I've lived in New Jersey for more than 40 years, but I'll never be a real New Jersey girl. I grew up in Pennsylvania where there was lots of snow, one traffic light in town, and 90 kids in my grade--from kindergarten through graduation. I didn't know anything about The Shore, or baked ziti, or Chanukah until I came to Jersey. But, I've come to love all of that and much more--especially the history. I now know about the Jersey Dutch, strawberry baskets, railroad suburbs, the bridge that saved a nation, and so much more. I've learned that to tell the local stories about regular people I need to read wills, estate files, census records, pension applications, letters, tombstones, newspapers, and anything else I can find. So, that's some of what I want to share with you!

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Do you pronouce the "l" in "yolk"?

Language has always fascinated me.  Perhaps because my parents were from Ohio (two different parts) and I grew up in northwestern Pennsylvania and I've lived most of my adult life in New Jersey.  In Pennsylvania growing up and in New Jersey early on (and sometimes even now), people think I talk funny or ask "where are you from?"



So here's a website you can get lost in: North American English Dialects, Based on Pronunciation Patterns.  This guy's hobby is dialects.  He has read a lot of academic literature, listened to a lot of online videos or audio clips, and done some surveys.  The result is a very detailed map of native speech patterns in North America and links to people speaking them.  Of interest to genealogists is that the dialects, to some extent, follow migration patterns.

My mother's southern Ohio speech (before being Pennsylvania-ized) pronounced "creek" like "crick" and I still don't know if I pronounce "roof" like "rooof" or "ruf".  If you catch me saying it let me know.

I can't wait to dip more into this one.  I looked at "-alm" words and find that I pronounce the "l" in the first column of words, but not the next 3, except "balk."  What about you?
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