ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ส.ค. 2020
- Do San Franciscans have an accent? What does it even sound like? It's time to investigate what makes up the speech patterns of the people in the city, and whether the long-rumored (yet seldom heard) SF accent even still exists today.
================
Buy me a coffee!
➤ ko-fi.com/joeyyee
Subscribe to the channel:
➤ bit.ly/36APENp
Follow me here:
➤ / unclefuz
➤ / unclefuz
My camera gear:
➤ kit.co/unclefuz/my-video-kit
Music:
➤ Ealot
➤ Baron Grand
➤ Gregory David - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
![[TH] Esports World Cup : Grand Final](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/sedbKhFYDMo/mqdefault.jpg)
In your opinion, what are the telltale signs someone is from SF (or the Bay Area)?
Dropped articles. As in we don't ride "the" BART or drive down "the" 280 -- a key distinction between the dialect of NorCal vs. SoCal in particular.
@@MrEricSir In SF, "Where did you go to school?" doesn't mean "Where did you go to college," it means "What high school did you go to?"
They never, ever say ‘Frisco’! 🤣😉😎
@@erikandersen21 do you ever hear that? I never do. I was corrected on that 30 years ago when I moved to the Bay Area.
@@MrEricSir is it "dropped transit articles"? I've noticed this forever but weirdly only for transit.
“Like” is used a lot by people from the Bay Area. When I moved away I noticed I stopped using it a lot but when visit my family I start saying it every sentence.
I remember saying "hecka" with my peers because we were too young to say "hella" and we would get in trouble.
Have a listen to kids in lower grades.
Grew up in Bernal Heights.
I did the exact same thing!!! I was a teacher for a few years and I found myself saying it more often than hella after a while lol
I remember "hecka" too! Grew up in Berkeley.
LMAO i had a teacher who said we couldnt use “vegetarian cuss words” which meant hecka and heck. grew up in the east bay
@@tati9497 I love that they were called vegetarian!
AYEEEE nice. Bernal Heights here too!
All I know is we don't smoke that bammer weed
Let em know cousin
Sucka free
415 till I die
Now that dude had an accent.
We dont smoke that shit in the SFC
Bammer days man
“The customer came in and he was HELLA mad!”
“Where ya go n’?”
“WhudeeSay?”
“Sanna Zay.”
Whoa, I didn't realize I was saying Sanna Zay for San Jose until I read that.
PS- I forgot I wrote this. I think I was pretty high so thanks guys for the likes
@@stephaniecrahal5336i’ve always said it as “Sanno Zay” 😭
I have been living in San Diego for like 2 years now. I get called out often in the office for talking like this😂 cliche as hell but the Bay really is a melting pot. It's all the US dialects plus massive Chinese and Mexican influence we got our own little thang going.
You can tell if someone is San Franciscan if, while walking down the street, they'll point to a building and say, "this thing used to be this other thing."
Edit: Whoa my boy just made it in the Chronicle; you're in the big leagues now Joey!
That happens everywhere, not just here.
hahahaha too true
While that happens everywhere, it's quite common here because things change so quickly. How fast? Hella fast! So, reminiscing about things is our way of having some form of roots in an ever-changing local society
SO TRUE😂😭
In AR way yadadamean
I've lived here my whole life and I'm beginning to think the official San Franciscan way of pronouncing Gough Street might actually be "Go-or-Goff-or-whatever."
Lol isn't it Goff??? I mean you always get some clown who has to correct you and pronounce it like he's haukin' a lougy or somethin'. Like he speaks Dutch
Definitely "Goff" - problem is there's also a "Goethe"
Goff! Like Golf! Yup!
right?? I was driving past it with some friends and we had a whole conversation about how it's pronounced
I call it Van Gough Street just to enrage people.
Wondering if "no worries (nowhurries)" and "it's all good (tsallgud)" could be considered california-isms and potentially bay-area-isms?
definitely, i am a recent move to colorado from the bay and these throw ppl off here. sometimes "chill" as an affirmative is confusing, esp for new york transplants here in co. chill is def a bayism
'No worries' is an Aussie thing. I remember it from Crocodile Dundee. No one here really said that till after that movie. It's one of the cool Neapolitan things to say here. The Bay Area has always cherished everything European or British or foreign, as we are made up of so many different areas, while also being very native.
@@David_Watts “NO WORIEEESSS MATEEE!!!”
No worries is Australian but became a thing here in the last 15 years or so.
Yes!! S’all good!!
moded is a very San Francisco word. or at least for a certain generation
Lol, I remember "moded". 🤣😂😅
@@mr.e5595 what does it mean? I am super curious :D
@@sachinelearning it's a gloat,, something you would say to someone after winning an argument, or being proven right or vindicated.
For example, if someone steals your car and you accuse me, but then the actual thief is caught by cops a week later, I would say "see, you're HELLA MODED!"
@@mr.e5595 Lovely! Thanks a lot! now will try to impress my Sanfranciscan friends with that :D
Let’s bring moded back y’all. I remember it was over if you got more than one person to say MODEDDDDD
At first I was like "Accent? Dude is trippin!" But after listening, you nailed it! We have an incredible amount of diversity here & many different languages spoken. But SF natives- yes- we do speak fast. Im 52 & still use "hella" around certain people- my people.
Found this channel through SFGate, but I'm subscribing because I'm loving the rest of your videos. I can feel the love you have for our city.
Love your presentation style: camerawork, voice, speed of talking. Informative without sounding like a teacher.
