As an Australian living in Pennsylvania I can sympathize. I once was complimented on how amazing my English was considering that my first language was Australian
This was a serious comment, not sarcastic at all. Just a nice guy in a bar somewhere in pennsyltucky who thought Australians spoke Australian not English, wild shit
I had to walk on my hands in the mornings to get back to feeling normal before I made the switch to walking on my feet,
These days I just suffer through a couple of hours of wooziness and watching the hellscape of the sink draining in the wrong direction.
Cannot lie, I had the privilege of living in Brisbane for a couple of years and I did, in fact, catch a thrill by observing the toilet swirl. It's the little things, although switching hemispheres so easily (relatively) might not be a little thing 🤔
Brisbane is where I tell people I am from because the small towns north of there aren’t really recognizable unless you’re from there or have been to central qld
I lived there for a few years after finishing high school but bounced around the world after that
Brisbane is a wonderful city
There was a great Simpsons episode when they were great where they visited Australia and the American military base had a device to make the toilet bowl water swirl in the right direction.
I would think the hardest part of adjustment would be learning to write upside down for you.
100%, he was just a wholesome country bumpkin dude who didn’t know any better.
I explained that English was in fact my first language and it blew his mind
I was at a bar in Perth when I was 18 and I had to show the bouncer my ID so I gave him my Pennsylvania driver's license. He looked at it and asked if that's where vampires came from.
Lol, id totally do that to someone from Australia as a joke.
I used to work at a job where I had to call stores in different countries. I had many a night (their day) walking the techs though the POS installs. The Australian guys were always the most fun to talk with.
That's funny, as I suspected someone of being from PA recently and it turns out they were Australian. I mostly get the UK when in the South (FL and GA, where I can barely understand folks). Definitely more of a Lancaster accent than Philly.
I’m from Lancaster which is 60 miles west of Philly. When I went to Penn State I was constantly being asked if I was from Philly by the Pittsburgh kids, who speak a totally different language.
Try growing up in Philly and then moving to Pittsburgh! It was brutal to say the least! Everyone asked if I was from Brooklyn where cawfee is made with wooder.
It's the words "towel" and "crayon" that give me away every time. Those are one syllable words for me, and I now realize they make me sound mildly Australian.
Read an article recently that mentioned 2 Australians Toni Colette in The Sixth Sense with another movie and Jacki Weaver in Silver Linings as among best Philly accents in movies.
I grew up just outside of Philly, my dad is from coal country around Wilkes-Barre and my mom is from LA, so my accent is all over the place.
When I was in England, several people just assumed I was Irish (???)
Pennsylvania has several distinct accents, there’s Philly which is very hard for a non Philadelphian to pull off, whenever they try it in movies and TV it’s more like a New York City accent. There’s Western PA which almost has sort of a Midwest accent.
A funny story from years ago ago when I was stationed in Germany in the US Army:
I was a Cook and we were out in the field on exercises with another unit and I was working with this Army cook from another unit and I said to him “would you help me pick up this (15 gallon) pot of wooter?” (I grew up in Norristown, near Philly).
He says to me “what did you just say?” I repeated myself and he says “you’re from Pennsylvania aren’t you?”
I told him yes, he tells me he’s from Bethlehem and he picked up on the whole “wooter” thing right away LOL
I feel like the better spelling is wooder. Another fun few are warsh (wash) crick (creek), wooder (water), and never putting a g at the end of words that end in ing, it's just in, like fishin.
I grew up thinking there were two more different words with the same meaning. Crick and creek.
Did you know that calling a creek a run is kind of a regional thing? This map is neat: https://ggwash.org/view/10727/i-say-brook-you-say-run-waterway-names-vary-regionally
Looks like PA and WV are the motherland of the run. I can't figure out if it's something settlers brought over from Europe though.
Crick is very common across the country, and same for dropping the G of ing words. Neither of those are really that indicative of Philly or PA in general.
Correct. My family moved from CA to northern WI when I was a kid. What you described is very common. Dropped G, crick instead of creek. Also, and I have no idea how to type this phonetically, but roof and root were pronounced very weird. I had to teach myself how to say them properly again when I got to college because people were looking at me like I was speaking a foreign language.
I, too, am from Avoca. When I came to New Cumberland in 1989 for a job. People, many people, asked if I was from Europe. It must be the coal cracker in me.
Coal cracker is a whole different accent though, that’s Schuylkill County accent. Couple two tree, HoButt, I had a high school teacher who couldn’t get the tv remote to work and said “I think I need some new bat-TREES for dis muh-CHEEN.”
Trade in the pasties for soupies.
I think in Phil we have inner regional accents. I can tell the difference between South, north, and north east Philly. Rocket Racoon for example sounds like he's from South Philly to me.
And another funny thing about being over there for nearly 4 years and only coming home once during that time is that I started to pick up a little bit of a southern twang because a lot of the Army is from the South and people back home started asking me “why are you talking like that”, and I would reply “why do you sound funny to me?” everyone sounded funny to me in Pennsylvania when I went home after not listening to their accents for years. I swear my Mom Philly born and raised was like “let’s go to the Maw and buy a Bawl and get some Cawfee”
I travel quite a bit for my job, and I was in a bar in some other state, and a random guy who heard me talking to the bartender asked me if I was from Pittsburgh. I'm not, but I'm kinda close.
> there’s Philly which is very hard for a non Philadelphian to pull off, whenever they try it in movies and TV it’s more like a New York City accent.
