"New York" accent

[Jovialis]

Daniel Day-Lewis in preparation for his role in Gangs of New York (2002), an English actor, studied recordings of Brooklyn-born Walt Witman.

Often people conflate this accent with Italian-Americans in the North East of the USA.

However, this accent predates the arrival of Italians in mass to the U.S. and was spoken by the native-born Anglo-Americans.

I lived in NY, and NJ my whole life, and I don't speak in the manner (though it does slip when I get a bit more impassioned). Though I do know many who do, of all different backgrounds.

 

[Palermo Trapani]

Jovialis: Great scene from that movie. I wonder if Linguistic scholars have connected the blending of the Irish accent with the version spoken by English/Anglo-Saxons which produced the foundation of the NYC accent. The Italians would not start arriving to the period 1880 to 1920, post dating the Irish by 40 years (they arrived in large numbers around 1840-1850) and they then added another accent and those blended to what would become the NYC accent today.

 

[Björnsson]

Funny how they have an Irish Jew (Daniel Day Lewis) portraying a Native WASP as evil incarnate in order to bait Irish Papists.

Yes, both London and the post-colonial ports like New York here all had gangs and organized crime long before the immigrant stereotype from ancestries elsewhere than Northwest Europe. The Mafia stereotype developed because those who weren't immediately benefiting from political patronage, such as whiskey for votes as a mild example, ended up finding themselves engaging in turf wars, to fight for and take what wasn't given or traded, partly because the more foreign, the less value saw in a profit return on social investments. In the process of acclimating themselves to the new social environment, some immigrants found themselves trying to speak the way their potential employers would find them least disaffected and this would typically be due to parents raising their children to speak English, but before the rise of mass media, Italians may not have known the King's speech before crossing the Atlantic, so their delivery wouldn't have been flattened by their juxtaposition. Since upward mobility was slow, those at the bottom found themselves not just consorting with outlaws on their level, perhaps bringing their own European criminal syndicate networks to the table (whether or not this can be truly sourced to the Sicilian Vespers, like some Robin Hood equivalent), but also being less predisposed toward upper crust trends in fashion and speech, being rather inaccessible. Native American networking was at least statewide and maybe sectional, without many at all who were connected towards the whole Union, which was exactly why the War was happening in Kansas, etc. European neighborhoods were entirely dependent upon a friction between where they came from across the Atlantic and their local port areas, but speech leveling was more likely for Natives with greater interstate communications and who might have had London contacts for business. The Native population was going West and the speech ways were dominated by both Germans and Scotch-Irish, which included their standards and expectations about society. Much of what was merely Native wasn't actually seen favorable out West, so remnant populations that had acclimated to American life found themselves representative of the cultures left behind. This affected not just the Hyphenated indentured servants, but also the slaves, both of whom learnt the English vocalizations without German or Scotch-Irish inflections and were even less interesting for those on the interior than the Native establishment who they already despised.

I grew up speaking and understanding the communication style of Jimmy Carter of Sumter County, Georgia and Dr Charles Stanley of Pittsylvania County, VA, even though I'm from Providence County, RI, so compare Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr of Essex County, MA and John Chafee of Providence County, RI. Insofar as the Atlantic seaboard goes, it's typically all the same for me, except anywhere in the orbit of Ellis Island or the Ghetto, but the predisposition to flip the bird at Natives by both the Germans and Scotch-Irish, now has encouraged the Eurocentric Hyphenated spitting on the second half of their compound identities and dispensing with the very notion you've addressed, i.e., becoming attuned to the Native speech ways, which is on par with Ebonics and Afrocentrism. Being that I am from the Native crowd, going back to Jamestown and Plymouth, this is the POV I have to offer. On the other hand, given my education, I am well aware of other-than-Anglo ancestry from before the Reformation, or at least as recent as the Renaissance and that confessional reasons have amplified cultural differences, between, say, post-Norman England and post-Norman Sicily. In my case, the most "exotic" is a Venetian family in the courts of Francis I and Henry VIII in the Dominion of Virginia, which was basically of Ostrogoth and Lombard origin (confirmed by MyTrueAncestry.com), with a sphere of influence in Constantinople, not altogether different than the Babenberg-Komnenos alliance. I know Sicily was Vandal before it was Norman, but a lot of ignorant people just obsess over Greeks vs Phoenicians from before (some even invoke them over Britain too, but usually the Roman period and the Celts) and then the Christian vs Muslim divide which was ideological. As far as I know, there's no more reason for the Vandal-Norman Kingdom of Sicily to be any less capable of integration and cohesion with Anglo society than the Ostrogoth-Lombard Kingdom of Italy within the Holy Roman Empire. On the other hand, Sicily, like England, was associated with the HRE without actually being part of it, unlike Italy itself, cohabiting with Germany (, Burgundy and Bohemia). So, if there are no intrinsic ethnic differences, except Sicilians were expected to speak Latin and being of Germanic origin, could only approximate a vulgar variety, is more a testament to the common origin with Anglo-Saxons. If Sicilians are speaking like English do, then all the more power to them, for nothing feels nicer than the type of perspectives offered by either an Antonin Scalia or Tom Tancredo. There need not be any sense of fundamental estrangement. My half-brother is maybe 1/4 Lazio and I have to say, although I like Thomism and appreciate England's Catholic heritage, find that Rome to Ravenna corridor the least compelling part of that whole geography, except for the Church itself, because there doesn't seem like any real ethnic basis to it. I much prefer Sicily and the maritime republics for their nuances that are more similar to English conditions. We were all combined by the marriage of King Philip II of Spain with Queen Mary I of England anyway, so if they had children, who knows what kind of cultural leveling would have resulted when England and Ireland, Spain and Portugal, Sicily and Naples, the East and West Indies were all on the same side. I presume their titles to France and Jerusalem would have been realized and this would be the level of multiculturalism we'd see as a result.

 

[Jovialis]

Jovialis: Great scene from that movie. I wonder if Linguistic scholars have connected the blending of the Irish accent with the version spoken by English/Anglo-Saxons which produced the foundation of the NYC accent. The Italians would not start arriving to the period 1880 to 1920, post dating the Irish by 40 years (they arrived in large numbers around 1840-1850) and they then added another accent and those blended to what would become the NYC accent today.

Perhaps the Dutch would have made a contribution as well considering they were there before the English.

 

[Jovialis]

Funny how they have an Irish Jew (Daniel Day Lewis) portraying a Native WASP as evil incarnate in order to bait Irish Papists.

Yes, both London and the post-colonial ports like New York here all had gangs and organized crime long before the immigrant stereotype from ancestries elsewhere than Northwest Europe. The Mafia stereotype developed because those who weren't immediately benefiting from political patronage, such as whiskey for votes as a mild example, ended up finding themselves engaging in turf wars, to fight for and take what wasn't given or traded, partly because the more foreign, the less value saw in a profit return on social investments. In the process of acclimating themselves to the new social environment, some immigrants found themselves trying to speak the way their potential employers would find them least disaffected and this would typically be due to parents raising their children to speak English, but before the rise of mass media, Italians may not have known the King's speech before crossing the Atlantic, so their delivery wouldn't have been flattened by their juxtaposition. Since upward mobility was slow, those at the bottom found themselves not just consorting with outlaws on their level, perhaps bringing their own European criminal syndicate networks to the table (whether or not this can be truly sourced to the Sicilian Vespers, like some Robin Hood equivalent), but also being less predisposed toward upper crust trends in fashion and speech, being rather inaccessible. Native American networking was at least statewide and maybe sectional, without many at all who were connected towards the whole Union, which was exactly why the War was happening in Kansas, etc. European neighborhoods were entirely dependent upon a friction between where they came from across the Atlantic and their local port areas, but speech leveling was more likely for Natives with greater interstate communications and who might have had London contacts for business. The Native population was going West and the speech ways were dominated by both Germans and Scotch-Irish, which included their standards and expectations about society. Much of what was merely Native wasn't actually seen favorable out West, so remnant populations that had acclimated to American life found themselves representative of the cultures left behind. This affected not just the Hyphenated indentured servants, but also the slaves, both of whom learnt the English vocalizations without German or Scotch-Irish inflections and were even less interesting for those on the interior than the Native establishment who they already despised.