My grandmother was born (around 1900) and raised in San Francisco and lived there her whole long life (lived to 100). We always smiled at her for saying "fi dollars" instead of five dollars. Yes, there is or was a SF urban accent. That's what I can contribute.
San Franciscans have always had a very fast, clipped way of speaking. Lots of dropped consonants, shortened syllables, flat vowels, and sentences that run together almost into a single word. And it gets even more intense when native San Franciscans are talking amongst each other. My brothers and I were all born and raised in SF, as was my dad, but my mom is originally from the midwest. She's lived here for almost 50 years now but still occasionally has trouble understanding us when the conversation gets really rapid-fire at family dinners and stuff. Sometimes she'll look at us completely dumbfounded like we're speaking a different language.
@@drrockkso8882I've wondered recently if they sound like new York or new England..... ?
I agree! It’s hard to put my finger on it but my grandparents had a different accent than we do! Certain things they used to say 😊 it had a distinct tone and I wish I could identify it. In my experience it could be because they had parents who were immigrants and English was the second language but it’s pretty amazing now and so many different languages here in the city! It’s pretty cool 😊 nothing more true than Tony Bennett, I left my heart ♥️ (my cellphone my keys my wallet and my rent) in San Francisco 😆❤️😉
And she said two bits, four bits, six bits too.
Oh my gosh, I just realized I say fi-dollars lol
my family has been in SF since 1852 - so there is that... but by attending college in Boston, the one thing that new friends pointed out is that I would say, "I'm all..." when telling a story. It was something I didnt hear myself saying becuase all my friends in SF say it.
Ah, the good ol story starter. “I was like...” also comes to mind.
Yes! Especially when a girl gets on a roll about other girls! 😆 Man! That is THE bridge phrase that causes one helluva run-on rant! Same as, ' ..and I'm like..' whatever!
I’m like, and she was all
Right!
When you recount something you said adamantly you say "and I was *all* *like* _wutthefuh_ _bruh_ "
Since I’ve been in the military I’ve travelled a bit the past 8 years and in airports and different cities I’ve been hit w the “you from California? You got that accent!” and now I’m on TH-cam tryin to figure out what accent that is being originally from salinas
Aight "Alright" "I gotchu" "Breh" "brah" "bruh" "F sho" yadadaimean"
Those are words not accents
Not an accent bud. That’s just weakass teenager hood talk
Nomtakinbou?
But is any of that unique to the Bay Area?
"Birtday"
Yooo I thought I was the only one after getting clowned for it in middle school
When I visit other English-speaking countries, I find that I need to make a note to mentally slow down my speech. When I enunciate words, people have asked if I'm from Canada or...one person asked if I was from Ohio, possibly. I used to work at an airport bookstore, and people liked guessing where my accent was from, so for me, yeah, I have wondered the same thing.
Someone mentioned the "up talk" where things sound like a question. I'm not a linguist (I just like learning about it), but I find that a lot of people I hear will speak super confidently about something, but if they're even a bit unsure, up-talk happens and the sentence just trails off.
Also, did anyone mention the whole, "yeah no" / "no yeah" / "no yeah no" thing? Unsure if it's California as a whole, but it does sound hilariously code-like when it's written out.
Love this video by the way!
I've always loved the use of "hell of" to emphasize the EXTRA hella. The slown down version of the SF fastspeak you described.
I've lived in San Francisco since January 1969. One thing that seems to have disappeared is the pronunciation of the word library: "LIE berry" -- even though that fits perfectly with your "talk fast and crunch the syllables together" description of the San Francisco accent. Love you videos! Keep putting out this quality material...please.
Not sure when people stopped saying it that way. I grew up in SF in the 80s and we always pronounced it "lie-bray" (two syllables).
Let me start with the last question you asked. Yes - you do have an accent. I come from the UK. We have some pretty extreme accents e.g. my hometown's (Liverpool's). I have visited San Francisco seven times. You're right - speed is a big thing. I found I couldn't understand San Franciscans when they spoke fast, typically to each other. When I spoke, I didn't try to sound more US, as I worried people would speed up and I'd be sunk. I liked it when you spoke about warmth - that really is a feature in SF. I find Californian cheerful / "this can be done", but SF is also warm. There is something going on with melody too, but that's an area of linguistics I don't know much about. The intonation of e.g. "San Francisco" can't just be explained by compression of the words. There's quite a bit of up and down going on; it's certainly not monotone. Incidentally, I spent a bit of time in LA and I would say that the melody of SF is subtly different.
th-cam.com/video/sWAUrHODRWM/w-d-xo.html
I lived in East Angelia from '85-'88 and miss all things England. Here's one for ya, bruh..very proud of your compliment of our neck of the woods 👍
Yes! We do have melody. I think it's an influence of Chinese, Spanish, maybe Yiddish?
@@rebekahcuriel-alessi2239 Vietnamese and Philipino melodies play a HUGE part here. We are in the North Bay, "Sannarosa" in this videos terms, and that was pointed out by a Viet coworker of mine. Our tempo and cadence is really similar to Vietnamese.
@@upandcomingmagic 😊🤗
@@upandcomingmagic similarities doesn’t mean it’s causal. That speech pattern has been around long before large waves of Vietnamese arrived post 1975.
