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Yo! How to Speak Philadelphian
Paperback
HumorNortheastRegional: Middle Atlantic
Publisher Price: $16.82
ISBN13: 9781971738000
Publisher: Midatlantica
Published: Feb 26 2026
Pages: 108
Weight: 0.39
Height: 0.29 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
Yo! How to Speak Philadelphian is a basic guide to the Philadelphia dialect, as studied by linguists and featured in movies and television.
This brief, accessible introduction is meant for the general public and will help you learn Philadelphia's words and pronunciations, from its well-known features like wooder and iggles, to lesser-known sound changes like shtreet and all the complicated rules govern our short a. You'll learn how linguists accidentally started fights among native speakers over word pairs like ferry-furry, bounce-balance, and mayor-mare. You'll learn grammatical quirks like positive anymore and done your homework. And you can read over two centuries of historical quotes commenting on and complaining about the way Philadelphians speak. Finally, there's a mini-dictionary that covers everything from old local terms like squares and baby coach to new words like mac machine and jawn.
Claudio Salvucci is the author of the Grammar of the Philadelphia Dialect (1995), the Philadelphia Dialect Dictionary (1996), and the American Language Reprint Series (1996-2009). He has been researching and writing about the dialect for over 30 years, from the most obscure historical references to the latest scientific studies, and he is currently compiling a new reference dictionary of Philadelphian on historical principles. He was raised in Northeast Philly and the suburbs and praoudly brings his accent wherever he goes.
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