Accent of Detroit, both white and black

[gazhekwe]

As for Palin's accent, the Matanuska valley was settled largely by people from Minnesota, so that is why the accent traveled so far. Wasilla sits square in the Matanuska Valley, the main farming region of Alaska.

[rid0617]

Please tell me they don't say ya'll up there. I'm hoping to leave it behind.

[humanmachinery]

A lot of white people from different regions of metro Detroit have different accents as well.

Listen to someone from Oakland County, and then talk to someone from downriver. You'll often notice a serious difference in speech patterns and pronunciation.

Of course, there's also the effect that David Cross described in one of his stand-up routines, whereby you can hear one accent in every state in the union, but only from a certain class of white people.

[[AKA "the generalized redneck accent")

[szla]

I lived in a large Polish neighborhood along Michigan Avenue in SW Detroit in my childhood. We moved while I was still small. My cousins and it seemed like all their friends have this accent or speech pattern that you immediately identify as Polish. They are third and sometimes fourth generation generally dont speak Polish or only know swear words and salutations but have a fairly pronounced accent.

[rjlj]

I once read in a Detroit newspaper article, a person in the article describe the suspected criminal as having a "Macomb County Accent."

[Alfie1a]

Some people say I have an unusual accent. It's a combination of U.P. finn and detroit ghetto. The more beer consumed, the more pronounced it becomes.

[Jimaz]

It's difficult to properly discuss this interesting topic in a text forum. Here are some Michigan accent videos which better illustrate the phenomenon.

[dtowncitylover]

It's difficult to properly discuss this interesting topic in a text forum. Here are some Michigan accent videos which better illustrate the phenomenon.

I've seen most of those The one of the kid in the letter jacket is way overexaggerating the accent. The overly supportive mother one is funny. I don't know what a French-Michigan accent is. Anyone?

Also is the way Americans, I think, like the respond "yup", "yeah", or "uh-huh" when someone says "thank you", as my Canuck cousins pointed out.

[vetalalumni]

Some people say I have an unusual accent. It's a combination of U.P. finn and detroit ghetto. The more beer consumed, the more pronounced it becomes.

Alfie1a, you make me laugh. Thanks.

[PCE]

Being from a family all about their roots, some things in my family have never left. I still call a couch a davenport from time to time and the Tigers are the Taggers, for some strange reason, my grandma says it's the Penn Dutch INFLUENCE, not relation, on our family [[as we are originally from Lancaster, PA).

I believe the NY Times had an article last fall about Palin's accent and how it was confined to her Wassilla, Alaska town.

Also, Yoopers, at least the ones I've met, will be quick to deny they talk like Canadians. I've never thought that, though.

Great thread dtowncitylover. I remember when I was a child hearing the term "couch" for the first time. It took me a while to understand that couch meant davenport.

[xunclexx]

Living in different parts of the US has giving rise to deciphering the different ways individual speaks. Yes, you are right EastsideAL about speech patterns can be traced back to Mississippi and Alabama for Chicago and Detroit Afro-Americans Respectively. But What about the whites from down south?
I lived in South Florida [[Miami) for the first 13 years of my life. Miami was a "melting pot" for both white and afro-american dialects not to memtion the Jewish influence. The majority of the afro-americans were from the deep south [[Georgia, Alabama, both Carolinas, and Louisiana) while the whites were from the North Atlantic states [[New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and Rhode Island). Put them together and you get a "lack luster" dialect of an english brogue. In other words, not too southern and not too northern. When my family moved to Detroit in 1960, most Detroiters would ask me," where are you from?" When I responded, "Miami, Florida", I basically got the same responce, "I would think your diction would be a lot more southern." Now I live in a suburb just west of Chicago O'Hare airport and I can "hear" the difference in the way the whites and the afro-americans speak here. The bottom line is YOU ARE THE PRODUCT OF YOUR ENVIRONMENT.

[knwb]

I can also think of at least two distinct "black accents" in the Detroit area. One is a southern/northern hybrid, sort of like the white hybrid accent, but a lot more southern influenced [[this is actually a pretty common accent for older black northerners period, as I sometimes hear similar accents spoken among the other black American residents in NYC and DC). The other black Detroit accent is more nasal and sort of fast, with an emphasis on the Rs. I hear a similar accent from black Chicagoans.[/QUOTE]

I can think of two as well, specifically involving the word "Detroit" - I've heard it as pronounced "DE-troit", and also "de-TRO-it". Not sure if that's a Northern/Southern thing or what.