This is awesome. My group at UCSC studied Spanish linguistics and southwestern dialects here in northern California and I really appreciated this video!! Very well presented👍 at the end of the day language is ever-changing and variable and this place (at its best) is full of linguistic and intercultural connections between people. Having Mandarin, Spanish, English and so many other languages in contact is special🙏
I just discovered your channel and love it! Please produce more and longer ones. I'm a 4 generation Chinese American and I never knew about "accents". I've never heard anyone pronounce "San Francisco" like you do. What's the rush? I love learning more about SF history and haven't been to many of the places you visited. What's your background? History teacher? Hope to run into you one day. LW San Francisco
I'm so glad I found this channel through a strange rabbit hole I just dived into
thank you for helping me appreciate my city
I grew up in East Oakland in the 70s and 80s. Many Bay Area-isms, including "hella," are also derived from African American blue-collar vernacular speech ("ebonics.") My friends and I were saying "hella" in the 80s as teenagers when the dominant counterpart phrases of the day included "mega" and "humongous."
I grew up in a largely white, rural part of the Bay and noticed kids saying hella in the mid 90s, so that's at least a 10 year lag time. Now it's global!
I had a friend from Davis and he said he heard from older folks there that they'd been using it there since at least the late 60s.
Grew up in Central California, Monterey Bay, and I’ve been saying hella since I was in elementary school, 30 years ago
Cowabunga dude! Lol
Raised in Millbrae, CA, been saying Hella since the 80s and even said "hecka" when I was too young to say Hella. LOL. Cool to connect it to words like Mega or humongous because those words also sound very Californian to me.
Hello from Sannazay bro! You have such a gift for making content. Thanks for sharing with us.
Sanozay 🤩
A linguistics professor I heard once said the "old-time" Mission District accent was indistinguishable from a Brooklyn accent. I think you have a good point--the city is young compared to (for example) Boston and New Orleans, both of which have very distinctive accents which took a few hundred years to develop. Good video, as always. ;-)
It makes sense, since both have large Italian & Irish communities that influenced it.
I know people that grew up on day st has that Brooklyn accent
You just described Father Henry, my Latin teacher at S.I., 1959-1960: a 100% south-of-Mission guy, they had their own way of speaking, more East Coast than anything. Distinctive.
The Mission is the largest & oldest district in SF. Where most immigrants started. A parallel to Brooklyn in the 1800s -early 1900s.
We always called it Mission Irish. I had cousins and college friends with the accent. Some of them had been asked, "How long you been on the coast?" and answered, "Four generations. You?" But most of that is gone. I am a month from reaching 75.
When I was in Toronto I soon realized that if I learned a few local words: washroom, parkade and such, I was thought to be a local. Very close accent. One reason why so many Canadians are in Hollywood and broadcasting.
Joey. Speaking of style of speech... You remind me of a San Francisco version of Carl Sagan. For someone who is talking about truncating words you are actually yourself a very precise articulating speaker and have the cadences of Sagan
You are too kind! Maybe it's just my off-camera speech that gets kinda messy, haha.
Yep, totally agree. Good comparison. Sagan lite..
Sagan is spot on. I couldn’t place his style on first watch but it is definitely Saganesque
Yes! Yes! I noticed that too. He does very much sound like Carl Sagan. Every word is enunciated perfectly.
I first started hearing “hella” while working at Hoover Middle school in the eighties. The interesting thing was I was also working at Giannini (I was a speech therapist) and no one there use the term Hella. My favorite “mispronunciation“ of Spanish street names was Juniper Serra for Junipero Serra!
Go Hawks!!! AP can suck it ;)
Couple of observations. Herb Caen "The Saccamenna kid" was a carpetbagger. Wherja as in "Where did you go to school?" is San Francisconese. To my mind,Carl Nolte wrote the definitive San Francisco dialect guide
Agree - the Carl Nolte guide makes sense to me.
South San Francisco = South City!
SF State= State
Serramonte= little Manila
Hahah!! Born in SF, grew up in South San Francisco and yes we grew up saying “South City”
Thank you for this! It’s hella good.
Really interesting video! (from SF Bay Area). Not sure how to define your accent...but you have a great TH-cam presence and very listenable voice.
Honestly the way you described it, is exactly the way I talk. I think you have the “ accent”
I'm from Santa Cruz (Sannacrooz) and my Bay friends tell me they can tell because I drop my t's. I say hella and gnarly unironically. I feel like SF and Monterey (Monneray) bays really do smoosh all our words together when we talk. For example, when you're in Santa Cruz and want to drive to SF, you're taking 17 and I'm drvin duhthe City... "Ahm drivindathabeach an geddin pizza. Just swinginby da eat an then we're gonna dip out."
Thank you! Native to Corte Madera but have since moved around a bunch (and moved back for a stint). People on the East Coast are often not satisfied when I refer them to the upper Midwest, where my parents are from. This helps me remember to claim my SF accent, or that there is one.
Given the large immigrant population in California, many people there learned English as a second language by imitating the "News Anchor" accent you mentioned.
Is that BeetleJuice print in the back by Tim Doyle?!!! We out here! I got a heisenberg print, and HAD a Sopranos print (which I foolishly gave to a friend I don’t talk to anymore; CRIES IN ANGER).
I’m 3rd generation and my partner’s family came here with Junipero Serra and married into local Native American families. Our families and some older friends definitely have local accents. Things like d/t for “th”, “you’s” not you guys, and people used to ask my partner if he was from Brooklyn but he was born in SF. My mom had the accent and one thing I still can’t break myself of is “torlet” instead of toilet lol, I realized that when I went away to college, but way more ppl used to say it that way. I could go on and on with different word pronunciations, smearing certain words together, and place names. BTW, Vallejo is Vlayo 😜
YES, I'm a 2nd generation Vallejoan and you can tell the who isn't a local y the way they say the towns name. Some wanna be rapper on instagream was saying he grew up on the streets of valle-ho. yeah sure.
