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<font size=3>At 12:00 AM 9/15/2005, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Very notable similarities
between much N.O. and N.Y.C. pronunciation are the parallel
"r-dropping" and the relative lack of diphthongization in N.O.
compared with much of the Gulf South.<br>
</blockquote><br>
I'm pretty sure Bill Labov doesn't follow this list, but in a plenary
talk he gave to the International Conference on Historical Linguistics
this summer at Madison he stated (and I think he had some contemporary
newspaper research to back him up) that there <i>was</i> a large influx
of lower class New Yorkers in the nineteenth century, and that was the
origin of at least part of the phonology of New Orleans speech. It
was a really good paper about the nature of sound change and
diffusion. I just looked for it, and it's available on his
website:<br>
<a href="http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/Papers/TD.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/Papers/TD.html<br><br>
</a>Geoff</font></body>
<br>
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<tt>Geoffrey S. Nathan <geoffnathan@wayne.edu><br>
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