I grew up speaking and understanding the communication style of Jimmy Carter of Sumter County, Georgia and Dr Charles Stanley of Pittsylvania County, VA, even though I'm from Providence County, RI, so compare Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr of Essex County, MA and John Chafee of Providence County, RI. Insofar as the Atlantic seaboard goes, it's typically all the same for me, except anywhere in the orbit of Ellis Island or the Ghetto, but the predisposition to flip the bird at Natives by both the Germans and Scotch-Irish, now has encouraged the Eurocentric Hyphenated spitting on the second half of their compound identities and dispensing with the very notion you've addressed, i.e., becoming attuned to the Native speech ways, which is on par with Ebonics and Afrocentrism. Being that I am from the Native crowd, going back to Jamestown and Plymouth, this is the POV I have to offer. On the other hand, given my education, I am well aware of other-than-Anglo ancestry from before the Reformation, or at least as recent as the Renaissance and that confessional reasons have amplified cultural differences, between, say, post-Norman England and post-Norman Sicily. In my case, the most "exotic" is a Venetian family in the courts of Francis I and Henry VIII in the Dominion of Virginia, which was basically of Ostrogoth and Lombard origin (confirmed by MyTrueAncestry.com), with a sphere of influence in Constantinople, not altogether different than the Babenberg-Komnenos alliance. I know Sicily was Vandal before it was Norman, but a lot of ignorant people just obsess over Greeks vs Phoenicians from before (some even invoke them over Britain too, but usually the Roman period and the Celts) and then the Christian vs Muslim divide which was ideological. As far as I know, there's no more reason for the Vandal-Norman Kingdom of Sicily to be any less capable of integration and cohesion with Anglo society than the Ostrogoth-Lombard Kingdom of Italy within the Holy Roman Empire. On the other hand, Sicily, like England, was associated with the HRE without actually being part of it, unlike Italy itself, cohabiting with Germany (, Burgundy and Bohemia). So, if there are no intrinsic ethnic differences, except Sicilians were expected to speak Latin and being of Germanic origin, could only approximate a vulgar variety, is more a testament to the common origin with Anglo-Saxons. If Sicilians are speaking like English do, then all the more power to them, for nothing feels nicer than the type of perspectives offered by either an Antonin Scalia or Tom Tancredo. There need not be any sense of fundamental estrangement. My half-brother is maybe 1/4 Lazio and I have to say, although I like Thomism and appreciate England's Catholic heritage, find that Rome to Ravenna corridor the least compelling part of that whole geography, except for the Church itself, because there doesn't seem like any real ethnic basis to it. I much prefer Sicily and the maritime republics for their nuances that are more similar to English conditions. We were all combined by the marriage of King Philip II of Spain with Queen Mary I of England anyway, so if they had children, who knows what kind of cultural leveling would have resulted when England and Ireland, Spain and Portugal, Sicily and Naples, the East and West Indies were all on the same side. I presume their titles to France and Jerusalem would have been realized and this would be the level of multiculturalism we'd see as a result.

Regarding MTA, it is only very recently that a pre-print came out that can confirm ancient IBD analysis for academic papers. I wouldn't trust features that tries to confirm direct ancestry with ancient population for consumer-genomics tests yet.

 

[Björnsson]

Regarding MTA, it is only very recently that a pre-print came out that can confirm ancient IBD analysis for academic papers. I wouldn't trust features that tries to confirm direct ancestry with ancient population for consumer-genomics tests yet.

MTA bases identity off of graves, not living populations. It's a lot easier to trace descent in the present from the past, not compare with globally admixed populations, as the latter only tells you where those now share some DNA with you from--likely an overlap of past identities and this is only useful for tracking living relatives, not dead ones. Said modern groups must test the bones of ancient DNA to prove they have any ties to the land they live on and it's easy to trace ancient DNA patterns based upon historical narratives.

I know that my East Germanic tribal DNA is from burials in places like Hungary, but which were corresponding to known tribes ruling in Italia and Iberia, so the inference isn't risky, because it contrasts with the Greco-Roman population. For instance, I have very low percentages of Illyrian and Balari in the Deep Dive results, but none in the other results, all of which are either Germanic or Celtic tribes. I was almost certain that my French was going to pop up something Mediterranean, but that's only with comparing to modern Mediterranean nations derived from the Volkerwanderung, not Classical populations preceding them. This verifies that Europe was indeed transformed by the Germanic tribes, once Constantine abandoned Rome for Byzantium. Whatever happened to the previous populations in the Empire, they seem to have shrunken, or gravitated towards the East and the West was left to the new men like Stilicho and Odoacer, who brought their tribes with them in mass migration, as an alternative to rule by Attila and other Steppe tribes of non-Indo-European origin.

The only non-Northwest European burial I've got any DNA marker connection to, is from the Bronze Age in Glavanesti, Romania, which I take to be from my Venetian ancestry, being that it is in the minority of my family tree and the only outlier from all the rest of my recent blood sources. Similarly, the MDLP K16 calculator on YourDNAportal said Bulgarian_EastRumelia in addition to English, French, Irish and Scottish, which is obviously from the same DNA signature that MTA says is from Romania. Actually, it fits well with the fact that the only modern Mediterranean ancestry I've got is from Italy, apparently followed by the Balkans (Re: Trieste and Ragusa?), knowing the history of Venice including domination of Adrianople (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stato_da_Màr). Some Maronite in France emailed me based upon what he thought was a close relationship, indicated by Gedmatch. His file popped up as Assyrian and Armenian on Gedmatch, fitting his IBD, but mine is different in that this outlier ancestry only vaguely overlaps his East Med world.

First of all, I am English, French and Irish in that order, followed by Holy Roman Empire and Scottish ancestry from the colonial period, then Scandinavia and Iberia from the Renaissance. I am open to the possibility of some Komnenos (I already know this) or Palaeologus (unknown but plausible; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleologus_of_Pesaro) ancestry after 1453, as exiles from the Ottomans, but likely through Venice, which actually only came to my English Virginia blood through an intermediary French marriage (Bassano through Lanier seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanier_family_tree) in London. MTA lists "Germanic Lombard" from Szolad, Hungary as 5th in line of my Archaeogenetic matches (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombards#Genetics).

Mixed Mode Population Sharing:

	English (Kent)	+	Turk (Trabzon)	@
	English (Kent)	+	Greek (Athens)	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@

[TD="align: center"] # [/TD]

[TD="colspan: 3"] Primary Population (source) [/TD]
[TD="colspan: 3"] Secondary Population (source) [/TD]
[TD="align: right"] Distance [/TD]

[TD="align: center"]1[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]94.8%[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]5.2%[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]1.98[/TD]

[TD="align: center"]2[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]90.6%[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]9.4%[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]2.03[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]3[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]95.1%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]4.9%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Georgian (Tbilisi)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.03[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]4[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]94.2%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]5.8%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Georgian_Abkhazia (Abkhazia)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.04[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]5[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]94.4%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]5.6%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Georgian (Georgia)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.09[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]6[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]86.9%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]13.1%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Italian (Tuscany)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.09[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]7[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]94.7%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]5.3%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Armenian (Armenia)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.09[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]8[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]94.5%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]5.5%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Abkhazian (Gudauta)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.1[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]9[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]81.3%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Cornwall)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]18.7%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Italian (Bergamo)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.11[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]10[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]94.5%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]5.5%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Georgians (Zugdidi)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.11[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]11[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]91.4%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]8.6%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Greek (Greece)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.11[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]12[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]94.2%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]5.8%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Abkhazian_Lykhny (Lykhny)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.13[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]13[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]94.3%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]5.7%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Adjar (Adjaria)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.16[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]14[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]88.6%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]11.4%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Greek (Thessaloniki)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.18[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]15[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]58.5%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]French (France)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]41.5%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Irish (Munster)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.19[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]16[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]52%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]French (France)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]48%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (England)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.19[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]17[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]53.5%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]French (France)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]46.5%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Irish (Cork_Kerry)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.19[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]18[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]94%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]6%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Turk (Kayseri)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.2[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]19[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]88.8%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]11.2%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Greek (Greece)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.21[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]20[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]88.7%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]11.3%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Albanian (Albania)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.22[/TD]

