Researchers track evolution of Philly's odd accent with electronic recording and analysis. I thought you might like to know.
Thanks, Emmett. Fascinating.
Really interesting!
(I wasn't much familiar with the Philly's accent and so, I didn't get 'Gid eowt'. Then I asked the meaning on Ask.com, and someone answered with a link to the same article. 😀 But I had already worked it out)
This lady says to bring the corners of the mouth way forward, and do the 'l' close to the throat. And turn vowel into diphthong- that's how 'out' comes out eeouwt. Nice.
OK. I was born and raised in Philadelphia. I moved away during my high-school years and lost or reduced much of my local accent due to peer pressure. I haven't lived in Philadelphia for nearly 40 years.
This women gets the vowels right. It is impressive.
One thing that she does not address about the Philadelphia accent in the video is Philadelphia's extreme palatalization of consonants before y-glides and in some other contexts.
Some palatalization occurs in most dialects of English before y-glides or r (e.g. all of the "-tion" and "-sion" endings are palatalized; injun as representation of vernacular indian; truck is pronounced to a greater or lesser degree as chruck, and drug as jrug). Still, this palatalization is more pronounced in Philadelphia than in most places.
A great example of this palatalization is the old saw for linguists regarding Philadelphia's accent. It is not an exaggeration: "jeet jet?" really is a good approximation of saying "did you eat yet" when speaking quickly and informally in the vernacular. (Actually, jeet chet is better.) A slightly less reduced variant might be "jewy chet?" (juewwee chet) Even speaking slowly and carefully, a Philadelphian would say Dihjew eachet? (dijuewweechet?)
I still listen to the Philadelphia local news on frequent occasion. One morning traffic reporter says "mash chransit" (mash chranzit) for "mass transit." The palatalization effect of the r keeps traveling back through the t all the way into the previous word and its final s!
Even though I haven't lived in Philadelphia for nearly 40 years, when I hear mash chransit, I feel all warm inside.