Dialect Leveling in Baton Rouge

Hey there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Chris calling from Bluffton, South Carolina.

Hey, Chris, welcome to the show. What’s on your mind today?

I am a 16-year resident of Bluffton, which is next door to Hilton Head, but grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 35 years.

And it was not until I moved away that I realized, or at least I think I realized, that Baton Rouge has its own unique accent that I guess is flavored by its proximity to New Orleans and to Acadiana and the Cajun culture.

And I guess I wanted to ask, how does an area like Baton Rouge, 300,000 people, kind of a cosmopolitan area, absorb, for lack of a better word, accents from the cultures around them in a way that becomes its own unique sound?

So what’s happening here is that Baton Rouge has more in common with general Southern dialect than it does with New Orleans English.

So Baton Rouge has things like the A and I vowels are often lengthened.

So the word R-I-D-E may sound like rod.

And unlike New Orleans English, where a cat might sound like kiat, which is kind of a tensed vowel or a glide.

So New Orleans English often has had also was non-rhotic, at least for the older generations.

That’s where the R sound after vowels disappears.

But New Orleans English is starting to get that R back as the younger generations drop those old dialect features.

In any case, so Baton Rouge then also, on top of having the broad Southern dialect patterns, also has some of the Cajun influence, a little bit of the Cadiana, as you say, coming in there.

Not a lot. It’s just a little bit.

And it tends to show up in the lexical items like, I don’t know, fait dodo or the median or buying groceries instead of making groceries.

So you buy groceries in Baton Rouge, but you make them in New Orleans.

Right.

So, yeah, but some of it also is just that native speaker’s ear.

So you have, because you’re from there, you hear things that maybe even linguists haven’t put precisely down on paper.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

I used to say that the Baton Rouge accent was a more polished version of a New Orleans Cajun, like a lightly kissed version of it.

But that made it sound kind of superior, which that’s not what I’m trying to say.

Oh, sure, why not?

Have some pride.

Lightly kissed, though.

That’s nice.

Yes.

Growing up, you know, Mardi Gras was never big in Baton Rouge, but St. Patrick’s Day was huge.

And I think a lot of people don’t realize how many cultures come together in South Louisiana.

And I kind of was curious if all that interrelates.

New Orleans, heavy Italian, Irish, German.

That’s right.

Yep.

Yeah, New Orleans was for a long time and still is far more of an international city as a major port.

And just the overlay of the Creole cultures and the Italian cultures and African-American cultures, just everything happening there.

Baton Rouge tend to be a little more of your typical South with a little bit of that, but also whiter.

Just tend to be more Scots-Irish influence.

And so all of these things come into play.

So you get that wonderful, that stirred mix of the local talk.

And how is it that two cities that are relatively close to each other can be different?

Well, that’s just the way language works.

Yeah, and most of my family is from the south.

If I go to, say, Alabama, where my dad is from, it’s pretty homogenous unless you go all the way down to Mobile.

And then that section is different than the rest.

It always just struck me as very odd that Baton Rouge could be close to two major areas with such distinct, unique language styles of their own and not absorb more of it.

But obviously it absorbed more than I realized growing up there.

Well, one term I want to leave you with before we go, and this is what linguists call leveling, which is when the people who live in a geographic area level out their linguistic differences so they start to sound more alike.

And it’s done for a variety of reasons, usually unconsciously.

But they often have to do with paths of power, how you get your influence personally, professionally, academically.

That’s very interesting.

Yeah.

Love your guys’ show.

I listen to it every weekend while I’m at work.

It keeps me entertained.

Yeah, a pleasure.

Thanks, Chris.

Call us again sometime.

I will.

Thanks a lot.

You guys have a great day.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Thanks, Chris.

Bye-bye.

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