This is what MDLP K16 on Gedmatch shows for my primary and secondary, which makes sense without any mental gymnastics, although it confused me before knowing my Italian lineage and I am still confused at the deep impression that this Lombard blood has been passed down to me so distantly, but hey, King Philip and Queen Mary were Duke and Duchess of Milan as well as Duke and Duchess of Burgundy, so why not? Lines 15 and 17 all show the significance of 6/32 French over that of 4/32 Irish (line 9 shows 1/32 Welsh Marches), whereas my 2/32 Dutch is perhaps split between English and French DNA, being a heavily assimilated satellite community not actually equivalent to the fractions of those surnames in my family tree.

It is nice to see that DNA studies confirm historical narrative, so this means my Lombard ancestors spoke Hochdeutsch and it also means that presence of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia within the Habsburg monarchy until the Risorgimento wasn't unwarranted in the slightest, no matter what the propaganda of the Savoyards claimed for their own glories, or what Napoleon III had to do to manipulate Italy and appear to be a benefactor like his predecessor. I feel confident that there are only three Italian identities, being Habsburg Austrian Italy, Habsurg Spanish Sicily, with the Papal States between. I would love this organization to return to normal, to match the people(s) on the ground, but the Valois, Bourbon and Bonaparte dynasties did their best to wreck the social landscape for their own ambitions in reclaiming the Holy Roman Empire to its Carolingian origins, only they wouldn't ever allow France to be taken by the Empire as it was, ever since the Ottonians of Saxony made it independent of Capetian influence.

Likewise, once the Bonapartes set the example, Bismarck and Hitler followed, just as before in setting up the HRE to begin with--it seems the Franks set the stage, the Teutons follow and it was only "righteous" the first time around, but once the copycats took over, somehow, it's just oh-so-bad and we had to go to war over their hypocritical loss of face. Since when should've England taken the side of France over Germany, unless the heir to King Edward III is crowned in Paris and that's a matter of defending sphere of influence (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-British_Union)? That is another strange twist about modern politics, but probably occasioned by Prussian invasion and annexation of Queen Victoria's Hanover and puppeting Prince Albert's Saxony in the rundown to 1914, thus exiling the British establishment to India and strange bedfellows indeed, leading to modern Commonwealth matters like Rishi Sunak.

Another odd thing is that the Guelphs were originally d'Este and thus Lombard, before taking Bavaria and Saxony, so the British Royal Family was actually Lombard and pro-Pope like Otto of Brunswick (in a different way from the exiled Francophile Jacobites who married their cousin Mary of Modena) vs the Ghibellines supporting the Hohenstaufens of Swabia, so this Italian inheritance is naturally as much at odds with Germany as France. When referring to IBD, it's funny because I am not France French but Canada French, so do not recognize the Jacobin establishment across the Atlantic, but am bound to support the historical English claims to France, responsible for the social framework inherent to the Anglo-French Dominion of Canada. In the minds of some Anglophobic Francocentrists, my French ancestry is forfeit for feeling this way, but the Franks are a West Germanic folk like the Anglo-Saxons, regardless of the Danes and Normans who've only woven us together further. In my opinion, France belongs with England rather than Navarre, which belongs with Visigothic Spain and if the Habsburg-Tudor alliance was permanent, based on the Castillo-Lancastrian inheritance, that would have been achieved by default, because the Valois and Bourbons wouldn't have anywhere to go except Poland-Lithuania and Scotland, whilst the Bonapartes would be stuck in Corsica, unless they could become Doges of Genoa and that's all I care for those Freemasons who destroyed Venice.

 

[Angela]

Some people are clearly off their meds. Everything is a Jewish conspiracy. That's why Daniel Day-Lewis (half Jewish, btw), was picked to play that part, not because he's one of the finest if not the finest actor of his generation.

That said, I'm not so sure he got the accent completely right. Day-Lewis is not infallible; his "Italian" accent in "Nine" is execrable. He's totally unbelievable as an Italian, imo, which was one of many things wrong with that production, in addition to the mountain of cultural stereotypes.

I listened to the recording, and what I mostly heard is the tendency of all varieties of English spoken on the eastern seaboard to drop the final "r", which was prominent throughout the 20th century.

I'd also point out that the upper crust accent of some of our less successful politicians on a nationwide stage was partly the product of the deliberate inculcation during the 30s and 40s of the so-called "Trans-Atlantic" accent in private boarding schools. The dropped r and the hard t came over better on sound transmissions, and it also allowed Brits to play Americans, and sometimes vice versa, and sounded "English" to the status obsessed upper class WASPs so they went along.

The more colorful and relatable accents of the urban areas were no doubt, imo, a mish mash of all the groups which had come to the areas. In New York you'd start off with the Dutch, then the "natives" who aped that dropped r sound then the Irish, the Italians, and the Jews.

My favorite "New York" accent is, in fact, that of James Cagney, which he came by honestly, since he grew up on the lower east side.

For the upper-class but not sissified version, that of Humphrey Bogart.

Bogart, the upper crust child par excellence, descendant of the Dutch and English settlers of New York, and product of the toniest of public schools, got some rough edges in the service, no doubt, because he certainly sounds different from the Nelson Rockefellers or Franklin Roosevelt's of America.

 

[Björnsson]

Angela, there's no conspiracy. It's just ironic and humorous. The blame for the role that man played belongs with his Italian-American employer, who must've had a grudge against WASPs and sought Irish-American box office sales, no different than Braveheart and The Patriot by Mel Gibson. This vitriol is also in The Good Shepherd, put there by Robert DeNiro, in a dialog between Matt Damon and Joe Pesci. What is the common thread, but a Catholic "woe-is-us" victimhood film festival? Jews just happen to be adept at Hollywood as acting is a stock in trade, but the vendetta being explored and chewed on is driven by urban Catholics with gripes against "les Anglo-Saxons", in the same company as Charles de Gaulle and Jacques Chirac.

Never mind there are those amongst us who come from English recusant families from the countryside that suffered from impositions of urban Lutheranism and Calvinism, which was the basis in founding Maryland, while Newfoundland was founded by Catholic English with the help of Italian navigator John Cabot parallel to Columbus for Spain, because Arthur Tudor was married to Catherine of Aragon, as Prince and Princess of Wales. Where do you think that the battles in Ireland started, but resistance to Cromwell in England, with exiles and desperados? This means there is always going to be some element of the audience that feels caught in the middle and ultimately alienated by the portrayal of history, like commiserating with Irish over infringement of Catholicism, but being generally opposed to associated politics, especially the Irish Civil War and the Troubles, but the message in Gangs of New York is grievance against American Natives, and/or to induce the equivalent of "White guilt", under the ridiculous mythos of Irish somehow not being White, which I am living proof of otherwise, since the family members I've got out of Canada and Ireland have not faced opposition by the English majority amongst us.

We're an overlapping community who represent the norm for the Northeast, although (Sicilian) Italian-Americans have increasingly prospered despite living on the margins. It's pure exploitation for some of these filmmakers to incite the passions of the Kennedy crowd to reel from a persecution complex, based upon turf wars on the city streets of yesterday, even though the film The Departed and Black Mass clearly shows the reality of rivalry between different Catholic mobs within living memory. Why have a religious kumbaya with the sole basis being Anglophobia, which is divisive in and of itself? The folks of England, France and Ireland have been in association for longer than the existences of Normandy, Anjou and Sicily, but the Normans and Angevins did interlock these relations further, which is the historiography that should be advanced for articulating a basis for Sicilians to be interested in and welcome to Anglo society, on an extended basis like Saxons of Germany or Jutes of Denmark. This is the history I read, but people have petty agendas to whip up the ignorant rabble and set everyone at each other's throats.

