A researcher is trying to document Philadelphia's ASL accent, before it disappear

[KamaAina]

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-12-04/researcher-trying-document-philadelphias-asl-accent-it-disappears

The Philadelphia accent is most famously known by its transformation of the word “water’ to something more along the lines of “wuder.”

But it’s not the only accent native to the Philly area — historically, deaf Philadelphians have also had their own particular version of American Sign Language, with some of its own words or slight differences in the orientation and configurations of the hands when compared to regular ASL.

Now, a team of linguistic researchers — Jami N. Fisher and Meredith Tamminga from the University of Pennsylvania and Julie Hochgesang from Gallaudet University — is aiming to document the Philadelphia dialect in American Sign Language before it fades from use. She and her team of researchers are focusing on interviewing older Philadelphia ASL speakers, who tend to have a more pronounced Philly dialect....

Here's two examples of words that are different in Philly ASL as compared with standard ASL:

[Iggo]

1. There's accents?!?!?!?

Well, I mean, of course there are.

It just didn't occur to me.

Fascinating!