Barbara Johnstone Lecture: Pittsburghese 

After hearing someone speak who is from Pittsburgh, I am able to tell you what part of Pittsburgh they come from. Pittsburghese even has different dialects. I lived in the inner city of Pittsburgh for 48 years and am a pro.

A comment about the phrase "an'at": It is both a example of familiarity - the expectation that the listener can finish the thought - and an example of us dropping off the "th" at the beginning of words "up air," "dow'nair," "at ain't what I mean." I haven't heard the dropping of the "th" anywhere else in the country (sometimes heard as "da country" where we seem to avoid the "th" at all costs, lol).

A friend from the Midwest moved here to be the librarian at the Mt. Washington branch of the Carnegie Library. Library patrons would remark "You're not from around here, are you?" after hearing her accent. She's now lived in the city for more than 25 years and has lost her accent. The other day we heard her use a Pittsburghese "an at" at the end of a sentence. She refuses to admit she did it, but we assured her that she's finally a TRUE Picksburgher. She told us to "git autta tawn!"

This is so fascinating. I'm originally from the Pgh area, but I have lived elsewhere in the last sixteen years. I've always recognized Pittsburghese (and have actually worked hard not to sound like a Pittsburgher:), but it's so much easier to hear it after being away for so long. I can pick out this accent from a mile away. Anyhow, love the lecture. I have, however, heard a LOT of "Iggle." People DO say it a lot.

I've lived in da 'Burgh all my life and appreciate the explanations of why I speak the way I do. I have relatives living in other parts of the U.S. who were born and raised here and they cling to their Pittsburghese as a treasure - as they should. When I was small I remember my mother criticizing how I spoke; she said I exaggerated the 'g' at the end of a word. I figure teachers were speaking correctly so I picked it up. As I grew up I learned to drop it. I now speak perfect Pittsburghese.

Later on she (around 26 minutes) goes through reasons it might disappear and reasons it will stick around. She doesn't say whether it will die out or not, but she gave reasons for both. I personally think it will stick around for awhile.

I could listen to this woman speak all day long. It's so refreshing hearing an educated woman speak with so much experience and confidence regarding the english language. Where I live in PA I'm lucky finding people who actually speak English.

I visited Pittsburgh yesterday with a friend (I live in Youngstown, OH). Lovely city, had an awesome time. Never knew they had a dialect of English though! Can't wait to go again.

Thank You Barbara for this very educational video! I can watch it again and again! Super💯

The room I'm in needs redd up. I left Pittsburgh when I was six.

usually we and people from chicago, wisconsin and northern ohio do especially in the past when we were sought out more often for radio and tv broadcasting, but now with the whole vowel shift phenomenon it is changing.

I had always thought of Pittsburgh dialect as "Lazy" speech. You and your colleague have proven otherwise. I did a paper for my senior year in high school. The topic of that paper was "Colloquisims in America" and this study started from it. Thanks again for sharing.

Relevant even 15 years later and happy to know Pittsburghese is thriving

Prof Johnstone, I just discovered your lecture on Pittsburghese. I loved it. I am an ex-pat ‘burgher. Upon graduating from Central Catholic in 1966, I went to Harvard, and have remained in the Greater Boston area since (except for a Fulbright year in Munich in 1970, an MAT from Wesleyan in 1972, and a JD from UVa in 1979. As a junior at Central in 1964, I joined The Masque (speak with Prof Greg Lehane about the Masque and the overlap of our experiences) - Central’s drama “club;” a “club” that was supported heavily by Carnegie Tech, by providing Central with grad students who would serve as directors, set designers, choreographers, sound managers, etc. That first year I was King Sextimus in "Once Upon a Mattress”. Our director was Joe Leonardo. Once I became enthralled by theater, I also became attuned to accents. So my senior year I was selected to be Harpagon, the lead character in Moliere’s “The Miser.” I came to understand that my normal speech was heavily “Pittsburghese,” so during my senior year at Central, I worked incredibly hard to “rid myself” of my PIttsburghese. As a member of the Pittsburgh diaspora, I’ve lost most of my Pittsburgh accent and vocabulary - except when I get together with my high school classmates for reunions and with my many cousins who still live and work in the ‘burgh. But every now and then, my Pittsburgh self slips out even here on Boston. Sara Schnorr

41:09 Edinboro pronounced like Ed-in-borough, not Eden-borough.

I just watched the whole video.... very, very good analysis on this topic. I am one of the Pittsburghers that moved away in the 80's to Cape Coral, Florida where everyone in my neighborhood was a Czech decent from Pennsylvania as well. I kept a lot of the PGH dialect since I grew up around it. When I attended college in the late 90's I had to really catch myself to not draw attention to it. Now that I am in my 30's I don't care and plan on moving back to later PGH this year.