Incidentally, I like The Last of the Mohicans as a novel better than the version in which Lewis played, but that's because a lot of characters were not temperamentally like that in the book, so he's not at fault, for coming into work on time and doing his job. I also very much like colonial adventure films, but it didn't live up to my expectations after reading the book first. This is hardly uncommon for many films, but that's Hollywood...

Anyway, I have personally made efforts for Transatlantic accentuation, because of communications not only with the South and Northeast, but the Commonwealth generally. While I think it makes sense Britons speak in American accents for American roles and Americans speak in British accents for British roles (Gwyneth Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love, lol), there's a strange thing whereby period films (say, Troy, 300 or Alexander) might be spoken in almost entirely one or several British Isles accents, rather than trying to find Greek or Italian actors and actresses if the cast lacks the nerve for conveying more authenticity, even if those accents aren't altogether that ancient as Mycenae and Troy. Just imagine Arthurian films with Welsh accents, but filmmakers don't bother putting that kind of effort into suspension of disbelief and inadvertently break the fourth wall habitually, like Deadpool. They're off the deep end with revisionist garbage like Bridgerton, so I feel that there's almost no escape from the contamination of mass media by agendas. Hence, I rarely watch anything new without fearing disappointment, but old productions can be already flawed and there's nothing really lost on the same material they're working with, if it's almost always trashed, so we're unlikely to find adequate coverage of history in period films in such a way that we could combine franchises together and travel through time in any logical fashion, since facts aren't the point, but some ulterior motives that I can't care less for.

 

[Jovialis]

Angela, there's no conspiracy. It's just ironic and humorous. The blame for the role that man played belongs with his Italian-American employer, who must've had a grudge against WASPs and sought Irish-American box office sales, no different than Braveheart and The Patriot by Mel Gibson. This vitriol is also in The Good Shepherd, put there by Robert DeNiro, in a dialog between Matt Damon and Joe Pesci. What is the common thread, but a Catholic "woe-is-us" victimhood film festival? Jews just happen to be adept at Hollywood as acting is a stock in trade, but the vendetta being explored and chewed on is driven by urban Catholics with gripes against "les Anglo-Saxons", in the same company as Charles de Gaulle and Jacques Chirac.

Never mind there are those amongst us who come from English recusant families from the countryside that suffered from impositions of urban Lutheranism and Calvinism, which was the basis in founding Maryland, while Newfoundland was founded by Catholic English with the help of Italian navigator John Cabot parallel to Columbus for Spain, because Arthur Tudor was married to Catherine of Aragon, as Prince and Princess of Wales. Where do you think that the battles in Ireland started, but resistance to Cromwell in England, with exiles and desperados? This means there is always going to be some element of the audience that feels caught in the middle and ultimately alienated by the portrayal of history, like commiserating with Irish over infringement of Catholicism, but being generally opposed to associated politics, especially the Irish Civil War and the Troubles, but the message in Gangs of New York is grievance against American Natives, and/or to induce the equivalent of "White guilt", under the ridiculous mythos of Irish somehow not being White, which I am living proof of otherwise, since the family members I've got out of Canada and Ireland have not faced opposition by the English majority amongst us.

We're an overlapping community who represent the norm for the Northeast, although (Sicilian) Italian-Americans have increasingly prospered despite living on the margins. It's pure exploitation for some of these filmmakers to incite the passions of the Kennedy crowd to reel from a persecution complex, based upon turf wars on the city streets of yesterday, even though the film The Departed and Black Mass clearly shows the reality of rivalry between different Catholic mobs within living memory. Why have a religious kumbaya with the sole basis being Anglophobia, which is divisive in and of itself? The folks of England, France and Ireland have been in association for longer than the existences of Normandy, Anjou and Sicily, but the Normans and Angevins did interlock these relations further, which is the historiography that should be advanced for articulating a basis for Sicilians to be interested in and welcome to Anglo society, on an extended basis like Saxons of Germany or Jutes of Denmark. This is the history I read, but people have petty agendas to whip up the ignorant rabble and set everyone at each other's throats.

Incidentally, I like The Last of the Mohicans as a novel better than the version in which Lewis played, but that's because a lot of characters were not temperamentally like that in the book, so he's not at fault, for coming into work on time and doing his job. I also very much like colonial adventure films, but it didn't live up to my expectations after reading the book first. This is hardly uncommon for many films, but that's Hollywood...

Anyway, I have personally made efforts for Transatlantic accentuation, because of communications not only with the South and Northeast, but the Commonwealth generally. While I think it makes sense Britons speak in American accents for American roles and Americans speak in British accents for British roles (Gwyneth Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love, lol), there's a strange thing whereby period films (say, Troy, 300 or Alexander) might be spoken in almost entirely one or several British Isles accents, rather than trying to find Greek or Italian actors and actresses if the cast lacks the nerve for conveying more authenticity, even if those accents aren't altogether that ancient as Mycenae and Troy. Just imagine Arthurian films with Welsh accents, but filmmakers don't bother putting that kind of effort into suspension of disbelief and inadvertently break the fourth wall habitually, like Deadpool. They're off the deep end with revisionist garbage like Bridgerton, so I feel that there's almost no escape from the contamination of mass media by agendas. Hence, I rarely watch anything new without fearing disappointment, but old productions can be already flawed and there's nothing really lost on the same material they're working with, if it's almost always trashed, so we're unlikely to find adequate coverage of history in period films in such a way that we could combine franchises together and travel through time in any logical fashion, since facts aren't the point, but some ulterior motives that I can't care less for.

I don't think Martin Scorsese has a grudge against WASPs. Have you seen the Irishman? He has a WASP play a Sicilian (Stephan Graham).

Probably goes without saying, but Stephan Graham also played another infamous Sicilian in boardwalk empire, Al Capone. In this scene he goes down to an Irish bar to get revenge for someone beating up his associate.

He also has (half-) Italians playing Irishmen, who beat up Italians. All this nonsense about secret agendas falls flat imho. I know his work.

 

[Palermo Trapani]

Jovialis: Scorsese 's family indeed came from Sicily, but for historical accuracy, Al Capone was actually from Campania. His boss and Mentor, also included in the Boardwalk Empire series, was Johnny Torrio who was from Basilicata. In the USA the Sicilian Mafia "La Cosa Nostra" structure of Top down and organization, with input from Jewish mobsters who were friends of Luciano (who was also Sicilian and whose Father was from the same town as Frank Sinatra's in the province of Palermo) became the way the USA Italian Mafia was set up. But the original Italian Mafia guys who set it up were from all over Southern Italy under Messeria (who was from Sicily and also included in Boardwalk Empire). Vito Genovese was from Campania, Luciano's top 2 allys were Frank Costello and Albert Anastasia, both from Calabria. G. Morreti was another one of the founding guys in the NYC Mafia was from Bari Puglia and his right hand man was a distant cousin of Frank Sinatra's first Wife Nancy Barbato (who was of Italian ancestry). She just died a few years back at 101.

Cheers, PT

 

[Jovialis]

Jovialis: Scorsese 's family indeed came from Sicily, but for historical accuracy, Al Capone was actually from Campania. His boss and Mentor, also included in the Boardwalk Empire series, was Johnny Torrio who was from Basilicata. In the USA the Sicilian Mafia "La Cosa Nostra" structure of Top down and organization, with input from Jewish mobsters who were friends of Luciano (who was also Sicilian and whose Father was from the same town as Frank Sinatra's in the province of Palermo) became the way the USA Italian Mafia was set up. But the original Italian Mafia guys who set it up were from all over Southern Italy under Messeria (who was from Sicily and also included in Boardwalk Empire). Vito Genovese was from Campania, Luciano's top 2 allys were Frank Costello and Albert Anastasia, both from Calabria. G. Morreti was another one of the founding guys in the NYC Mafia was from Bari Puglia and his right hand man was a distant cousin of Frank Sinatra's first Wife Nancy Barbato (who was of Italian ancestry). She just died a few years back at 101.

