Nuyorican English - Your Art History Reference Guide!

ArtHistoryClub Information Site on Nuyorican English Art History Art History Search        Art History Browse             News        Gallery        Forums        Articles        Weblinks        welcome to our free resource site for all art history lovers!

Nuyorican English

A form of New York accent traditionally spoken by Puerto Rican immigrants in said city, but now applies to a characteristic type of speech common to Hispanic-Americans in the Northeast United States (Therefore now a misnomer). Its foundation is the New York City dialect, with Spanish influences. Many Hispanic-Americans, despite speaking English flawlessly, have a way of speaking characterized by:

  • Occasionally placing the accent on the first syllable of a word. When this is combined with a characteristic quick way of speaking, the speaker has a rather sharp, musical pitch to their voice
  • A tendency to pronounce initial 'y' as 'j'
  • Stressing of the intervocalic 's' or 'z' (i.e. - characterize may be pronounced 'character-ice')
  • Over-pronunciation of 'n'
  • Omission of the 't' in a word ending in '-ont'
  • The accent is considered non-rhotic, but slightly more rhotic than typical New York standards
  • In some individuals, the initial 'r' is slightly tapped against the front teeth, giving it a somewhat harder sound than what is usual in American English

Chicano English also shares some of the above features

Last updated: 08-22-2005 13:26:33
Last updated: 01-04-2007 01:18:57
The contents of this article are licensed from Wikipedia.org under the
GNU Free Documentation License. See original document.
Art History Search | Art History Browse | Contact | Legal info