"Doorwall" is really a Michigan thing? I never knew that, but I guess, thinking about it now, I've not heard it since I moved away from home. I said "soda" even when I lived there, and I trained myself to use the long I [["fire" and "tire" instead of "fuh-yer" and "tuy-yer") years ago, but living in Boston now, people tell me they can definitely tell I'm not from there.

My mother grew up in Pittsburgh, and I definitely saw an accent distinction there that I've never heard anywhere else. Beyond the "funny words" [["gumband" for rubberband, "jumbo" for balogna, "yinz", etc), a lot of the pronounciations are just... different. Or garbled. A letter L in the middle of a word is usually dropped entirely [[the cablecar that goes up the side of a mountain, written out, is "The Incline". In the Pittsburgh accent, it's "D'Inkhhhahng". My mother's name was Eileen. In the accent... there aren't letters capable of spelling it out). I usually describe it to people as a "West Virginia accent with mouthfull of food".

[EastsideAl]

I can think of two as well, specifically involving the word "Detroit" - I've heard it as pronounced "DE-troit", and also "de-TRO-it". Not sure if that's a Northern/Southern thing or what.

That second pronunciation, sometimes even closer to "De-TROY-it", reminds me of how Famous Coachman used to say it on the radio [["Hello De-TROY-it and neighborin' cities"). Also several elderly people in my neighborhood who had grown up down south and come here as adults or near-adults.

[Ray1936]

Always struck me funny that my mother, who was born in Germany and emigrated to the US with her parents in 1923, always said she could never understand Hitler's speeches because of his Austrian accent. Something about "high German" v. "low German" that I never deciphered.

Machs nicht.

[Scottathew]

I've always wondered why white girls whom dad black girls talk like an [[sometime articulate or ghetto) black woman. I don't understand how the person you date can have an effect on your speech.

I assume you mean white girls that date black men?

I've noticed the same thing where I work. There's a woman who is white that when she would interact with me [[I'm white) would speak what I consider, "normally". However, when she would hang out with her black friends in the break room, she would speak exactly as they do, sometimes beyond my ability to understand.

It was literally like a light switch, and she could fully switch between the two accents\dialects. It was quite impressive. Her husband happens to be black, as are most of her work friends.


Here's a perhaps sensitive topic: Are black people discriminated against for "speaking ghetto"? If so, is that a legal form of discrimination? If it is legal, is it moral?

I can tell you that the answer to the first question is most certainly yes.

[Hypestyles]

I've always wondered why white girls whom dad black girls talk like an [[sometime articulate or ghetto) black woman. I don't understand how the person you date can have an effect on your speech.

...... eh?

[Hypestyles]

I assume you mean white girls that date black men?

I've noticed the same thing where I work. There's a woman who is white that when she would interact with me [[I'm white) would speak what I consider, "normally". However, when she would hang out with her black friends in the break room, she would speak exactly as they do, sometimes beyond my ability to understand.

It was literally like a light switch, and she could fully switch between the two accents\dialects. It was quite impressive. Her husband happens to be black, as are most of her work friends.


Here's a perhaps sensitive topic: Are black people discriminated against for "speaking ghetto"? If so, is that a legal form of discrimination? If it is legal, is it moral?

I can tell you that the answer to the first question is most certainly yes.

Google 'code-switching'... fascinating research..

[Scottathew]

Google 'code-switching'... fascinating research..

Fascinating, thanks for putting the technical term to it!

I found many examples, including some of our president code-switching not only verbal language, but body language as well.


While searching on the topic I found this video. It's a long-watch, but worthwhile if you're seeking more on the topic of code-switching.

[knwb]

Always struck me funny that my mother, who was born in Germany and emigrated to the US with her parents in 1923, always said she could never understand Hitler's speeches because of his Austrian accent. Something about "high German" v. "low German" that I never deciphered.

Machs nicht.

