Pittsburghese

Started by Lisa, February 17, 2011, 11:27:23 AM

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Lisa

I saw this article today on "Pittsburghese".  Prior to seeing Avatar and discovering LearnNa'vi I probably wouldn't taken the time to read it, but my attempts to learn Na'vi have had the really interesting side-effect of making me much more aware of language and it's underlying structure.  Although I'll never be a linguist, I have to confess that language is becoming quite fascinating.    ;D

I really liked the article.

Excerpt:
I've seen several different dictionaries of Pittsburghese, as the dialect is called, not to mention Web sites and serious analyses by researchers in fields such as English, linguistics, and sociology. There are several general principles. Phonemic parsimony is an important rule, so inconvenient consonant sounds are dropped or run together. For example, library becomes "liberry," picture becomes "pitcher," and something turns into "sum'in." If an L sound appears between certain pairs of vowels, it turns into a W, so dollar is "dahwer" and skillet is "skiwet." Diphthongs are flattened, so field is pronounced "filled," fire becomes "fahr", out is "aht," and pillow becomes "pilla." The palette of vowel sounds is also limited. A Pittsburgher would pronounce the vowels in words like bought and yacht exactly the same—they're uniformly reduced to the short o sound of toss. And quite often, terms are shortened lexically too. You'd call a rubber band a "gumban," aluminum foil "tinfoil," and a submarine sandwich a "hoagie." I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that Pittsburghese is much more than a quaint drawl or a small collection of regional colloquialisms. It's really a very distinct dialect of English.


Oeru syaw "Tirea Ikran" kop slä frakrrmi layu oe "Grammar Skxawng"   :)

guest2859

Quote from: Tirea Ikran on February 17, 2011, 11:27:23 AM
I saw this article today on "Pittsburghese".  Prior to seeing Avatar and discovering LearnNa'vi I probably wouldn't taken the time to read it, but my attempts to learn Na'vi have had the really interesting side-effect of making me much more aware of language and it's underlying structure.  Although I'll never be a linguist, I have to confess that language is becoming quite fascinating.    ;D

I really liked the article.

Excerpt:
I've seen several different dictionaries of Pittsburghese, as the dialect is called, not to mention Web sites and serious analyses by researchers in fields such as English, linguistics, and sociology. There are several general principles. Phonemic parsimony is an important rule, so inconvenient consonant sounds are dropped or run together. For example, library becomes "liberry," picture becomes "pitcher," and something turns into "sum'in." If an L sound appears between certain pairs of vowels, it turns into a W, so dollar is "dahwer" and skillet is "skiwet." Diphthongs are flattened, so field is pronounced "filled," fire becomes "fahr", out is "aht," and pillow becomes "pilla." The palette of vowel sounds is also limited. A Pittsburgher would pronounce the vowels in words like bought and yacht exactly the same—they're uniformly reduced to the short o sound of toss. And quite often, terms are shortened lexically too. You'd call a rubber band a "gumban," aluminum foil "tinfoil," and a submarine sandwich a "hoagie." I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that Pittsburghese is much more than a quaint drawl or a small collection of regional colloquialisms. It's really a very distinct dialect of English.




In many cases, as from experience, this can also be called 'American-Italian', 'American-Australian', 'Texan', 'Southern', 'New-English', or just English slang. But so far Pittsburghese is a good name for it.

Kì'eyawn

I grew up with Pittsburghese; it's what my grandmother speaks  ;D
eo Eywa oe 'ia

Fra'uri tìyawnur oe täpivìng nìwotx...