Cheers, PT

You're right about that, it was Anthony Provenzano that was Sicilian, which he portrays.

Not to go off topic further, but this was definitely one of the coolest scenes from that show. They way he shakes his and and looks into his eyes...

 

[Björnsson]

Perhaps the Dutch would have made a contribution as well considering they were there before the English.

Although I have complained about the inflammatory nature of this film, based on the ironic insinuation of exclusionary stereotypes of Sicilian-Americans holding no grounds because of speaking with Native WASP accents, as much of the stoking of grievances and division is by said filmmakers begets ridicule, I am now exploring the supposition of Dutch influence on the New York accent. Jimmy Hoffa should've fit into this world a bit more than pizza. Professor David Hackett Fischer of Brandeis University provided a linguistic map of America in which NYC was clearly unlike the other four regions in Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (1989). NYC was attributed there to Dutch and Jewish accents.

My great-grandmother was of New Netherland origin, earlier in Leyden in Holland and also Friesland, through Amsterdam and Rotterdam. She's buried in Ulster County, NY, where my cousin is a ferry captain on the Hudson River. I haven't heard anything from this side of the family that stands out as stereotypically low-class NYC. One thing people forget is the history of such demographics, like the phrase "New York Yankees", since New York was turned into a bastion of Anglicanism after the Anglo-Dutch Wars and then made part of the Dominion of New England, as the last garrison of the British government before relocating to Nova Scotia and founding New Brunswick, until setting up a new central authority in Québec and Loyalists named the settlement of York in present-day Ontario the first capital of Upper Canada.

New York previously won Vermont in a London court battle with New Hampshire, but lost it once Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys declared the Republic of New Connecticut for Yankees, who then proceeded to settle Albany in the great Mormon trek through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and Utah, so one wonders what kind of social presence that Dutch had besides numbers, when they chose not to speak English for as long as they could until WWI. The Pennamites also lost Delaware to Maryland influence in the Revolution, which is why it became known as the "First State" (of the Union), to secure themselves from the Dutch control (William Penn's mother was Dutch) that was awarded by the Dutch Royalty in London in the Mason-Dixon court battle. Martin van Buren might have spoken with a Dutch accent, but did the Roosevelts, when Teddy was anti-Hyphen? It's not like Hoover, Eisenhower and Trump have made their way by dragging their feet over the Dutch language issue, because English was key to success for them and apart from names and ancestry, none of them stressed their European origins to the point where they stuck out as foreigners.

Somebody from the Netherlands informed me that, unlike Indonesia, he sees New York identity as fundamentally of British origin, both in its highs and lows. I find South Africa to be another New York, as some of my ancestors were overtaken by other ancestors, which must be the same for at least some Afrikaners who don't obsess over the Boer Wars, especially since the Rhodesian situation should've brought together a more united Anglo-Dutch society, as I'm not aware of any history wars over interpreting how New Amsterdam became New York, when the Prince of Orange became King William III as he was nephew to the Duke of York and got access right back to Manhattan that was seemingly lost. Furthermore, I am convinced there are decent parallels between the Pennsylvania Dutch (my Frisian ancestry) and Boers, so this rabbit hole ought to be followed. Australia was originally New Holland alongside New Zealand (Zeeland), so the main settler Dominions apart from Newfoundland, Virginia and Canada had Dutch preceding or alongside English in at least partial nature.

My Pilgrim ancestors even lived in Leyden and intermarried with the Dutch before settling New England, while the Dutch helped drain the Fens of East Anglia and Lincolnshire where the original Boston is, so my question is how the Dutch contribution can truly be parsed from the English, at least in the Northeast, although the South doesn't really have the same level of "hybrid vigor", which seems to have stimulated massive Deutsch proliferation in the Midwest, from its origin in the Mid-Atlantic. This would make the Northeast Anglo-Dutch on the whole, if perhaps the South is Anglo-Celtic in contrast, but in strictly British terms, 3/4s of the North American Dominions haven't any Dutch basis, but New England, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand do. Take away Canada to also set aside French influences, to find what North American English sounds like on its own in Newfoundland and Virginia, but it seems like those areas and their forms of speech are ridiculed as quaint. Although I have the French and Dutch ancestry and have met many others who primarily identify as either in my formative years onward, I am not an anti-Little Englander.

If Dutch is ruled out, only Yiddish would remain to distinguish from the English accents and that's not merely due to it being of Hochdeutsch origin, but because it is associated with the confessional divide between Christians and Jews. What nasal voice I hear from Jews doesn't fit Brooklyn, so the latter would be more identifiable as idiosyncratic to New York. Despite the fact that more Jews live in NYC than elsewhere, with LA a runner-up, neither the culture nor the states owe themselves to Jews, whether earlier Sephardi or later Ashkenazi. Perhaps the Jewish presence encourages people to not fit in by choice, so sounding differently may be since there's little incentive. Jews aren't persecuted and they make fortunes doing their own thing, but one would think that Amish distinctions are rather trivial in comparison. That seems more associated with lifestyle choices, because I've never met an Amish fishing community--they all seem tied to the farm and assorted trades.

 

[Angela]

OMG, we've got another one.

 

[Palermo Trapani]

Although I have complained about the inflammatory nature of this film, based on the ironic insinuation of exclusionary stereotypes of Sicilian-Americans holding no grounds because of speaking with Native WASP accents, as much of the stoking of grievances and division is by said filmmakers begets ridicule, I am now exploring the supposition of Dutch influence on the New York accent. Jimmy Hoffa should've fit into this world a bit more than pizza. Professor David Hackett Fischer of Brandeis University provided a linguistic map of America in which NYC was clearly unlike the other four regions in Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (1989).

Bjornsson: I read your entire post, but I only want to deal with the first paragraph, i.e. inflammatory nature and exclusionary stereotypes of Sicilian-Americans (of which I am one). While I know the thread was about NYC accents, the context of that discussion was the Scorsese film.

From my perspective, I don’t know why the movie is inflammatory. The movie is based on a book that first appeared in 1927 by the same name “Gangs of NYC”. Scorsese, who of course is the child of Italian immigrants from Sicily has stated that when he was growing up in what was a neighborhood that was 100% Americans of Italian ancestry, he noticed that the buildings showed signs of a history that indicated a bygone era. As he investigated it, he realized that while his area was now an Italian ethnic enclave, at one time it consisted of Irish-Catholic immigrants.
He proceeded to study the history of his neighborhood, and other areas where the Irish had once lived. The book “Gangs of New York” described all the street gangs in NYC pre-Civil war, which included the Irish-Catholic experience of NYC. Irish-Catholic immigration was about 25k in the 1820’s, about 250K in 1830’s but in the 1840’s with the famine, about 850k. Many of course went to NYC and by the outset of the Civil War, according to an article I checked out, of the 800,000 residents in NYC, about 200,000 were recent Irish-Catholic immigrants.

It is in the 1850’s that the First No-Nothing party was formed, which was of course specifically and anti-Catholic party which targeted the Irish, along with Southern-Bavarian Germans who were also Catholic. Germans from the Central and Northern parts of the country, the Lutherans, were not. So regarding the notion of English (Anglicans), Dutch-Calvinist (and there was a Dutch gang in NYC during the time of the events in Scorsese's movie), Scottish-Presbyterians, etc. they all would be within the Protestant banner and thus allies in the No-Nothing movement of the 1850's when the party was formed.