I only recently realized I even had an accent when a friend from the UK said it was hard to understand me because my "California accent" is too thick! Like, whaaa??
I think a couple things make a California accent: vocal fry and raising the pitch at the end of sentences as if you are asking a question. Some people sound more like a stoner valley girl. Some people sound more like Mr. Mackey from South Park, mmkay.
Some good examples would be Gavin Newsom, Jimmie Fails (The Last Black Man in San Francisco), and Ali Wong.
The vocal fry! I wasn’t sure how localized that is, but I know I hear it everywhere now.
Oh you guys gotta explain the vocal fry! I'm from the East Bay, so what the heck is that?
Vocal fry is more of a SoCal thing. The NorCal accent is almost monotone in that very little stress is placed on individual syllables, and words are clipped and slurred together very rapidly.
I've lived in SF my whole life and still am, and I just talked to my wall to see if what you said is true, and.....kiNdA? It only really happens once in a while.
There isn’t a California accent. Not one that defines it anyway. What you described sounds like Southern California. We don’t speak like that here in SF Bay area. Gavin Newsom doesn’t speak as you described. He is from SF.
Hi Joey: This is a brilliant video - I grew up in Oakland until 1973 and then moved to Europe and have lived here since. In relation to "hella" I have never heard that shortened version - I remember hearing "hellofalotta" in terms of quantity - but maybe that has changed over my years away. I also particularly liked the quote you read from "Carol...." it rings very true in my mind. I can always discern an American accent from the west coast when I meet people who have lived there. I am not sure why but it just sounds so distinctive to me. In any case I am particularly interested in linguistics, accents and vocabulary. Thanks again, very much. D
Thanks Joey,
You do have a solid San Francisco accent. I grew up there and lived in Eureka Valley, 16th and Guererro, and the Sunset for 49 years. If you don't mind, I'm gonna subscribe. Mike
I just remember back then I heard “hecka” a lot and “hella” just came naturally after that
My family has been in SF for a little over 100 years. Some of the older great aunts/uncles used to talk about the distinct dialect and accents of people born and raised south of Market. Sorry I don't have any examples of vocabulary, but it was described as sounding like Leo Gorcey of Bowery Boys movie fame. Or for a more local perspective, I think of Tom McGarvey or "Red" who opened Red's Java House on Pier 30 in 1955. He definitely had (or has!) a distinct NY-like accent, though he's from SF.
Thanks Joey for another interesting topic.
It's funny I was born and raised in San Francisco. I brought my wife to the Bay Area she's Jamaican and she said that everybody kept saying HELLAAAA. One other word San Francisco people say a lot is, "OFFICIAL" too and throughout the Bay Area. It's true San Franciscans talk fast and you probably want hear too much of it when many of them are leaving the Bay Area due to the cost of living. Mr. Yee your ascent is much San Franciscan someone from the Avenues/Sunset/Geary /Lowell High School side of the City. I graduated from City College and San Francisco State University where many people from the Avenues attended. When I was younger my mother would take me and my brother to Mississippi to visit family my cousin would always make fun of my ascent saying that I talked too proper.
This was my thought about your accent too. Very sunset, Lowell high.
The 'too proper' part is cuz we don't really have an accent, per se. We have phrases and place a LOT of emphasis on certain words that kinda make it an accent. And when we aren't excited about something, our words can be fairly well pronounced.
“Very Sunset.” I like that! 😊
Yes on the phrases, maybe bc of how condensed the city is? So whereas people in families might have shared phrases it’ll extend to almost the entire city (overuse of the word official 😂)
I was born and raised in Santa Rosa (1987). I pronounce where I'm from as Sannarosa. I do say hella sometimes. I also used to surf in Bodega and would talk different when talking about waves such as crunchers and bro more and hella. I have lived in Boise Idaho since 2014.
My grandmother and great aunt grew up in Noe Valley and they definitely sounded like they were from New York. My grandmother would say she lived on “Santa Roser” (Santa Rosa) Avenue and my great aunt always referred to my sisters and I as her “dahlings” (darlings)
Now that I think of it, my grandmother also had something like that. “Snags” (snacks), “dall” (doll), and “idear” (idea) we’re all commonly heard around her house.
My grandfather & his (lifetime) friends, all born in the Mission, 1930-ish Mission High grads, had that distinct accent & style.
My family said dalls too but no one in the family adds r at the end of a word.
I wonder if that's more the linking and/or intrusive R. I've also heard that living in New York and Boston, as well as in British/Australian English as well. Generally between two words when the last letter of the first word and the first letter of the next word are both vowels. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linking_and_intrusive_R
Fast and nasal-definitely! When I was in my early 20s people I met who were not local thought I was from the East coast! A fun piece, always a fun topic! TY
I really truly believe there is a Northern California accent and a Southern California accent that are both similar but distinct from one another. (I'm not sure about just San Francisco and I was born and raised in the city) Idk how to describe it but I feel like there's a distinct way people from here pronounce certain sounds. I don't know anything about phonetics or linguistics but I feel like there's a carrying emphasis on the way we pronounce long vowel sounds if that makes any sense, but I agree with how we talk fast and slur words together but we also take a lot of pauses. It's almost like theres a certain tempo and rhythm to how people communicate up here. To use an analogy: the way we talk fast is like semi automatic machine gun fire rather than fully automatic lol. In southern California I may just be hearing things but it seems like the proximity to Mexico has more of an impact on speech and it also seems to me that they have more of a California version of a southern drawl in the way they pronounce their long vowels. I'm not from Southern California so I can't speak as much on it but I've been in SF practically my whole life and lived in Sacramento a few years back and it seems to me that, while there still may be some subtle regional variance, people who grew up in Northern California have a unique accent, just not as distinct as an accent such as places like Boston, NY, ,Michigan,Georgia,Philly,Chicago, Florida Baltimore, (those are the most distinct to me, Texas is also distinct to me and I realize I'm just rambling at this point but I swear people from Dallas and Houston also sound different) I just came across your channel randomly just now but I feel like you have a subtle version of our accent but again your right it can be tough to pinpoint depending on the person and you explained the history of SF 's melting pot of linguistic cultures at the end very well. This was a really interesting video and I'm glad I came across it right after my legal to smoke california blunt.