I'm willing to be "wrong" about pronunciation and syntax on everything I say, having grown up in Pittsburgh... except for one thing (which is validated in the first few seconds of this video): It's pronounced "car-NAY-gee", not "CAR-nuh-gee". It has always been car-NAY-gee. It will always be car-NAY-gee. Unless you're talking about CAR-nuh-gee Hall in New York, which (for some reason) is okay.

The different communities throughout the metro area actually have slightly different accents too. My girlfriend from Beaver is always telling me about my Monaca accent. I don't notice it but she does.. probably because her mom is from Monaca too so she heard the difference her whole life

I ❤❤❤This video!!!👍😊 very informative and educational! 5 stars! 100% love it❤❤❤💯👍🚲

Wow. She said “iggle video” which dates this with such hilarity and nostalgia. Awesome video. I’ve got a bit of the monophthongs goin on or whatever n’at but most people comment on my falling intonation on questions

Oooh...I studied Spanish phonetics in Pittsburgh years ago! But one thing I noticed about P'burgh's pronunciation was that the "L" doesn't only sound like "w" in final position; it can sound like a "w" in a word such as "college," which I remember hearing as something like "cowedge"...love this, though, and thank you, Barbara!

@draegoncode It may stick around for awhile, but I feel she is correct in that it has been noticed, and studied, only after the dialect began its decline. I think it was apparent from the "Tornado kid in Hempfield" vid that it is still going strong in rural areas - and I don't think it is due to pride or fascination with it as much as it is just the local way.

She is speaking about the features of the Western Pennsylvannia dialect that goes up to about Meadville in the north. Erie doesn't have the western PA dialect. I have lived in many parts of the US and now live in Erie County, PA and people here have no particularly noticeable accent. Morgantown, WV has some pronounciatons that similar to the western PA dialect.

Yeah, in Pittsburgh, they say "pop" for a soft drink, just like in the Midwest. However, in State College, they say "soda," as they would on the east coast.

BTW - I went to college and lived in other parts of the country before coming to Chicago, but upper Midwest accent really comes on strong when I'm drinking.

Jesse James caught that ball.

this is a Linguistics topic, nothing worthless here, if you don't like Pittsburgh is one thing, but bashing this presentation is another.

Giant Eagle is sometimes pronounced "Gian-Eagle" here in Pittsburgh, with the loss of the T sound. There is also "G'Eagle" (jee-gul). There is a slight "twangish" misemphasis of iron (eye-rn) that goes with dahntahn.

I pronounce "Carnegie" the way Andrew Carnegie himself pronounced it: car-NAY-gie.

This is a very interesting video. I grew up in Northeast Ohio and now live around the Pittsburgh area. It is very true about people from Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Sometimes I converge the two together. Cleveburgh accent going on. LOL!

City Chicken...I haven'y heard that for years. I grew up on that shit.

what kind of user id is j2xl? isn't the "2" supposed to be the third character?

I agree that Erieites don't speak Pittsburghese. I think it goes as far east as Altoona (Ahl-tun-ah) but naught in Erie ;)

@notonewhit Which way do you think is correct? CAR-ne-gie or car-NAY-gie? The latter is actually the correct pronunciation, and the way that most Pittsburghers (including myself) pronounce Andrew Carnegie's name and the local institutions named after him.

Yeah, well, Erie does. It actually ix of Pittsburghese and the Great Lakes Nasal, like in Cleveland, Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Syracuse, and other Great Lakes cities.

I think she missed a trick when someone inserted "The Mon". It's the Monongahela, pronounced MAH-non. Or more accurately it's /məˌnɒnɡəˈhiːlə/ but either way... In Pittsburgh we took the sound from the beginning of the second syllable, slapped it on to the end of the first, and chopped the word off there.

Didn't think there was much of a chance that I would watch all of this. And I admit, I was doing other things as it played, but watch I did. Very interesting. Googled the PHD dissertation on AAE, found it and looking forward to checking it out. Not sure if you (Dr Johnstone) got the n at reference. It's fairly routinely heard at the end of sentences representing and that, of course. And that's whether or not it makes sense there. Florida is home now. But the Burgh will always be my real home.

Dad was from New Cumberland WV about 40 miles west of Pittsburgh he would pronounce eagle "iggle",balloon "bloom", and tread as in tread on a tire as "thread" He worked in Pittsburgh in the 1930's

I worked at CMU for one year. It was the year they changed the name from Carnegie Tech or Carnegie Institute of Technology. So I have an interest in the university. I still through habit call it by the old name.

