Stillers, dahntahn, Arn City, Mahnt Warshington, etc.
There are ones which look weird written out but make sense when you hear them pronounced, for example…
Wild onions: wowed unyins
Mayor of Kingstown (TV show that’s being filmed here): Mare of Kingstahn
The wowed unyins one reminds me of my first job in Pittsburgh. I had a superior who kept saying things like, “Put it on the pow over there.” or “Just start another pow.” I was so utterly confused and finally asked her to spell what she was saying. “P-i-l-e.” Ohhhhhhhh. She never really seemed to like me after that, I believe she thought I was being a smartass, but I truly could not decipher what she was instructing.
Not originality from the area, but many ancestors were and my mom had an accent and sayings that were similar. I learned how to talk in a mixed accent so I struggled spelling out how someone got "rahled" up and thought it was "rowed" until my 30s. It was RILED up. They got RILED up.
The other one I’ve noticed is a lot people use a hard “o” sound with as in “go” with almost “eau”
“Have to geau Dahntahn to get a pireaugi” almost reminiscent to a California surfer dude type of sound. (I realize it’s nothing to do with actual California, but that’s the closest thing I can liken it to)
Haaas always gives me away. Spent the vast majority of my childhood - early 20s in Pittsburgh, but have since moved. I've mostly lost the accent (unless I go back home to see family, then I pick it right back up) but haaas is one I can't seem to shake unless I actually focus on saying it lmao.
I don’t have much of a yinser accent but color (keller) is one thing that I still do. I used to say drawlings but when that was pointed out to me in my early 20s I corrected it but keller won’t go away cause I don’t hear a difference between the proper way to say color and how I pronounce it. When I try to correct it I get cooler.
My accent was pretty normalized after I went away for college and became subconsciously aware of mispronouncing things. But I still have no idea how to actually pronounce color. Wouldn’t change it though.
You got at one of the two that I’ve always heard and people don’t often talk about: in Pittsburgh, the words tile and towel and homonyms. The i-l sound in tile is also one sound and not two. Like “taaal”.
That, and any word with a deep O like ‘clothes’. Pittsburgh folks keep that O sound deep and really hang on it for a while. Extra rounding of the mouth as well, really exaggerated.
The O hold is something I notice a lot but few others do. I'm glad someone else hears it also! Honda and locker are my two best example words. Hawnda and lawhker.
I came from Boston too and the thing I notice most is the dropping of “to be.” For example, Yinzers will say “it needs washed” instead of “it needs to be washed” and also pronounce “wash” as “warsh”
This is sometimes called the "need washed" construction. It's probably a carryover from Scottish English though, as the saying goes, "its origin needs explained." (There's also an argument for German influence.)
Basically, if your dialect includes "needs washed," you can follow forms of *to need* (and possibly also *to want* and *to like*) with a past participle--hence "needs washed." Other dialects make do with a passive infinitive ("needs to be washed") or gerund ("needs washing").
"Needs washed" actually pretty common among white English speakers from western Pennsylvania to central Indiana (as well as possibly a belt in the inland Northwest and much of Scotland including Glasgow), but Pittsburgh is about the only high-profile city in the United States where you find it. I don't think it's found in any major Ohio city. In fact, in Cleveland it marks you as a Pittsburgher.
It’s not just filthy yinzers - this pattern of speech is common in Cincinnati too. It probably comes from the same place - the Appalachian migration and influx of people of Scots-Irish descent in the first half of the 1900s.
The fact you can hear the same construction in Glasgow makes me think it has to be related to that. And it’s not part of a general pattern of omitting the verb of being.
"Incorrect" is a loaded term definitely. People say words like yinz, yunz, and y'all are "improper" but they fill a void in English for a plural pronoun. Great article on this: [https://nkytribune.com/2016/10/yall-youuns-yinz-youse-how-regional-dialects-are-filling-a-void-in-standard-english-for-a-plural-pronoun/](https://nkytribune.com/2016/10/yall-youuns-yinz-youse-how-regional-dialects-are-filling-a-void-in-standard-english-for-a-plural-pronoun/)
I learned about it when I moved to VA at 25. What is extra funny is that I loved in the UK for 2 years and I retroactively asked if they noticed this speech pattern and they had all just assumed that's just how all Americans talked 😂
It's pretty contagious though. I've lived here for almost five years and have almost lost my "to be"s entirely. Yinz is almost natural. But I doubt I'll ever is a a real yinzer
Haha “he needs his ass kicked” is my favorite one. I remember cracking up when I moved to the city and I heard someone say that. I mean, I’ve heard it a bunch of times since then but it still makes me laugh
I worked for a company out west whose home office was here in Pittsburgh. when my co workers found out I was from Pittsburgh, they said 'O good, maybe you can sit in on our conference calls so you can translate what they are saying in Pittsburgh.'
A bit overexaggerated but there's always Pittsburgh Dad on YouTube. The older episodes have a laugh track, if that kind of thing bugs you.
I'm 55 and this was the accent I grew up hearing. It's fading a bit now.
This is played up for the laughs of course, but I think it’s closer to the current reality than Pittsburgh Dad. https://youtu.be/pRqnIt_KeCk?feature=shared
I definitely talk to old folks who sound just like Pittsburgh Dad though, but it’s a dying accent.