When I first moved here and heard someone pronounce Cabrillo, my jaw dropped. I keep expecting some version of shame campaign to burst out which fixes all of our mangled Spanish.
I learned CabriLo St. in SF but CabrEEYO College in Aptos.
So if I pronounced it correctly (ca-bree-yo) would they correct me?
@@andypower5531 depends on the person , but probably yes. Or at least you'd get a look like "...So you're one of those people, are you? The ones who carefully make 'Champagne' three syllables instead of two? Whatever."
The one that always makes me laugh is San Paaa-blo, not San Pah-blo. And let's not forget San Peedro. I mean yeah, sure, we know the Spanish pronunciation, but locals everywhere reserve the right to destroy the pronunciation of any local destination, landmark, street, etc.
I’m a serious Old Line Californian. I remember my grandfather, who was like a thousand years old, pronouncing Los Angeles as LAWZ-ang-guh-leez. All hard Gs. I think that goes back to the 20s. The 1920s. 😻
Don't worry. Sometimes even locals have to guess. If anybody gives you a hard time just say thafuck? Yougoddaproblem? And you kind of let the l float so it's not quite clear whether it follows the a in godda, or b in problem. It's like a four letter diphthong. Maybe a quadrathing I guess.
Former New Englander here so my own accent is still hanging on by a thread (I still drop my ahs every now and again!). If anything, I don't really hear too much of a *specific* accent because there are just so many people here with accents from elsewhere that they haven't dropped! It's more along the lines of word usage and, as you say, the 'economy' of the words. Although one local quirk I hear a lot is repetition in certain phrases, like "thank you thank you" or "good good".
I grew up in Foster City and in 5th grade (about 1982) a friend moved to Castro Valley. The next time we met he was saying hella (his younger brother had to say hecka). I had never heard it before. So at least in the early 80s hella had yet to come down the peninsula.
1975 I said it for the first time in Hayward High School. My best friend I grew up with went to Castro Valley High School. Scott spread it there. It went to Cliff Burton from Metallica who also went to C.V. It is a word born behind F Hall in Hayward High School. I was 15 and high on Thai Stick when it came out of my mouth. I was describing a Day on The Green I went to over the summer. Peter Frampton was on the Bill. Robin Trower played and Fleetwood Mac. I said it was HELLA BAD.
This video is valuable for better understanding the San Francisco regional dialect and accent. It’s time to practice my accent as being more San Franciscan
One of my fondest memories, growing up, were the flower and newspaper kiosks and stands on Powell Street when automobiles could drive straight through and go to Market Street. The guy selling newspapers, every three minutes: "EGGS -Zam." perfectly tuned and timed. That was on "PALL" Street where the cable cars ran. Mid-sixties.
I'm from Los Angeles but have lived in the Bay Area over 25 years. My husband is an East Bay native, and his speech is much more broad and rapid than mine. I still sound like a SoCal.
Oh wow. This is wonderful. Yeah, we do talk fast. For a minute, I closed my eyes and pretended you were my father - David Curiel speaking. He grew up here: North Beach and a little bit Mexico and maybe the Excelsior. He drove a cab all over San Francisco and studied Opera. But brother, you sound similar. Also my brothers but I was struck that you absolutely have the San Francisco speech. It's cultured, generous, thoughtful, amused, inquisitive, humble.
Thanks.
It depends on what district you from, and some of us pick up an accent from where our parents came from. I change my accent when I'm in the Mission District, when I speak with the public, or on the job I try to use my best English. But went I travel outside SF, like to San Mateo, people know I'm from the city because I wear a coat even on a hot day.
Love the Fischer-Price tape player!
My older family members spoke with South of Market accents to varying degrees, but they’re gone now. Us remainders still have noticeable little accent traits (eg some longtime natives still don’t have a full caught/cot merger….yet), but the main identifier was its non-rhoticity, which idk if anyone from SF still has. it did sound a lot like a Brooklyn or Boston accent on the surface because they're the most well known non rhotic accents in the US, but it was not exactly the same… unfortunately most speakers are gone so its hard to find video evidence of it! The tough Tony video is a great example, also Russ Coughlin the old KGO news host was from the Mission (though with TV people you can never be sure they might cultivate a sound), Joe Carcione had a great example of a North Beach accent, similar to a South of Market one.
Things like saying Gough like a native, or even hella, those aren’t accent traits, they're localisms, everyplace has their own. Running words together, like "wouja" or "whereja" are pretty standard in casual English all over the place. Local pronunciations and lexicon are still distinct and unique and identifiable, but with the Mission accent dying or dead, I think most native SF speakers sound relatively the same as other speakers on the West Coast, save for unique slang and words that locals only know how to say. I see other people commenting that people outside of the Bay Area think they sound like a surfer dude/Cali bro or whatever, but again thats not unique to the Bay, you could say the same thing about a lot of people from the rest of the state.
