Term Paper on "Pittsburgh the City"

Term Paper 14 pages (3553 words) Sources: 6 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Pittsburgh

The city of Pittsburgh has long been known as a 'steel' tough city filled with a variety of individuals who are as rough and coarse as the city itself. This perception of Pittsburgh and its inhabitants began to change in the early 1980's with the decline of the steel production for which the city was famous. Pittsburgh, from the time of the Civil War until those early 1980's, was a city filled with steel mills and other factories whose sole purpose was to provide America and the world with the steel it needed to fuel unprecedented growth. With competition and a decline in the need for steel, Pittsburgh had to transform itself from a city of steel mills to a city that provides (primarily) services such as healthcare and medical expertise.

From its roots, in the early 1700's, until the years of the civil war, Pittsburgh's primary source of industry was not steel, instead it was the building of boats for those people interested in using any of the three major rivers between which Pittsburgh was located. Since the city is located at the confluence of three rivers; the Alleghany, the Ohio and the Monongahela, it was a natural starting point for explorers who wished to travel deeper inland in what was to become America's great Midwest.

In 1754, the French became interested in its location, building a fort there in an effort to control river travel and in linking their people in Canada with the French people in Louisiana.

The French took this step even though the governor of the time, Governor Dinwiddie, had explicitly warned them not to. In response to the construction, the British forced the French to leave the fort in 1758 and then built Ft. Pitt to take its place.

Many of the early settlers of the area came from Northern Ireland and Northern England and brought with them many of the foods, customs, languages and dialects ingrained in their culture. The majority of these people were Scots-Irish. Over time, these hearty men and women developed a dialect that became known as Pittsburghese that is still unique to Pittsburgh and the surrounding area today.

"Many people in Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania think that there is a distinctive dialect of English spoken in this area, which they call "Pittsburghese." (Johnstone 2007) Dr. Johnstone explains that Pittsburghese contains words that are used throughout the western Pennsylvania and the eastern Ohio area but that common usage is primarily limited to the city of Pittsburgh and its surrounding suburbs. Though Pittsburghese was much more prevalent initially than it currently is, many of the words associated with Pittsburghese continue to be used by the inhabitants of the area today.

Dialects from specific areas, unlike languages, will probably be around for centuries to come and may even become more important in the future than they are currently.

The reason for this; with many of the world's languages dying out (thanks to globalization) dialects could become the harbinger upon which we judge where individuals are from. Some experts believe that many of the languages spoken today will no longer be spoken within a relatively short amount of time.

"More than half of the world's languages are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people and may be lost by the end of the century." (Furniss 2007-page 53) This may be true of languages, but Pittsburghers will probably say that their unique usage of the English language is what sets them apart from other dialects found across the United States. Some experts believe that Pittsburghese is not as unique to the city as what its habitants would like to believe.

Some studies show that the "monophthongization" of such words as house, sauerkraut, down and found are the only true dialectic differences consistently found in Pittsurgh.

Monophthongization in regards to Pittsburghese is when those words, and similar ones as well, are spoken using the "ah" sound instead of the more common "aw" sound.

How this monophthonigization or "Pittsburghese" evolved is an interesting study in the movements of different groups of people during America's growing years. Immigrants at that time were facing starvation and death in their homelands and looked to America as a promised land.

"In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries "Pittsburgh promised employment and a solution to their immediate need to make a living, which was growing more difficult to accomplish in their homelands." (Bodnar 2000-page 13)

Even before that time, however, the Scots-Irish settlers brought their own pronunciation of English to the Pittsburgh area. Many of these Scot-Irish immigrated from Ulster, a northern province in Ireland.

"When people talk about "Pittsburghese," they often mention words like yinz (you, plural), slippy (slippery), and nebby (nosy), sounds like the vowels in Stillers (Steelers) or dahntahn (downtown), and expressions like n'at (and that, used to mean something like et cetera)." (Johnstone 2001) Much of the language usage came from these many immigrants who were drawn to the work that was available in Pittsburgh and its factories. The work involved steel production and factory jobs that, while they did not require much in the way of book knowledge, did require that an individual be willing to work hard, long hours at dirty, noisy jobs.

"Most immigrants, did manage to acquire manual work upon their arrival in the 'steel city." (Bodnar 2000-page 113) With this influx of immigrants, who came primarily from Italy and Poland, also came a large contingent of American blacks who formerly resided in the south. All these people were drawn to the area with the promise of jobs and a secure future, and each brought its own special style of speaking the English language. "These people originated in northern England and Scotland, and they brought some characteristic pronunciations, words, and grammatical structures with them." (Johnstone 2001) recent study showed, "On the basis of historical research, ethnography, discourse analysis, and sociolinguistic interviews, the authors describe how a set of linguistic features that were once not noticed at all, then used and heard primarily as markers of socioeconomic class, have come to be linked increasingly to place and "enregistered" as a dialect called "Pittsburghese." (Andrus 2006 ab) Much of the dialectic was adopted and continued by these immigrants as Andrus showed in his study.

Another important factor in this continued use of Pittsburghese is the media's use of the same words and pronunciations. Many of the immigrants were poor and uneducated and easily fell into the same patterns of language usage as those around them, both at work and at home. Many of them were unable to read, but importantly, they wanted more for their children and because of the available work, they were able to provide the children with the opportunity to become educated. Because the media continued to use the same phrases as they had used earlier, even the now educated offspring spoke in the same manner.

A dialect is unlike the language from which it is derived, in that the dialect survives, and possibly even thrives, due to its uniqueness. While languages are often conquered and overwhelmed by outside forces, a dialect continues as a source of pride to its users. Many Pittsburghers are proud of their "Pittsburghese" and even promote its usage in commercial ventures.

At the height of its glory, the Roman Empire did not force the cities and people they conquered to speak Latin, but most did anyway, giving up their 'native' language

In order to speak the Roman's more glorified Latin.

"The Romans didn't have a specific policy to force their subjects to speak Latin," says Nicholas Ostler, chairman of the Foundation for Endangered Languages. "But there was a prestige associated with the language in most of their conquered areas -- it was the language of trade and administration -- and anyone who wanted to get on in life had to learn to speak it." (Furniss)

Though the conquered learned to speak Latin, it is probably safe to state that they each had their own unique pronunciation. This is true of dialects in America as well, including Pittsburghese. Unlike the conquered people of the Roman Empire, Americans were not forced to learn English, instead they were influenced by the language use surrounding them. It is a lot like the saying "when in Rome, do as the Romans do," only in this case it would be, "when in Pittsburgh, speak Pittsburghese" and it will probably endear you more readily to the residents there. Much of the historical aspect of Pittsburghese is due to the fact that these immigrants adopted the dialect with which they became most familiar. Andrus states; "The stylized performance of dialect is enhanced by exploring the historical and ideological processes that make resources for these practices available."

If the resources that are available are the ones with which the immigrants were also most familiar, then it only makes sense that the dialect would be adopted into daily use.

Some of the differences of the dialect as compared to others includes the fact that verbs often… READ MORE

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