New York City English

"New York English" and "New York dialect" redirect here. For other uses, see New York English (disambiguation).

New York City English
RegionNew York metropolitan area
EthnicityVarious (see Demographics of New York City)
Early forms
Language codes
ISO 639-3–
Glottolognewy1234
IETFen-u-sd-usny
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New York City English, or Metropolitan New York English,[1] is a regional dialect of American English spoken primarily in New York City and some of its surrounding metropolitan area. It is described by sociolinguist William Labov as the most recognizable regional dialect in the United States.[2] Its pronunciation system—the New York accent—is widely represented in American media by many public figures and fictional characters. Major features of the accent include a high, gliding /ɔ/ vowel (in words like talk and caught); a split of the "short a" vowel /æ/ into two separate sounds; variable dropping of r sounds; and a lack of the cot–caught, Mary–marry–merry, and hurry–furry mergers heard in many other American accents.

Today, New York City English is associated particularly with urban New Yorkers of lower and middle socioeconomic status who are descended from 19th- and 20th-century European immigrants.[3] The dialect is spoken in all five boroughs of the City and throughout Long Island's Nassau County; it is also heard to varying degrees in Suffolk County (Long Island), Westchester County, and Rockland County of New York State plus Hudson County, Bergen County, and the city of Newark (Essex County) in northeastern New Jersey.[4]

  1. ^ Morén, Bruce (2000). Distinctiveness, Coercion and Sonority: A Unified Theory of Weight. Routledge. p. 203.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Labov 2006 p. 18 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Newman, 2014, pp. 1–3.
  4. ^ Newman, 2014, pp. 17–18: "Although small, the [dialect] region is certainly populous. The 2010 US Census gives the population of New York City at 8,175,133. Nassau County, which is entirely within the dialect region, adds 1,339,532. The remaining counties are only partly inside. They include Suffolk (1,493,350), Westchester (949,113), and Rockland (311,687) in New York State and Hudson (905,113) and Bergen (905,116) in New Jersey ... Labov, et al. (2006) found that Newark, in Essex County, also had NYCE features."