I’d love to hear of another accent from the city that is as unique as the Mission/North Beach ones, but I think its just mostly variations of general western speech at this point.
Your videos make me miss SF, hopefully I'll be able to get back straight away when it's safe to do so.
Loved this video. Another word we used in the 80s and 90s was “MOADED” and/or “MOLDED” for mortified.
Haha I totally said Moded! Never equated it to Molded tho. You're moded when you thought you were right about something and proven to be wrong. MODED!!!!
I used moded to mean "dont you feel stupid? " like, when you are proven wrong after being adament you were right. I grew up in Berkeley in the 80s. We also used "bunk", "hella", "weak", and "trippin". I still say, "that's hella bunk".
That was beautiful!
There definitely used to be an accent similar to a Brooklyn accent. My grandma's friends had it, especially our neighbor Alfred (RIP). They were all born in the nineteen-teens. I'm a third gen and I don't think we have it anymore as people move around a lot and the constant waves of transplants keeps influencing the way we speak.
SF native here. (@Lauren, I also attended HHMS in the 80's ☺️.) I've definitely had folks on east coast ask me where I got that accent.
I’ve had this conversation a million times lol I grew up in Crocker Amazon my whole life went to SF public schools and moved to Philly when I was 20 after city college. It wasn’t until I moved to the east coast and would come back home to visit that I noticed people in the city talk a certain way. It by no means is monolithic, meaning everyone FROM the city doesn’t have the same accent verbatim. That has a lot to do with your racial and ethnic background, socioeconomic status and neighborhood you grew up in I feel. However I think there are things, like you said, that you can hear most native city people say: San’rancisco is the most common. It’s how I’m able to identify anyone from the city even within the bay area. We barely pronounce the f. I think you have an accent, maybe you weren’t speaking how you’d normally speak in this video, but you can tell you grew up in the city. Maybe the avenues? Anyways great video. Love this conversation. Long live the SF accent and it’s diversity.
Yeah the San Francisco accent is almost an "anti-accent" because its distinctive features are speed and a lack of stress on individual syllables within words. It's like a very fast monotone where entire words are clipped and slurred together to the point where an entire phrase or sentence sounds like a single word.
@@drrockkso8882 right
Oh my god, I lived in the Crocker Amazon when I was growing up too, but I moved since I'm now going to college. I was researching accents and looked up 'San Fransico accent' because I was curious if there was one, and if it was correct.
Brah that was a hella cool vid brah
Dude! I'm lookin'online RIGHT NOW for that hella cool tape deck! Is that puke brown? Right on, thx
I grew up all over the Bay Area. My mom was raised in Indiana. She would always tell me enunciate and slow down cause when I would speak it was fast to the point that my sentences sounded like one long word with subtle inflections. Her speech was slower and more drawn out. Drove her crazy.
Youy: to turn the car around
Or "flip a b-word"
Say, joey.. this was very nicely down🏆... i never can find anyone one, on these "where are you from" videos, that sound like my way of talking-- until I heard you.🙂.. I am nearly 70, but grew up in san jose... so mine must be a bay area mixture, since i did not grow up on san francisco... perhaps it is from hearing a variety of folks around me, as I grew up (though, knowing spanish in my older years, I DO pronoun the streets, and towns, etc, correctly, and not like others I grew up with, do) side note: where as I talk like you in main-ways, as you DID in this video, I have only ONE brother that talks similar, out, of 8 siblings, as-- in recent years my other brothers have 'adapted' differences, in their speech delivery, etc, (and my sister, too, as, she always talks and 'copies' one of them) THERE are now 4 different accent/styles, that we speak now, YET we all grew up in san jose 🤔🧐😲.. so regional dialect, ARE at work, in california, as, the state is so LONG... our folks were from mid west, though, so 2 of the brothers may have THAT mixed in...then, one, has a bit if southern california mixed in, and, one may have los altos, mixed in?? It is very interesting once family members change regions--- for ME, I am NOW able to see a speaker-example, online, similar to me, now! (just for fun, of course, as, I love linquistics!) ... so, thank you very kindly! Now. I wonder if I will ever pin point my other siblings, 🙂..it is very interesting whatever it is, that has varied their san jose/bay area, pattern😉🙃🙂.. god bless, thank you again! (Ps-- just saw one of your other videos, so I will ADD--at times, you DO add-in a few slight flowing higher-inflections, at times, which I don't tend to do..except for certain point presentations...🙂.. )
Born in the City but raised in Daly City. I remember first hearing "hella" in 1st grade in 1986 during a nacho sale after school where my friend said "These nachos are hella good!".
I was born in the B and raised in Hayward, you put it perfectly man. I was in the Army and met people from all over the country.
Instantly when I would talk people would say "what part of CA are you from?" And people from LA could instantly detect I was from up North and would guess Bay Area. The Southern guys love our slang words/phrases too. Pretty sure I started the use of "Outta pocket" on my military base solely.
Dropping T’s is a peculiar Bay Area speech pattern/accent. Either the final T or when there is a double T in a word like button - that’s when I really hear the telltale sign of a Bay Area native.
When I was visiting Canada, Canadians would comment on my accent. Asked if I was from California. I was surprised to hear I had an accent and they said we hang onto our vowels a long time.
yes, Californians love to do that
Good one I think this is true and I got the same thing when I lived in NY.