So I think the Irish-Catholic experience in NYC has to be understood in the context of the time. The movie is an historical dramatization that in substance is accurate, with of course some liberties and additions to tell a story, which happen in many movies. NYC had by counts some 300-400 gangs, which before the Irish arrived in NYC, were all run by older European-Immigrant stock, i.e., English, Scottish, Welsh, Dutch, all who were Protestant and for the most part very anti-Catholic, even though not all WASP (English) as I have already noted. These “non-Irish-Catholic gangs” (English, Welsh, Dutch, Scotts; Nativist European groups) had connections with the Political and Legal systems in NYC (Tammany Hall corruption). I remember seeing the NYC political corruption was discussed in Ken Burns Civil War documentary. In particular, the 1863 Draft riots which fell in the recent Irish-Catholic immigrants who could not pay the fee to avoid being drafted. The WASP and Protestant ruling class of NYC could pay the fee to avoid their sons from being sent off to fight. The NYC draft riots were in fact the ending scene of Scorsese’s film and is an historical fact (some 100 dead).

My hunch is that Scorsese, who of course was the son of immigrants from Sicily, wanted to show that organized crime, criminal street gangs and ties between those criminal gangs and the NYC Mayor’s office, Police and Legal System in NYC were well established before the Italians immigrated there starting around 1880 to 1920, and well before the Irish as well (1820 to 1850). The Irish-Catholics were not pro-British, that is true (given the history of Ireland and England), so when they arrived, they lived in their own enclaves (25% of the population) and they controlled the sale of illegal contraband themselves and thus did not play ball with the Anglo-Saxon and Dutch Protestant Nativist groups. Over time, the Irish in the large Northern Cities organized and voted in Irish politicians who then appointed Irish to the Police force and Firefighters in large number and they ran cities like Chicago, Boston, NYC the same way the earlier Protestant Nativist did (WASP, Dutch, Welsh, Scottish, etc).
So, from my perspective, I am glad Scorsese made the film. Organized Crime and street gangs and payoffs from those gangs to NYC politicians, Police and Judges, was well, well, well, established in the prior to the Civil War, which was a generation before Italians began immigrating to NYC in large numbers.

 

[Björnsson]

OMG, we've got another one.

Oh no, a mind of his own. Better shut him down.

Bjornsson: I read your entire post, but I only want to deal with the first paragraph, i.e. inflammatory nature and exclusionary stereotypes of Sicilian-Americans (of which I am one). While I know the thread was about NYC accents, the context of that discussion was the Scorsese film.
From my perspective, I don’t know why the movie is inflammatory. The movie is based on a book that first appeared in 1927 by the same name “Gangs of NYC”. Scorsese, who of course is the child of Italian immigrants from Sicily has stated that when he was growing up in what was a neighborhood that was 100% Americans of Italian ancestry, he noticed that the buildings showed signs of a history that indicated a bygone era. As he investigated it, he realized that while his area was now an Italian ethnic enclave, at one time it consisted of Irish-Catholic immigrants.
He proceeded to study the history of his neighborhood, and other areas where the Irish had once lived. The book “Gangs of New York” described all the street gangs in NYC pre-Civil war, which included the Irish-Catholic experience of NYC. Irish-Catholic immigration was about 25k in the 1820’s, about 250K in 1830’s but in the 1840’s with the famine, about 850k. Many of course went to NYC and by the outset of the Civil War, according to an article I checked out, of the 800,000 residents in NYC, about 200,000 were recent Irish-Catholic immigrants.
It is in the 1850’s that the First No-Nothing party was formed, which was of course specifically and anti-Catholic party which targeted the Irish, along with Southern-Bavarian Germans who were also Catholic. Germans from the Central and Northern parts of the country, the Lutherans, were not. So regarding the notion of English (Anglicans), Dutch-Calvinist (and there was a Dutch gang in NYC during the time of the events in Scorsese's movie), Scottish-Presbyterians, etc. they all would be within the Protestant banner and thus allies in the No-Nothing movement of the 1850's when the party was formed.
So I think the Irish-Catholic experience in NYC has to be understood in the context of the time. The movie is an historical dramatization that in substance is accurate, with of course some liberties and additions to tell a story, which happen in many movies. NYC had by counts some 300-400 gangs, which before the Irish arrived in NYC, were all run by older European-Immigrant stock, i.e., English, Scottish, Welsh, Dutch, all who were Protestant and for the most part very anti-Catholic, even though not all WASP (English) as I have already noted. These “non-Irish-Catholic gangs” (English, Welsh, Dutch, Scotts; Nativist European groups) had connections with the Political and Legal systems in NYC (Tammany Hall corruption). I remember seeing the NYC political corruption was discussed in Ken Burns Civil War documentary. In particular, the 1863 Draft riots which fell in the recent Irish-Catholic immigrants who could not pay the fee to avoid being drafted. The WASP and Protestant ruling class of NYC could pay the fee to avoid their sons from being sent off to fight. The NYC draft riots were in fact the ending scene of Scorsese’s film and is an historical fact (some 100 dead).
My hunch is that Scorsese, who of course was the son of immigrants from Sicily, wanted to show that organized crime, criminal street gangs and ties between those criminal gangs and the NYC Mayor’s office, Police and Legal System in NYC were well established before the Italians immigrated there starting around 1880 to 1920, and well before the Irish as well (1820 to 1850). The Irish-Catholics were not pro-British, that is true (given the history of Ireland and England), so when they arrived, they lived in their own enclaves (25% of the population) and they controlled the sale of illegal contraband themselves and thus did not play ball with the Anglo-Saxon and Dutch Protestant Nativist groups. Over time, the Irish in the large Northern Cities organized and voted in Irish politicians who then appointed Irish to the Police force and Firefighters in large number and they ran cities like Chicago, Boston, NYC the same way the earlier Protestant Nativist did (WASP, Dutch, Welsh, Scottish, etc).
So, from my perspective, I am glad Scorsese made the film. Organized Crime and street gangs and payoffs from those gangs to NYC politicians, Police and Judges, was well, well, well, established in the prior to the Civil War, which was a generation before Italians began immigrating to NYC in large numbers.

I don't revel in organized criminal outfits by anyone, which was the point of my earlier observation on the underworld of London and American ports existing before mass immigration of different ethnic origins. London also had Dutch and Lombard parts long before the Reformation. I see the element glorified in Peaky Blinders just as much as the Godfather and Scarface cults, or the modern gangsta rappers. Makes no difference; I prefer Eliot Ness and the Untouchables, even though I don't believe in Prohibition, just Temperance. Rule of law is a cornerstone of civilized society. Let's say that the Quakers (many of my ancestors got sucked into the world of George Fox) responsible for inviting all those immigrants to Ellis Island insisted on acceptance of differences; the corollary of their expectation of a multicultural society is pacifism and none of the violence extolled by anyone. As I noted and you've elaborated on, society wasn't utopian beforehand either, but if the Native population are expected to be accommodating of the Hyphens, the latter must play by the same rules and be held to the same standards, not make hypocrisy seem glamorous. I cannot accept the similar reluctance of Muslims to call out terrorist grief merchants in their community, when they claim to desire acceptance.

The problem is, there are Natives who foster and promote the uncivilized behaviors of Hyphens in their noble savage narratives, which is to allow dysfunction to serve as a cancer to social advancement among the said Hyphens they pretend to care for. If indiscriminately rampant sex, drugs and violence are considered hardwired to ethnic or racial groups, this escapism, if embraced by the Hyphens, will only bring about negative judgment for clearly Epicurean obsession and no indication of Stoicism will not win over those who do exercise self-control. Blame it on prejudice if you wish, but social disorders don't help any group and I will not try justifying them. Incidentally, I only liked The Departed for local color, but otherwise find themes in that as disgusting as most other mob films. Black Mass informed me of the full hypocrisy of the Irish Hyphens regarding mob scene operations, which is explored more in The Devil's Own and Patriot Games. For all that seductive mysticism about Ireland, such attitudes and behaviors are embarrassing and deplorable, so I disown them.