Oh, absolutely! It's not just German - think about the Boomhauer [[sp?) character on "King of the Hill" - his accent is comically thick to the point of being unintelligible. And yet a friend of mine from Mobile, AL never got the humor of his character because she could understand every word.

In England, there's the very formal, proper "King's English", and contrast that with the Cockney accent - high vs low. Even in Boston, which everyone tends to think of as having one uniform accent [["wicked pissah"), there are high and low - the high, which originated with the Brahmin and now can really only be heard in the Southern part of the state, was closer to King's English than anything else, and the low being the Southie/South Shore "Boston Accent" accent.

[canuck]

So much to say on this subject, I don't know where to begin. In Montreal, a big proportion of the population switches from French to English and Creole or Italian or Arabic in the same sentence. I hear it on the sidewalks downtown all the time, mostly young people who are basically versed in English and French at school and are brought up speaking their mother tongue at home. It's a strange mix of emotion and reason because the tone sometimes changes in mid sentence depending on the language used .

[dtowncitylover]

Ohhhh a thread of mine from over 5 years ago! This brings me back... I was one of the first millennial Metro Detroiters to jump ship to Chicago and absolutely hated it. Don't regret coming back at all. Anyway, I have found it fascinating that blacks [[and actually most second and above generation immigrants) in Britain have assimilated to the regional accent where they reside than black Americans, who have formed their own dialect. Though there are exceptions like James Earl Jones and Roscoe Lee Brown.

[G-DDT]

Well, there is German, Polish, and northern influences up here [[not surprising that Yoopers sound like Minnesoatans since they all convene in similar areas with Wisconsin to go ice fishing-the library in Rochester, MN. had not one shelf but a whole bookcase and a half dedicate to ice fishing, and the many other cases dedicated to flycasting, midges, etc.). Yet, we have a lot of Southern influence, as well. I didn't realize for the longest time that when a lot of the kids in my neighborhood would say "I'm 'fina do' 'dat" that that was a corruption of the Southern term "I'm fixin' to do that".

I always felt if Michigan had a distinct sound [[and yes, I've picked up on different distinctions with sounds and speech patterns from regions like Rhode Island, New York, Boston, North Carolina, South African, Chicago, Wisconsin, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Minnesota) it's sort of a snide nasal sound. Maybe it's from the sinus-assaulting "lake-effect" we get here [[always wanted to know if the demographic for sinus medicine sales would show Michiganders buy more of it than other areas). Anyway, I always thought of it like how Michael Moore or David Spade sound.

Jargon-wise: we are more inclined to say "Helly" [[vs. "wicked"-a common New England term-like "not from nothing" or "fergetaboutit" or calling pasta sauce "gravy") or "pop". I always get a big kick out of throwing out "party store" and seeing the puzzled looks I get [["You mean to a store that sells funny hats and noise makers?"). We are more inclined to sarcasm here, but I'm glad it isn't completely aimless. Boston ruined words like "Buddy", "Pal", and "Brudda'"-I just don't trust hearing it anymore the way they used it there.

[Chloe]

I moved to Washington DC in early 2003. Within the first week the refrigerator died and we needed to get it repaired. Since we were in a new development, the street was not on mapquest. The repair guy called, and asked for detailed directions. When he got there, and I answered the door, the first thing he said was "are you from Detroit?" He told me he lived in the city for about a year and left 20 years ago. He then said "you people all sound the same!"

[G-DDT]

I moved to Washington DC in early 2003. Within the first week the refrigerator died and we needed to get it repaired. Since we were in a new development, the street was not on mapquest. The repair guy called, and asked for detailed directions. When he got there, and I answered the door, the first thing he said was "are you from Detroit?" He told me he lived in the city for about a year and left 20 years ago. He then said "you people all sound the same!"

T told ya'. like we got Mike n' Ikes shoved up our nasal passages.

[gazhekwe]

In Pittsburgh, I kept ordering coffee and getting Coke. My husband's grandparents lived on the Sasside [[South Side). In DC, coworkers and I were told we were almost unintelligible from our accents, while we had no trouble understanding the folks we were meeting with. I have a mixed Detroit-Yooper-Ojibwa-Canadian accent overlain with ebonics [[my co-workers, too, with the ebonics). Grew up in Detroit and the UP, across the river from Canada both places.