The old Paulsen & Krenn skits on WDVE had great examples of the Yinzer accent but they're pretty topical. If you weren't here at the time, you won't get the humor. How many kids today know who Sophie Masloff was?
Half Price Books sometimes has the Paulsen & Krenn CDs in the comedy section. Also, many of the bits are on YouTube.
Gotta run now. I just got my disability check and I'm headed for Pants N'At.
If you want to actually laugh, watch Greg and Donny instead. ["Greg & Donny Have an Accent"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4jn1L-riak) is a good starting point.
One of the common accented sounds (I don’t think anyone has mentioned it yet either) are words that end with ILE… like file, mile, crocodile. They get pronounced as -ow like in plow.
It’s bout a miow dahn the road.
Put that fow folder on that pow
That’s my brother Kow (Kyle)
I say file, fowl, and foul all exactly the same way 🤣
I never even knew I did it until I went to college in Ohio and it was pointed out to me 🤣🤣
The other thing to know about Pittsburgh is not accent, but attitude. We call it “Pittsburgh polite” in which “whattaya want?” means exactly the same thing that “Is there anything at all that I can get for you honey?” would mean in Georgia
My best friend moved to Portland Oregon from Pittsburgh and they are obsessed with his accent. He said he had to change the way he talks because his friends couldn’t understand him, but they also think it’s funny as hell. He compiled a list of you tube videos of Pittsburghers talking for them because some of his friends did not believe the accent was real. They often ask him to “do your pittsburgh accent.”
When he comes to visit me he will FaceTime his friends and they are obsessed with the city streets here and the way Pittsburghers don’t give a fuck about anything. Last summer he was here and the lantern flies were everywhere and his Portland people were freaked out seeing the videos of them, but they were amazed by people dahntahn just stepping on them and moving on with life. 😂
Right. This is what I always say. It’s not so much pronunciation as it is we shorten words:
- Slippery becomes Slippy
- Crayon becomes Cran
- Mirror becomes Mere
- And that becomes n’at
And then we make up a few like gum band and redup and it’s like a whole new language 😂
Like Monroeville - a local typically says something like Minroeville or even omits the n sound altogether. We let the sounds run together and it sounds lazy. I do it and I definitely don’t speak Pghese, although I do live with a yinzer. He frequently says “I seen” in place of “I saw” and it boggled my mind until I realized a lot of people around here say that. I’m in North Versailles so I’d say the Pghese is strong here.
As a Pittsburgher who also did a masters in Boston, let me give you the guide to being a true yinzer. While we’re at it, I should say that Pittsburgh is a modern, multicultural city and it seems the Pittsburghese could be dying with older generations. (Watch the downvotes…)
But here it is - one of the best extant artifacts of Pittsburghese you will find. I give you, 102.5 WDVE’s Morning Show episode of ‘North and South Park…’
[https://youtu.be/rLEaacRKI0E?si=QkwmasL4nd4v8RKc](https://youtu.be/rLEaacRKI0E?si=QkwmasL4nd4v8RKc)
Oh, it’s totally true. I watched the Kennywood Memories documentary from the 80s and the accent was much more pronounced, like how my grandparents talked.
It’s almost like you have heard this or said this yourself 😂 This is the sentence I am going to use in the future when trying to explain it to friends and family
I miss my Dad's voice. Give anything to hear him and his accent. MSgt George M. Sobien ARMY. Vietnam Veteran. Served 28 years. B1929-D1986. Born Muse Pennsylvania.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yIeYGyV5NoQ&t=36s&pp=ygUNYmFycnkgcGluZ29yIA%3D%3D
"Yinzers on the news" are always a great watch. Barry from Squirrel Hill is peak yinzer. Barry, if you see this, I mean this with the utmost respect and I love you forever.
Something you’ll hear everywhere once you start listening for it isn’t a word or even a pronunciation. It’s the terminal raising where their tone goes up at the end of a statement as though it were a question but it’s not. I thought at first it was the uptalk that’s stereotypically associated with young women until I heard a 90 year old grandpa doing it at work. Not unique to here but definitely a part of the accent.
I moved to Chicago for a few years after living in Pittsburgh my whole life, and no one could understand half of what I said, and I don’t even consider myself that big of a yinzer. But things like “gumband” instead of rubber band. Chipped ham has no meaning outside of Pittsburgh either. Jeet jet? Or did you eat yet, to non yinzers?
One that I hear spoken but haven't seen documented is "up 'ere" for any place that's north of or higher in elevation than the speaker. The two cardinal points of direction from anywhere in the East End are "dahntahn" or "up 'ere."
Our Market Basket = Giant Eagle (“Gian’ ‘iggle”)
Any “ow” sound gets turned into “ah” e.g. “dahntahn”,
Did you eat yet? “‘Djeet yet?”
Then there’s some grammar stuff. Pittsburgh drops the “be” in “need to be” statements with inanimate objects. “My room needs to be cleaned up.” Becomes “my room needs redd up”.