LOL!! Let's go get a haaaaamburger.
yee
In reflection on the late quote, there seem to be two modes: 1) a shuffling, sniffing beagle trying to sift and sort out what interests them, and 2) an affable bear, willing to sit and savor whatever it encounters.
I was born in Berkeley and moved to Ohio when I was 9. The first few months were not easy, I said I wanted to ditch the line, they said cut. I said zorie, they said flipflop. And the whole soda versus pop mess. A million little ways to tell people apart.
I can't really speak to SF, but in the South Bay / rest of CA, we def do blur syllables/words like "SannaRosa" but its not bc we are tryna talk fast. It's because it's just how we do it. In fact, I think it makes our speech sound slower bc we are fitting less sounds into the same amount of time. "Tryna go t' Sannacruz tomorrow?" pretty typical. "SannaBarbruh." I"m not entirely convinced the Bay has an accent, but I currently live in Seattle and I am consistently told by people from Seattle, Midwest, South, East Coast, etc. that I am one of the most California-sounding people they know (without them knowing I'm from CA). So something must be cuing them off.
Yeah it's a general NorCal thing to clip the last syllable of words and sorta slur them together, to the point where an entire sentence sounds like one word. "I'm gonna head outside real quick" becomes "Immaheaoussirealquick".
I'm 4th generation San Franciscan. My older relatives had a more of an east coast sounding accent. One uncle sounded like he was straight out of New York. East coasters will sometimes ask me if I'm from back east. Us natives like to run our words together, too. Give you an example, 'I went down sout'-a-market to grab a drink wid Joey'. Mind you, the speed of that sentence would almost sound like one long word.
Most of the early migrants to the Bay Area came from cities in the northeast, wheras early SoCal migrants came more from the south and Midwest. Explains a lot of the accent differences between Norcal and Socal.
from the Irish immigrants who were from New York City, Cf. "ona cona of Toid and Howad I sees this chesterfield ona side wok."
You are definitely speaking facts when it comes to the speed and the delivery of the pitch and the conversation of San Francisco's can say an entire goddamn damn near three paragraphs in under a minute we are definitely eloquent I'm just saying from my own experience as a child from the Bay area one who lived in San Francisco until I was 18 and then one who's lived in the East Bay area I can tell you this we're a mixture of Southern accents from Texas where a mixture of everything but we definitely are straight up from the bay hella from the bay
Both my parents are from San Francisco. I notice my mom says 'melk', 'pellow' and 'code' (cold). Does anyone else from the bay area say that? I also notice her voice sounds Californian in a way I don't really know how to describe. Like distinctly working class, smooth & vibrant. Sorry, I'm not a linguist, obvs. Her stepdad was from mission district and I always thought he kinda spoke like he was from the east coast. My oldest sister also lived in San Francisco until her teens and she slurs her words together and speaks fast. However, nothing about my dad's speech stands out to me at all. He sounds very standard American.
Hahahaha!!! I'm an SF native living for the past 35 years in SoCal. How could I have forgotten "melk"? Have you ever heard "bolth" for "both"? Or was that strictly a Palo Alto thing?
@@kirkwise654 I'm from SF but also grew up in San Diego until age 7 and I say melk, pellow, and bolth but don't pronounce cold weird. My husband made fun of me so much I probably say those words correctly half of the time now and sometimes I'm genuinely confused about how to pronounce them "correctly" (melk and pellow especially), pill-ow and Milk sound weird to me. I also grew up saying hecka around my parents and hella at school. I definitely pronounce the word both with an added L. Never noticed until you mentioned it..... Now that I think about it... I DO say cold with VERY little emphasis in the L but it's not dropped completely. Wow!
Seriously everyone always tells me I have an accent that sounds like a mix of southern east coast New York and Cali valley
That’s interesting. I’ve always thought “melk” was a north coast or maybe santa rosa thing. I say milk normally. Like people say Harvey Milk
I just learned that "melk" is a Utah thing. I grew up in Millbrae, but my adopted sister was raised in SF until age 7 and she always said Melk and Pellow. (She doesn't say Code tho). I was curious to learn about the Utah thing, I should ask her if she knows where her grandparents were from.
When I moved from SF to NYC in 1997, my NY friends told me I sounded like a Californian (whatever that might be). I think they were approximating my accent by likening it to the ubiquitous accent heard in pop culture, but that pop culture version in my mind is the southern California accent, whereas I and all my SF friends sounded to me unaccented. I guess the same could be said for someone from a southern region; their pronunciation of words during their formative years is the normal way to pronounce a word and therefore (to them) unaccented (this is a broad assumption on my part). Years away from the Bay Area, I still pronounce San Francisco as 'Sarnfcisco,' unless I was referring to it formally as in a talk or prepared speech, in which case I do enunciate all the vowels clearly. I wasn't born there but I spent my early adult years there (1982 - 1997) and I always thought of English spoken in SF and the Bay Area (in general) as the standard English pronunciation...but your video (and the Facebook group) indicates otherwise(?). The last bit about neighborliness coming through is I think a universal one but I don't disagree with it! I hope you post more of what you uncover about this aspect.
Do you finish your sentences in an upspeak voice (sounds like you're questioning your own answer)? Many people on the East Coast think that's a California thing but it's all over the world where English is spoken in various incantations.
@@Fan_Made_Videos good point. Expanding the scope of context underscores that phenomenon. After living only 3.5 years in NYC I had shed the general upspeak voice though I do employ it in a more intimate conversation with family or close friends(?).
