Language and Pittsburghese

Language is the basis for verbal communication. It is a system of communication using sounds or symbols that enables us to express our feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences. This allows people to talk to each other and understand one another so it is easier to get things accomplished. Without language we would not be able to communicate verbally so it was created for this reason. The components of words like phonemes and morphemes are the two smallest units of language. They change the meanings of words and have definable meaning or grammatical function

Language begins with words that can become sentences and then to create paragraphs and so on. Both humans and animals communicate, and this includes movements of our bodies, sign language, brail, along with verbal communication. There are thousands of languages around the world and there are also accents in the same language. In the United States you can tell if some people are from New York, Boston, the South, and this includes Pittsburgh. I never knew Pittsburgh had its own accent, but we say words and group words together so some people can tell if you live near the city of Pittsburgh.

I found out about “Pittsburghese” when vacationing in Myrtle Beach. My friends and I were walking on the boardwalk and met some kids are age and started talking. After talking for a while my friend asked where they were from and they told us, but when we thought they would ask us where we were from they said, “You guys are from Pittsburgh, huh?” I was stunned. They did not say, “You are from Pennsylvania,” they knew we were from the outskirts of Pittsburgh. Later on as I got older I saw t-shirts that said, “Pittsburghese,” on the back and there were about thirty sentences that people from Pittsburgh use when they talk that makes us unique. Such words and phrases include, ” Around ere,” meaning “Around there”.  “Diju,” Is supposed to mean “Did you?” We also use “Yinz,” to replace the problem with plural you. A lot of people from the United States use other words for you, because it just does not sounds right just saying the word, “you,” words like “Yal and yinz ” are used. Other examples are Mundy” “Worsh,” and “N nat.”

While reading I came across an experiment by Pollack and Pickett that did using unaware participants. It explains how people sound unintelligent when certain words are taken out of the sentence and the word is therefor used alone. Before to experiment was to begin the participants were being recorded while having conversations among themselves. They spoke like they normally would. Later the words that had been picked out alone from the sentences were played back for the participants to hear. They could not figure out at least half of the words they used that came from their own mouth. So this means people need the context of words, sentences, and paragraphs in order to  perceive words that make up the conversation. Just how it makes a difference if a word is stood out alone or said wrong, we also have to use pauses in speech to make a sentence understood. This involves speech segmentation. This is the process of perceiving individual words in a continuous flow of the speech signal.

There are many rules n language and it is known that people have a difficult time understanding rules in grammar but can talk fluently and know how to speak correctly. I have always found grammar very easy and understood rules and was always great in reading, language, and speech and writing classes. When I talk now I try to pay attention to what I say. It is very easy to use Pittsburghese words and phrases. If you are aware of language and the rules starting at the basic ones to the more complex rules, you will not only speak better but sound more intelligent. .

 

2 thoughts on “Language and Pittsburghese

  1. Christina Marie Skinner

    I have lived in Pennsylvania my whole life and my husband grew up in the south. I met him when he was here visiting his family and I have to say that it was the accent that was so intriguing. Accents are fairly easy to recognize unless it’s your own. Whenever my husband spoke, I would pick out words that sounded weird to me like when he would say words that ended in ‘ing’. For example, when he said pudding and wedding, it sounded like puddin’ and weddin’. I found it so hard to concentrate on anything else he was saying because I was so stuck on the words that just sounded so different to me. I found myself filling in the missing pieces of what was missing in the words like demonstrated in the phonemic restoration effect (Goldstein, 298). I have been exposed to nothing but Pennsylvanian talk my whole life so I never really spoke to anyone that had that much of an accent. But, I found that I supposedly had an accent of my own.

    This all started when one of my friends had an engagement party that I attended. Her then fiancee was from Colorado. We were all sitting around talking and he commented on the Pennsylvanian accent. We were all surprised by this accusation and all insisted that we didn’t have accents. He actually said that I was the one with the strongest Pennsylvanian accent! I was in complete shock. I got kind of offended because I think that I speak pretty proper English without any slang or weird terms. So, hearing that I had this strong accent was really out of the ordinary to me. I knew my husband had an accent but I never thought that I had one as well. I know this has to do with where you’re raised and what you’re exposed to but I have always thought that besides having a southern accent in the United States, everyone else sounded the same and I was definitely wrong.

    Goldstein, E. (2011). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience (3rd ed.). Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

  2. Amber Noel Bailie

    I found your post to be very interesting! In my opinion, accents can be so exciting to learn about. You mentioned that you never knew Pittsburgh had its own accent. I can completely understand that, because I never realized that I had an accent until I moved to Georgia.

    In my mind, however, they are the ones with the accent! Due to the fact that I live near a military installation, there are different people with accents from all over the country. Some only have a slight southern accent, using words like ya’ll, and neglecting to add the ‘g’ to words like driving so that it sounds like “drivin’.” Others have an obvious, deep, southern drawl. Of course, there are your other very recognizable accents like Boston and New York. With all of these different accents, it can sometimes make things confusing.

    This confusion, however, can usually be cleared up very quickly because of the surrounding context. If you are able to understand most of the words, for example, it is likely that you will be able to comprehend what you hear. If speech segmentation is not hindered, you will be able to understand the individual words (Goldstein, 299). Even when we hear unfamiliar words that pertain to a specific area, it is likely that we will use the context for correct comprehension. I think it is fascinating that, even when we hear words spoken differently or new words altogether, our brains are usually able to comprehend it with ease!

    Overall, language production and comprehension are both quite complex, but yet it seems so simple. In fact, until now, I have never really considered all of the components and processes that make up language. It is really quite interesting!

    Goldstein, E. (2011). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience (3rd ed.). Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

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