It is no different from White deadbeat dads receiving censure, whereas we see gangsta rappers bragging about disposable baby mamas. Why some choose to value barbarity is up to them; others perfer not being dragged down into this quagmire. My half-brother's father wasn't from Sicily or Naples origins, but Lazio as noted. He still chose to participate in crime and drugs that turned a former cub scout into a prison convict without serious hope of better employment than pizza delivery when he was paroled. Should my divorced mother be blamed or praised for taking him in and that relationship also ending in divorce? My father wasn't a criminal, just a workaholic. Maybe some prefer to justify bad behaviors while scoffing at those doing the right thing for a better life. Not me. Nobody can convince me of Sacco and Vanzetti nihilism.

 

[Jovialis]

Please do not disrespect the staff.

Also, relax they're just movies.

I find it hard to not believe you're just trolling us.

 

[Jovialis]

MTA bases identity off of graves, not living populations. It's a lot easier to trace descent in the present from the past, not compare with globally admixed populations, as the latter only tells you where those now share some DNA with you from--likely an overlap of past identities and this is only useful for tracking living relatives, not dead ones. Said modern groups must test the bones of ancient DNA to prove they have any ties to the land they live on and it's easy to trace ancient DNA patterns based upon historical narratives.
I know that my East Germanic tribal DNA is from burials in places like Hungary, but which were corresponding to known tribes ruling in Italia and Iberia, so the inference isn't risky, because it contrasts with the Greco-Roman population. For instance, I have very low percentages of Illyrian and Balari in the Deep Dive results, but none in the other results, all of which are either Germanic or Celtic tribes. I was almost certain that my French was going to pop up something Mediterranean, but that's only with comparing to modern Mediterranean nations derived from the Volkerwanderung, not Classical populations preceding them. This verifies that Europe was indeed transformed by the Germanic tribes, once Constantine abandoned Rome for Byzantium. Whatever happened to the previous populations in the Empire, they seem to have shrunken, or gravitated towards the East and the West was left to the new men like Stilicho and Odoacer, who brought their tribes with them in mass migration, as an alternative to rule by Attila and other Steppe tribes of non-Indo-European origin.
The only non-Northwest European burial I've got any DNA marker connection to, is from the Bronze Age in Glavanesti, Romania, which I take to be from my Venetian ancestry, being that it is in the minority of my family tree and the only outlier from all the rest of my recent blood sources. Similarly, the MDLP K16 calculator on YourDNAportal said Bulgarian_EastRumelia in addition to English, French, Irish and Scottish, which is obviously from the same DNA signature that MTA says is from Romania. Actually, it fits well with the fact that the only modern Mediterranean ancestry I've got is from Italy, apparently followed by the Balkans (Re: Trieste and Ragusa?), knowing the history of Venice including domination of Adrianople (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stato_da_Màr). Some Maronite in France emailed me based upon what he thought was a close relationship, indicated by Gedmatch. His file popped up as Assyrian and Armenian on Gedmatch, fitting his IBD, but mine is different in that this outlier ancestry only vaguely overlaps his East Med world.
First of all, I am English, French and Irish in that order, followed by Holy Roman Empire and Scottish ancestry from the colonial period, then Scandinavia and Iberia from the Renaissance. I am open to the possibility of some Komnenos (I already know this) or Palaeologus (unknown but plausible; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleologus_of_Pesaro) ancestry after 1453, as exiles from the Ottomans, but likely through Venice, which actually only came to my English Virginia blood through an intermediary French marriage (Bassano through Lanier seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanier_family_tree) in London. MTA lists "Germanic Lombard" from Szolad, Hungary as 5th in line of my Archaeogenetic matches (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombards#Genetics).
Mixed Mode Population Sharing:

	English (Kent)	+	Turk (Trabzon)	@
	English (Kent)	+	Greek (Athens)	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@
+	@

[TD="align: center"] # [/TD]

[TD="colspan: 3"] Primary Population (source) [/TD]
[TD="colspan: 3"] Secondary Population (source) [/TD]
[TD="align: right"] Distance [/TD]

[TD="align: center"]1[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]94.8%[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]5.2%[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]1.98[/TD]

[TD="align: center"]2[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]90.6%[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]9.4%[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]2.03[/TD]

[TD="align: center"]3[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]95.1%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]4.9%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Georgian (Tbilisi)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.03[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]4[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]94.2%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]5.8%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Georgian_Abkhazia (Abkhazia)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.04[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]5[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]94.4%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]5.6%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Georgian (Georgia)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.09[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]6[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]86.9%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]13.1%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Italian (Tuscany)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.09[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]7[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]94.7%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]5.3%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Armenian (Armenia)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.09[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]8[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]94.5%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]5.5%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Abkhazian (Gudauta)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.1[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]9[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]81.3%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Cornwall)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]18.7%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Italian (Bergamo)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.11[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]10[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]94.5%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]5.5%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Georgians (Zugdidi)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.11[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]11[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]91.4%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]8.6%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Greek (Greece)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.11[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]12[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]94.2%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]5.8%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Abkhazian_Lykhny (Lykhny)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.13[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]13[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]94.3%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]5.7%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Adjar (Adjaria)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.16[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]14[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]88.6%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]11.4%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Greek (Thessaloniki)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.18[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]15[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]58.5%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]French (France)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]41.5%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Irish (Munster)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.19[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]16[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]52%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]French (France)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]48%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (England)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.19[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]17[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]53.5%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]French (France)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]46.5%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Irish (Cork_Kerry)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.19[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]18[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]94%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]6%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Turk (Kayseri)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.2[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]19[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]88.8%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]11.2%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Greek (Greece)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.21[/TD]

[TD="width: 20, align: center"]20[/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 30, align: right"]88.7%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]English (Kent)[/TD]

[TD="width: 30, align: right"]11.3%[/TD]
[TD="width: 200"]Albanian (Albania)[/TD]

[TD="width: 50, align: right"]2.22[/TD]

This is what MDLP K16 on Gedmatch shows for my primary and secondary, which makes sense without any mental gymnastics, although it confused me before knowing my Italian lineage and I am still confused at the deep impression that this Lombard blood has been passed down to me so distantly, but hey, King Philip and Queen Mary were Duke and Duchess of Milan as well as Duke and Duchess of Burgundy, so why not? Lines 15 and 17 all show the significance of 6/32 French over that of 4/32 Irish (line 9 shows 1/32 Welsh Marches), whereas my 2/32 Dutch is perhaps split between English and French DNA, being a heavily assimilated satellite community not actually equivalent to the fractions of those surnames in my family tree.
It is nice to see that DNA studies confirm historical narrative, so this means my Lombard ancestors spoke Hochdeutsch and it also means that presence of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia within the Habsburg monarchy until the Risorgimento wasn't unwarranted in the slightest, no matter what the propaganda of the Savoyards claimed for their own glories, or what Napoleon III had to do to manipulate Italy and appear to be a benefactor like his predecessor. I feel confident that there are only three Italian identities, being Habsburg Austrian Italy, Habsurg Spanish Sicily, with the Papal States between. I would love this organization to return to normal, to match the people(s) on the ground, but the Valois, Bourbon and Bonaparte dynasties did their best to wreck the social landscape for their own ambitions in reclaiming the Holy Roman Empire to its Carolingian origins, only they wouldn't ever allow France to be taken by the Empire as it was, ever since the Ottonians of Saxony made it independent of Capetian influence.
Likewise, once the Bonapartes set the example, Bismarck and Hitler followed, just as before in setting up the HRE to begin with--it seems the Franks set the stage, the Teutons follow and it was only "righteous" the first time around, but once the copycats took over, somehow, it's just oh-so-bad and we had to go to war over their hypocritical loss of face. Since when should've England taken the side of France over Germany, unless the heir to King Edward III is crowned in Paris and that's a matter of defending sphere of influence (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-British_Union)? That is another strange twist about modern politics, but probably occasioned by Prussian invasion and annexation of Queen Victoria's Hanover and puppeting Prince Albert's Saxony in the rundown to 1914, thus exiling the British establishment to India and strange bedfellows indeed, leading to modern Commonwealth matters like Rishi Sunak.
Another odd thing is that the Guelphs were originally d'Este and thus Lombard, before taking Bavaria and Saxony, so the British Royal Family was actually Lombard and pro-Pope like Otto of Brunswick (in a different way from the exiled Francophile Jacobites who married their cousin Mary of Modena) vs the Ghibellines supporting the Hohenstaufens of Swabia, so this Italian inheritance is naturally as much at odds with Germany as France. When referring to IBD, it's funny because I am not France French but Canada French, so do not recognize the Jacobin establishment across the Atlantic, but am bound to support the historical English claims to France, responsible for the social framework inherent to the Anglo-French Dominion of Canada. In the minds of some Anglophobic Francocentrists, my French ancestry is forfeit for feeling this way, but the Franks are a West Germanic folk like the Anglo-Saxons, regardless of the Danes and Normans who've only woven us together further. In my opinion, France belongs with England rather than Navarre, which belongs with Visigothic Spain and if the Habsburg-Tudor alliance was permanent, based on the Castillo-Lancastrian inheritance, that would have been achieved by default, because the Valois and Bourbons wouldn't have anywhere to go except Poland-Lithuania and Scotland, whilst the Bonapartes would be stuck in Corsica, unless they could become Doges of Genoa and that's all I care for those Freemasons who destroyed Venice.

