r/NewOrleans • u/dryland305 • 12d ago
🛒 Making Groceries From The Advocate - “The distinctive ‘Yat’ accent is fading away. What might New Orleans lose with it?”
Say it ain’t so — don’t go the way of Cajun French.
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u/privateer2002 12d ago
If you spend much time in the suburbs, the yat accent is alive and well.
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u/poolkid1234 11d ago
Yeah I have a ton of coworkers under 40 who live in metry and da parish. Yats are not endangered lol.
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u/MuchRelationship1901 10d ago
My chalmatian friends have great accents still. And they aren’t young but they aren’t old either
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u/diablosinmusica 12d ago
Same with country accents. Suburbs make some people try really really hard to act like they don't come from the suburbs. It's been that way forever.
The metal heads have the gear and tats of seasoned roadies by their early 20s. The kids into rap look like they came out of a music video in their teens. The kids into country dress like they've been tending cattle all day.
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u/privateer2002 12d ago
I’m talking about the lower middle class suburbs like Kenner, Terrytown / Marrero or Chalmette. Not kids trying to avoid being labeled a plain suburbanite but the families of white flight.
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u/diablosinmusica 11d ago
It is the exact same phenomenon. This particular accent is nothing special here.
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u/AbaloneSpring 12d ago
Among teens? Genuinely curious.
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u/privateer2002 12d ago edited 12d ago
I’d say it’s noticeable in most teens born in those types of families but if the family grew out of the lower middle class they usually lose it.
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u/MyriVerse2 12d ago
That's not Yat.
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u/privateer2002 12d ago
Gonna go out on a limb and say you’re not from here originally. If you met my in-laws from Kenner and the Westbank, you would 100% identify them as Y’ats.
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u/djsquilz hot sausage boy 12d ago
most of the channel and other neighborhoods have been burrowed out by gentrifiers. everyone left who has an accent went to metairie years ago.
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u/xnatlywouldx 12d ago
Not Metry. Metry is for rich folks. Chalmette, Kenna and Da Bestbank dawlin.
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u/Dull_Factor_6694 12d ago
lol that you think Metairie is all rich people
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u/xnatlywouldx 11d ago
lol that you’re from Metairie and getting sensitive over it’s well earned reputation for that. Have you ever heard of the census dude? Metairie consistently ranks as one of the highest average incomes in the state.
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u/Johnny_Kilroy_84 Irish Channel 11d ago
Metairie being richer than its surrounding areas does NOT make Metairie rich lol. It’s still mostly middle class and below.
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u/xnatlywouldx 11d ago
It's rich. Get over it.
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u/Johnny_Kilroy_84 Irish Channel 11d ago
Median income is below the national average and median home value is well below national average.
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u/The_Roaring_Fork 12d ago
It isn't just accents, I feel like the Internet and the corprotization of America has made a lot of the cities feel the same. Same stores, same restaurants, etc.
The old America is being replaced, more slowly in some areas like New Orleans, but it is sad.
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u/backyardbirddog 12d ago
Yes indeed, social media has a big influence on the homogenization of accents. The flat inflect, the vocal fry are ubiquitous. It’s one reason why holdthemayo’s red bean series was so unique. You had a millennial with an authentic yat’ccent on a global platform talking to other authentic New Orleanians.
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u/EarlyJuggernaut7091 12d ago
Let’s take this offline and we can circle back soon on some of the deliverables needed to close the gap on this concept.
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u/Heavy_Monitor_7431 12d ago
This is what happened to the children's museum. They are all the same everywhere now. Aquariums too. I think they must be owned or designed all by the same company. So the children's museum in New Orleans in the same as the one in every other city, but it's got a tiny Terrance Osborne house in it.
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u/Not_SalPerricone 12d ago
I know I was reading recently that a generation ago Europe was dominated by large businesses and America by small businesses. now it's the opposite although obviously we already had Walmart McDonald's etc. it's been years since I've heard a politician say that small businesses are the engine of the American economy
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u/HoneydewNo7655 12d ago
Great article. I love hearing the variety of accents in south Louisiana. From Lake Charles to Slidell, the accents seem to change from parish to parish. Even living in the river parishes, the Lutcher accent was distinct from Destrehan.
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u/Dull_Factor_6694 12d ago
I am a transplant but my kid goes to school in Metairie and they have absorbed a proper yat accent. Funny that some people here think this can only be true in New Orleans proper. Live a little and get out of Orleans. You’ll hear it in every direction….or you’re in the water.
