of a stronger interest in displaying local identity 14 Phonology EditThis section contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet IPA For an introductory guide on IPA symbols see Help IPA For the distinction between and see IPA Brackets and transcription delimiters Vowels of Western Pennsylvania English Front Central Backlax tense lax lax tenseClose ɪ i ʊ uMid ɛ eOpen ae ʌ ɒDiphthongs eɪ aɪ ɔɪ aʊ oʊA defining feature of Western Pennsylvania English is the cot caught merger in which ɑ as in ah and ɔ as in aw merges to a rounded ɒ phonetically ɒ ɔ As in most other American dialects the father bother merger also occurs 6 7 15 Therefore cot and caught are both pronounced kɒt Don and dawn are both dɒn While the merger of the low back vowels is also widespread elsewhere in the United States the rounded realizations of the merged vowel around ɒ is less common except in Canada California and Northeastern New England 6 7 ɒ has a stylistic variant which is open central unrounded a as in the sarcastic pronunciation of I apologize as aɪ eˈpʰaɫɨdʒaɪz It may also occur before r as in start staɹʔt or car kʰaɹ but a more common pronunciation is back and rounded stɒɹʔt etc The vowel in hoarse is the same as the one in horse phonetically ɔ hɔɹs but phonemically oʊ due to the cot caught merger hoʊrs 16 17 ʌ is backer and more open than ɜ found in Midland American English being closer to ɑ This makes STRUT an unrounded counterpart of LOT with pairs such as nut nɑʔt vs not nɒʔt or cut kʰɑʔt vs cot kʰɒʔt contrasting mainly by roundedness This is also found in contemporary Standard Southern British English where nut nʌʔt also differs from not nɔʔt by rounding though nought has a contrastive THOUGHT vowel instead no ːʔt which falls together with ɒ in Pittsburgh Earlier reports give ɜ as the norm for STRUT in Pittsburgh The remaining checked vowels ɪ ʊ ɛ and ae are all within the General American norm 18 19 20 The GOAT vowel often has an unrounded central or fronted starting point in Pittsburgh eʊ Outside of the city itself oʊ is more common GOOSE is sometimes also fronted to ɨu more usual value ʊu As in other American dialects FLEECE and FACE are narrow diphthongs ɪi ee CHOICE is also within GenAm norm ɔ ɪ 21 The PRICE vowel alone undergoes Canadian raising to ɜɪ before voiceless consonants as in ice ɜɪs Johnson notes that the auxiliary verb might is typically pronounced with nasalization as mɜ ɪ ʔt 22 The MOUTH vowel typically begins front in the mouth aeʊ A less common variant has a central starting point aʊ matching the starting point of PRICE aɪ 16 It is monophthongized to aː in some environments sounding instead like ah namely before nasal consonants downtown daːnˈtʰaːn and found faːnd liquid consonants fowl hour and obstruents house haːs out cloudy 6 7 15 The monophthongization does not occur however in word final positions how now and the diphthong then remains aeʊ 23 That is one of the few features if not the only one restricted almost exclusively to western Pennsylvania in North America but it can sometimes be found in other accents of the English speaking world such as Cockney and South African English 6 7 The sound may be the result of contact from Slavic languages during the early 20th century 7 Monophthongization also occurs for the sound aɪ as in eye before liquid consonants 6 7 15 24 so that tile is pronounced tʰɑːɫ pile is pronounced pʰɑːɫ and iron is pronounced ɑːɹn That phenomenon allows tire to merge with the sound of tar tʰɑːɹ The NURSE vowel phonemically an er sequence is phonetically close mid ɘ 25 Johnson 1971 72 notes a tendency to diphthongize ae to ɛe not only before nasals as in GenAm but also before all voiced consonants as in bad bɛed and voiceless fricatives as in grass ɡɹɛes This has since been reversed and now ɛe is confined to the environment of a following nasal matching the GenAm allophony 26 An epenthetic intruding r sound may occur after vowels in a few words such as water pronounced as ˈwɔɹɾɚ and wash as wɔɹʃ 6 7 A number of vowel mergers occur uniquely in Western Pennsylvania English before the consonant l The pair of vowels i and ɪ may merge before the l consonant 6 7 15 27 cause both steel and still to be pronounced as something like stɪɫ Similarly u oʊ and ʊ may merge before l so that pool pull and pole may merge to something like pʰʊɫ On the il ɪl merger Labov Ash and Boberg 2006 note the stereotype of merger of ɪl il is based only on a close approximation of some forms and does not represent the underlying norms of the dialect 28 The i ɪ merger is found in western