@planigan Its seems only the institutions in Pittsburgh pronounce it this way. New York and the rest of the media say it the other way. I know it's splitting hairs, but maybe the more interesting thing is that eventually New York pronunciation will win out as the correct. Such is the nature of language. Remember when there was no 'dime' in paradigm. Or maybe when 'harass' had 'ass' in it. BTW: I'm a Pittsburgher too.

haha. good stuff. i pretty much connect with all this stuff.

JEET is totally a Pittsburgh thing. I think when the person saying/typing "jeet Jumbo" is just another perfect example of a person trying to sound more Pittsburgh through text as the presenter brought attention to in other examples. Where they fell short and the Jeet doesnt quite fit is we as Pittsburghers dont say Jeet to replace Eat. The "jeet" comes up in a sentence, "Jaeet Yet?"(DID YOU eat yet). With the response being, "no/yeah, jew" (no/yeah, did you?). I have also heard, "biggle," growing up but not near as much as the very very common jeyean-iggle. Loved the presentation overall! Go Stillers!

The Deer Hunter was filmed in Mingo Junction. Fun fact.

I went to Pitt and we say Geagle all the time

I was born in Carnegie, which we pronounced "Ker-neggie."

Pittsburghese is not bad grammar. It's a different grammer, perhaps, but not 'bad'; that is, it's used consistent manner.

18:45 Actually, my parents said that growing up... beagle... and the word eagle... they're all iggle.

@j2xl Or goin ta da Big Bird

she does not have any accent from what i can tell, but being from michigan i always thought that people from pittsburg that i have met seem to have a little bit of a draw in their accent including those from the midland.

Go Stillers!

P.S. The "Gianiggle" is a name I've heard a lot in the Pittsburgh area. In spite of the absence of "biggles."

How do you say Coraopolis? Is it Cora opolis or Cori opolis. A native will argue with all day and insist that it is Cori, even though it is spelled Cora. I lived in the Rocks for four years, and they said I talked funny. I live in the Laurel Mt. area, about fifty miles east.

Her Chipped Ham Sam comment isn't really true, because other areas are embracing their local dialects. I'm a Detroiter who has lived in Chicago for about 20 years and people have a lot of fun with the white ethnic "Da Bears" accent. Same is true in Wisconsin, particularly around the up north "ya hey dere" cheesehead accent. It's part fun, part local pride and a way of avoiding homogenization.

I own a biggle, too! 2, actually.

erie doesn't have it. just alot of steeler fans

Has any one noticed how most people from Pittsburgh don't pronounce the name "Carnegie" correctly? How did that happen?

1:40 .... Is it "gonna" die out or persist...

"Chipped ham" isn't just a language thing. It's a product. I live in New England now. Not only do people at deli counters have no clue what "chipped ham" is, they have no product that is the same as chipped ham--that is, baked ham cut in such paper thin slices that the individual slices are hard to pick apart. I love chipped ham, the product, and miss chipped ham sandwiches.

Gian' Iggles! lol

We go to Giant Giggle!

I always called it yunzee accent

Say look very slowly... oo.. yoonz oo not yins. not younz to ryme with spoons. YOONZ doesn't ryme with anything, but sounds like oo in cook with the two dots over the oo

sorry 1:37

1:40 ...Is Pittsburghese gonna die out or persist? She never did say?

jumbo is bolgna!

Perhaps to help those who don't hear it pronounced locally, we could more accurately spell the enunciation of 'Carnegie' as ker-NEGGY. ..

not just chipped ham but chip chopped ham right? I live in NE now as well and ugh its evil up here lol

Do you Michiganders believe you have the perfect American accent?

This is great, but she is wrong about "beagle" not becoming "biggle". I come from a hunting family with both beagles and Pittsburgh dialects, and they DEFINITELY say "beagles" like "biggles".

What? We say it the right way, everyone else is wrong!

which yinz doin?

So, you're saying that people talk a certain way because they sleep with their family members.....sure, you're certainly not a scholar. I am from Pittsburgh. I have friends that have very heavy Pittsburghease accents, and they do not sleep with their family members. Jaggoff.

A dialect based on very bad grammar - geez, I never knew this even though I've lived so close my whole life. I don't want it to "live" outside that region! We have enough problems with bad grammar!

Why you researching this? Like we are a lost relic or something 😂🤣🤣🤣

Forced and contrived P-eze so annoying.

What an utterly worthless discussion, I thought CM was a respectable institution until just now