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An Accent Of New Jersey!????
Well, in more informal contexts, you can keep Ns in ''center, internet, winter'' silent, and pronounce them like ''cenner, innernet, winner'' ;)
But, in formal style it's better to avoid this (the same way you would avoid LEMME or GIMME ;) )
ok so from a south jersey girl:
I think the biggest difference in english in south jersey is the sayings. 'jimmies' belong on ice cream not sprinkles we go 'down the shore' never to the beach i also drink 'wooder' not wah-ter and soda not pop plus everything especially the mall is usually "about 20 minutes away" otherwise, i pretty much never pronounce t's in the middle of a word, they always come out as d's or not at all. funny story, after my cousins moved out to the midwest with their jersey mother, the littlest came home with kindergaten rhyming homework. My aunt proceeded to insist to her that frog and dog do not rhyme. My cousin came home upset the next day because the teacher told her she was wrong. But it's true around here they just don't rhyme. *please do not consider the NY and NJ accent to be the same, its rather insulting (also north and south jersey)
An Accent Of New Jersey!????
In this accent ORANGE, FLORIDA, FOREST, FOREIGN, HORRIBLE and HORROR have /A/, but FROG, COFFEE, DOG, CAUGHT, LONG, SONG, TALL have /Q/ in California ORANGE, FLORIDA, FOREST, FOREIGN, HORRIBLE and HORROR have /Q/, while FROG, COFFEE, DOG, CAUGHT, LONG, SONG, TALL have /A/
the voice of Smurfette in the episode Baby Smurf has the NJ accent
''What's the baby doing in the forest /fAr@st/?'' :=)
here's the video sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7uIlnsAqZY
As a NYer in exile in NJ, I agree with maggs that confusion of the NY/NJ accents is indeed insulting.
i know this is kind of late but i pronounce florida, horrible and forest with an AR sound but moral and coral with an OR sound.
i am from NJ i pronounce america with a short o like of. i say bath like baeth but camera and manager with a short a. but most people pronounce it like caemera and maenager. i do say Spaenish and Maeryland for some reason though. this accent is definitely not all inclusive
North Jersey accents - watch Sopranos. the end.
I am from Northeast NJ and their accents on the show are VERY true to the way many people talk (or should i say, TAWK) around here.
I have lived in NJ my entire life. And I live right on the coast and NOT ONCE have I heard a local say we are going down the shore. I have said my whole life... "Going to the beach." I also say wah-ter. not wooter. It is spelled with an A. The only part of NJ that has an accent is the northeastern half, which should be disconnected and added to NY.
OH, beg to differ.
I'm from NJ and have a strong regional NJ accent. Newark NJ, Central Ward. Prior to that, I lived in SW NJ. Later than that, I lived in Mass. Later still, in SE NJ. Yet the regional accent is still strong. My accent is stronger than a person's accent that lived 2 blocks away. Jersey City accent is nothing like Newark accent. Some blacks these days that hear my accent, says it sounds almost like "gangsta black" - that is, nothing like the old Southern accent associated with blacks (I'm not black, btw). We do not ever say "joisey" or anything like what others make fun of as a NJ accent. No one from NJ talks like that, save a few that were mostly in NYC. Then again, hardly anyone in NY talks like that, perhaps a few from the Bronx or Brooklyn did that I ever heard. Ever watch the Sopranos? Most of the actors playing Italians on that show talk like NJ people, where my accent comes from. I can't possibly spell how I'd say words out, since anyone reading it would "think the sounds" of the phonetic spelling the way THEY speak these sounds, not as I'd speak them.
More later
The two talking on this url http://www.ku.edu/~idea/northamerica/usa/newjersey/newjersey.htm sound like people with a light NJ accent. Very light. I listened to quite a few of these - all the states are listed on that site. I was not surprised that I had a hard time understanding a word that the people from N Carolina said. I had a hard time understanding them when I once stopped there to ask directions. PHEW. I think the W. Virginia samples are not up to par, tho. I had a friend from there and I could NOT understand him when he was speaking over a phone. He'd say "yes" like: yay-ess, yay pronounced like Y in front of the word "eye".
Hey guys,
Jersey girl here. Born in Philly, raised in South Jersey. I've only become aware of my accent in the past few years when it started as a discussion with a friend of mine from Fresno, California. When listening to me speak, she would point out that the most distinguishable things I said were: Dog, Coffee, Yeah (pronounced with a hard 'ea' dipthong as opposed to a Californian's 'yaah'), Water, Cherry (most of the people around here say 'churry' and 'strawburry'). The main problem is: you're going to have a ton of battles between people all over this tiny little state about how things are said. I say 'route' like 'out'; other people locally in the area may say it to rhyme with 'root'. Our New Jersey dialect is pretty much a bunch of dialects mixed together. I'm in Vineland, NJ; in this area there are a lot of Latinos and blacks. Surely you're going to hear a heavy spanish/jersey accent. If you travel over to the next town, which is Malaga/Franklinville, you'll meet a lot of "rednecks" who may or may not have a southern accent, but they most likely drive a pickup and have a car without tires in their back and/or front yard. I did sit one night with some friends to discuss exactly what about our dialect made us unique and sometimes a bit difficult to understand. Even my friend from Cali noted that at times I'd say a sentence so fast that she didnt hear what I actually said. It then dawned on me that a lot of us tend to cut syllables out of words and then smush those words into the following words of the sentence. I'll try my best to do a couple examples: "I-un-rully-no"= I dont really know. When speaking quickly like most of us do, it almost sounds like the 'd' is not pronounced, and I noticed that my tounge barely touches the roof of my mouth when saying that sentence. Next example: Wouldin-you-jussrather go for a cupacoffee"= Wouldn't you just rather go for a cup of coffee? There's so many others that I could sit and write a long list of words that we 'butcher'. It's just our accent, and maybe it's because we're always in such a rush that we don't have time for all those syllables, and T's and D's, etc. Don't call us blue collar, working class or trashy for that. I work in a business that has me on the phone all day speaking with people nationwide; while at work, I annunciate my words and speak as clearly as I can, so as to eliminate any syllable slashing, word slurring language I may have at home with my friends and family. Everyone has an accent. Embrace it, it's YOUR culture and background. It just so happens that New Jersey has so many dialects that it would be too difficult to try to explain EXACTLY what it sounds like. Talk to 20 different people from all over Jersey and they will each sound a little bit different. |