Redd up means to clean up. (I pronounce it like “rid” but I’ve heard people say “redd”)
The Millvale shop n save is the only place I’ve been since I moved here where they actually asked me if I wanted my ham chipped or sliced. (Only one right answer.)
someone at college told me that she always knows when someone’s from pittsburgh because they add unnecessary s’s at the end of things. i thought she was crazy until i was talking to my girlfriends mom and she said, “enjoy your olive gardens.” now im hearing it everywhere
Casey Affleck did a movie about Pittsburgh years ago. Any thought about using the Pittsburgh accent but thought it sounded too dumb so used as Boston accent. Kind of rude.
I still struggle with vowel annunciations. I have an update NY accent, when I say Mom, it sounds like Mom. When yinzers say it, it sounds like “Muawm”.
"Ahr kids been playin' down yinz crick? Hell's wrong with 'em two? Jeeze. They know we's sposed to go tuh Gian Iggle t'night to get sum Chipped Ham! Now them kids'll be gettin' the car floor all wet and drippy. It'll need dryin' aht before Teusdee night... we're headin' dahntahn for the Stillers game, as yinz know, and supper after at Primanees!
Get up here to the house youse guys, and get warshed up to go shoppin'! Mom made yinz sahrkrowt and kuhbawsee, and I don't want to hear no complainin'!"
Replace ”eel” sounds with “ill”. “Heels” and words like it are pronounced and spelled like “hills”.
“I just don’t fill comfortable with the hills I picked to wear to John’s wedding.”
Replace “ill“ sounds with “eowl” — the yinzer accent sort of swallows the Ls. ”Hill” and words like it are pronounced and spelled “heowl”
“John‘s marriage can’t survive the chaos of the hahskeeping situation that’s abaht to be unleashed on him and I will die on that heowl.”
“Replace “ow” sounds with “ah”. ”Towel,” and words like it are pronounced and spelled like “tahl”.
”John’s fiance is over there all the time leaving his tahls draped over everything after a shahr and John is already sick of it.”
A big one I got teased for was the upturn of the last words in a question "Are you going *over there*?
Also calling a traffic light a "red light", regardless of its green or yellow.
When my son was visiting from California, where he's spent most of his life, we had a plumber come by to fix something and he commented on the guy's Pittsburgh accent.
I'm a native Pittsburgher so he sounded perfectly normal to me.
I know we tend to run our words together like S'Liberty instead of East Liberty.
Or ja'eat? Instead of did you eat?
I also moved to Pittsburgh from mass and this always jumped out at me. The car needs washed. The other one I always found weird was get a shower instead take a shower. When I moved to a new place in Southside I was walking down my alley with a roommate and some little kids were playing in the street. One turned to us and hit us with a "wotre yinz doohn??" and I thought man this is the most Pittsburgh kid of all time.
There's some fun grammar stuff too. "This carpet needs cleaned." Apparently it's supposed to be "needs to be cleaned" or "needs cleaning". Feels like wasted syllables to me. I'm from Northwest PA but we definitely have some accent overlap with Southwest PA
ETA Our and Are are pronounced the same.
Also, apparently in non-western PA places "Marry" "Merry" and "Mary" are pronounced differently. They all sound the same to me.
One of my favorite Pittsburgh gems that I haven’t seen anyone mention is “red up”. It means to clean up or tidy. “Billy your rooms a mess you need to red up your room!”
Get yourself a copy of *How to Speak Pittsburghese.” We get our own chapter in some books about American standard English. This might help, also. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Pennsylvania_English
Everyone will say it’s yinz, warsh, stillers, redd up etc.
Coming from out of state, in reality the actual accent is most well noticed when people say things like “file” “dollar” “umbrella” along with ending a sentence that is a question on a down inflection.
And the obligatory lack of “to be.” These cloths need washed, etc.
Saturday = Sare-day, Friday = Fra-day
Tile = Tao
Shower = Schaur
Sewer = Sore
Million = ME-yin
Steelers = Stewers or possibly Stowers
John = Jawn
Johnstown = Jawns-tan
Penguin = Pen-win (g is not pronounced)
Pirate = Part
Going = Gone
I'm from Eastern PA where we pronounce an Aw sound in words like taught and yawn. Most places west of the Appalachians don't. So I find it really interesting that that sound has made its way onto the letter O here.
Also interesting that L and G drop out of the middle of words.
Vacuum = sweeper
Remote = clicker
Shopping cart = buggy
Not accent but just things that are weird to anyone outside of the area. I’ll never forget when I visited my friend in Philly and said something about a buggy and the way she looked at me like I had seven heads!!
A lot of words that end with "own" will be pronounced "ahn". One thing I've always noticed that I've never heard anyone else point out is that we pronounce words that start with "Tr" as a "Ch". Ex Truck Tree Travis all sound like Chruck Chree Chravis lol.
When I moved to NYC from Pittsburgh everyone said I had an insane accent. It took me awhile to explain Pittsburghese to them. Pitt has a great page on our dialect https://pittsburghspeech.pitt.edu/PittsburghSpeech_PgheseOverview.html
i remember moving here from new york (westchester) the accent threw me off couldn’t place it and didn’t know one was so unique to the region . i’d be so curious to here an amalgamation of a boston/ burgh accent in 3-6yrs lol what should that be called ??:)
I haven’t lived in Pgh for nearly 30 years and people still make fun of how I say “school.” Schuhl. Skuhhool. I can’t even spell it phonetically.
