Saturday, November 09, 2013
Pittsburghese: Carnegie Mellon's Barbara Johnstone uncovers the story of a dialect
www.eurekalert.org: A new book by Carnegie Mellon University's Barbara Johnstone uncovers that there is much more to "Pittsburghese" than how native western Pennsylvanians speak. "Speaking Pittsburghese: The Story of a Dialect" traces the history of Pittsburgh's language as it is imagined and used by Pittsburghers. Johnstone asks why the city's words and expressions are so strongly linked to local identity that Pittsburghese is alluded to almost every time people talk about what Pittsburgh is like or what it means to be from the area.
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5 comments:
Being from Pittsburgh, this would be an interesting book to read. I always found the "Pittsburgh dialect" strange because I don't think that I or my family uses is at all. I'm sure there are certain words or phrases, but nothing that would appear on the t-shirts and mugs. It's be interesting to see a map of where in the city the dialect is concentrated. It may be because I live on the outskirts of Pittsburgh that I do not hear this dialect very often.
As someone from a different state who thinks some of the dialect of people from Pittsburgh is somewhat ridiculous this book might give me some insight into the weird words. Particularly "yinz" this word just seems like it came out of nowhere and is just something that Pittsburghers made up. This is definitely a book that I want to take a peek at.
Hailing from Wisconsin, the adjustment from my home town to Pittsburgh wasn’t really much of an adjustment for me. Both are areas of tremendous sports enthusiasm, have cold winters (if anything, Pittsburgh weather is more gentle). One aspect that is not the same is the level of city pride. As someone from the Midwest, I have felt a sense of Midwestern pride, but that goes for broader than an individual city. I’ve found that the pittsburgese dialect extends beyond catch phrases such as “yinzer” and “nat” to the actual phraseology. Where the stresses are placed or not placed, and all of the varied inflections. I can hear it most vividly after my father (a Pittsburgh native) returns home from visiting his parents. I would be very intrigued to read this book.
The first thing my dad told me when I said that I wanted to go to CMU was, "If you come home with a Pittsburgh accent, I'm disowning you." Because of who I am, I immediately wanted to learn everything I could about the pittsburgh accent just to annoy him. I could never really find much more than "yinz" and "ice box," and after living here for a while, I still don't know much about the dialect. I can recognize it now, mostly in the ways that Alex described, But I still can't repeat it. This book sounds very interesting and I'd love to read what is has to say about the dialect.
I think this book would be really interesting because I am from Brooklyn and there is definitely a dialect that is associated with my city as well. I believe that in both cases, its not as prominent as it used to be and yet people still count theses dialects as defining factors of these cities. I think it would be really interesting to read about where this dialect originated from and how Ms. Johnstone thinks it relates to Pittsburgh presently.
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