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New Orleans English is a variety of American English spoken in the city of New Orleans and its metropolitan area. Native English speakers of the region actually speak a number of varieties, including: the variety most recently brought in and spreading since the 20th century among white communities of the South in general (Southern U.S. English); the variety primarily spoken by black residents (African American Vernacular English); the variety spoken by Cajuns in southern Louisiana (Cajun English); the variety traditionally spoken by affluent white residents of the city's Uptown and Garden District; and the variety traditionally spoken by lower middle- and working-class white residents of Eastern New Orleans, particularly the Ninth Ward (sometimes known, since at least the 1980s, as Yat). However, only the last two varieties are unique to New Orleans and are typically those referred to in the academic research as "New Orleans English." These two varieties specific to New Orleans likely developed around the turn of the nineteenth century and most noticeably combine speech features commonly associated with both New York City English and, to a lesser extent, Southern U.S. English.〔 The noticeably New York-like characteristics include the NYC short-''a'' split system (so that ''mad'' and ''map'', for example, do not have the same vowel), the diphthongizing of to or , non-rhoticity, ''th''-stopping (so that, for example, "those" may merge with "doze"), and the recently disappearing coil–curl merger. Noticeably Southern characteristics include the raising of and possible monophthongization of (just these features, plus non-rhoticity, often characterize the Uptown accent). Often, the term "Yat" refers particularly to the New Orleans accents that are "strongest" or most especially reminiscent of a working-class New York City accent,〔 though others use the term as a regional marker, to define the speech heard in certain parts of the city and its inner suburbs. Used in these narrower senses, Yat is simply one of many sub-dialects of New Orleans. The word comes from the common use of the local greeting, "Where y'at?" or "Where are you at (i.e. in life)?", which is a way of asking, "How are you?" ==History== Port cities like New Orleans and New York City (with regard to the surrounding boroughs) have caused the growth of similar dialects as both cities attracted many European immigrants during the 19th century. The result has yielded similar dialects which combine sounds from Irish, German, Italian, and many other immigrants' speech which have blended with the local dialect to create a new variant. Allan A. Metcalf discusses the socioeconomic associations linked with speakers of Yat. He notes that Yats mostly live near the Irish Channel in blue-collar neighborhoods. The dialect's connotation with the working class, white population encodes the speaker’s identities. Metcalf describes the historical linguistic setting of Louisiana from the Choctaw to the French along with Spanish and English.〔Metcalf, Allan A., ''How We Talk: American Regional English Today'' (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000). Print.〕 The origins of the accent are described in A. J. Liebling's book ''The Earl of Louisiana'', in a passage that was used as a foreword to ''A Confederacy of Dunces'', John Kennedy Toole's well-known posthumously published novel about New Orleans:〔Toole, John Kennedy (1980). ''A Confederacy of Dunces''. Baton Rouge: LSU.〕 Today, few citizens of German or Irish background occupy the Third Ward, however, the presence of immigrant groups in the city of New Orleans has inevitably lead to the formation of the Yat dialect 〔 Historically, the city of New Orleans has been home to people of French and Spanish heritage, as well as those of African heritage, which led to the creation of the Louisiana Creole language. This city came under U.S. rule in the Louisiana Purchase, and over the course of the 19th century, the city transitioned from speaking French to becoming a non-rhotic English speaking society. Similarly, much of the south has historically spoken non-rhotic English. The city's geographic isolation has helped lead to the creation of a new local dialect. A misconception in other parts of the US is that the local dialect of New Orleans is Cajun. The city's cultural and linguistic traditions are distinct from that of the predominantly rural Acadiana, an area spanning across South Louisiana. While there has been an influx of Cajuns into the city since the oil boom of the later 20th century and while there are some similarities due to shared roots, Cajun culture has had relatively little influence upon Creole culture and thus Yat culture. The confusion of Cajun culture with the Creole culture is largely due to the confusion of these French cultures by the tourism and entertainment industries; sometimes this was done deliberately, as "Cajun" was often discovered to be a potentially lucrative marketing term. A Yat accent is considered an identity marker of white, metropolitan people who have been raised in the greater New Orleans area. Speakers with a ''New Orleans accent'' are typically proud of their accent as it organically stems from the historical mixing of language and culture. As an African-American population has occupied New Orleans prior to 1803 before the presence of many other Western European immigrants, black New Orleanians share more lingual characteristics with the white (predominantly working-class) population than in most other communities in the Southern United States. This distinctive accent has been dying generationally in the city due to white flight of the city, but remains very strong in the suburbs. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「New Orleans English」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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