Pennsylvania 6 7 15 27 as well as parts of the southern United States including Alabama Texas and the west McElhinny 1999 On the other hand the u ʊ merger is consistently found only in western Pennsylvania The i ɪ merger towards ɪ may also appear before ɡ eagle then sounds to outsiders like iggle 6 7 15 L vocalization is also common in the Western Pennsylvania dialect an l then sounds like a w or a cross between a vowel and a dark l at the end of a syllable 6 7 29 For example well is pronounced as wɛw milk as mɪwk or mɛwk role as ɹʊw and cold as ˈkʰʊwd The phenomenon is also common in African American English Western Pennsylvania English speakers may use falling intonation at the end of questions 6 7 30 for example in Are you painting your garage ˈɒɹ je ˈpʰeɪɾ ɪŋ jɚ ɡe ˈɹɒdʒ with pitch rising in intonation up to just before the last syllable and then falling precipitously 30 Such speakers typically use falling pitch for yes no questions for which they already are quite sure of the answer A speaker uttering the above example is simply confirming what is already thought yes the person spoken to is painting their garage It is most common in areas of heavy German settlement especially southeastern Pennsylvania 30 hence its nickname the Pennsylvania Dutch question but it is also found elsewhere in Pennsylvania including Pittsburgh 6 7 30 Maxfield 1931 Layton 1999 Wisnosky 2003 Johnstone Andrus and Danielson 2006 It is of German origin 30 Vocabulary EditThis section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section Unsourced material may be challenged and removed July 2021 Learn how and when to remove this template message City of Pittsburgh Recycling Drop Off Center sign using the term redd up illustrating an example of Western Pennsylvania English babushka n headscarf 3 31 buggy n shopping cart 32 baby buggy n baby carriage the Burgh n Pittsburgh 7 33 beal v to fester or suppurate 3 bealed adj usually of an ear infected or abscessed 3 belling n noisy celebration or mock serenade for newlyweds a shivaree 3 berm n edge of the road curb an accepted alternative to shoulder of the road 3 carbon oil n kerosene 34 chipped ham n very thinly sliced chopped ham loaf for sandwiches from a local brand name 6 7 see chipped chopped ham city chicken n cubes of pork loin and or veal on a short wooden skewer breaded then fried or baked 35 36 cubberd n closet 37 craw n crawfish 3 crick n Creek cruds crudded milk or cruddled milk n cottage cheese 38 39 diamond n town square 37 dippy adj appropriate for dipping into such as gravy coffee egg yolks etc 40 doll baby n complimentary term for an attractively childlike girl or woman reversal of baby doll drooth n drought 3 41 Dubbya n Letter W Often used when saying www Or a local station dupa n parental term of Polish origin for a child s backside feature v to think about understand or imagine grinnie n chipmunk 42 gumband n rubber band 6 7 40 elastic fastener 37 gutchies or undergutchies n term used to describe undergarments of any variety hap n comfort or comforter or quilt 38 43 hoagie n a sub i e submarine sandwich used throughout Pennsylvania 40 jag v to prick stab or jab 44 to tease 45 often jag off or jag around 46 44 jagger n adj any small sharp pointed object or implement 44 usually thorns spines and prickles as in a jagger bush or I got a jagger in my finger jaggerbush n briar 37 jagoff n an idiot fool or unlikeable person 46 jimmies n sprinkles 47 jumbo n bologna lunch meat 6 7 44 48 Kennywood s open idiom used to inform someone that their fly is open Kennywood referring to the Kennywood amusement park in West Mifflin Pennsylvania Klondike n ice cream bar from a local brand name 37 kolbusy or kolbassi n variant pronunciation of kielbasa 44 kʊlˈbɒsi 49 meer n mirror monkey ball n fruit of the Maclura pomifera or monkey ball tree 50 n at eˈnaet et cetera and so on a general extender 6 7 literally a contraction of and all that 51 52 neb v to pry into a conversation or argument intrusively or impertinently 44 this term and its derivatives are common to Pennsylvania but especially southwestern Pennsylvania from Scots Irish English neb out to mind one s own business neb nose or nebby nose also nebshit n the kind of person who is always poking into people s affairs 44 inquisitive person 37 nebby adj given to prying into the affairs of others nosey 6 7 51 inquisitive 37 onion snow n early spring snow 37 redd up also ret rid ridd or redd out v to tidy up clean up or clean out a room house cupboard etc to clean house tidy up hence v bl redding up house cleaning