Welcome to New York City: Fugheddaboudit!

During the wonder years of women on Saturday Night Live, Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph astounded audiences with their New York accents during a sketch called the "Bronx Beat”.  The skit was a smashing success and often featured guest stars such as Katy Perry and and Justin Timberlake.  As a native New Yorker, I found the skit both hysterical and confusing.  Why was the sketch entitled “The Bronx Beat” if they were clearly imitating a Brooklyn vernacular?  Furthermore, if this was the quintessential New York accent, why didn’t I speak like them?
The history of the New York accent is as complex and multi-faceted as the city itself.  The New York accent is characterized as a non-rhotic language, which means that the final /r/ sound is excluded if it is not followed by a vowel sound.  In addition to dropping the /r/, non-rhotic speech impacts the vowel preceding it through lengthening and dipthongisation.  This dipthongisation occurs when a simple vowel sound changes to a complex one.  For example, a non-rhotic speaker would refer to herself as a [Nu jɔkƏ].  These characteristics are frequently utilized in film and pop culture, especially in mafia and action films.  Perhaps the most iconic example is from Taxi Driver when Robert DeNiro utters the famous line, “Yoo tawkin’ ta may?” [ju tɔkIn tƏ meI]
The distinctions among accents represented in the five boroughs of New York City are mostly based on immigrant neighborhoods during the early 1900s.  Thus, perceived differences in these dialects are actually based on socioeconomic differences more than by borough differentiation and pride.  Today, this difference is dwindling quickly in response to the changing populations in these areas.  The introduction of new people into certain regions of New York City are neutralizing the stereotypical New York Accent.
In addition to shifting population and gentrification, the New York accent seems to be declining as a whole in response to a backlash against the speech.  The hysterics of “The Bronx Beat” skit is as much related to the comedic writing as the accent.  The rhoticity of the New York  accent was initially related to the working-class and uneducated resident, a stigma that constantly marks those who use it.  Thus, younger generations of New Yorkers are not retaining the accent with as much frequency, most likely as a way to separate themselves from the uneducated and lower class distinctions the dialect holds. 
Since I arrived in California, I am often accosted by questions pertaining to my true New York lineage.  “How come you don’t have an accent?”  I have learned to respond to this with my best Brooklynese, usually eliciting a good deal of laughter and probably some confusion.  I myself don’t really understand how I escaped the confines of a true Noo Yawk [Nu jɔk] accent.  My mother is from Noo Joisey [Nu dƷɔlzi].  My father is from Yawnkahs [jɔnkƏs].  How did I extract myself from the Northeast seemingly unaccented?  The answer: I didn’t. 
While researching regional dialects, I stumbled across a dialect quiz from the New York Times.  It grilled me on everything from pronunciation of caramel to my term for bugs that light up on summer nights.  (My answer to the latter most directly matched the southern United States after summers spent with my cousins in North Carolina.)  After 25 questions, I was astounded to find that my best match was New York City.  I was even more shocked that the second and third options for my place of origin were Yonkers and Newark (where my parents are from respectively).  Apparently, I didn’t escape as unmarked as I thought. 

All this talk of New York has made me nostalgic for a home that now feels far, far away.  My memories linger as I recall my drive to airport.  As I near JFK, I saw a sign.  It said: “Leaving Brooklyn: Fugheddaboudit”.  It feels like home. 

The hysterical "Bronx Beat" for your viewing pleasure: https://screen.yahoo.com/bronx-beat-000000831.html

"How Y'all, Youse and You Guys Talk." The New York Times. The New York Times, 19 Dec. 2013. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.

McClear, Sheila. "Why the Classic Noo Yawk Accent Is Fading Away." New York Post., 06 Feb. 2010. Web. 18 Oct. 2014.