Please don’t complain about the length of the question either. In my opinion, I think a lot of people like to give the convenient answer. They believe they’re ethnic background has to be relavent to their accent. All accents are a mix of many things. But the question is how much of each. If the main populace of these groups sound nothing alike in cities they’re similar demographically in, it has to mean the root has a larger presence. If there’s a way of logically countering that though, please explain.
When I say significant, I mean that each group makes up at least 20-25% of the white population in a particular area. What you’ll notice about all of these cities is that they’re usually two out of 3 or 4 of the largest European ethnic groups in the city. Yet many of these places don’t historically sound alike?
Look at the main European ethnic groups in these 5 cities:
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre – Polish, Irish, Italian, German
Providence, RI – Italian, Irish, Portuguese, French-Canadian
New York City, NY – Ashkenazi Jews, Italian, Irish
Pittsburgh, PA – Germans, Italian, Irish, Polish
Philadelphia, PA – Irish, Italian, German, Ashkenazi Jews
Irish (5/5) ; Italian (5/5) ; Germans (3/5) ; Portuguese: (1/5) ; Ashkenazi Jews: (2/5) ; Portuguese
Both these groups were significantly living in these cities. If the majority (or near) of white’s in all these 5 cities are of Irish and Italian descent in all these cities, why don’t most of these accents resemble each other? I will say there are similarities between New York City (and Long Island) & Providence/Boston (and all of New England). However, this sounds nothing like any Pennsylvania city. Why? They had similar immigration patterns? My theory is that the two groups who’ll have the biggest impact on an accent are the colonists and the original English-speaking settlers (not necessarily English speakers). Why is New England regarded as the most similar sounding English to that spoken in England? Because the English was the first (and only) colonists and settlers.
- New York City was originally Dutch, the same way how South Africa was (Afrikaans). The English took both places over and diffused an accent. Although the Dutch and English are two of the less common ethnic groups in the city today, they were the original constructors. Because Jews were traditionally a more educated group, they were able to be self-reliant and didn’t have to fully follow the model of others. Some Yiddish expressions mixed into the city’s culture. The English (William Penn) and Swedes were the original colonizers of Philadelphia. The Scots-Irish were also a somewhat significant early English-speaking settler group. That may explain the southern/Mid-Atlantic type of accent that the Delaware Valley has. Most of Pesnnylvania were mainly settled by the Pennsylvania Dutch (Germans). There were also some English and Scots-Irish though. This might explain why Midwesterners sound so similar to Pennsylvanians?
So if a group is not English speakers, they’d follow the model of the American’s in their city or region. If I’m wrong, why does the New Orleans area sound as southern as Mississippi and Alabama if most of their population descends from pre-1804 New France? I understand Irish Catholics were English speakers and had an impact. But many of those who came in the mid-1800’s were poorly educated. By the time Italian’s came (non-English speaking group), all modern accents had been formed (and it would only be a few decades later before the declines began).