tidying up 53 54 55 56 57 reverend adj extreme 37 extraordinary powerful 41 slippy adj slippery from Scots Irish English 6 7 spicket n alternate pronunciation of spigot specifically an outdoor faucet used to connect to a garden hose 58 Stillers n alternate pronunciation of the Pittsburgh Steelers 59 sweep v to vacuum sweeper n vacuum cleaner also used in Ohio and Indiana from carpet sweeper tossle cap n knit hat designed to provide warmth in cold weather trick n a job shift as used in West Central Pennsylvania 60 yins yinz yunz you uns or youns pronoun plural of you second person personal plural pronoun from Scots Irish English 6 7 38 61 13 62 63 Grammar EditAll to mean all gone When referring to consumable products the word all has a secondary meaning all gone For example the phrase the butter s all would be understood as the butter is all gone This likely derives from German 64 Positive anymore In addition to the normal negative use of anymore it can also as in the greater Midland U S dialect be used in a positive sense to mean these days or nowadays 65 An example is I wear these shoes a lot anymore While in Standard English anymore must be used as a negative polarity item NPI some speakers in Pittsburgh and throughout the Midland area do not have this restriction 62 This is somewhat common in both the Midland regions Montgomery 1989 and in northern Maryland Frederick Hagerstown and Westminster likely of Scots Irish origin Montgomery 1999 Reversed usage of leave and let 6 7 66 Examples of this include Leave him go outside and Let the book on the table Leave is used in some contexts in which in standard English let would be used and vice versa Used in Southwestern Pennsylvania and elsewhere this is either Pennsylvania Dutch or Scots Irish 66 Need want or like past participle 6 7 67 Examples of this include The car needs washed The cat wants petted and Babies like cuddled More common constructions are The grass needs cutting or The grass needs to be cut or Babies like cuddling or Babies like to be cuddled The car needs washing or The car needs to be washed and The cat wants petting or The cat wants to be petted Found predominantly in the North Midland region this is especially common in southwestern Pennsylvania Murray Frazer and Simon 1996 Murray and Simon 1999 Murray and Simon 2002 Need past participle is the most common construction followed by want past participle and then like past participle The forms are implicationally related to one another Murray and Simon 2002 This means the existence of a less common construction from the list in a given location entails the existence of the more common ones there but not vice versa The constructions like past participle and need past participle are Scots Irish Murray Frazer and Simon 1996 Murray and Simon 1999 Montgomery 2001 Murray and Simon 2002 While Adams 66 argues that want past participle could be from Scots Irish or German it seems likely that this construction is Scots Irish as Murray and Simon 1999 and 2002 claim like and need past participle are Scots Irish the distributions of all three constructions are implicationally related the area where they are predominantly found is most heavily influenced by Scots Irish and a related construction want directional adverb as in The cat wants out is Scots Irish 38 62 Punctual whenever Whenever is often used to mean at the time that Montgomery 2001 An example is My mother whenever she passed away she had pneumonia A punctual descriptor refers to the use of the word for a onetime momentary event rather than in its two common uses for a recurrent event or a conditional one This Scots Irish usage is found in the Midlands and the South Notable examples of lifelong speakers EditJohn Kasich Pat McAfee Art Rooney Dan Rooney Fred RogersSee also EditJagoff Midland American English Pennsylvania Dutch English Philadelphia accent Pittsburgh Dad Regional vocabularies of American English YinztagramReferences Edit Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 130 133 Do You Speak American Sea to Shining Sea American Varieties Pittsburghese PBS PBS a b c d e f g h Cassidy F G ed 1985 Dictionary of American Regional English Vol I A C Cambridge Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 674 20511 6 Wolowyna Oleh January 9 2000 Demographic social cultural characteristics of persons of Ukrainian ancestry in Chicago The Ukrainian Weekly No 2 Vol LXVIII Retrieved May 16 2008 based on 1990 US Census LeMay Michael C 2012 12 10 Transforming America Perspectives on U S Immigration 3 volumes Perspectives on U S