New York Latino English
Encyclopedia : N : NE : NEW : New York Latino English
Nuyorican English is a name sometimes applied to New York Latino English, a form of New York dialect historically spoken by Puerto Rican immigrants and their following generations in the New York dialect region but now by many Hispanic-Americans of diverse national heritages in the New York metropolitan area United States, including Sephardic Jews. Therefore, terms like Nuyorican English and the related term Puerto Rican English are now misnomers.
The dialect shows influence of New York European American English and African American Vernacular English and contact with Spanish. Importantly, this is a native variety of English, not learner English or interlanguage. It is sometimes spoken by people who know little or no Spanish. A few characteristics include:
- Devoicing of voiced obstruent codas (e.g., characterize may be realized with a final [s])
- Consonant cluster simplifications such as the loss of dental stops after nasals (e.g., bent) and fricatives, (e.g., left, test). this leads to a characteristic plural, in which words like tests are pronunced like testes. This feature is shared by African American Vernacular English.
- /l/ onsets are clear, unlike those of most other New Yorkers, but, curiously, similar to those in European American dialects in other parts of the US.
- lack of inversion or do support particularly in first and second person questions (I can go to the bathroom?)
- Calques and direct translations of Spanish expressions and words (e.g., owned by the devil, instead of possessed by the devil, closed meaning locked.
- /u/ after coronals is not fronted as in New York European American varieties.
- Like AAVE, working-, middle-, and lower-class New York European American English, Boston accent, and many varieties of Southern American English, the accent is non-rhotic. But, as with these other groups, upper-class Hispanics use rhotic pronunciations much of the time.
- Because Sephardic Jews speak a different variety of NYLE, many Ladino words are blended into this dialect.
- There are no confusions of tense and lax vowels, outside contexts where other native speakers often vary usage. So sheep is never confused with ship, although really and ceiling may be pronunced with lax vowels, as in African American Vernacular English.
- There is no addition of /ɛ/ before initial consonant clusters with /s/.
- Speakers do not confuse of /dʒ/ with /j/, (e.g., Yale with jail).
In some movies American street thugs, including non-Latino ones, may use Nuyorican English feature or other features of other Latino English varieties. As result, some people may inaccurately associate NYLE with delinquent street culture.
References
- Slomanson, Peter & Michael Newman (2004) “Peer Group Identification and Variation in New York Latino English Laterals” English Worldwide, 25 (2) pp. 199-216 (http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_seriesview.cgi?series=EWW)
- Wolfram, Walt (1974) Sociolinguistic Aspects of Assimilation: Puerto Rican English in New York City Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics isbn: 0872810348
- Wolfram, Walt & Nancy Schilling Estes (2005) American English 2nd edition Blackwell isbn: 1405112654
- Wolfram, Walt & Ben Ward (2005) American Voices: How Dialects Differ from Coast to Coast Blackwell isbn: 1405121092
External links
- [The New York Latino English Project] The site of the New York Latino English project, which studies the native English spoken by New York Latinos.
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