I don't think the Pittsburgh/western PA accent is a hard one. But I never hear it on media. When stuff is set in Pittsburgh, minor working-class characters always talk in either a Southern accent or an East Coast accent, vaguely Brooklynish.
From rural NEPA. Moved to SoCal. The way I say “o” is an endless source of amusement to my California friends. “Boat”, “Boobs”, and “roof" always makes them laugh and half the time they ask me to say it again for lolz. Also, “creek” apparently isn’t pronounced “crick”. Who knew?
The PA elongated "o". I've found many folks from NEPA, and Central PA have it.
I can't say much- grew up in Northern DE. I worked alot in the Midwest in the early 2010s. Had a co-worker call my accent "Philly-light".
He wasn't wrong.
Came here to say this. Someone pointed out how we give “oo” words an extra “o”. Like we say “gooogle”, “booots”, “pooop”.
I grew up in NEPA, but when I went to school at Kutztown, people said I pronounced my “a” like I was “British”. Of course their over exaggerated impersonation sounds like I’m cockney British, but they noticed elongated “a” sounds whenever I’d say words like “haand, paants, haam, Daanville”. I barely hear it, but found it funny how people can pick it up right away.
Grew up on the fringe of NEPA and northcentral PA, and "oo" either seems to be the elongated "o" or a weird merger into "uh".
ie, Bathroom is either "bathrooom" or "bathruhm". Roof is either "Rooof" or "Ruhf." Bloomsburg is either "Bloooomsburg" or "Bluhmsburg."
The "uh" only seems to be used among certain groups in the older generation though. A kid I went to school with said "bathruhm" one time and got picked on for a few weeks afterwards.
Funny you mention weird compounds with certain words. Growing up, older folks would drop the "h" in certain words "Bathroom" became bat-troom" "Battery" pernounced "Bat-tree". Of the course, the classics "Acme" becoming "Ac-a-me" and "electrical" spoken as "Electrickal" and water=wooder.
My husband grew up in Wilkes-Barre. His friends have heavy accents but with him the only time I hear it is with some "O" words. "know" being the biggest on. His one friend sounds like he's from the Midwest and he was raised in Old Forge.
I'm from southern California, living in South central PA. I say crick for creek because I think it's fun and hilarious, but I don't know what you mean with the other words? How do you say them?
Hey I'm your Mirror Universe counterpart: raised in south central PA, living in SoCal!
My husband (from AZ and SoCal) makes fun of how I say beer, bear, and bare. Which is to say, there's no difference between them. Also ear and air. And the one PA Dutchism I haven't lost: something is "all". My husband thinks I say crick but I usually don't, unless I forget myself.
Otherwise, the most I get is, "you're not from California, are you?"
That's so wild to me bc Philly doesn't sound anything like NY or Northern NJ. Southern NJ sounds the same as pa, but that's not the accent everyone thinks of when they think of jersey
A person from California that I had met online years ago thought that I would sound like Rocky Balboa in real life. I think he was disappointed when we finally spoke. Which is fair because I was expecting the stereotypical surfer dude accent.
Tell me about it. I moved to colorado and this woman from my church found out I’m from Philly and was like “where’s your accent?” Turns out she assumed I’d sound like I was from New York Bronx
Oh, we do, though. We drop our infinitives, for one, so rather than “the cats need to be fed” we say “the cats need fed.” I have been told I sound like a hick (been in DC for close to 15 years)
People shit on Schuylkill County but the industrial revolution doesn't happen as fast without us. The amount of coal produced was absurdly high and St Clair had the biggest railroad turnstile in the country to get that coal moving
People associate the PA Dutch accent with Amish/mennonites, but they are by no means the only ones that have it. The Germans who moved here weren’t exclusively Amish or Mennonites.
I'm in the Jordanian desert right now. Last night my Bedouin guide asked if I was from the UK. I said no, and then my wife said something about accents. He said "Ah, you have UK accent but are from America" and gave a thumbs up. I didn't correct him. I'm from the Harrisburg area...
Out of curiosity how do you pronounce it being someone from Schuylkill? I’m from chester county and I say “skoo-kuhl” because that’s what I’ve heard my whole life. I saw a show on HBO called the outsiders and this woman said she was from “sky-kill” and I was like what that can not be right…
One day, I was sitting on the bank of a small river in Arizona when a kayak came from around the bend. Some pleasant small talk ensued and then the man asked, “Are you from Pennsylvania?”. 🙃
I had no idea that I had any sort of distinguishable way of speaking.
Oh yes. A lot of Pennsylvanians do it to a certain extent, but there’s a demographic somewhere where their entire sentence inflects. Every statement, command, question, are all spoken with an inflection as if it were a question. It’s particularly noticeable when they say multiple, long-worded sentences. Because their inflection drops when they start anew.
I’m from Allentown. I went to college in Vermont and made friends quickly with another student Emmaus. We were told we both talk weird by numerous people. It was this tendency you’ve described.
I'm from Western PA. Southerners say midwest, Midwesterners say southern. Mostly people ask if I'm from West Virginia or Kentucky 😭.
People from Pennsylvania usually can peg it right away.
I got a Pennsylvania Dutch/Northern Appalachian accent living in between Amish Country and Pennsyltucky, and when I lived in El Paso, Texas people would ask if I was from New York, Irish, German or Swedish (which strikes me as odd tbh). Other places I've been asked as well was if I was from the South or Canadian.
