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Saturday, April 6, 2013

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Farewell, Fluffya

Researchers say city is losing its accent

Farewell, Fluffya

POSTED: Wednesday, April 3, 2013, 8:29 AM

On the day we moved to Philly in 1976, my two fellow Syracuse émigrés and I went to a restaurant and ordered Cokes.

“Three coe-ewks,” the waitress nodded.

I thought she was calling us “kooks” -- which we certainly were -- but when we asked for directions and she advised us that our destination was "down-y schtreet," we realized our new city was a different universe, linguistically .

Alas, in the same week a venerable Northeast Philly cheese-steakery replaces its slur-ish name “Chink’s,” and Daily News columnist Helen Ubinas bravely wonders aloud whether it's time to rename the Italian Market, we also hear that the city's distinctive dipthongs are disappearing.

University of Pennsylvania linguistics professor William Labov and two co-authors have found that the Southern-inflected sound of Philadelphia is giving way to a more generically "Northern" accent. The shift is evident when field recordings of rowhousers in the early 1970s are compared with their current counterparts.

The Labov study, published in the academic journal Language, notes that "sound change in progress in Philadelphia has been facilitated by the application of forced alignment and automatic vowel measurement."

Having long thought of the Philadelphia dialect as a mashup of Southern, Cockney and Tastykake Krimpets, I find this research fascinating.

But I can imagine how the waitress who introduced me to Philly-speak might react to a phrase like "forced alignment and automatic vocal measurement."

"Sounds bohw-gis."

Kevin Riordan @ 8:29 AM Permalink | 83 comments

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Comments (84)

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 9:33 AM, 04/03/2013

helen ubina's column was stupid

— the lopez!

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 9:41 AM, 04/03/2013

Cool stuff. Fluffya baby. Sure we got our own way of tawkin. So what?

— Poppys

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 9:48 AM, 04/03/2013

Agreed...Helen Ubinas' column was dumb...but this is dumber.

— kelz1966

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 9:51 AM, 04/03/2013

As always it depends on what section one lives in. Labove is a linguist, notto be confused with a pop writer or sociologist

— Filly5

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 9:56 AM, 04/03/2013

I was born in Phila. and moved to Houston in '77 as a teenager in high school. I resent sports announcers who always say the boo-birds are out in force because Philadelphians say OOOOOH when the Phillies make an error or the Eagles fumble the ball. I still say it, like, OOOOOH, if we had made that play it would have changed the momentum of the game. Yet, if the Packers fumble in Green Bay you hear a collective AAAAAW, as if they're watching their 6 yr. old grand daughters descend a staircase on Easter morning in pink dresses and shoes. We're not all booing our team.

— stryke2

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 9:58 AM, 04/03/2013

Helen Ubina was brave? It was a moronic article.

— Bleedsgreen

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:02 AM, 04/03/2013

And what does changing the name of a restaurant have to do with accents? Nothing, and anyone who doesn't get that is just plain stupid. One can say that in a few ways "yer just stoopid, "yalls is stupid," OMG you are soooo dumb," "he ain't wrapped too tight," on and on. Most ppl interviwed on TV are sports fans so those are the accents that are usually attributed to Philadephians.

— Filly5

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:12 AM, 04/03/2013

Only the uneducated members of our area saying things like, "Iggles," "Ac-a-me," etc.

— VOMIT MAN!!

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:12 AM, 04/03/2013

Jimmies vs. sprinkles is not amatter of accent, it's a regionalism like soda vs. pop, or hoagie vs. sub. Accent is something quite different. The first time I heard Fluffya was from Mayor Rizzo, I never said it nor did anyone I knew but maybe it's because we went past 8th grade.

— Filly5

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:13 AM, 04/03/2013

It's code for trying to say that Philly is slowly entering the 20th century not because of it's own will but because of the influx of people from more progressive areas of the country.

— cognoscenti

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:15 AM, 04/03/2013

Is there such a thing as a Spanish "Philly" accent. That could be part of it?

— Thelonius Monk

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:19 AM, 04/03/2013

I never even knew I had a Philly accent until I went to college in Ohio. But here in New England, the best example is still my friend from NH who went to camp with someone from Haverford who she thought was named "Bannie Raisin." It turns out her name was "Bonnie Rosen".

— idshull

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:19 AM, 04/03/2013

As certain neighborhoods are gentrified so too does the language change. Certain sections have slightly different nuances to the accent. The most annoying sound is that we swallow our O's instead of speaking them from the front of our mouths. Henry Higgins would have a field day in this region.

— psubrian