Immigration ABC CLIO ISBN 9780313396441 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Johnstone Barbara Baumgardt Dan 2004 Pittsburghese Online Vernacular Norming in Conversation American Speech 79 2 115 145 doi 10 1215 00031283 79 2 115 JSTOR 40281107 S2CID 3861413 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Johnstone Barbara Bhasin Neeta Wittkofski Denise 2002 Dahntahn Pittsburgh Monophthongal aw and Representations of Localness in Southwestern Pennsylvania American Speech 77 2 148 166 doi 10 1215 00031283 77 2 148 JSTOR 40281028 S2CID 2783229 Kurath Hans 1949 A Word Geography of the Eastern United States University of Michigan Press ISBN 9780472085323 Retrieved 21 October 2012 a b Salvucci Claudio 1999 Linguistic Geography of Pennsylvania Evolution Publishing Retrieved 2012 10 21 Thomas Charles 1958 An Introduction to the Phonetics of American English Ronald Press ISBN 9780826086303 Retrieved 21 October 2012 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 66 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 123 a b Johnstone Barbara 2011 Place language and semiotic order Paper presented at Urban Symbolic Landscapes conference Helsinki Finland May 3 2011 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Cite journal requires journal help Questions and Answers Who Uses Pittsburgh Speech the Most Pittsburgh Speech and Society University Library System University of Pittsburgh Retrieved 16 May 2013 a b c d e f Gagnon C L 1999 Language attitudes in Pittsburgh Pittsburghese vs standard English Master s thesis Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh a b Johnson 1971 pp 71 2 Wells 1982 p 484 Johnson 1971 p 70 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 pp 88 9 Cruttenden 2014 pp 122 126 128 130 Johnson 1971 pp 70 2 Johnson 1971 pp 72 3 Kortmann Bernd and Edgar W Schneider eds 2004 A Handbook of Varieties of English Volume 1 Phonology De Gruyter ISBN 978 3 11 017532 5 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a first has generic name help Hankey Clyde T 1965 Miscellany tiger tagger and aɪ in western Pennsylvania American Speech 40 3 226 229 doi 10 2307 454074 JSTOR 454074 Johnson 1971 p 72 Duncan 2016 pp 1 2 a b Brown C 1982 A search for sound change A look at the lowering of tense vowels before liquids in the Pittsburgh area Master s thesis Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 72 Hankey Clyde T 1972 Notes on west Penn Ohio phonology In Studies in Linguistics in Honor of Raven I McDavid Jr ed by L M Davis University of Alabama Press pp 49 61 ISBN 978 0 8173 0010 4 a b c d e Fasold Ralph W 1980 The conversational function of Pennsylvania Dutch intonation Paper Presented at New Ways of Analyzing Variation NWAVE IX at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor MI In Russian Slovak and many other Slavic languages the word babushka a familial cute extension of the word baba means grandmother or endearingly old woman In Pittsburgh and much Northern U S English the word also denotes a type of headscarf that might be worn by an old woman Predominantly used in the northeast United States babushka is most heavily in Pennsylvania Ohio Indiana Illinois Wisconsin and Michigan It is sometimes used as a derogatory term for an elderly woman similar to calling someone an old hag citation needed Kurath 1949 mentions that speakers in a large portion of Pennsylvania use the term but that it is very common in the Pittsburgh area in the adjoining counties of Ohio and on the lower Kanawha Johnstone Barbara Andrus Jennifer Danielson Andrew E 2006 06 01 Mobility Indexicality and the Enregisterment of Pittsburghese PDF Journal of English Linguistics 34 2 77 104 doi 10 1177 0075424206290692 ISSN 0075 4242 S2CID 3851451 Archived from the original PDF on 2019 02 28 Kurath 1949 this may be heard from the western edge of the Alleghenies to beyond the Ohio line Something different Something delicious City Chicken Pittsburgh Post Gazette p 4 2 November 1932 retrieved 16 September 2016 This is heard in Southwestern Pennsylvania and Northern West Virginia It origins are not entirely known but rumored to have begun during the Depression Era when people took meat scraps and fashioned a makeshift drumstick out of them a b c d e f g h i Johnstone Barbara 2013 Speaking Pittsburghese The Story of a Dialect Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 199 94568 9 a b c d Crozier Alan 1984 The Scotch Irish influence on American English American Speech 59 4 310 331 doi 10 2307 454783 JSTOR 454783 Kurath 1949 claims these forms are used from the western