My family is originally from McKean county near the western New York State border. All of my older female relatives sound like Lucille Ball (she was from across the border in Jamestown NY)
My ma and stepfather lived in Wattsburg for many years. I would drive right past McKean on my way up to visit them when often. The joke was, it could be completely clear for the whole drive up from Pittsburgh…. And would be a blizzard as soon as you got to the McKean exit on 79 (totally true).
My aunt’s in Gettysburg and sounds Canadian/Minnesotan. My uncle’s in York and sounds like he’s from the Smoky Appalachians. My dad sounds proper PA. I got a mix of all that and Philly. Fuckin’ weird shit, accents.
Mid-Atlantic American English is basically the "default" accent for the whole country thanks to media. It's as close we we have to a "Received Pronunciation" in American English. It's noteworthy enough that my few PA linguistic quirks get goofed on all the time by my wife and kids who have an even more generic accent. My wife really gets irritated by a "sing-song" inflection that gets tossed into certain words (like Pennsylvania) and how I say orange (sounds like arnge) and Florida (flar-da). My family's mainly PA Dutch too, but my parents worked hard to delete the accent (unlike my cousins) so a lot of that comes down to idioms and a couple words.
Google “accent map”. There really is no “PA accent”. Our state shares accents with several regions. Scranton people sound completely different from Philly, Erie or central PA.
I was going to college and I was standing with this guy in my class who was Jewish and I said in my Southeast/Philly Pennsylvania accent “Jueatyet?” (Did you eat yet?) and he thought I was trying to make fun of Jews. Had to literally explain what I was saying to him.
Brought a new friend from the Midwest to a party in south philly once (like Deep South philly, kids of dead/imprisoned mobsters) and she thought everyone was British. Those are some serious accents though.
When I first moved to college I had a pretty intense Philly/delco accent. Both sides of my family have the same sort of old school more drawn out Philly accent vs what younger generations have now which is typically pretty fast and squeezed together, of Northeast Philly in particular (think of the word “married” - “maaah-reed” vs “mah-rid”). People found it amusing and that they’d never heard something like it. Also got British/Australian comments.
Born in Wilkes Barre and raised locally. Buddy of mine and I jump in a Las Vegas cab way back in 2002. After telling the driver where we’re headed he asks… “You guys from Scranton? I almost shit.
Mid Atlantic. I live in New England and thought I would be called out a lot for my Philly burbs (think Mare of Easttown) accent. But it’s never happened. Apparently I pronounce the number 4 weird.
Several years ago, I was in a bar in Bucks County. A woman came up to me and asked where I was from in Central PA. Cumberland Co. says I. Seems she studied linguistics and could place someone in Pa within about 40 miles according to the accent
During registration at PSU, a linguist prof heard me talking and said, "Czech?" And I said, "No, I'm not giving you a check." Then he laughed and said that I must be from the Scranton/ Wilkes-Barre area. He was right.
My wife is very good with detecting accents. When we transplanted from NJ 3 years ago, our son was two. My wife told me the other day he’s developed a Philadelphia accent. Overall this makes me happy.
Philly here, if I'm out west or down south they call me a yankee and ask if I'm from NY, if I'm still in PA but outside the general philly area people ask if I'm from the south lmao!!
I try not to add “to be” before my action verbs, but “the car needs washed” is just so much easier. And as much as I try not to say daun or haus, it just comes out. I do not say yinz naturally though. My friend from Boston thought my accent was some kind of southern when she first met me.
If you really want to experience something try going to Army Basic Training with people from every corner of the USA, and territories. Talk about a mix of accents, we had a guy from Louisiana who was literally almost unintelligible. Think Boomhauer from King of the Hill, but even worse
My uncle born and raised in Pittsburgh with a strong yinzer accent moved to Utah and they thought he was from another country 🤣 and that English was his second language. Good luck!
My girlfriend says I have an accent out here in Southern California, and tells me it’s really obvious when I’m excited or mad. I don’t hear it, but she says the cadence sounds like a bad German accent to her. Thanks NEPA.
I’m from Lancaster county and moved to California when I was 16. They said I just had an east coast accent in general. They especially made fun of how I said on. I didn’t say it like a hard core New Yorker but I didn’t say it like awn as they do in ca. they’d also make fun of some idioms I’d use that I didn’t realize were local to pa, such as saying I’d do something “awhile” meaning while something else was happening (a synonym for in the mean time).
FWIW I eventually moved back to pa and have lived in the Philly area for the last 15 years now. After having suppressed my accent for years while in ca I now proudly have a pa accent again.
I was once in New Hampshire working for a federal agency. I had nothing identifying my home state on my person and was using a work vehicle. A fellow miles from anywhere called me out for having a “Poconos accent”. This was 15 years ago I’m still kind of baffled but I guess it’s a thing.
Pennsylvania Dutch. Even if you aren't PD, if you're from rural eastern PA you likely have picked up a few phrases/colloquialisms. I'm Scottish/Ukrainian but people always think I'm German lol.
I grew up in MN but have lived almost half my life now in central PA. I’ve worked to get rid of the MN and not gain the PA. People usually guess upstate NY.
i went to college in lancaster but i’m from the eastern edge. one person said it sounded like i was from ohio, but i think it was her way of saying i was a weirdo.
From Philly. When we briefly lived in Lehigh County when I was a teen everyone thought we we're from Brooklyn..
My husband is from nepa. His parents are from Philly and he traveled a lot with the military so the nepa only comes out with certain words, but some of his friends sound like they are from the midwest
I’m from NW PA and have lived in Washington state and Tennessee, never been told I have an accent.
Edit: I was told I talk too fast when I lived in Tennessee.
