New Orleans English
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Yat is a dialect of English spoken in the Greater New Orleans Area. The term refers to those people who speak with the Yat accent and dialect of New Orleanians throughout the city. The name comes from the common use amongst said people of the greeting, "Where y'at?" (Where you at?), which is a way of asking, "How are you?" The Yat dialect has its influences from Louisiana French and Southern American English, particularly Older Southern American English.[citation needed] While the term Yat is usually reserved specifically for the strongest varieties of the New Orleans dialect, the term often refers specifically to speakers of Yat in some parts of the city and the inner suburbs of New Orleans, Louisiana. Though Yat is said to be the language of the Ninth Ward, "Yat" is one of many sub-dialects of the New Orleans dialect that is spoken throughout the city.
History
The origins of the accent are described in A. J. Liebling's book, The Earl of Louisiana, in a passage that was used as a foreword to John Kennedy Toole's well-known posthumous novel about New Orleans, A Confederacy of Dunces:[1]
There is a New Orleans city accent . . . associated with downtown New Orleans, particularly with the German and Irish Third Ward, that is hard to distinguish from the accent of Hoboken, Jersey City, and Astoria, Long Island, where the Al Smith inflection, extinct in Manhattan, has taken refuge. The reason, as you might expect, is that the same stocks that brought the accent to Manhattan imposed it on New Orleans.[2]
The quote above is a little dated, because large parts of the Third Ward of New Orleans are no longer German and Irish, as with most of the city of New Orleans.
Historically, the city of New Orleans was home to people of French and Spanish heritage, as well as those of African heritage, which led to the creation of the Louisiana Creole language. This city came under U.S. rule in the Louisiana Purchase, and over the course of the 19th century, the city transitioned from speaking French to becoming a non-rhotic English speaking society. Similarly, much of the south has historically spoken non-rhotic English. The city's geographic isolation has helped lead to the creation of a new local dialect.
A misconception in other parts of the US is that the local dialect of New Orleans is Cajun. The city's cultural and linguistic traditions are distinct from that of the predominantly rural Acadiana, an area spanning across South Louisiana. While there has been an influx of Cajuns into the city since the oil boom of the later 20th century and while there are some similarities due to shared roots, Cajun culture has had relatively little influence upon Creole culture and thus Yat culture. The confusion of Cajun culture with the Creole culture is largely due to the confusion of these French cultures by the tourism and entertainment industries; sometimes deliberately as "Cajun" was discovered to be a potentially lucrative marketing term.
A Yat accent is considered an identity marker of a White person born and raised in the greater New Orleans area. Speakers with a New Orleans accent often find a sense of pride in having a local accent. This dialect is closely associated with the white population of the New Orleans metropolitan area. However, due to most of the African-American population living there prior to 1803 during the colonial French era, Black New Orleanians do share more lingual characteristics with the white population than most other places in the southern United States. This distinctive accent is dying out generation by generation in the city due to white flight of the city, but remains very strong in the suburbs.
Local Variance
The Yat dialect is the most pronounced version of the New Orleans Accent. Natives often speak with varying degrees of the Brooklyn-esque accent, ranging from a slight intonation to what is considered full Yat. As with all dialects, there is variance by local speakers due to geographic and social factors. This results in many different levels of Yat throughout the area, marking distinct differences between higher-income people and lower-income people. Yat tends to differ in strength and intonation from neighborhood to neighborhood. The type, strength, and lexicon of the accent vary from section to section of the New Orleans Metropolitan Area. Longtime residents can often tell what area the other residents are from by their accent.
Speakers of this dialect originated in the Ninth Ward, as well as the Irish Channel and Mid-City. Slighter intonations of the dialect can be heard in some parts of the city, such as Lakeview, the Marigny, the Garden District, and some parts of Gentilly, but mainly in the suburbs. The dialect is present to some degree in all seven parishes that make up the New Orleans metropolitan area, from St. Tammany to Plaquemines. As with many sociolinguistic artifacts, the dialect is usually more distinct among older members of the population. The New Orleans suburban area of Chalmette is known for the strongest Yat accent of the Greater New Orleans area, due to the massive population of White Ninth Warders relocating to Chalmette in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana.
