BrainStuff Classics: How Did Boston and New York's Accents Develop?

These two American English accents were influenced by British English accents -- but were British accents influenced by them? And what does Boston have against the letter 'R'? Learn more about these accents in this classic episode of BrainStuff.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,
Lauren bolk Bomb here with a classic episode from our
erstwhile host, Christian Sagar. The team around the currently at
home office is continually fascinated by accents and how they work.
I'm partially because we say things into microphones for a living,
but the way that accents develop over time is so

(00:24):
weird and cool. In this episode, Christian takes a look
at how two distinct American accents came to be. Hey
brain Stuff, is Christian Saga here? Warm up your vocal cords,
because today we're diving into the history of Boston and
New York accents. Now. I'm from the Boston area. Originally
in Tourists love to ask if they can park the

(00:46):
car in Harvard Yard, or rather pack the car and
have it yead. This question illustrates the stereotypical Boston accent,
whose origins date back to the seventeen century. Beantown's famous
Die elect is a melting pot bearing the influence of Quakers, Puritans,
and Algonquin Indians alike. But by far the Boston accents

(01:09):
best known quirk is a tendency to drop the R sound.
This is exchanged for an ah, turning beer into via.
Until recently, historians attributed the custom to good old Anglophilia. Supposedly,
Massachusetts colonists were trying to emulate the high brown norms
of England's elite, who always made a point to ditch

(01:31):
their rs. However, this explanation might have it backward. The
dropped our habit first showed up in southeastern England, where
it wasn't originally seen as prestigious in Linguist Richard Bailey
used phonetically written records to show that the trend later
became popular in pre revolutionary Boston. And yet, according to

(01:55):
his research, Britain's well off wouldn't embrace the practice until
the mid eight hundreds. So in other words, it's possible
that English socialites were copying Boston and not vice versa.
Oh and for what it's worth, Harvard Yard has very
strict parking policies, so you might want to leave your

(02:16):
vehicle elsewhere. I'm just just telling you that, as was
the case in Boston. Though, the first English speakers to
arrive in the New York region came from the south
of England. At some point in the eighteenth century, New
Yorkers started dropping there, ares even the ones originally from
the north of England picked up the habit. This explains
why Hyde Parks owned Franklin Delano. Roosevelt said fia instead

(02:40):
of fear during the biggest address of his life. The
missing our phenomena began to die down after World War Two,
but other norms still persist. Say Long Guyland instead of
Long Island and you'll be pegged for an area native.
Some believe this little centric city could be the product

(03:01):
of Yiddish or Italian influence. However, other linguists aren't convinced.
Most experts agree that the New York accents basic characteristics
are British in origin. What's debatable is the exact degree
to which any non English language affected any specific word
pronunciations or sentence structures. As such, we may never know

(03:25):
where coffee or toy Todd Street came from. Today's episode
was written by Mark Mancini and produced by Tristan McNeil
and Tyler Klang. For more on this and lots of
other distinct topics, is it how stuffworks dot com. Brain
Stuff is production of iHeart Radio or more podcasts my

(03:45):
Heart Radio. Visit the iHeart radio, app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.