Subject: CHAT: American dialects (was: Chinese names)

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2000 12:09:19 -0400

"James F. Carter" wrote:

> When I attended grad school at the State University of New York at Stony
> Brook, there was a guy in the dorm who sounded perfectly normal, not a
> trace of New Yorkish accent.

It happens; I know people born and bred in Manhattan who pronounce their
"r"s.

> I think pervasive exposure of people, particularly children, to
> (American) English "stage speech" heard on TV and radio is totally
> homogenizing USA regional dialects, and I imagine something similar is
> happening in every coherent broadcast market. Nobody speaks proper New
> Yorkish any more.

Naah. My daughter, born in the Bronx and brought up in Manhattan, alternates
between New York dialect and AAVE, with few traces of my outside-of-NYC
accent or her mother's modified North Carolina. 

It's just that you live in California, which is the *basis* of American
broadcast English.

-- 

Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! || John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau, || http://www.reutershealth.com
Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau, || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
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