The Brooklyn-New Orleans accent

[Ed Deluzain]

I'm from New Orleans, and I've given some thought to your question before.
Both dialects are r-less, for starters.  Also, the settlement history of
New Orleans involves people who spoke a number of European languages.
There is a huge Italian group there, a substantial number of Irish and
Germans, and, of course, people who descended from the original French and
Spanish. Add to that remnants of African languages, and you've got as big a
melting pot as you'll find in Brooklyn.  The Yat dialect is spoken
primarily in the Ninth Ward where, I believe, there were a good many German
settlers originally.  Of course, in recent years people have moved all over
the city.  At one time in the "Irish Channel," there were three Catholic
churches on the corner of an intersection, and the rectory where the
priests who served all three churches lived.  One church was for the Irish,
one for the French, and one for the Germans.  A man who grew up in that
neighborhood told me once his parents made him go to mass twice one Sunday
because he had gone to the Irish church instead of the German church.  And
that at a time when the service was in Latin!


At 04:08 PM 5/6/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Can anyone offer a concise theory as to why the New Orleans accent (though
>mostly I mean the Yat dialect) sounds so much like a Brooklyn accent? Or
>perhaps can someone direct me to a source where I can learn (or loin) more
>about it?
>
>Thank you very much.
>
>Michael Solomon
>
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
Ed Deluzain
<bethed at interoz.com>--Home
<deluzhe at mail.bay.k12.fl.us>--Office
Web Site:http://www.interoz.com/usr/bethed/
* *  *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *  *