New York-New Jersey English

The variety of the English language spoken in the New York City and North Jersey region is often considered to be one of the most recognizable accents within American English.

Macrosocial Extensions

The dialect is closely confined to the geographically small, but densely populated New York City Dialect Region, which consists of the city's five Boroughs, western and central Long Island, and certain neighboring New Jersey areas like Newark, Jersey City, Bayonne, Hoboken, and Fort Lee.

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However, the terms “New York English” and “New York dialect” are strictly speaking misnomers. The classic New York dialect is centered on middle and working class European Americans, and this racial group now accounts for less than half of the city’s population.

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African American New Yorkers often speak African American English (AAE), though with some New York Dialect features, as do most children of Black Caribbean immigrants. Many Latinos speak another distinct ethnolect, New York Latino English, characterized by a varying mix of traditional New York dialect and AAE features along with features of Portuguese and Spanish origin. Many East Asian American and Middle Eastern New Yorkers may also speak a recognizable variety.

Related Topics:
African American - Latino - New York Latino English - Portuguese - Spanish - Asian American - Middle Eastern

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Moreover, not even all European American New Yorkers use this variety. Upper-middle class European American New Yorkers — especially of Irish and Scottish descent — from educated backgrounds often speak with less conspicuous accents; in particular, they use rhotic pronunciations instead of the less prestigious non-rhotic pronunciations, although they often maintain at least some of less stigmatized features. However, there is still a certain number of European American New Yorkers with education backgrounds who uses non-rhotic pronunciations, except other features of New York dialect.

Related Topics:
Irish - Scottish - Rhotic pronunciations

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Similarly, the children of professional white migrants from other parts of the US frequently do not have many New York dialect features, and as these two populations come to dominate the southern half of Manhattan and neighboring parts of Brooklyn, the dialect is retreating from their neighborhoods. Many teens attending expensive private prep schools are barely linguistically recognizable as New Yorkers. Many others though, particularly those of Southern and Eastern European descent from the middle- and working-class, do tend to have varying degrees of what has been coined New Yorkese or Brooklynese, within their daily regular speech.

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African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos with high educational backgrounds also speak without New York dialect features. Within the context of the city, therefore the classic New York dialect marks a particular European American identity, one associated with individuals of working to middle class origins. Only, in the context of European American English generally, is “New York English” a geographic dialect.

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Some Jewish-Americans throughout the United States may have some features of a New York accent. This is the case even among some Jewish-Americans who have never lived in New York or New Jersey. This phenomenon is somewhat parallel to spread of African American English far from its original location in the US South.

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