Linguistic features
Pronunciation
There are also numerous phonological differences between words pronounced in the dialect and their standard equivalents. This most often occurs in the form a stress-shift towards the front of a word (i.e. 'insurance', 'ambulance' as [ˈinʃuɻəns], [ˈæmbjəˈlæns]), or in the form of a change in vowel quality. Some of the most distinct features are:
- the rounding and lowering in some cases of /a/ and /ɔ/ to [ɔʷ] (i.e., 'God,' 'on,' 'talk', become [ɡɔʷd], [ɔʷn], [tɔʷk])
- the loss of rhoticization on syllables ending in /ɻ/ (i.e. 'heart,' fire' become [hɔʷt], [ˈfajə])
- the full rhoticization of a syllable-internal /ɔj/ (i.e. 'toilet,' becomes [ˈtɝlɪt]). This feature is more typical in men than in women.
- the loss of frication in the interdental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ (i.e. 'the,' 'there,' 'strength' become [də], [ˈdæə], [ʃtɻejnt])
- the substitution of /ɪn/ or /ən/ (spelled -in, -en) for /ɪŋ/ (spelled -ing)
- the split of the historic short-a class into tense [eə] and lax [æ] versions
- the coil–curl merger of the phonemes /ɔɪ/ and /ɝ/, creating the diphthong [ɜɪ], before a consonant, in words such as boil, oil, and spoil, although this feature has mostly receded, except St. Bernard Parish
And then there are words which can be pronounced differently, yet according to no particular pattern: , 'sink' [zink], 'room' [ɻʊm], 'mayonnaise' [ˈmejnæz], 'museum' [mjuˈzæm], 'ask' [æks], just to name a few examples.
New Orleans is pronounced [nəˈwɔʷlɪnz], [nəˈwɔʷlijənz] or with the /ɻ/ still intact. The 'Nawlins' [nɔlɪnz] of the tourist industry and the common [nuwɔɻˈliːnz] are not to be heard among natives. Louisiana is pronounced as the standard [luˈwiziænə] or a slightly reduced [ləˈwiziænə], but never as [ˈluziænə].
New Orleans accent in popular conception
The distinct New Orleans dialect has been depicted in many ways throughout the city and America.
The main character of the cartoon strip Krazy Kat spoke in a slightly exaggerated phonetically-rendered version of early-20th century Yat; friends of the New Orleans-born cartoonist George Herriman recalled that he spoke with many of the same distinctive pronunciations.
Benny Grunch and the Bunch recorded an album known as the 12 Yats of Christmas, which is one of the truest expressions of Yat dialect and culture. The songs explain much of the local customs and traditions of New Orleans and the surrounding areas, but perhaps raise as many questions as they answer for outsiders, because the lyrics are mostly in Yat. The local CBS affiliate, WWL-TV Channel 4 usually broadcasts videos of the songs during the Christmas holidays during their evening newscasts and via the station's website.
Actual New Orleans accents were long seldom heard nationally (New Orleanians who attained national prominence in the media often made an effort to tone down or eliminate the most distinctive local pronunciations). After the displacement of Greater New Orleans area residents due to Hurricane Katrina, America was introduced to some of the New Orleans yat accents due to the constant news coverage. Stephen Seagal's show Lawman, also exposed some of the Yat accents and dialects to the nation as well.
Ronnie Virgets, a New Orleans writer, commentator, and journalist, employs New Orleans dialects and accents in his written and spoken works, including the locally produced public radio program, Crescent City. WWNO, the local public radio station, broadcasts the program and provides access to past Crescent City programs on its website.
A Midwest Cajun restaurant chain based in Indianapolis, Indiana carries the name Yats. Also, cell phone company Boost Mobile used the phrase "Where Y'At?" in early advertising campaigns.
Who Dat? is a chant used in support of the New Orleans Saints football team. The entire chant is "Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?" Saints fans are collectively called "Who Dat Nation."
The Yat dialect is actually seldom heard when New Orleans is depicted in movies and television shows. Traditionally, characters portrayed from New Orleans are heard using a southern or Cajun accent.
Notes
References
- Liebling, A. J. (1970). The Earl of Louisiana. Baton Rouge: LSU. ISBN 0-8071-0203-2.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Toole, John Kennedy (1980). A Confederacy of Dunces. Baton Rouge: LSU. ISBN 0-8071-0203-2.
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