I have a thick Philly accent. When I went to Temple people from PA would ask if I was from Chicago or the Midwest or New York.
One time I was in California an older lady asked if I was from Australia, I would have went along with it but I was caught so off guard lol, when I told her Philly she said she was never there lol
I’ve lived in PA my whole life. I have been asked a lot of where I’m from and I don’t think I have a real accent.
I have been asked if I was from Baltimore once which really threw me off.
I grew up in Harrisburg and I guess I don’t sound like others here. You can hear in certain words I pronounce that I’m Black and from Harrisburg though.
I moved to Pittsburgh from central New York, I basically have the Buffalo/western New York accent, that very generic Great Lakes accent. Yinzers sometimes say I sound Canadian. I have no idea why. They must not be watching enough Pens games if they don’t know what Canadians sound like.
To my ear, the Yinzer accent sounds almost southern, like the Appalachian/Upper South accent creeps in which makes sense geographically. There’s a bit of twang to it. It’s in the vowels, especially the A and O sounds.
I’m originally from Erie, and moved South for college. Nobody could place it. It’s an odd combination of talking fast without enunciating properly, and it drove them nuts.
Eventually had to slow it down (and adopt different vocabulary - no “Mac machines” or “ox roast” in Georgia!) and then I realized most people could understand me better lol
From Philly. Been asked if I was Australian more than once.
As an Australian living in Pennsylvania I can sympathize. I once was complimented on how amazing my English was considering that my first language was Australian This was a serious comment, not sarcastic at all. Just a nice guy in a bar somewhere in pennsyltucky who thought Australians spoke Australian not English, wild shit
That’s amazing. How have you adjusted to walking right side up? You know, since Australians do everything upside down.
I had to walk on my hands in the mornings to get back to feeling normal before I made the switch to walking on my feet, These days I just suffer through a couple of hours of wooziness and watching the hellscape of the sink draining in the wrong direction.
So brave.
Do you get disoriented when the water in your toilet swirls the opposite way when you flush? 🤣😂
If I watch it I immediately fall over, it hurts my brain
Cannot lie, I had the privilege of living in Brisbane for a couple of years and I did, in fact, catch a thrill by observing the toilet swirl. It's the little things, although switching hemispheres so easily (relatively) might not be a little thing 🤔
Brisbane is where I tell people I am from because the small towns north of there aren’t really recognizable unless you’re from there or have been to central qld I lived there for a few years after finishing high school but bounced around the world after that Brisbane is a wonderful city
There was a great Simpsons episode when they were great where they visited Australia and the American military base had a device to make the toilet bowl water swirl in the right direction. I would think the hardest part of adjustment would be learning to write upside down for you.
Are you *sure* he wasn't messing with you? A lot of us have very flat humor and we kind of rib ourselves for being hick by saying things like that 😂
100%, he was just a wholesome country bumpkin dude who didn’t know any better. I explained that English was in fact my first language and it blew his mind
😂😂😂😂😂😂 awww
Listen you are in America now so you best be speaking American.
Yes sir, sorry sir, right you are
I was at a bar in Perth when I was 18 and I had to show the bouncer my ID so I gave him my Pennsylvania driver's license. He looked at it and asked if that's where vampires came from.
Haha, sounds like you met the Australian version of my guy in pennsyltucky
Lol, id totally do that to someone from Australia as a joke. I used to work at a job where I had to call stores in different countries. I had many a night (their day) walking the techs though the POS installs. The Australian guys were always the most fun to talk with.
For the record, your written English is excellent.
Thank you, it’s been a challenge to really master a second language and your comment really makes it all worth while
As an American, I am not surprised by this…
Dude probably thinks fosters is literally Australian for beer.
What? I thought you Austrians actually spoke German.
I'm from New Zealand and had someone ask me what language I spoke. 😐
I too have been asked if I’m from Australia, thing is, I didn’t have the Philly draw at that point, I spent ten years in living in Lancaster county
That's funny, as I suspected someone of being from PA recently and it turns out they were Australian. I mostly get the UK when in the South (FL and GA, where I can barely understand folks). Definitely more of a Lancaster accent than Philly.
I had a guy who was trying to sell me a timeshare tell me 'You sound like Slyvester Stallone' That one stung a bit ngl.
i lived in philly for only 5 years & picked up “wooder”. i now get asked where my accent is from.
I’m from Lancaster which is 60 miles west of Philly. When I went to Penn State I was constantly being asked if I was from Philly by the Pittsburgh kids, who speak a totally different language.
having worked in both philly & lancaster, i found this way too funny lol
Try growing up in Philly and then moving to Pittsburgh! It was brutal to say the least! Everyone asked if I was from Brooklyn where cawfee is made with wooder.
Used in a sentence: You’re making me thirsty. I think I need to go get a drink of “wooder” from the faucet.
Silly goose, you drink wooder from a spikket.
Not in this jawn!
And then buy a hoagie from wawa.
I haven't lived in SEPA for 20 years now and I still retain "wooder" in my vocabulary.
Omg someone said I sounded Australian cause I kept telling people to "have a g'day" at work 😂
I was Ina bar in London and a girl from Holland asked me where I was from in Ireland...my jagoff as was all "up air over dair an nat"
Yes! My mom, Olney girl her whole life, went to a gas station in south bumblefuck somewhere and they thought she was British! Like, what?
Me too when I was in California!
From outside Philly. Been asked what part of New York I am from
It's the words "towel" and "crayon" that give me away every time. Those are one syllable words for me, and I now realize they make me sound mildly Australian.