edge of the Alleghenies to beyond the Ohio line and Crozier claims that they are restricted to southwestern Pennsylvania from Scots Irish English origins a b c Cassidy F G and J H Hall Eds 1991 Dictionary of American Regional English Vol II D H Cambridge Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 674 20512 3 a b Johnstone Barbara 2015 Pittsburgh Speech and Pittsburghese Walter de Gruyter GmbH ISBN 978 1 614 51178 6 Kurath 1949 This term is used from the western edge of the Alleghenies to beyond the Ohio line This can mean comfort as in He s been in poor hap since his wife died Maxfield 1931 or comforter or quilt as in It was cold last night but that hap kept me warm Hap is used for comfort in western Pennsylvania Maxfield 1931 and a quilt is known as a hap only in western Pennsylvania a b c d e f g Cassidy F G and J H Hall Eds 1996 Dictionary of American Regional English Volume III I O Cambridge Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 674 20519 2 Johnstone Andrus and Danielson 2006 a b The word is often followed by off to mean as a verb to annoy irritate play tricks on to disparage to reject or as a noun an annoying or irritating person as well as around to mean annoy tease or engage in a frivolous endeavor These phrases are probably influenced by jack off and jack around respectively Jus jaggin is a common expression the same as standard just kidding Descended from Scots Irish usage in English this is chiefly a Pennsylvania term especially southwestern Pennsylvania but also portions of Appalachia Freeman Jan The jimmies story Boston com Wisnosky 2003 Johnstone Andrus and Danielson 2006 The OED 1991 lists kolbasa as a variable pronunciation of kielbasa and notes that the former pronunciation is Polish and the latter Russian Parker Jeanie September 2 2000 Gardening The fruit of the Osage orange tree has many odd reputed uses Pittsburgh Post Gazette PG Publishing Retrieved 26 February 2014 a b McElhinny 1999 Wisnosky 2003 Johnstone Andrus and Danielson 2006 The distribution of n at is Southwestern Pennsylvania possibly Scots Irish Macaulay 1995 finds it in the regular speech and narratives of Scottish coal miners in Glasgow a principal area from which Scottish settlers emigrated to Northern Ireland and from there to the American colonies Hall J H ed 2002 Dictionary of American Regional English Volume IV P Sk Cambridge Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 674 00884 7 Dressman Michael R 1979 Redd up American Speech 54 2 141 145 doi 10 2307 455213 JSTOR 455213 Also see McElhinny 1999 Johnstone Andrus and Danielson 2006 An example of this term is Yinz better redd up this room Dressman notes that it is common to the Pittsburgh area and throughout Pennsylvania but less so in Philadelphia It is also scattered about New England States and in New Brunswick though its occurrence is heaviest in Pennsylvania Hall states that its distribution is scattered but chiefly N Midland esp PA Dressman suggested that it was brought to the U S by Scots It s almost certainly of Scandinavian Viking origin the Danish rydde op means to clean up Redd up and its associated variants probably entered the English language from old Norse Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries 2006 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language Fourth ed Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ISBN 978 0 618 70173 5 Retrieved 26 October 2012 Definition of SPICKET Yinzer Basics Pittsburghese for Beginners Yunzonics Translating Pennsylvanian tomtwine com Thomas H Twine Archived from the original on 23 September 2009 Retrieved 19 April 2022 McElhinny 1999 Wisnosky 2003 Johnstone Andrus and Danielson 2006 Used Southwestern Pennsylvania and elsewhere in Appalachia yinz is a particularly salient feature of Pittsburgh speech a b c Robert P Marzec 30 December 2004 The Mid Atlantic Region Greenwood Publishing Group p 271 ISBN 978 0 313 32954 8 Retrieved 1 November 2012 Montgomery 2001 Metcalf Allan 2000 How We Talk American Regional English Today Houghton Mifflin Harcourt p 92 ISBN 978 0 618 04362 0 Retrieved 26 October 2012 Montgomery 1989 McElhinny 1999 Montgomery 1999 a b c Adams Michael 2003 Lexical Doppelgangers Journal of English Linguistics 28 3 295 310 doi 10 1177 00754240022005054 S2CID 220752970 Still Brian 15 October 2010 Usability of Complex Information Systems Evaluation of User Interaction CRC Press p 57 ISBN 978 1 4398 2894 6 Retrieved 1 November 2012 Bibliography EditCruttenden Alan 2014 Gimson s Pronunciation of English 8th ed Routledge ISBN 9781444183092 