I already told you, Deep Dive is BS.

It is only now that they are able to see IBD with aDNA.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.08.531671v1

 

[Jovialis]

Jovialis: Great scene from that movie. I wonder if Linguistic scholars have connected the blending of the Irish accent with the version spoken by English/Anglo-Saxons which produced the foundation of the NYC accent. The Italians would not start arriving to the period 1880 to 1920, post dating the Irish by 40 years (they arrived in large numbers around 1840-1850) and they then added another accent and those blended to what would become the NYC accent today.

Fun fact: The Jamaican accent is actually attributed Irish-immigrant influence on the island.

 

[Björnsson]

Please do not disrespect the staff.

Also, relax they're just movies.

I find it hard to not believe you're just trolling us.

I sometimes wear my feelings on my sleeves, especially when provocative comments are made regarding provocative subjects that would tend to bait my own position respective them. I made it clear that I am not an Italophobe and even explained in depth my fascination with Norman Sicilian heritage which I find more interesting than my Lombard Italian roots, but have a nuanced perspective that doesn't explicitly take sides.

I have never watched The Boondock Saints and refuse to, even though my mother's paternal great-grandfather had a Munster and Ulster grandmother who was arrested for hosting a flop house of unlicensed drinking, gambling and allegedly prostitution, but her daughter wanted a better life and left that world of Kensington in Philadelphia behind for my Yankee ancestor to take her in with the love of a Native not shown in Gangs of New York. Similarly, my father's maternal grandmother's father had a Leinster mother from New London and only his father's Yankee love for her made this descent possible in my family tree. My paternal grandfather's maternal grandfather had Connaught and Leinster origins beyond English, but there's no disavowal of our centrality in English origins on account of also having Irish blood, like some people do.

What popular narrative do I see taken for granted, is hatred and bigotry, that my Yankee and Irish ancestors somehow would rather have killed each other than make families together. I am the product of reality, which represents a more legitimate way of society than the fantastic stereotypes in a mass media echo chamber, driven by sensationalist exaggeration and only with profit in mind. I wouldn't exist if those before me in the textile mills had chosen the IWW as their religion, to be loyal to no community and always crying about unfairness of the hosts they refuse to break bread with on Sunday. Although I love Ireland as well as England, this is where my home is, to the point of identifying primarily with my colonial inheritance on a statewide basis for affinity, rather than overseas affairs beyond reach. In the next generation after Irish assimilation into my Native family, the choice was Canadienne by those children who had Anglo-Irish roots in a Yankee culture, but I will not advocate bilingualism or the metric system. I have too much love for the folks here to whine about not being able to impose other ways of life upon them. I also have humility, even if you may not think so. If any number of groups would've expected English folks to conform to their ways of life in their own countries, there shouldn't be any double standard on these shores. I learned French and Latin in school, but balked at Spanish because the rationale was to accommodate immigrants who refused to learn English, yet we live here and not Mexico. If I went on a vacation in Puerto Rico, I think I would brush up on my Spanglish out of respect for the locals, even if I wouldn't have to. It's just common sense and doesn't mean I don't like Latin America; I used to have a girlfriend from Puerto Rico in the time I took French, but I was living two states away from Québec, not another country with Spanish instead.

I already told you, Deep Dive is BS.

It is only now that they are able to see IBD with aDNA.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.08.531671v1

If the various sites I use, with different methodologies tend to overlap in the more considerable amount of ancestries, I tend to be happy that they roughly match my paper trail in the family tree. I cannot discount it simply because of your bias.

 

[Jovialis]

I sometimes wear my feelings on my sleeves, especially when provocative comments are made regarding provocative subjects that would tend to bait my own position respective them. I made it clear that I am not an Italophobe and even explained in depth my fascination with Norman Sicilian heritage which I find more interesting than my Lombard Italian roots, but have a nuanced perspective that doesn't explicitly take sides.

I have never watched The Boondock Saints and refuse to, even though my mother's paternal great-grandfather had a Munster and Ulster grandmother who was arrested for hosting a flop house of unlicensed drinking, gambling and allegedly prostitution, but her daughter wanted a better life and left that world of Kensington in Philadelphia behind for my Yankee ancestor to take her in with the love of a Native not shown in Gangs of New York. Similarly, my father's maternal grandmother's father had a Leinster mother from New London and only his father's Yankee love for her made this descent possible in my family tree. My paternal grandfather's maternal grandfather had Connaught and Leinster origins beyond English, but there's no disavowal of our centrality in English origins on account of also having Irish blood, like some people do.

What popular narrative do I see taken for granted, is hatred and bigotry, that my Yankee and Irish ancestors somehow would rather have killed each other than make families together. I am the product of reality, which represents a more legitimate way of society than the fantastic stereotypes in a mass media echo chamber, driven by sensationalist exaggeration and only with profit in mind. I wouldn't exist if those before me in the textile mills had chosen the IWW as their religion, to be loyal to no community and always crying about unfairness of the hosts they refuse to break bread with on Sunday. Although I love Ireland as well as England, this is where my home is, to the point of identifying primarily with my colonial inheritance on a statewide basis for affinity, rather than overseas affairs beyond reach. In the next generation after Irish assimilation into my Native family, the choice was Canadienne by those children who had Anglo-Irish roots in a Yankee culture, but I will not advocate bilingualism or the metric system. I have too much love for the folks here to whine about not being able to impose other ways of life upon them. I also have humility, even if you may not think so. If any number of groups would've expected English folks to conform to their ways of life in their own countries, there shouldn't be any double standard on these shores. I learned French and Latin in school, but balked at Spanish because the rationale was to accommodate immigrants who refused to learn English, yet we live here and not Mexico. If I went on a vacation in Puerto Rico, I think I would brush up on my Spanglish out of respect for the locals, even if I wouldn't have to. It's just common sense and doesn't mean I don't like Latin America; I used to have a girlfriend from Puerto Rico in the time I took French, but I was living two states away from Québec, not another country with Spanish instead.

If the various sites I use, with different methodologies tend to overlap in the more considerable amount of ancestries, I tend to be happy that they roughly match my paper trail in the family tree. I cannot discount it simply because of your bias.

Bias? Are you a moron? I just demonstrated that it is a new breakthrough in the field with the pre-print.

Is this a role-playing game?

I want to play too, here: