Pronunciation Vowels The vowels in Philadelphia speech have shown volatility across the last century, as Labov's research has identified changes affecting over half of the vowel phonemes. • vowel: A feature unique to Middle Atlantic speakers (including Philadelphians and New Yorkers) and southern
New Englanders is the raising and diphthongization of , as in , to or even higher . The raised variants often appear as diphthongs with a centering glide. As a result, Philadelphia is resistant to the
cot–caught merger. Labov's research suggests that this pattern of raising is essentially complete in Philadelphia and seems no longer to be an active change. •
– split: Similarly, the single word "on" has the vowel of "dawn" and not the same vowel as "don." Labov et al. regard this phenomenon as occurring not only in the Mid-Atlantic region but also in all regions south of a geographic boundary that they identify as the "ON line," which is significant because it distinguishes most varieties of
Northern American English (in which
on and
Don are rhymes) from most varieties of
Midland and
Southern American English (in which
on and
dawn are rhymes). • Southeastern vowel fronting: One of the features that Philadelphia shares with dialects of the whole Southeastern United States (but absent from most New York accents) is the fronting of a variety of vowels. This includes and ; the resulting allophones are around and , respectively. Generally, greater degrees of fronting are heard when the vowels appear in "free" positions (i.e., without a following consonant) than in "checked" positions (i.e., with a following consonant). Fronting does not occur in the context of following
liquids leading to a significant difference between, e.g.,
goat and
goal. The fronting of and is well established in Philadelphia, though cross-generational data show that it remains an active change. Fronted nuclei in are well established in Philadelphia speech as in New York. More recent research has noted a tendency among the middle-aged and younger generation of Philadelphians to raise the vowel, resulting in . , the vowel in
foot, is sometimes fronted though not to the degree seen with and . •
Short-a split: As in
New York and
Baltimore accents, historical "short
a" has split into two phonemes: lax (as in
bat) and tense (as in
bath). Their distribution in Philadelphia along with Baltimore, however, is different from that of New York City. Generally, in the Philadelphia–Baltimore system, the vowel is
tensed (towards ) before the consonants , , , , and in a
closed syllable (so, for example,
bats and
baths do not have the same vowel sound, being pronounced and , respectively), and in any words directly inflectionally derived from root words with this split. Therefore,
pass and
passing use the tense , but
passage and
passive use the lax . The lax and the tense reflexes of are separate phonemes in these dialects, though largely predictable using the aforementioned rules. There are exceptions, however; the three words
bad,
mad, and
glad become tense, and irregular verbs ending in "-an" or "-am" remain lax. [æ] can also be found in closed syllables in words where a vowel was recently elided closing the syllable such as
camera, family, and
catholic. The words
mad (tense) and
sad (lax) do not rhyme in Philadelphia or Baltimore, but do for New York City and all other English dialects. (In the
Trenton area, an intermediate system is used, falling between the typical Mid-Atlantic and the New York City system.) Not all Philadelphians today have this feature and some are beginning to favor the more
General American tensing of short a only before
nasals (especially under the influence of youth trends and higher education); in fact, as a general rule, native Philadelphians consistently have that split system only if their own parents are native Philadelphians. •
Mary–marry–merry three-way distinction: As in New York accents and most native English accents outside North America, there is a three-way distinction between
Mary ~, marry , and merry ~. However, in Philadelphia some older speakers have a merger (or close approximation) of and before (the
furry–ferry merger), so that
merry is merged instead with
Murray (with both pronounced something like ). Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006: 54) report that about one third of Philadelphia speakers have this merger, one third have a near-merger, and one third keep the two distinct. Relatedly, as in New York, many words like
orange,
Florida, and
horrible have before rather than the used in many other American dialects . •
Canadian raising occurs for (as in
price) but not for (as in
mouth). Consequently, the diphthong in
like may begin with a nucleus of mid or even higher position , which distinguishes it from the diphthong in
line . Canadian raising in Philadelphia occurs before
voiceless consonants, and it is extended to occur before some
voiced consonants as well, including intervocalic voiced stops as in
tiger and
spider. argues that has actually undergone a
phonemic split in Philadelphia as a result of Canadian raising. The raising of is unusual as the innovators of this change are primarily male speakers while the other changes in progress are led primarily by females. The sociolinguistic evidence suggests this raising is a fairly recent addition to Philadelphia speech. • , , and vowels: Traditional Philadelphia speech shows lowered and/or laxed variants of were common: . The recent sociolinguistic evidence indicates a reversal of this trend such that the vowel is now commonly raised and fronted. This raising is heard primarily before consonants (e.g.,
eat). The Linguistic Atlas researchers recorded lax variants of near . As with , recent research suggests this trend is being reversed by raising and fronting of the vowel often to a position well beyond . This raising occurs before consonants (e.g.,
paid); in word-final position (
pay), remains lowered and lax. Both of these can lead to nonstandard phonemic incidence (see "
Phonemic incidence" section). • Labov's research has indicated a tendency toward lowering of the lax vowels and . This pattern is not yet well established and is labeled by Labov as an "incipient" change. • Many Philadelphians use a rather high, back, and perhaps even rounded vowel for as in ; something near . The so-called
horse–hoarse merger takes place, and the merged vowel is typically mid to high back; it can be as high as . As noted in
New York, these tendencies toward backing and raising of and may constitute a
chain shift. The evidence suggests the movement of began this shift, and this vowel is relatively stable today, while generational differences are heard in the shifting of . • , as in may be more raised than in other dialects; sometimes it is as high as . • , as in , may show raised and back variants. In some cases, the vowel is in the high, back corner of the vowel space near . This is reportedly a recent development and is one more common among male speakers.
Consonants • Philadelphia forms the core of the one fully
rhotic major region of the traditional
American East Coast. This area runs from Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey down to Delaware and northern Maryland, and remains fully
r-pronouncing today. • Non-rhoticity (
R-dropping) can be found in some areas of Philadelphia, however (presumably as a recent innovation after the nineteenth century) such as among working-class male speakers specifically from
South Philadelphia, especially those born in the first half of the twentieth century and of Italian, Jewish, or Irish Catholic descent. On the other side of the socioeconomic spectrum, non-rhoticity in speakers from the
Philadelphia Main Line may be a result of wealthy families sending their children to expensive boarding schools in the United Kingdom up until the 1960s and thus acquiring a "
Transatlantic accent." Non-rhoticity is most prevalent among black Philadelphians, who largely do not demonstrate the regional speech features of Philadelphia English; • As in other areas, the interdental fricatives and are often realized as stops, and or affricates and in Philadelphia speech. This variation appears to be a stable class-stratified feature with the non-fricative forms appearing more commonly in working-class speech. • The
yew–hew merger can be found, as in New York City, in which words like
human and
huge, which begin with an cluster, the is commonly deleted giving and . •
Consonant cluster reductions, such as removing the "t" sound from consonant clusters, so that "mustard" sounds more like "mussard," or "soft" like "sawff." though Labov has argued that it is an exaggerated stereotype and the more common pronunciation uses a raised rather than . • Both long-
e and long-
a sounds may be shortened before .
Eagle rhymes with
giggle (as in "the
Iggles");
league rhymes with
big;
vague and
plague rhyme with
peg (pronounced and , respectively). For some Philadelphians,
colleague and
fatigue also have (pronounced and , respectively). However, these are words learned later, so many speakers use the more standard American and .
Lexicon The
interjection yo originated in the Philadelphia dialect among
Italian-American and
African-American youths. The word is commonly used as a greeting or a way to get someone's attention. Many Philadelphians are known to use the expression "youse" both as second person plural and (rarely) second person singular pronoun, much like the mostly Southern / Western expression "
y'all" or the
Pittsburgh term "
yinz." "Youse" or "youse guys" is common in many
working-class Northeastern U.S. areas though it is often associated especially with Philadelphia. However, unlike in other Northeastern U.S. areas, the Philadelphian pronunciation of "youse" more often than not reflects
vowel reduction and frequently yields and ("yiz"), rather than the stereotypical ("youse"). (ex: "Yiz want anything at the store?" "Yiz guys alright over there?"). Second person singular forms commonly are heard as and .
Anymore is used as a
positive polarity item, e.g. "Joey's hoagies taste different anymore." This sense of
anymore is not specific to the region but is well represented there. A
sandwich consisting of a long bread filled with lunch meat, cheese, and lettuce, onion and tomato, variously called a "sub" or "
submarine sandwich" in other parts of the United States, is called a
hoagie. Olive oil, rather than mayonnaise, is used as a topping, and "hot" or "sweet" peppers are used for spice. The term 'hoagie' originated in Philadelphia. A similar sandwich toasted in an oven or broiler is called a
grinder. Small chocolate or multi-colored confections sprinkled on ice cream and cake icing, elsewhere called
sprinkles, are known as
jimmies in the Philadelphia area, as well as in the Boston and Pittsburgh areas. (For Bostonians and some older Philadelphians, only
chocolate sprinkles are called
jimmies.) Another distinctively Philadelphian word is
jawn. According to Dan Nosowitz,
jawn "is an all-purpose noun, a stand-in for inanimate objects, abstract concepts, events, places, individual people, and groups of people." ==Notable native speakers==