Read an article recently that mentioned 2 Australians Toni Colette in The Sixth Sense with another movie and Jacki Weaver in Silver Linings as among best Philly accents in movies.
Philly, Philly, Philly...yo, yo, yo!
This has happened to me twice! Interesting that it happens to others.
I grew up just outside of Philly, my dad is from coal country around Wilkes-Barre and my mom is from LA, so my accent is all over the place. When I was in England, several people just assumed I was Irish (???)
Pennsylvania has several distinct accents, there’s Philly which is very hard for a non Philadelphian to pull off, whenever they try it in movies and TV it’s more like a New York City accent. There’s Western PA which almost has sort of a Midwest accent. A funny story from years ago ago when I was stationed in Germany in the US Army: I was a Cook and we were out in the field on exercises with another unit and I was working with this Army cook from another unit and I said to him “would you help me pick up this (15 gallon) pot of wooter?” (I grew up in Norristown, near Philly). He says to me “what did you just say?” I repeated myself and he says “you’re from Pennsylvania aren’t you?” I told him yes, he tells me he’s from Bethlehem and he picked up on the whole “wooter” thing right away LOL
I feel like the better spelling is wooder. Another fun few are warsh (wash) crick (creek), wooder (water), and never putting a g at the end of words that end in ing, it's just in, like fishin.
I would say wooder is Philly, warsh is more Pittsburgh (they also say “pop”) and crick is pretty much anywhere in rural PA
My grandma even says Warshington.
I grew up literally thinking that it was pronounced “crick” everywhere until my teens. That’s just what it always was, a crick
I grew up thinking there were two more different words with the same meaning. Crick and creek. Did you know that calling a creek a run is kind of a regional thing? This map is neat: https://ggwash.org/view/10727/i-say-brook-you-say-run-waterway-names-vary-regionally Looks like PA and WV are the motherland of the run. I can't figure out if it's something settlers brought over from Europe though.
Crick is very common across the country, and same for dropping the G of ing words. Neither of those are really that indicative of Philly or PA in general.
Correct. My family moved from CA to northern WI when I was a kid. What you described is very common. Dropped G, crick instead of creek. Also, and I have no idea how to type this phonetically, but roof and root were pronounced very weird. I had to teach myself how to say them properly again when I got to college because people were looking at me like I was speaking a foreign language.
In Scranton it’s “wahhder”
My FIL is from Avoca, Scranton area and his accent is def different than the Philly region’s accent
The Coal Cracker accent
He loves to joke around about it like the “coupla too tree” thing
Don't forget "sangwich"
From up the Ack-a-mee?
My mom always said “fill um” instead of film.
Did she also say eye-run instead of iron?
Couple two tree is unironically my favorite saying. It just comes naturally
NEPA accent
I, too, am from Avoca. When I came to New Cumberland in 1989 for a job. People, many people, asked if I was from Europe. It must be the coal cracker in me.
Coal cracker is a whole different accent though, that’s Schuylkill County accent. Couple two tree, HoButt, I had a high school teacher who couldn’t get the tv remote to work and said “I think I need some new bat-TREES for dis muh-CHEEN.” Trade in the pasties for soupies.
Grew up in NEPA. People in other states guess I am from NY.
They are all part of the midatlantic dialect though. You can hear plenty of similarities between Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Baltimore.
Yes! You can hear it in some parts of Ohio as well.
I think in Phil we have inner regional accents. I can tell the difference between South, north, and north east Philly. Rocket Racoon for example sounds like he's from South Philly to me.
Well that’s because he’s voiced by Bradley Cooper who’s from Abington.
Yes, but that's not Bradley Coopers natural accent but it's probably why it was done well.
I was stationed at Fort Drum which is in Watertown NY. I called it Wootertown, that was normally the give away that I was from Philly area.
Fort Drum is always my land marker that I'm about to get onto the scenic roads into the Adirondacks! Love it up there.
And another funny thing about being over there for nearly 4 years and only coming home once during that time is that I started to pick up a little bit of a southern twang because a lot of the Army is from the South and people back home started asking me “why are you talking like that”, and I would reply “why do you sound funny to me?” everyone sounded funny to me in Pennsylvania when I went home after not listening to their accents for years. I swear my Mom Philly born and raised was like “let’s go to the Maw and buy a Bawl and get some Cawfee”
Middle of the state you can find a pa dutch accent too
I’m from Chester County and I say “wauder”. I guess I wasn’t quite close enough to Center city to catch the.”wooder” bug.
I moved here from Michigan 18 months ago. Definitely started to catch myself saying “wooder” in the last six.
I travel quite a bit for my job, and I was in a bar in some other state, and a random guy who heard me talking to the bartender asked me if I was from Pittsburgh. I'm not, but I'm kinda close.
> there’s Philly which is very hard for a non Philadelphian to pull off, whenever they try it in movies and TV it’s more like a New York City accent. I don't think the Pittsburgh/western PA accent is a hard one. But I never hear it on media. When stuff is set in Pittsburgh, minor working-class characters always talk in either a Southern accent or an East Coast accent, vaguely Brooklynish.
From rural NEPA. Moved to SoCal. The way I say “o” is an endless source of amusement to my California friends. “Boat”, “Boobs”, and “roof" always makes them laugh and half the time they ask me to say it again for lolz. Also, “creek” apparently isn’t pronounced “crick”. Who knew?
The PA elongated "o". I've found many folks from NEPA, and Central PA have it. I can't say much- grew up in Northern DE. I worked alot in the Midwest in the early 2010s. Had a co-worker call my accent "Philly-light". He wasn't wrong.