Duncan Daniel 2016 Tense ae is still lax A phonotactics study PDF In Hansson Gunnar olafur Farris Trimble Ashley McMullin Kevin Pulleyblank Douglas eds Supplemental Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Meeting on Phonology Proceedings of the Annual Meetings on Phonology Vol 3 Washington D C Linguistic Society of America doi 10 3765 amp v3i0 3653 Johnson Bruce Lee 1971 The Western Pennsylvania dialect of American English Journal of the International Phonetic Association 1 2 69 73 doi 10 1017 S0025100300000268 JSTOR 44526647 Labov William Ash Sharon Boberg Charles 2006 The Atlas of North American English Berlin Mouton de Gruyter pp 187 208 ISBN 978 3 11 016746 7 Wells John C 1982 Accents of English Volume 3 Beyond the British Isles pp i xx 467 674 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 52128541 0 Further reading EditJohnstone B Andrus J Danielson A 2006 Mobility indexicality and the enregisterment of Pittsburghese Journal of English Linguistics 34 2 77 104 doi 10 1177 0075424206290692 S2CID 3851451 Kurath H 1949 Western Pennsylvania A Word Geography of the Eastern United States Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press 35 36 Kurath H and R I McDavid 1961 Western Pennsylvania The pronunciation of English in the Atlantic United States Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press 17 18 Labov W S Ash and C Boberg 2005 The atlas of North American English phonetics phonology and sound change Mouton de Gruyter Layton N N 1999 The dialect of western Pennsylvania evaluation of ten sounds Master s thesis Goteburg Sweden University of Goteburg Macauley R 1985 The narrative skills of a Scottish coal miner Focus on Scotland Ed by M Gorlach Philadelphia John Benjamins 101 124 Maxfield E K 1931 The speech of south western Pennsylvania American Speech 7 1 18 20 doi 10 2307 451308 JSTOR 451308 McElhinny B 1999 More on the third dialect of English linguistic constraints on the use of three phonological variables in Pittsburgh Language Variation and Change 11 2 171 195 doi 10 1017 s0954394599112031 S2CID 145656857 Montgomery M B 1997 A tale of two Georges the language of Irish Indian traders in colonial North America Focus on Ireland Ed by J Kallen Philadelphia John Benjamins 21 227 254 Montgomery M B 1989 Exploring the roots of Appalachian English English World Wide 10 2 227 278 doi 10 1075 eww 10 2 03mon Montgomery M B 2001 My mother whenever she died she had pneumonia The history and functions of whenever Journal of English Linguistics 29 3 234 249 doi 10 1177 00754240122005350 S2CID 143776545 Montgomery M B 2002 The structural history of y all you all and you uns Southern Journal of Linguistics 26 19 27 Murray T E Frazer T C Simon B L 1996 Need past participle in American English American Speech 71 3 255 271 doi 10 2307 455549 JSTOR 455549 Murray T E Simon B L 1999 Want past participle in American English American Speech 74 2 140 164 JSTOR 455576 Murray T E Simon B L 2002 At the intersection of regional and social dialects the case of like past participle in American English American Speech 77 1 32 69 doi 10 1215 00031283 77 1 32 S2CID 143892781 Newlin C 1928 Dialects on the western Pennsylvania frontier American Speech 4 2 104 110 doi 10 2307 452864 JSTOR 452864 Shields K Jr 1985 Germanisms in Pennsylvania English an update American Speech 60 3 228 237 doi 10 2307 454887 JSTOR 454887 Simpson J A and E S C Weiner Eds 1991 Compact Oxford English Dictionary 2nd Ed Cambridge Oxford UP Tenny C 1998 Psych verbs and verbal passives in Pittsburghese Linguistics 36 591 597 Thomas E 2001 An acoustic analysis of vowel variation in New World English Durham Duke UP Wisnosky M 2003 Pittsburghese in Pittsburgh humor Master s thesis in Linguistics Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Heinz History Center staff 2015 Pittsburghese from Ahrn to Yinz Senator John Heinz History Center ISBN 978 0936340210 Blackley Katie 28 September 2017 Redd Up Your Pittsburghese A Deep Dive Into How Yinz Talk WESA FM Retrieved 22 November 2021 External links EditPittsburgh Speech amp Society University of Pittsburgh It s Not the Sights It s the Sounds New York Times article March 17 2006 9 Pittsburgh is the Galapagos Islands of American dialect American Varieties Steel Town Speak part of PBS s Do You Speak American Pittsburghese Welcome Duquesne University Pittsburghese com Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Western Pennsylvania English amp oldid 1153047529, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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