@@Fan_Made_VideosThe upspeak at the end of sentences is more of a Southern California thing. If anything, people from Northern California do the opposite - our voice tends to trail off/downward at the end of sentences
Few think that the way they speak English is an accent. Most think everyone else has an accent.
You need to meet my family in SF 🤣 You'll definitely hear it. We speak fast but stretch our last word. I didn't know i used hella so much until I want to San Luis Obispo. My family lived in the Loin "Tenderlion" and Alemany. Im gonna move out SF next year.
I grew up in the city and never thought of my accent/dialect until college, I went to a small school in Charleston SC. My friends had thick southern accents; I developed a hybrid accent. I use phrases and speech patterns common in the south, while maintaining my bay area accent/dialect. It's interesting, because when I go back for weddings or am around my college classmates I slip into a thicker/slower speech pattern. A tour guide in Charleston asked me where I was from, and I said California, but I went to school here. I work as a paramedic, and I often get asked where I am from just from patients listening to my speech patterns. Maybe the Bay Area/SF accents is whatever we want.
Hey Joey, very interesting bit about San Francisco accents. My great grandparents at my grandparents raised My grandparents in the first years of the 1900s, arriving in San Francisco from Scotland and Cornwall in 1890s to 1900. They lived in the South city and the city. None of them would ever have said the word San Francisco. To us growing up on the peninsula, everyone said the city.
lmfao I am from Switzerland but now I have found out that I speak San Fran accent - and really fast too lmaoooo
A word San Franciscan would never use: "bodega" - like what?
Disagree. It’s the name of that one bay to the north. What else would it mean?
@@kevinlavelle4052 that's the only place we call bodega lol
Bodega means storage in Spanish. At least that’s what my mom always calls it
"Bodega" is a New York thing. We just call them liquor stores, even if they have a sandwich counter and mostly sell non-alcoholic products.
"corner store"
First off thank you for featuring my question in your video. Here’s what I found. Listen to recordings of Mayor Joseph Aliotto. You’ll hear his accent. Also I have spoken with many old timers here in the city who claim at one point every district had its own accent. Sunset, Potrero Hill, etc.
I guess I'm an old-timer (in my 70s), native San Franciscan. I went to elementary school in Visitacion Valley, then to the Potrero neighborhood for 7th and 8th grade and I definitely thought there was a distinct Potrero neighborhood accent. Also one for the Excelsior (mostly extreme elisions connecting words, tagging ending consonants onto the beginning of the next word). It was refreshing to identify someone's neighborhood by how they talked.
Love this discussion. Fifth generation native here. We have a family friend that people would swear had a NYC accent. It’s nasally and words run together. I don’t know if this is just my Mom or not but she says orange differently. She says “ aarange”. She grew up on Ocean Ave. I like and agree with the comment about it being a warm, neighborly accent. There’s no pretension in how it’s spoken.
Ha ha...bed yer mom sez " li-bry" tew...I also say "aah-ange"...
A lot of the people who moved out here in the late 1800s/early 1900s came from New York so it has a pretty strong influence on the SF accent.
I counseled at a camp out near Clearlake a few summers in college and my campers said "heck-a this" and "heck-a that" --- it wasn't till sometime last year after living here a while I realized adults actually said "hella" too. #TheMoreYouKnow.
What does hecka-a this and heck-a that mean.
@@brasti9088 just an expression. Like "that was hecka fun" or "that was hella crazy." The video explains it a bit more :)
I remember my Fathers and My Grandfather’s San Francisco accident, I have been told I have too, even thro I left the city year a go.
My family has been in San Francisco for four generations and I guess I do have an accent slightly affected by my great-grandma's Louisiana roots. It does seem to include a lot of "ums," quick talking, and upbeat, friendly tone. Also, Ryan Coogler, I think is a good cultural example. Even though he is from Oakland, hearing him talk reminds me of home.
"I can't think of any other words, off the top of my head, uh I'm sure I use PLENNY in my daily life." :D heehee
Also when we say "want' or "where" and stuff it sounds very slightly new yorky, when you said want it sounded more like wawnt a bit.
There used to be a South of the Slot accent that sounded a lot like an East Coast accent. Since i have not lived in SF for many years, I don't know if it still exists.
Affability, warmth, neighborliness...sounds like you!
I use "hellalodda", but I moved from SF a long time ago! So I guess that was the middle ground, before it became just "hella".. 😂
Frisco (as real San Franciscans refer to it), has many different accents and dialects. The most common though, sounds like less of an actual accent, and more like a really laid back mood, but at a higher tempo. And what you said about the typical pronunciation is true, because the speech is mashed into a form of excessive run-on contractions. For example, the words "I'm about to go", usually sound more like "Umbawda'go"... "I'm heading to the store" sounds more like "Umednt'da store".
All I learned from this video is that the SF accent is basically if Ernie from Bert and Ernie grew up to be a college freshman at DVC
San Francisco SLANG/Common Greetings : "WHAT UP BOY!" " U LOOKIN HELLA CLEAN!" "WHAT IT B LIKE?" "THAS HELLA CRAZY!" "IT IS WHAT IT IS!" "PEEP THIS! " "U ALREADY KNOW"
I bust out laughing, this is too accurate. Half of these are things I say or hear daily and never realized until just now.
I didn't know those weren't universal 💀
@@mikeg8276 They originated in the 415 San Francisco!
@@geedee94134 Haha. Depending on your circles and generation, a LOT of slang here comes from local Bay Area hip hop and not necessarily SF proper though. E-40 is single handedly responsible for so much of what we say...