Many proud Southwestern Pennsylvanians carry the label of \u201cYinzer,\u201d wearing their flattened \u201cou\u201d sounds and their use of words like \u201csweeper\u201d and \u201cjagger\u00adbush\u201d like a badge of honor. But is the region\u2019s singular accent and dialect disappearing?<\/p>\n
From hot dog stands and coffee shops to festivals and merchandise lines, terms including \u201cyinz\u201d and \u201cdahntahn\u201d have been codified and commodified for younger generations of Pittsburghers. However, those same younger people are often not carrying the same linguistic markers as their locally born parents and grandparens within their everyday speech.<\/p>\n
While the words and sounds that make a Pittsburgher\u2019s voice instantly recognizable have been evolving since Scots-Irish settlers staked their claim in the region before the Revolutionary War, linguists can point to a few reasons as to why this and many regional dialects are \u201cflattening out.\u201d<\/p>\n
So should we worry about preserving Pittsburghese? Well, it\u2019s complicated.<\/p>\n
Talking history<\/p>\n
When it comes to the unusual words and syntax we use, much of that is owed to the Scots-Irish settlers who crossed the Appalachian Mountains and settled in Western Pennsylvania in the 18th century, back when the area was considered the western frontier.<\/p>\n
Dr. Scott Kiesling, professor of linguistics at the University of Pittsburgh, said those who came during the industrial boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries had some impact on our accent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had huge amounts of migration from non-English-speaking places coming in and mixing up in different places,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Because of Pittsburgh\u2019s geographic position, the accent has remained surprisingly insular and similar for a long period of time.<\/p>\n
But those early Scots-Irish influences have remained strong, as the already-assimilated group is seen as carrying the most \u201cprestige\u201d to new immigrant groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe prestige tilts the scale,\u201d said Dr. Betsy Sneller, associate professor of linguistics at Michigan State University. \u201cIf your kids are going to school and it\u2019s 30% outsiders, those 30% outsiders are going to acquire the local dialect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sneller said that much of the evolution in regional dialects comes from out-groups being deferential to in-groups.<\/p>\n
Our dialect \u2014 or the unique words that we use \u2014 mostly comes from those early settler influences, including the way that we drop \u201cto be\u201d out of certain contexts, saying \u201cthe car needs washed\u201d instead of \u201cthe car needs to be washed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pittsburgh accent is characterized by several markers, including monophthongization.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a fancy way of saying that we take a vowel that has two parts, like \u2018ow,\u2019 and we make it have just one part, like \u2018ah,\u2019\u00a0\u201d said Dr. Dan Villarreal, assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Pittsburgh. \u201cThere\u2019s also things like the classic \u2018eel\u2019 forming into \u2018ill,\u2019 like \u2018Stillers.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Villarreal also talked about what linguists call \u201cO-fronting,\u201d where locals say the vowel sound in words like \u201cgo\u201d and \u201choagie\u201d in the front of their mouth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s something that\u2019s present in a number of places, not just Pittsburgh. You see that in Baltimore, you see that in Philly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Causes of change<\/p>\n
Linguists want to assure us that accents don\u2019t disappear; they\u2019re simply in a constant process of evolution.<\/p>\n
If we are to look at the traditional Pittsburgh accent as fading, there are a few possible reasons. The first is technology\u2019s influence, especially with social media video platforms such as TikTok hogging young people\u2019s time.<\/p>\n
\u201cSocial media is very different because you don\u2019t only receive, you put out,\u201d Kiesling said. \u201cIt\u2019s that interaction that has an effect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh isn\u2019t alone in being affected by this regional dialect flattening. Kiesling said there is lots of data on how a dialect reversal is underway in northern Michigan and upstate New York.<\/p>\n
Another factor is our industrial history. After the sputtering of Pittsburgh\u2019s longtime industrial boom, our population massively declined starting in the 1970s, and those carrying the Yinzer accent spread throughout the world. <\/p>\n
Then, as the city became known for higher education, healthcare and technology, younger white-collar transplants began to flood the city in recent years.<\/p>\n
While you may hear fewer of the accent and dialect markers among those younger professionals in the city, experts say younger people working in the trades and in smaller suburban communities may keep the accent more; socioeconomics play a large part in regional dialects.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe working class are the people who have the most local dialect that would be different from the ones next to them,\u201d said Dr. Dennis R. Preston, professor of linguistics at the University of Kentucky. He added that as people gain more monetary wealth, their speech tends to blend more together with that of other wealthier people across the country.<\/p>\n
Profession and education also play into the way we speak.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of folks who go into the trades didn\u2019t go to college, and college is another place where you get a lot of dialect mixing,\u201d Sneller said.<\/p>\n
She also pointed to the accent as a way to signal your belonging to a certain group; if people with strong accents go to a place where that accent is noticeable, they\u2019re more likely to change it. Or, having a strong accent can signal to neighbors or those with which you share something in common that you do belong.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a really powerful way to both intentionally signal and unintentionally signal your group belonging,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
But if nothing else, the tradition of our accent is kept alive by our unique pride in it. The linguistics experts said few places in the country are as enthusiastic about their words and syntax, a trend that started in the 1980s and became even more pronounced over the past few years.<\/p>\n
Kiesling, who is a native of Indiana who has lived in the city for more than two decades, said he\u2019s fascinated by how \u201cyinz\u201d has become a kind of shorthand for the Pittsburgher identity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just this little word that you can add to anything and make it mean Pittsburgh,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many proud Southwestern Pennsylvanians carry the label of \u201cYinzer,\u201d wearing their flattened \u201cou\u201d sounds and their use of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-274690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}