Language
American English, with significant variations, is the dominant language in New Orleans. Despite the city's French colonial history, French is rarely used in daily life. However, its expressions and pronunciation have influenced various dialects in New Orleans, and it was still in significant use at the start of the 20th century. There are nine French immersion schools in the Greater New Orleans area and French is still spoken among elites in the city. The city has a long tradition of Hispanic immigrants dating back to the 18th century. Cajun French and Vietnamese are also heard in the city; Cajun speakers from southeast Louisiana entered the city during the 1970s–1980s oil boom, and a sizable Vietnamese community established itself in the city in the last third of the 20th century.
The distinctive local accent is unlike either Cajun or the stereotypical Southern accent so often misportrayed by film and television actors. It does, like earlier Southern Englishes, features frequent deletion of post-vocalic "r". It is similar to a New York "Brooklynese" accent to people unfamiliar with it. There are many theories of the origin of the accent, but it likely results from New Orleans' geographic isolation by water, and the fact that New Orleans was a major port of entry into the United States throughout the 19th century . Many of the immigrant groups who reside in Brooklyn also reside in New Orleans, with the largest groups being Irish, Germans, and Italians (with Sicilians predominating in the last group).
The prestige associated with being from New Orleans by many residents is likely a factor in the linguistic assimilation of the ethnically divergent population. This distinctive accent is dying out generation by generation in the city (but remains very strong in the surrounding parishes). As with many sociolinguistic artifacts, it is usually attested much more strongly by older members of the population. One subtype of the New Orleans accent is sometimes identified as Yat (from "Where y'at). This word is not used as a generalized term for the New Orleans accent, and is generally reserved for the strongest varieties.
New Orleans is usually pronounced by locals as "noo-AW-lyenz", "noo-AW-linz", "noo-OR-linz", or "noo-OR-lyenz". The tendency among people around the world to say "noo-or-LEENZ" stems from the use of that pronunciation by singers and songwriters, who find it easy to rhyme. The pronunciation "NAW-linz" is likewise not generally used nor liked by locals but has been popularized by the tourist trade.
- Local pronunciations: /nuːˈɔːljənz/, /nuːˈɔːliːnz/, /nuːˈɔrliːnz/, /nuːˈɔrliːənz/, /nuːˈɔrlənz/
- French: la Nouvelle-Orléans
Also notable are lexical items specific to the city, such as lagniappe ( /ˈlɒnjɒp/) meaning "a little something extra," makin' groceries for grocery shopping, or neutral ground for a street median.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of New Orleans
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“It’s not that we want the political jobs themselves ... but they seem to be the only language the men understand. We don’t really want these $200 a year jobs. But the average man doesn’t understand working for a cause.”
—Jennie Carolyn Van Ness (b. c. 1890–?)
“What distinguished man from animals was the human capacity for symbolic thought, the capacity which was inseparable from the development of language in which words were not mere signals, but signifiers of something other than themselves. Yet the first symbols were animals. What distinguished men from animals was born of their relationship with them.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night;
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)