NEW ORLEANS

NEW ORLEANS. A city in Louisiana whose distinctive variety of AMERICAN ENGLISH is the result not only of the influence of its founders from Spain and France (who governed the region before the 19c) but also waves of migrants from Ireland, Germany, Italy, and most recently Vietnam. West African influence through pan-Caribbean creole is also apparent. The term CREOLE, as defined by local whites, applies to white descendants of early French or Spanish settlers. As defined by blacks, it applies to persons of Afro-French parentage. Both express ‘authentic’ local identity. Some of the dialect's characteristics come directly from FRENCH, either locally or from present and former French-speaking regions of the state, such as the obsolescent banquette for (AmE) sidewalk, (BrE) pavement, and the phrases make the groceries to shop for groceries, make menage to clean (the) house, and save the dishes to put the dishes away. The city has locally well-understood STEREOTYPES based on race, class, and neighbourhood, though linguistic features criss-cross these in complex ways. Typical grammatical features include a widespread tendency to use had + past participle for the simple past (as in Yesterday I had run into him) and the tags no (as in I don't like that, no!) and the more widely current Coastal Southern hear (as in I'm having another piece of pie, hear?).

Yat

The most distinctive local variety is Yat, called by one observer ‘the COCKNEY of New Orleans’. The name is said to derive from the greeting Wha y'at? ‘What are you at?’ Associated with such working-class districts as the Irish Channel and old Ninth Ward, it is also heard in other parts of the city and recently in some suburban parishes (government units in Louisiana that correspond to counties in much of the rest of the US). Outsiders confuse Yat with BROOKLYNESE; its stereotypic features include such quasiphonetic spellings as berlin boiling, dat that, earl oil, mudder mother, and taught thought.

Cuisine

The city has a varied cuisine with characteristic vocabulary, much of it from Louisiana French: beignet (pronounced 'bane yea) a square doughnut dusted with powdered sugar, debris pan gravy, etouffee stewed, file (pronounced ‘fee-lay’) thickener for soups and stews derived from young sassafras leaves, jambalaya a dish prepared with rice, seasoning, and meat or seafood, praline (pronounced ‘prah-leen’) a confection made with pecans and brown sugar. Other terms are from English: cajun popcorn deep-fried crawfish/crayfish tails, dirty rice a spicy rice dish with chicken giblets, king cake a ring-shaped coffee cake traditionally served from Epiphany to Shrove Tuesday, po' boy a sandwich of the type known elsewhere in AmE as a grinder, hoagie, or submarine. See CAJUN.