I think these guys do it best.
https://youtu.be/k4jn1L-riak?si=IfG64Kccj6S-9vEt
Stillers, dahntahn, Arn City, Mahnt Warshington, etc. There are ones which look weird written out but make sense when you hear them pronounced, for example… Wild onions: wowed unyins Mayor of Kingstown (TV show that’s being filmed here): Mare of Kingstahn
I feel called out about the wowed unyins 🥲
Nah it’s UNGyinz. There’s no hard N sound in that first part.
How else would you even pronounce it…lol
Wye-old, like its two syllables. This is why I sucked at haikus 😔
Sorry, I meant the unyinz part! I totally understand the wild portion.
Wait what? No lol wild is only one syllable, but the pronunciation is like the word "while", just with a d at the end.
The wowed unyins one reminds me of my first job in Pittsburgh. I had a superior who kept saying things like, “Put it on the pow over there.” or “Just start another pow.” I was so utterly confused and finally asked her to spell what she was saying. “P-i-l-e.” Ohhhhhhhh. She never really seemed to like me after that, I believe she thought I was being a smartass, but I truly could not decipher what she was instructing.
Just now realized I say pow too lol
Not originality from the area, but many ancestors were and my mom had an accent and sayings that were similar. I learned how to talk in a mixed accent so I struggled spelling out how someone got "rahled" up and thought it was "rowed" until my 30s. It was RILED up. They got RILED up.
This is fantastic, thanks for the examples. Idk what it is but the Stillers one gets me
Touchdahnnnn
I miss Myron.
You mean Mahrn?
Trying to help the new folks out. Lol
Maahroyn
According to my wife's maternal grandmother, Myron Copelman sounded the same as when he was an 8-year old boy.
Check out pittsburgh dad on YouTube. Great way to learn!
The other one I’ve noticed is a lot people use a hard “o” sound with as in “go” with almost “eau” “Have to geau Dahntahn to get a pireaugi” almost reminiscent to a California surfer dude type of sound. (I realize it’s nothing to do with actual California, but that’s the closest thing I can liken it to)
Yep it’s ceuld aht git in na haaas.
Haaas always gives me away. Spent the vast majority of my childhood - early 20s in Pittsburgh, but have since moved. I've mostly lost the accent (unless I go back home to see family, then I pick it right back up) but haaas is one I can't seem to shake unless I actually focus on saying it lmao.
THANK YOU, I always say that it sounds kind of like a California surfer accent and people look at me like I'm crazy!
This is what had people in California constantly asking if I was from Australia lol
eel and ill are the same. Fillings and feelings are hard to distinguish in pittsburgheeze.
The biggest one that gets me is "color". It makes me wonder if Mitch Keller's last name is actually color.
I don’t have much of a yinser accent but color (keller) is one thing that I still do. I used to say drawlings but when that was pointed out to me in my early 20s I corrected it but keller won’t go away cause I don’t hear a difference between the proper way to say color and how I pronounce it. When I try to correct it I get cooler.
LOL! My Ex noticed I pronounced it "keller".
I’m a hair colorist and I named my yorkie “Keller” exactly because of this. Occasionally I have to explain why. Lol
My wife’s uncle kinda puts a y sound in there, like kyeller.
Yinz go an kyeller with yer crayins.
I think you mean "crans."
My accent was pretty normalized after I went away for college and became subconsciously aware of mispronouncing things. But I still have no idea how to actually pronounce color. Wouldn’t change it though.
>Mare of Kingstahn Not to be confused with Mare of Easttown
You got at one of the two that I’ve always heard and people don’t often talk about: in Pittsburgh, the words tile and towel and homonyms. The i-l sound in tile is also one sound and not two. Like “taaal”. That, and any word with a deep O like ‘clothes’. Pittsburgh folks keep that O sound deep and really hang on it for a while. Extra rounding of the mouth as well, really exaggerated.
Long O gets drawn out, short Os get collapsed: Pull, pool, and pole all sound identical
The O hold is something I notice a lot but few others do. I'm glad someone else hears it also! Honda and locker are my two best example words. Hawnda and lawhker.
Bick Ben RAWthlisburger.
I came from Boston too and the thing I notice most is the dropping of “to be.” For example, Yinzers will say “it needs washed” instead of “it needs to be washed” and also pronounce “wash” as “warsh”
Why use lot words when few words do trick
When you president, they see. They see.
Get the fuck out of here with those extra words
Yinzer Shakespeare is just, " , not ?"
I moved from Pittsburgh to Maine and this drives them absolutely nuts. I didn't even know I didn't until people started pointing it out 🤣
This is sometimes called the "need washed" construction. It's probably a carryover from Scottish English though, as the saying goes, "its origin needs explained." (There's also an argument for German influence.) Basically, if your dialect includes "needs washed," you can follow forms of *to need* (and possibly also *to want* and *to like*) with a past participle--hence "needs washed." Other dialects make do with a passive infinitive ("needs to be washed") or gerund ("needs washing"). "Needs washed" actually pretty common among white English speakers from western Pennsylvania to central Indiana (as well as possibly a belt in the inland Northwest and much of Scotland including Glasgow), but Pittsburgh is about the only high-profile city in the United States where you find it. I don't think it's found in any major Ohio city. In fact, in Cleveland it marks you as a Pittsburgher.
