Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren bolk Bomb here with a classic episode from our
Speaker 1: erstwhile host, Christian Sagar. The team around the currently at
Speaker 1: home office is continually fascinated by accents and how they work.
Speaker 1: I'm partially because we say things into microphones for a living,
Speaker 1: but the way that accents develop over time is so
Speaker 1: weird and cool. In this episode, Christian takes a look
Speaker 1: at how two distinct American accents came to be. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, is Christian Saga here? Warm up your vocal cords,
Speaker 1: because today we're diving into the history of Boston and
Speaker 1: New York accents. Now. I'm from the Boston area. Originally
Speaker 1: in Tourists love to ask if they can park the
Speaker 1: car in Harvard Yard, or rather pack the car and
Speaker 1: have it yead. This question illustrates the stereotypical Boston accent,
Speaker 1: whose origins date back to the seventeen century. Beantown's famous
Speaker 1: Die elect is a melting pot bearing the influence of Quakers, Puritans,
Speaker 1: and Algonquin Indians alike. But by far the Boston accents
Speaker 1: best known quirk is a tendency to drop the R sound.
Speaker 1: This is exchanged for an ah, turning beer into via.
Speaker 1: Until recently, historians attributed the custom to good old Anglophilia. Supposedly,
Speaker 1: Massachusetts colonists were trying to emulate the high brown norms
Speaker 1: of England's elite, who always made a point to ditch
Speaker 1: their rs. However, this explanation might have it backward. The
Speaker 1: dropped our habit first showed up in southeastern England, where
Speaker 1: it wasn't originally seen as prestigious in Linguist Richard Bailey
Speaker 1: used phonetically written records to show that the trend later
Speaker 1: became popular in pre revolutionary Boston. And yet, according to
Speaker 1: his research, Britain's well off wouldn't embrace the practice until
Speaker 1: the mid eight hundreds. So in other words, it's possible
Speaker 1: that English socialites were copying Boston and not vice versa.
Speaker 1: Oh and for what it's worth, Harvard Yard has very
Speaker 1: strict parking policies, so you might want to leave your
Speaker 1: vehicle elsewhere. I'm just just telling you that, as was
Speaker 1: the case in Boston. Though, the first English speakers to
Speaker 1: arrive in the New York region came from the south
Speaker 1: of England. At some point in the eighteenth century, New
Speaker 1: Yorkers started dropping there, ares even the ones originally from
Speaker 1: the north of England picked up the habit. This explains
Speaker 1: why Hyde Parks owned Franklin Delano. Roosevelt said fia instead
Speaker 1: of fear during the biggest address of his life. The
Speaker 1: missing our phenomena began to die down after World War Two,
Speaker 1: but other norms still persist. Say Long Guyland instead of
Speaker 1: Long Island and you'll be pegged for an area native.
Speaker 1: Some believe this little centric city could be the product
Speaker 1: of Yiddish or Italian influence. However, other linguists aren't convinced.
Speaker 1: Most experts agree that the New York accents basic characteristics
Speaker 1: are British in origin. What's debatable is the exact degree
Speaker 1: to which any non English language affected any specific word
Speaker 1: pronunciations or sentence structures. As such, we may never know
Speaker 1: where coffee or toy Todd Street came from. Today's episode
Speaker 1: was written by Mark Mancini and produced by Tristan McNeil
Speaker 1: and Tyler Klang. For more on this and lots of
Speaker 1: other distinct topics, is it how stuffworks dot com. Brain
Speaker 1: Stuff is production of iHeart Radio or more podcasts my
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Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.