The Philadelphia dialect is the dialect of English spoken in Philadelphia; and extending into Philadelphia's suburbs in the Delaware Valley and southern New Jersey. It is one of the best-studied dialects of American English since Philadelphia's University of Pennsylvania is the home institution of William Labov, one of the most productive American sociolinguists. The Philadelphia dialect shares some distinct features with the New York dialect and to a lesser extent other regions of the US, although it is a distinct dialect region. The Philadelphia dialect is, however, in most respects similar to the dialects of Reading, Pennsylvania; Wilmington, Delaware; and Baltimore, Maryland, together with which it constitutes what Labov describes as the "Mid-Atlantic Dialect".
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Famous quotes containing the words philadelphia and/or dialect:
“It used to be said that, socially speaking, Philadelphia asked who a person is, New York how much is he worth, and Boston what does he know. Nationally it has now become generally recognized that Boston Society has long cared even more than Philadelphia about the first point and has refined the asking of who a person is to the point of demanding to know who he was. Philadelphia asks about a man’s parents; Boston wants to know about his grandparents.”
—Cleveland Amory (b. 1917)
“The eyes of men converse as much as their tongues, with the advantage that the ocular dialect needs no dictionary, but is understood all the world over.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)