Italian-Americanisms? or regionalisms?

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:44 AM -0400 7/8/02, Joanne M. Despres wrote:
>
>Last weekend, I ordered a pizza in a southern CT restaurant and
>heard the waitress pronounce the cheese on top "mootzarella."
>That pronunciation strikes me as New Jerseyish, though I'm not
>sure whether it's Italian-American (the mother of a friend of mine, a
>non-Italian who grew up in Jersey City and now lives in the "Pasta
>Triangle" region of Essex County, where I believe the Sopranos
>episodes are set, pronounces it that way).  My own mother's family
>definitely doesn't use that "oo" pronunciation, though.  In any case,
>the point is, I think there have to be a couple of different regional
>variations of Italian-American pronunciation.
>
I've heard that [u] vowel a lot in south-central Connecticut, but
it's usually mootsaRELL, without the final vowel.  Somehow
"mootzarella" sounds like code-mixing.  And it's not infrequently
truncated to just plain "moots".  I'm sure Alice will concur.

larry