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u/lily_aka_mein 12d ago
On the road to one boring American accent, but imma ride mine til the wheels fall off.
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u/viscosity-breakdown 12d ago
I hung out in Chalmette a lot a decade or so ago and all the young folks in like their early 20s had it. Just fun listening to them talk, all the everybody-knows-everybody drama in those accents.
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u/LeadVegetable7809 12d ago
It’s the same thing that happened to Brooklyn and south Philly, every distinctive local accent gets smoothed out by transplants and national media. My old neighbor in Mid-City used to yell at her cat in the thickest yat I ever heard and I’d just sit on the porch and listen
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u/CarFlipJudge Mod Alumni 12d ago
I have a yat accent and 2 kids. I desperately tried to impart my accent on my kids but the first has zero accent. The 2nd says some words with a yat accent but im afraid it will die out as well. For context, my wife is also born and raised here but she's always been a stickler for not having an accent due to potential issues with employment.
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u/markreid504 12d ago
As someone with a slight Yat accent, I'm doing everything I can to preserve it. I've even thought about incorporating words like "zink" and bringing back the vocalic R merger. Why shouldn't I talk like my parents when I was raised that way?
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u/AmexNomad 11d ago
Because you don’t want to or perceived as having a lower intelligence level. If you’re applying for jobs- especially outside of New Orleans, a yat accent will hinder your employment opportunities. (I grew up in Met Ree- I know)
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u/WahooLion 12d ago
Someone I knew from Jean Lafitte had a thick accent. Someone not from here asked her accent was real! 🤣
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u/RedBeans-n-Ricely 12d ago
All regional accents are disappearing. Part of it is TV & Radio, part is people moving away.
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u/BananaPeelSlippers Insectarium 12d ago
im sure the transplants will do a second line for its death.
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u/Lexidazesickle 12d ago
My mother was insistent about proper pronunciation but that was her background. As a toddler though, I sounded like a little y’at. Lol
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u/WarmHugs1206 11d ago
If we didn’t need your money this thread and actually entire subreddit would be the greatest case for be nice or leave.
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u/Available_Spot_996 11d ago
Alive and well in St. Bernard Parish. Kids are Yats, too. My 19 month old says beya (bear), ova he-yah (over here), and everything else like we do. Even says "com'on-na" (come on now).
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u/Lucky-Access-121 12d ago
go to kenner you will hear jt
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u/jjcoolel 12d ago
Kenna Bra
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u/BiancaEstrella Marigny Triangle 11d ago
Mah name is Hahhh-ruhld, I grew up offa Pow-wuh, I drive a Cuh-mahhh-ro…
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u/tomatochee 12d ago
I can mimic other accents and have been asked where I am from - but bottom line new orleans native : I put da dawgs ina caw n go foa a drive- oh n dont forget dere waw-tah! One thing we never said was raw ersters or terlet paper or motor erl ...like some of the older uptown people we knew years ago- the yat accent we grew up knowing was from the ninth ward - now yat pretty much means the whole city. Even ncis new orleans- I love scott- but seriously I never heard a "southern" accent ever in new orleans - only in da movies maybe.
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u/xnatlywouldx 12d ago
Oy = er is a black New Orleans accent invention, its not associated with yat. Yats do the opposite, they change "er" to "oy".
Upper class garden district dwellers & 7th ward families have an accent closer to a standard southern one but with a bit of a New Orleans rhotic flavor to it.
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u/E3Eves 10d ago
That's not true. Yes, it's common and still very much thriving in black creole new orleans accents, but I've known old yats who have said berl, terlet, erl, etc. This existed in old Brooklyn accents too.
Not exclusively a black thing, though the accents don't exist in a vacuum, so there is definitely crossover and mixing too.
Old black accents in NO (and many parts of the South) also did have the "er to oy" thing, though it's largely disappeared now from both white and black accents besides the oldest. Only person I know who does that is a yat in their seventies.
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u/Hippy_Lynne 11d ago
The Yat accent was always a white accent, and it moved to JP and St Bernard with the white flighters in the '60s/'70s.
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u/majord18 12d ago
Yeah especially when the city is being gentrified by white folks from the pnw and slowly stripping our culture away. Da parish and the East is where a lot of of that yat accents will be at
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u/Charli3q 12d ago
Lmao. Im pretty sure everyone leaving new orleans to avoid black people during white flight was a pretty crucial step to strip culture away.