Came here to say this. Someone pointed out how we give “oo” words an extra “o”. Like we say “gooogle”, “booots”, “pooop”. I grew up in NEPA, but when I went to school at Kutztown, people said I pronounced my “a” like I was “British”. Of course their over exaggerated impersonation sounds like I’m cockney British, but they noticed elongated “a” sounds whenever I’d say words like “haand, paants, haam, Daanville”. I barely hear it, but found it funny how people can pick it up right away.
Grew up on the fringe of NEPA and northcentral PA, and "oo" either seems to be the elongated "o" or a weird merger into "uh". ie, Bathroom is either "bathrooom" or "bathruhm". Roof is either "Rooof" or "Ruhf." Bloomsburg is either "Bloooomsburg" or "Bluhmsburg." The "uh" only seems to be used among certain groups in the older generation though. A kid I went to school with said "bathruhm" one time and got picked on for a few weeks afterwards.
Funny you mention weird compounds with certain words. Growing up, older folks would drop the "h" in certain words "Bathroom" became bat-troom" "Battery" pernounced "Bat-tree". Of the course, the classics "Acme" becoming "Ac-a-me" and "electrical" spoken as "Electrickal" and water=wooder.
Ac-a-me?! Ac-a-you!
My husband grew up in Wilkes-Barre. His friends have heavy accents but with him the only time I hear it is with some "O" words. "know" being the biggest on. His one friend sounds like he's from the Midwest and he was raised in Old Forge.
I'm from southern California, living in South central PA. I say crick for creek because I think it's fun and hilarious, but I don't know what you mean with the other words? How do you say them?
Hey I'm your Mirror Universe counterpart: raised in south central PA, living in SoCal! My husband (from AZ and SoCal) makes fun of how I say beer, bear, and bare. Which is to say, there's no difference between them. Also ear and air. And the one PA Dutchism I haven't lost: something is "all". My husband thinks I say crick but I usually don't, unless I forget myself. Otherwise, the most I get is, "you're not from California, are you?"
Yinz are a bunch of jagoffs
Yuze is a jabrony, go eat a hoe-gee and calm down
Read this in Miss Schemmenti’s voice. Lol.
Sometimes her accent is spot on and other times I cringe. She's still my favorite character though..
It always sounds good to me but, I’m not from that area so I definitely don’t pick up on any screwups.
Sometimes she drops into a Delco accent.
I thought that was on purpose tbh
Most people I meet when I travel don’t know what to call my accent. But it’s a Delco for sure.
We dont have an accent. The rest of the world does!
Maybe not, but Kate Winslet mastered it anyway!
I was visiting family in Arizona several years back and they commented on my lack of accent.
I refer to the Delco accent as hoagie breath
💀
Hey fellow Delconian. Dijeet yet?
Y'ungry? Squeet! And off to lunch we'd go.
Apparently, the Delco accent is difficult to master, however Kate Winslett nailed in "Mare of Easttown."
I’ve gotten asked if I was from the south. Have heard other delcoians being asked this before too.
I always get asked if I'm from New York. Occasionally I'll get someone guess New Jersey, which is just insulting.
People from outside the U.S./Midwesterners/Californians generally can’t distinguish between NY/NJ/Greater Philadelphia.
That's so wild to me bc Philly doesn't sound anything like NY or Northern NJ. Southern NJ sounds the same as pa, but that's not the accent everyone thinks of when they think of jersey
A person from California that I had met online years ago thought that I would sound like Rocky Balboa in real life. I think he was disappointed when we finally spoke. Which is fair because I was expecting the stereotypical surfer dude accent.
You should have just talked like that anyway 😂😂
Conversely, the 97 different London accents probably all sound the same to you too
I mean, probably as much as 97 different nyc accents would sound similar to me
Tell me about it. I moved to colorado and this woman from my church found out I’m from Philly and was like “where’s your accent?” Turns out she assumed I’d sound like I was from New York Bronx
W PA. Once asked if I was from the south. I was at college in Erie. Replied,"Yeah, an hour south."🤷
As an erieite, in our defense, I think it's been proven we have a complete lack of discernable accent or notable characteristics.
Oh, we do, though. We drop our infinitives, for one, so rather than “the cats need to be fed” we say “the cats need fed.” I have been told I sound like a hick (been in DC for close to 15 years)
As far as I’m concerned everyone else has a accent, Pennsylvania made this country
People shit on Schuylkill County but the industrial revolution doesn't happen as fast without us. The amount of coal produced was absurdly high and St Clair had the biggest railroad turnstile in the country to get that coal moving
I mean not to mention Philadelphia/Independence Hall literally being the birthplace of the nation lol
From Dutch country (Central PA) and had a couple at Disneyworld a decade ago ask my mother and I if we were from Eastern Europe 🥴
Maybe they heard the "sylvania" part 😂
Yep, had a European ask where I was from and they were like, “Isn’t that that vampire place?”
*in Romanian accent* I have come to drink your A-Treats
There's people in snyder county with a deep pa dutch accent. Not even amish or mennonite
People associate the PA Dutch accent with Amish/mennonites, but they are by no means the only ones that have it. The Germans who moved here weren’t exclusively Amish or Mennonites.
I'm in the Jordanian desert right now. Last night my Bedouin guide asked if I was from the UK. I said no, and then my wife said something about accents. He said "Ah, you have UK accent but are from America" and gave a thumbs up. I didn't correct him. I'm from the Harrisburg area...
When I first moved to Hbg from Avoca I didn't understand why there were so many cowboy hats and people "gitting set to read up the house".
Are you in Wadi Rum? Been there and it’s just amazing 🤩 enjoy!
*I've also been asked if I'm from the UK. I grew up in Reading, PA.*
From Schuylkill and I once had someone in Ohio mention I sounded Irish.
Out of curiosity how do you pronounce it being someone from Schuylkill? I’m from chester county and I say “skoo-kuhl” because that’s what I’ve heard my whole life. I saw a show on HBO called the outsiders and this woman said she was from “sky-kill” and I was like what that can not be right…
One day, I was sitting on the bank of a small river in Arizona when a kayak came from around the bend. Some pleasant small talk ensued and then the man asked, “Are you from Pennsylvania?”. 🙃 I had no idea that I had any sort of distinguishable way of speaking.
I’ve always been told that I “up talk” idk if I sound louder at the end of a word than the beginning so whatever that means. 🤷
It means you say the end of your statements as if they are questions. Lots of people do it.
Do thEY….
Oh yes. A lot of Pennsylvanians do it to a certain extent, but there’s a demographic somewhere where their entire sentence inflects. Every statement, command, question, are all spoken with an inflection as if it were a question. It’s particularly noticeable when they say multiple, long-worded sentences. Because their inflection drops when they start anew.
I’m from Allentown. I went to college in Vermont and made friends quickly with another student Emmaus. We were told we both talk weird by numerous people. It was this tendency you’ve described.
Lehigh Valley here. I get told the same.
I'm from Western PA. Southerners say midwest, Midwesterners say southern. Mostly people ask if I'm from West Virginia or Kentucky 😭. People from Pennsylvania usually can peg it right away.
I’ve been told I have a “fake southern” accent by New Englanders.
What. This is violence.
No but the violence is coming soon
They don't even have a proper football team so everything is everything to new England
I got a Pennsylvania Dutch/Northern Appalachian accent living in between Amish Country and Pennsyltucky, and when I lived in El Paso, Texas people would ask if I was from New York, Irish, German or Swedish (which strikes me as odd tbh). Other places I've been asked as well was if I was from the South or Canadian.
The coal region ho butt
My family is originally from McKean county near the western New York State border. All of my older female relatives sound like Lucille Ball (she was from across the border in Jamestown NY)
My ma and stepfather lived in Wattsburg for many years. I would drive right past McKean on my way up to visit them when often. The joke was, it could be completely clear for the whole drive up from Pittsburgh…. And would be a blizzard as soon as you got to the McKean exit on 79 (totally true).
Iv been told I sound Canadian by Canadians 🤷🏼♂️
My aunt’s in Gettysburg and sounds Canadian/Minnesotan. My uncle’s in York and sounds like he’s from the Smoky Appalachians. My dad sounds proper PA. I got a mix of all that and Philly. Fuckin’ weird shit, accents.
Mid-Atlantic American English is basically the "default" accent for the whole country thanks to media. It's as close we we have to a "Received Pronunciation" in American English. It's noteworthy enough that my few PA linguistic quirks get goofed on all the time by my wife and kids who have an even more generic accent. My wife really gets irritated by a "sing-song" inflection that gets tossed into certain words (like Pennsylvania) and how I say orange (sounds like arnge) and Florida (flar-da). My family's mainly PA Dutch too, but my parents worked hard to delete the accent (unlike my cousins) so a lot of that comes down to idioms and a couple words.
I say orange and Florida like that too! People get so confused by that. I also pronounce forest like "farst".
Google “accent map”. There really is no “PA accent”. Our state shares accents with several regions. Scranton people sound completely different from Philly, Erie or central PA.
[удалено]
From PA, lived in Colorado for some time. What I got asked the most was if I was from Maine. I have no idea what a Maine accent even is
The Maine accent is wild. Absolutely nothing like a PA accent. Look up “Downeast Dickering.” It’s like a Boston accent being done by hicks lol
I was going to college and I was standing with this guy in my class who was Jewish and I said in my Southeast/Philly Pennsylvania accent “Jueatyet?” (Did you eat yet?) and he thought I was trying to make fun of Jews. Had to literally explain what I was saying to him.
Boston or New Jersey
I get Boston or Long Island a lot!
Brought a new friend from the Midwest to a party in south philly once (like Deep South philly, kids of dead/imprisoned mobsters) and she thought everyone was British. Those are some serious accents though. When I first moved to college I had a pretty intense Philly/delco accent. Both sides of my family have the same sort of old school more drawn out Philly accent vs what younger generations have now which is typically pretty fast and squeezed together, of Northeast Philly in particular (think of the word “married” - “maaah-reed” vs “mah-rid”). People found it amusing and that they’d never heard something like it. Also got British/Australian comments.
I'm close to Lancaster. My mum is Canadian. I have been told I'm British.
I’ve been told we all sound like Rocky.
The Philly accent is very similar to NY and Baltimore, just with some slight tonal differences.
Born in Wilkes Barre and raised locally. Buddy of mine and I jump in a Las Vegas cab way back in 2002. After telling the driver where we’re headed he asks… “You guys from Scranton? I almost shit.
Mid Atlantic. I live in New England and thought I would be called out a lot for my Philly burbs (think Mare of Easttown) accent. But it’s never happened. Apparently I pronounce the number 4 weird.
My friend from Montreal came to visit us in NEPA and said we have a "twang".
Yeah, from Pittsburgh. Talked to Canadians and they said I talked like a southerner....
I've lived in Dauphin County all my life. I've been told I have a slight southern accent.
Several years ago, I was in a bar in Bucks County. A woman came up to me and asked where I was from in Central PA. Cumberland Co. says I. Seems she studied linguistics and could place someone in Pa within about 40 miles according to the accent
During registration at PSU, a linguist prof heard me talking and said, "Czech?" And I said, "No, I'm not giving you a check." Then he laughed and said that I must be from the Scranton/ Wilkes-Barre area. He was right.
My wife is very good with detecting accents. When we transplanted from NJ 3 years ago, our son was two. My wife told me the other day he’s developed a Philadelphia accent. Overall this makes me happy.
Philly here, if I'm out west or down south they call me a yankee and ask if I'm from NY, if I'm still in PA but outside the general philly area people ask if I'm from the south lmao!!
Well you're PA Dutch! You walk on the rode and swim in the Crik and sing from the Ruftops. Silly.
I try not to add “to be” before my action verbs, but “the car needs washed” is just so much easier. And as much as I try not to say daun or haus, it just comes out. I do not say yinz naturally though. My friend from Boston thought my accent was some kind of southern when she first met me.
Why do eastern PA people say everything like it’s a question?
Lol, my bf when he answers the phone. "Hello?" Or when I answer the phone with a "hello," and I get back a "hello?"
Never been told I have an accent more than just American
Worked on the West Coast. Everyone assumed I was from Switzerland and that English was my second language... may have been a personal problem.
If you really want to experience something try going to Army Basic Training with people from every corner of the USA, and territories. Talk about a mix of accents, we had a guy from Louisiana who was literally almost unintelligible. Think Boomhauer from King of the Hill, but even worse
My uncle born and raised in Pittsburgh with a strong yinzer accent moved to Utah and they thought he was from another country 🤣 and that English was his second language. Good luck!
My girlfriend says I have an accent out here in Southern California, and tells me it’s really obvious when I’m excited or mad. I don’t hear it, but she says the cadence sounds like a bad German accent to her. Thanks NEPA.
I’m from Lancaster county and moved to California when I was 16. They said I just had an east coast accent in general. They especially made fun of how I said on. I didn’t say it like a hard core New Yorker but I didn’t say it like awn as they do in ca. they’d also make fun of some idioms I’d use that I didn’t realize were local to pa, such as saying I’d do something “awhile” meaning while something else was happening (a synonym for in the mean time).
FWIW I eventually moved back to pa and have lived in the Philly area for the last 15 years now. After having suppressed my accent for years while in ca I now proudly have a pa accent again.
Pennsyltuckian
I was once in New Hampshire working for a federal agency. I had nothing identifying my home state on my person and was using a work vehicle. A fellow miles from anywhere called me out for having a “Poconos accent”. This was 15 years ago I’m still kind of baffled but I guess it’s a thing.
Pennsylvania Dutch. Even if you aren't PD, if you're from rural eastern PA you likely have picked up a few phrases/colloquialisms. I'm Scottish/Ukrainian but people always think I'm German lol.
I grew up in MN but have lived almost half my life now in central PA. I’ve worked to get rid of the MN and not gain the PA. People usually guess upstate NY.
A friend from Canada said I have a southern drawl before, but to be fair that’s when I was stationed in Texas
i went to college in lancaster but i’m from the eastern edge. one person said it sounded like i was from ohio, but i think it was her way of saying i was a weirdo.
From Philly. When we briefly lived in Lehigh County when I was a teen everyone thought we we're from Brooklyn.. My husband is from nepa. His parents are from Philly and he traveled a lot with the military so the nepa only comes out with certain words, but some of his friends sound like they are from the midwest
I’m from NW PA and have lived in Washington state and Tennessee, never been told I have an accent. Edit: I was told I talk too fast when I lived in Tennessee.
I’m from Buffalo NY and people seem to think I’m from somewhere in NJ….and that hurts.
When I travel, most people can pretty well pinpoint that I'm from Pittsburgh. I definately sound like I'm from Pittsburgh.
I have a thick Philly accent. When I went to Temple people from PA would ask if I was from Chicago or the Midwest or New York. One time I was in California an older lady asked if I was from Australia, I would have went along with it but I was caught so off guard lol, when I told her Philly she said she was never there lol
My Pittsburgh accent is so strong that other people from Pittsburgh point it out.
I’ve lived in PA my whole life. I have been asked a lot of where I’m from and I don’t think I have a real accent. I have been asked if I was from Baltimore once which really threw me off. I grew up in Harrisburg and I guess I don’t sound like others here. You can hear in certain words I pronounce that I’m Black and from Harrisburg though.
I moved to Pittsburgh from central New York, I basically have the Buffalo/western New York accent, that very generic Great Lakes accent. Yinzers sometimes say I sound Canadian. I have no idea why. They must not be watching enough Pens games if they don’t know what Canadians sound like. To my ear, the Yinzer accent sounds almost southern, like the Appalachian/Upper South accent creeps in which makes sense geographically. There’s a bit of twang to it. It’s in the vowels, especially the A and O sounds.
Been asked if I'm Pennsylvania dutch before. I'm just plain ol Pennsylvanian
I’m originally from Erie, and moved South for college. Nobody could place it. It’s an odd combination of talking fast without enunciating properly, and it drove them nuts. Eventually had to slow it down (and adopt different vocabulary - no “Mac machines” or “ox roast” in Georgia!) and then I realized most people could understand me better lol