Re: PA dialect (was: Re: i'm reforming one of my conlangs)

OMG what a trip down memory lane. I remember gum band (which we call an
elastic here in Alberta). My father used to say "Washington" as Wooshington
(woosh rhyming with bush). And then there is the question, "Where you at?"

I was also always fascinated with the pronunciation of "rose." Unfortunately
I have no idea how to render that in IPA other than that you kinda have to
shove your jaw forward a little and your lips do not make a perfect circle,
but are more open. My grandfather always called the sofa a "davenport"
(which I believe has been discussed here before as well as our western
Canadian "chesterfield")

You never got a paddlin' instead of a spankin' and your grandparents were
Gramaw and Grampap. (Little kids always called Grampap pap-pap)

Nice to go home again.
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On
Behalf Of Carl Banks
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 12:01 PM
To: CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu
Subject: Re: PA dialect (was: Re: i'm reforming one of my conlangs)


"Hey, kids, whah don't yinz take some gum bands and trah to shoot those
grinniz out of the gutter, and then get in the hause an' woosh up an' fill
the fridge with Ahrn City, the Stillers are on it one, n'at."


Pittsburghese = weak or no diphthongs

(Hence "Ahrn City" for "Iron City", which is the local crappy beer.  Also
Stillers, hause, etc.  A grinny is a chipmunk--never actually heard that
one myself but it's my favorite.  And a gum band, the quintessential
Pittsburghese term, is a rubber band.  Also, I'm sad to say, many in
Pittsburgh use that Southern abomination of calling a shopping cart a
"buggy".)


To answer this question:

> Do people from there really say it that way? Do they
> pronounce other /ts/ as /ks/?
Trendy people just say "the Burgh" nowadays.


Bringing this back to conlanging, I think it'd be cool to incorporate some
of these elements into a dialect of my own conlang.  So the 2nd person
plural would be a contraction of "you ones", etc.


Carl Banks


Donald Boozer wrote:
> I haven't posted to CONLANG in awhile (mea culpa) and couldn't resist
> adding my tuppence to this thread.
> I'm originally from Western Pennsylvania in the Clarion & Armstrong County
> areas (about 1/2 way between Pittsburgh and Erie):
> -*younz* /jUnz/ was very much in evidence in that area growing up as well
> as *worsh* /wOrS/ for "wash" (including Worshington, DC).
> -We had a *creek* /krIk/ flowing below our house.
> -We took groceries home in a *poke* /pOk/
> -I was often told by my exasperated mother to stop *rutching* /rUtS.n/
> when I was supposed to sitting still.
> -And told not to be *shushly* /SUS.li/ when I was supposed to be doing
> something carefully (like carrying a full glass of water)
> - And one of my favorite foods was *rivvel* soup.
> Those last three are derived from PA Dutch from what I have found out much
> later, but none of my relatives were Amish (although both sides of my
> family have a good deal of German and Swiss ancestry).
> I haven't thought about these in a long while, so thanks for the reminder
> :-)
> On the conlanging front, I'm in the process of writing a grammar of Umod.
> It's up to 16 pages and I'm using Payne's Describing Morphosyntax as a
> guide. I'm also working on two writing systems, one for Umod and one for
> Elasin.
>
>> Date:    Tue, 9 Dec 2008 21:07:16 -0600
>> From:    Vincent Pistelli <pva003@...>
>> Subject: Re: i'm reforming one of my conlangs
>>
>> yes people really do say that I used to but then I got
>> older but I still sa=
>> y
>> yinz and worsh(as opposed to wash)
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 10:21 PM, Eric Christopherson
>> <rakko@...>wro=
>> te:
>>
>> > On Dec 8, 2008, at 6:41 PM, Amanda Babcock Furrow
>> wrote:
>> >
>> >  On Tue, Dec 09, 2008 at 12:32:39AM +0000, Eugene Oh
>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>  Also, "yinz"?
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >> Oooh, I can answer that!  He's from
>> "Picksburg".
>> >>
>> >
>> > Do people from there really say it that way? Do they
>> pronounce other /ts/=
>> s
>> > as /ks/?
>> >
>> >
>> >> (See "Pittsburghese"...)
>
>
>
>