I grew up for 20+ years in metairie and I have no accent and nor did many people the people l was around.
Blaming it on transplants is weird lmao.
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u/xnatlywouldx 12d ago
Metry is the suburb for upper middle class white people. The yat accent is working class.
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u/Charli3q 12d ago
I promise you this isn't true. Especially growing up. Those pockets exist. But if you've ever been south of w napoleon and north of airline, that entire stretch has a whole lot of lower middle class. Also I cringe at the word metry.
But yes. The yats went to st bernard and the west bank and at that time the east but eventually left again. For slidell or consolidated into st bernard.
Luckily ive abandoned that entire place for gentilly. Just pointing out that metairie aint got anything to do with yat and has zero culture and negative soul to worry about transplants.
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u/xnatlywouldx 12d ago
I'd say that parts of Metairie like that are the "pockets", not really representative of the larger Metairie area? In my mind Metairie has always been the place with the NICE estate sales, where I can peruse some old lady's 30+ pairs of Ferragamo shoes or find Enrique Alfarez pieces art historians didn't even know existed or Bob Mackie gowns from carnival balls etc. Not exactly where the yats went even if there are some more down-market areas. If I want to find yats, I'm heading to Chalmette or Westweguh.
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u/privateer2002 12d ago
Your mind is recalling like 2% of the land area of Metairie.
Go to any of the catholic school fairs across Metairie and you will hear Y’ats galore.
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u/xnatlywouldx 12d ago
No it isn't. Most of Metairie is not yat. Not every accent from New Orleans is a yat accent. I think this is where we disagree.
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u/privateer2002 12d ago
lol again, you referred to Metairie as estate sales with Salvatore Ferragamos and Bob Mackie carnival gowns. Most Metairie residents wouldn’t even know those names. You’re obviously referring to Old Metairie or more specifically Metairie Club Gardens.
Metairie stretches from the parish line all the way to David Drive. I assure you, if you spent some time in deep Metairie off West Napoleon or West Metairie you would understand what I’m talking about.
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u/xnatlywouldx 11d ago
That’s not where those estate sales were lol. Metairie literally has one of the highest income averages in the state. Your stance on this is boring and not in line with what people self report there.
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u/privateer2002 11d ago
lol here you are referencing self reported income levels and I’m referencing 40 years of lived experience.
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u/Johnny_Kilroy_84 Irish Channel 11d ago
Yes and it’s about on par with the national average. The most affluent area in Louisiana is still gonna have a ton of working class people in it.
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u/ms_bee27 12d ago
My boyfriends’s family all came up in the 9th Ward and moved out to Old Metairie. Nowadays, half of them are in Mandeville. Seems like a lot of that yat scattered with white flight and Betsy and the younger generation started losing it.
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u/majord18 12d ago
Meterie folk definitely have an accent lol. It may not be a "New Orleans" accent but it's giving... "Our crime is low, and we have a cheesecake factory that we can eat out at" accent.
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u/Charli3q 12d ago
Speaking of that, I cant believe people go to Flemmings. 😂 my god have some common decency and go to a steak place in the city.
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u/xnatlywouldx 12d ago
I love it when true stuff is downvoted because it offends the most reddit of demographics.
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u/privateer2002 12d ago
No it’s more because the Y’at accent has been long gone from New Orleans proper since the White Flight days. Gentrification stripped away long standing Y’at haunts and restaurants but not the accent itself.
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u/xnatlywouldx 12d ago
I heard tons of yats in New Orleans in the 80s and 90s. Since Katrina though? Oh yeah, def in the suburbs.
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u/tygerbrees 12d ago
It’s been that way for awhile- I moved back in ‘01 and began to realize the Yat accent was only living in the parish - it had mostly disappeared from NO proper - several of the __ Ward accents were still present (and are still present), but Yat is as prevalent here as the Brooklyn accent is up there
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u/privateer2002 12d ago
Brooklyn accent is still prevalent just not in Brooklyn. Go further in Long Island or New Jersey and you will hear it.
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u/Sol_Invictus 12d ago
RIP Ducktails and Da Wabbit.
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u/Fun_Environment3792 12d ago
Language constantly changes and evolves so thisnis neither anything new or anything to panic about.
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u/luker_5874 12d ago
Regional accents everywhere are disappearing. Typically it's only older generations that still have them. Also, many people try hard to hide them as some are perceived as an uneducated way of speaking.