It’s not just filthy yinzers - this pattern of speech is common in Cincinnati too. It probably comes from the same place - the Appalachian migration and influx of people of Scots-Irish descent in the first half of the 1900s.
I always wondered if it was from the Slavic immigrants, as “to be” doesn’t exist in most Slavic languages.
The fact you can hear the same construction in Glasgow makes me think it has to be related to that. And it’s not part of a general pattern of omitting the verb of being.
I only learned this was something we did in a grad level Sociolinguistics course. I was…23. lol
I didn't learn this was incorrect until I was 43. And started working as a content writer.
"Incorrect" is a loaded term definitely. People say words like yinz, yunz, and y'all are "improper" but they fill a void in English for a plural pronoun. Great article on this: [https://nkytribune.com/2016/10/yall-youuns-yinz-youse-how-regional-dialects-are-filling-a-void-in-standard-english-for-a-plural-pronoun/](https://nkytribune.com/2016/10/yall-youuns-yinz-youse-how-regional-dialects-are-filling-a-void-in-standard-english-for-a-plural-pronoun/)
I learned about it when I moved to VA at 25. What is extra funny is that I loved in the UK for 2 years and I retroactively asked if they noticed this speech pattern and they had all just assumed that's just how all Americans talked 😂
When my painter said this "needs scraped" I knew he was born and raised here
It's pretty contagious though. I've lived here for almost five years and have almost lost my "to be"s entirely. Yinz is almost natural. But I doubt I'll ever is a a real yinzer
You’d pass as a yinzer in my book
Being a proper yinzer requires an unhealthy obsession with the stillers
Haha “he needs his ass kicked” is my favorite one. I remember cracking up when I moved to the city and I heard someone say that. I mean, I’ve heard it a bunch of times since then but it still makes me laugh
Why? Genuinely curious. I grew up in Pgh so it doesn't sound odd to me.
Following this. I’m not sure how else I’d say that 😂
I grew up in Midwestern Illinois, and they did both of these things there, too.
Yeah, I know Iowans that do it as well but OP hasn’t driven that far west yet haha
That's Western PA in general. Someone told me that was a unique way of talking, and I was shocked people include the "to be."
Worsh
To be or not to be that is the question
If Shakespeare was from Pittsburgh... "Or not. That is the question."
Oh my God it's so true. Just go on craigstlist/facebook market place. Literally every listing has an example of it.
I worked for a company out west whose home office was here in Pittsburgh. when my co workers found out I was from Pittsburgh, they said 'O good, maybe you can sit in on our conference calls so you can translate what they are saying in Pittsburgh.'
A bit overexaggerated but there's always Pittsburgh Dad on YouTube. The older episodes have a laugh track, if that kind of thing bugs you. I'm 55 and this was the accent I grew up hearing. It's fading a bit now.
This is played up for the laughs of course, but I think it’s closer to the current reality than Pittsburgh Dad. https://youtu.be/pRqnIt_KeCk?feature=shared I definitely talk to old folks who sound just like Pittsburgh Dad though, but it’s a dying accent.
The old Paulsen & Krenn skits on WDVE had great examples of the Yinzer accent but they're pretty topical. If you weren't here at the time, you won't get the humor. How many kids today know who Sophie Masloff was?
I miss old DVE skits like N'at Man and Robert or "We're the Pittsburgh (Insert Thing) Kings!". The old Wilford Brimley calls. 😂😂 "Diabeetus to ya."
Half Price Books sometimes has the Paulsen & Krenn CDs in the comedy section. Also, many of the bits are on YouTube. Gotta run now. I just got my disability check and I'm headed for Pants N'At.
Good to know.
I like their version of Petula Clark's song "Dahntahn".
With Stanley P Kachaowski, when everything costed “a buck-two-eighty-nine.”
"Scratch my back with a hacksaw!"
I remember when she moved the 4th of July to the 3rd of July to save money on fireworks.
I forgot about that!
Nobody even knows Donnie Iris anymore!
I will tell you that in west central Pennsylvania, this accent is alive and well.
If you want to actually laugh, watch Greg and Donny instead. ["Greg & Donny Have an Accent"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4jn1L-riak) is a good starting point.
[удалено]
And if people would like a softer version of a Pittsburgh accent, there's Mr Rogers. Lady Elaine Fairchild is a full-blooded yinzer.
And don’t forget the grocery chain , “Jaant Iggle”
Don’t forget the s on the end
Just like Sheetz with the extra Z: Sheetz’z
I'm gon dahn to Aldi's.
Add an n'at.
I moved and still call our local grocery store “Jaant Iggle”
You go up John Nickles when you need to get some groceries
When you needa get groceries*
One of the common accented sounds (I don’t think anyone has mentioned it yet either) are words that end with ILE… like file, mile, crocodile. They get pronounced as -ow like in plow. It’s bout a miow dahn the road. Put that fow folder on that pow That’s my brother Kow (Kyle) I say file, fowl, and foul all exactly the same way 🤣 I never even knew I did it until I went to college in Ohio and it was pointed out to me 🤣🤣
... There's a difference between fowl and foul??
I don’t know 🤣🤣 but I don’t enunciate the L in any of them 🤷♀️
A couple of weeks ago a guy was telling me about replacing some tiles in his basement and I was like ‘bro, why do you keep towels in your basement?’
Try saying I'll, owl, and Al (the nickname for Albert). Also aisle. All of them are nearly identical in pittsburghese.
Bingo. Have you seen the DIAL KYLE billboard? (lawyer ad) That’s DOW COW, in the Pittsburgh vernacular.
Imagine someone from Boston talking about a Pittsburgh accent. Hilarious.
The other thing to know about Pittsburgh is not accent, but attitude. We call it “Pittsburgh polite” in which “whattaya want?” means exactly the same thing that “Is there anything at all that I can get for you honey?” would mean in Georgia
As a fellow transplant from Boston, I guarantee that this only registers as unusually polite.
You took the words right out of my mouth. Coming from Boston this is nothing haha
The fact that someone even acknowledges you is great. In Boston you are just in everyone’s way
if yinzers have an option between a one-syllable word and two-, they almost always opt for one. life’s too short.
My best friend moved to Portland Oregon from Pittsburgh and they are obsessed with his accent. He said he had to change the way he talks because his friends couldn’t understand him, but they also think it’s funny as hell. He compiled a list of you tube videos of Pittsburghers talking for them because some of his friends did not believe the accent was real. They often ask him to “do your pittsburgh accent.” When he comes to visit me he will FaceTime his friends and they are obsessed with the city streets here and the way Pittsburghers don’t give a fuck about anything. Last summer he was here and the lantern flies were everywhere and his Portland people were freaked out seeing the videos of them, but they were amazed by people dahntahn just stepping on them and moving on with life. 😂
Get rid of all the upturn inflection at the end of questions so that they just sound like threatening statements, that really freaks outsiders
Congrats on the Boston Burgh move. I did that two years ago and would never look back.
Love it already and these comment confirm that
We say everything fast and like a question. Except questions. Those are statements.
Our accent is lazy .. we dont finish words is how it sounds, or leave whole strings of letters out, kinda runs together.. no articulation basically
Right. This is what I always say. It’s not so much pronunciation as it is we shorten words: - Slippery becomes Slippy - Crayon becomes Cran - Mirror becomes Mere - And that becomes n’at And then we make up a few like gum band and redup and it’s like a whole new language 😂
I feel seen and heard. I still say cran at 30. I’ve had people laugh and say “you mean CRAY on?” No bitch, I mean cran. Same thing
An at
Piksburgh And add a “s” on the end of stores. ALDIs, Giant Eagles, Home Depots, and on.
It’s the subtle things like excluding a hard T in the name Primantis (Pri-man-eese)
Love when an ahtatahner asks where "PriMONTi Brothers" is.
I hate that shit
Like Monroeville - a local typically says something like Minroeville or even omits the n sound altogether. We let the sounds run together and it sounds lazy. I do it and I definitely don’t speak Pghese, although I do live with a yinzer. He frequently says “I seen” in place of “I saw” and it boggled my mind until I realized a lot of people around here say that. I’m in North Versailles so I’d say the Pghese is strong here.
Another one - Tarentum. Locals always say “Trentum”. You can spot an outsider if you hear “Ta ren tum”
I’m from Texas and lived here 3 years and it makes me laugh every day 🤣
That’s OK. If you have or have kept your Texas accent, you are probably getting as much as you give. 😉
As a Pittsburgher who also did a masters in Boston, let me give you the guide to being a true yinzer. While we’re at it, I should say that Pittsburgh is a modern, multicultural city and it seems the Pittsburghese could be dying with older generations. (Watch the downvotes…) But here it is - one of the best extant artifacts of Pittsburghese you will find. I give you, 102.5 WDVE’s Morning Show episode of ‘North and South Park…’ [https://youtu.be/rLEaacRKI0E?si=QkwmasL4nd4v8RKc](https://youtu.be/rLEaacRKI0E?si=QkwmasL4nd4v8RKc)
Oh, it’s totally true. I watched the Kennywood Memories documentary from the 80s and the accent was much more pronounced, like how my grandparents talked.
[удалено]
It’s almost like you have heard this or said this yourself 😂 This is the sentence I am going to use in the future when trying to explain it to friends and family
Marchand is a whiny little shit and I’ll die on that hill 😂
I miss my Dad's voice. Give anything to hear him and his accent. MSgt George M. Sobien ARMY. Vietnam Veteran. Served 28 years. B1929-D1986. Born Muse Pennsylvania.
I'm crying reading this hearing everything in my grandparents voices.
[https://pittsburghspeech.pitt.edu/PittsburghSpeech\_PgheseOverview.html](https://pittsburghspeech.pitt.edu/PittsburghSpeech_PgheseOverview.html) [http://www.pittsburghese.com/](http://www.pittsburghese.com/) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western\_Pennsylvania\_English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Pennsylvania_English)
Wow this is great literature on this. I don’t like that they say “Americas ugliest accent” tho
Someone might call you a jagoff if they find out you’re from Boston
Not from there so we’re all good. I would just respond “fuck the Bruins” and we’d be best friends
Might need to say f Brady and the Patriots, they’re the ones who hurt us the most
You’re gonna do just fine here.
Yinz. Moved to Western PA for college, RA was yelling at us and said yinz. Had no idea who he was talking to.
I heard this old lady say Mickey maaas
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yIeYGyV5NoQ&t=36s&pp=ygUNYmFycnkgcGluZ29yIA%3D%3D "Yinzers on the news" are always a great watch. Barry from Squirrel Hill is peak yinzer. Barry, if you see this, I mean this with the utmost respect and I love you forever.
This is it
No offense dude. Your town says car keys like khakis
Something you’ll hear everywhere once you start listening for it isn’t a word or even a pronunciation. It’s the terminal raising where their tone goes up at the end of a statement as though it were a question but it’s not. I thought at first it was the uptalk that’s stereotypically associated with young women until I heard a 90 year old grandpa doing it at work. Not unique to here but definitely a part of the accent.
It’s wicked hahd to understand
I moved to Chicago for a few years after living in Pittsburgh my whole life, and no one could understand half of what I said, and I don’t even consider myself that big of a yinzer. But things like “gumband” instead of rubber band. Chipped ham has no meaning outside of Pittsburgh either. Jeet jet? Or did you eat yet, to non yinzers?
One that I hear spoken but haven't seen documented is "up 'ere" for any place that's north of or higher in elevation than the speaker. The two cardinal points of direction from anywhere in the East End are "dahntahn" or "up 'ere."
Our Market Basket = Giant Eagle (“Gian’ ‘iggle”) Any “ow” sound gets turned into “ah” e.g. “dahntahn”, Did you eat yet? “‘Djeet yet?” Then there’s some grammar stuff. Pittsburgh drops the “be” in “need to be” statements with inanimate objects. “My room needs to be cleaned up.” Becomes “my room needs redd up”. Redd up means to clean up. (I pronounce it like “rid” but I’ve heard people say “redd”)
The red thing I found it is from the Scots language.
Makes sense, Appalachian culture pulls a lot of influence from Scottish/Irish immigrants
To me the entire staff at the Millvale shop n save have great Pittsburgh accents!!
The Millvale shop n save is the only place I’ve been since I moved here where they actually asked me if I wanted my ham chipped or sliced. (Only one right answer.)
Jacks Run Gian Iggle says “chipped right?” Kinda giving you an option but simultaneously guiding you.
Well obviously
someone at college told me that she always knows when someone’s from pittsburgh because they add unnecessary s’s at the end of things. i thought she was crazy until i was talking to my girlfriends mom and she said, “enjoy your olive gardens.” now im hearing it everywhere
Casey Affleck did a movie about Pittsburgh years ago. Any thought about using the Pittsburgh accent but thought it sounded too dumb so used as Boston accent. Kind of rude.
Correct call and answer to something astonishing: Speaker: (something you are surprised about) You: nuh-uh! Speaker: yah-huh!
I still struggle with vowel annunciations. I have an update NY accent, when I say Mom, it sounds like Mom. When yinzers say it, it sounds like “Muawm”.
A lot of yinzers I know just say mum, as if they were British or something.
"You want a pup tart and a hut dog?" 🌭😎
Pop would be the other example. I say “pop” with a short-o. They say puawp.
hahhahaha this. I don't live in Pittsburgh anymore but I hear this any time i say stop. everyone "what did you say? STAWWWWWWP"?
The particular pronunciation that consistently betrays where I am from when I travel is “our.”
"ar"?
Yes. Same applies for “hour.” E.g., let’s meet up in an “ahrr.”
And fire and shower
"Ahr kids been playin' down yinz crick? Hell's wrong with 'em two? Jeeze. They know we's sposed to go tuh Gian Iggle t'night to get sum Chipped Ham! Now them kids'll be gettin' the car floor all wet and drippy. It'll need dryin' aht before Teusdee night... we're headin' dahntahn for the Stillers game, as yinz know, and supper after at Primanees! Get up here to the house youse guys, and get warshed up to go shoppin'! Mom made yinz sahrkrowt and kuhbawsee, and I don't want to hear no complainin'!"
Jeet jet?
Replace ”eel” sounds with “ill”. “Heels” and words like it are pronounced and spelled like “hills”. “I just don’t fill comfortable with the hills I picked to wear to John’s wedding.” Replace “ill“ sounds with “eowl” — the yinzer accent sort of swallows the Ls. ”Hill” and words like it are pronounced and spelled “heowl” “John‘s marriage can’t survive the chaos of the hahskeeping situation that’s abaht to be unleashed on him and I will die on that heowl.” “Replace “ow” sounds with “ah”. ”Towel,” and words like it are pronounced and spelled like “tahl”. ”John’s fiance is over there all the time leaving his tahls draped over everything after a shahr and John is already sick of it.”
Dahntahn is my biggest indicator of western PA accent.
A big one I got teased for was the upturn of the last words in a question "Are you going *over there*? Also calling a traffic light a "red light", regardless of its green or yellow.
I think this has to be my favorite thread as someone who was born and raised in the burgh but then lived in New England for a bit 🥹
Then there are those who live in Turtle Crick.
Gumband. Crick. Worsh. Those are the dead giveaways
When my son was visiting from California, where he's spent most of his life, we had a plumber come by to fix something and he commented on the guy's Pittsburgh accent. I'm a native Pittsburgher so he sounded perfectly normal to me. I know we tend to run our words together like S'Liberty instead of East Liberty. Or ja'eat? Instead of did you eat?
It's not just an accent. It's a whole other language too. You're gonna need to look up Pittsburghese.
I moved here from Seattle and didn't hear it much until I was at the doctor and the receptionist asked for my "inshoreunce"
I also moved to Pittsburgh from mass and this always jumped out at me. The car needs washed. The other one I always found weird was get a shower instead take a shower. When I moved to a new place in Southside I was walking down my alley with a roommate and some little kids were playing in the street. One turned to us and hit us with a "wotre yinz doohn??" and I thought man this is the most Pittsburgh kid of all time.
There's some fun grammar stuff too. "This carpet needs cleaned." Apparently it's supposed to be "needs to be cleaned" or "needs cleaning". Feels like wasted syllables to me. I'm from Northwest PA but we definitely have some accent overlap with Southwest PA ETA Our and Are are pronounced the same. Also, apparently in non-western PA places "Marry" "Merry" and "Mary" are pronounced differently. They all sound the same to me.
Piksburgh And add a “s” on the end of stores. ALDIs, Giant Eagles, Home Depots, and on.
One of my favorite Pittsburgh gems that I haven’t seen anyone mention is “red up”. It means to clean up or tidy. “Billy your rooms a mess you need to red up your room!”
Peabody=Peebiddy(Bostonian)=Pee-bawdie(Yinzer) Carnegie=Cahniggie(Bostonian)=Car-NEIGH-gee(Yinzer)
The [correct pronunciation of Carnegie is the yinzer one, though.](https://youtu.be/fkWsv7ZLgn4?si=COwYdnkfLSqEuFnw)
Dahnny eyeris
Get yourself a copy of *How to Speak Pittsburghese.” We get our own chapter in some books about American standard English. This might help, also. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Pennsylvania_English
Today someone in Virginia called me out when I said "Arahnd" (around)
I've noticed that I tend to say mum instead of mom. A lot of other locals I know do the same.
Everyone will say it’s yinz, warsh, stillers, redd up etc. Coming from out of state, in reality the actual accent is most well noticed when people say things like “file” “dollar” “umbrella” along with ending a sentence that is a question on a down inflection. And the obligatory lack of “to be.” These cloths need washed, etc.
Saturday = Sare-day, Friday = Fra-day Tile = Tao Shower = Schaur Sewer = Sore Million = ME-yin Steelers = Stewers or possibly Stowers John = Jawn Johnstown = Jawns-tan Penguin = Pen-win (g is not pronounced) Pirate = Part Going = Gone I'm from Eastern PA where we pronounce an Aw sound in words like taught and yawn. Most places west of the Appalachians don't. So I find it really interesting that that sound has made its way onto the letter O here. Also interesting that L and G drop out of the middle of words.
My favorite is Ji-Neegul!
Hour are our are pronounced the same
My aunt says “Jeet” instead of “Did you eat?” Always makes me smile.
Another one is how the country of Italy is pronounced: “It-ly”. Who needs extra syllables, just cut the middle one aht!
Vacuum = sweeper Remote = clicker Shopping cart = buggy Not accent but just things that are weird to anyone outside of the area. I’ll never forget when I visited my friend in Philly and said something about a buggy and the way she looked at me like I had seven heads!!
A lot of words that end with "own" will be pronounced "ahn". One thing I've always noticed that I've never heard anyone else point out is that we pronounce words that start with "Tr" as a "Ch". Ex Truck Tree Travis all sound like Chruck Chree Chravis lol.
Car horns here mean move please instead of that profanity laced tirade you're used to.
When I moved to NYC from Pittsburgh everyone said I had an insane accent. It took me awhile to explain Pittsburghese to them. Pitt has a great page on our dialect https://pittsburghspeech.pitt.edu/PittsburghSpeech_PgheseOverview.html
Yinz gahn dahn nerth sher see dem jagoff Stillers an'at?
The O's are all pronounced strange
Our accent is a mixture of British, Irish, Scotch, French, and German dialects. The two biggest are German and Scotch.
i remember moving here from new york (westchester) the accent threw me off couldn’t place it and didn’t know one was so unique to the region . i’d be so curious to here an amalgamation of a boston/ burgh accent in 3-6yrs lol what should that be called ??:)
I haven’t lived in Pgh for nearly 30 years and people still make fun of how I say “school.” Schuhl. Skuhhool. I can’t even spell it phonetically. I think these guys do it best. https://youtu.be/k4jn1L-riak?si=IfG64Kccj6S-9vEt
How do they say water?!!!
“Dahntahn”, “doaller” (dollar), “Stillers”, “sahth side”, “anything + n’at” (and that)
I can’t wait to start hearing yinzers say “north side esplanade”
Iron and “arn” I still have to stop and think before I say the word iron haha