New Orleans

===Dialect===
{{main|New Orleans English}}
{{see also|Culture of New Orleans#Language}}[[File:Cafe du Monde New Orleans.jpg|thumb|[[Café du Monde]], a landmark New Orleans beignet cafe established in 1862]]New Orleans developed a distinctive local dialect that is neither [[Cajun English]] nor the stereotypical [[Southern American English|Southern accent]] that is often misportrayed by film and television actors. Like earlier Southern Englishes, it features frequent [[Rhotic and non-rhotic accents|deletion of the pre-consonantal "r"]], though the local white dialect also came to be quite similar to [[New York accent]]s.<ref>Liebling, A. J. (1970). ''The Earl of Louisiana''. Baton Rouge: LSU.</ref> No consensus describes how this happened, but it likely resulted from New Orleans' geographic isolation by water and the fact that the city was a major immigration port throughout the 19th century and early 20th century. Specifically, many members of European immigrant families originally raised in the cities of the Northeast, namely New York, moved to New Orleans during this time frame, bringing their Northeastern accents along with their [[Irish American|Irish]], [[Italian American|Italian]] (especially [[Sicilian American|Sicilian]]), [[German American|German]], and [[Jewish American|Jewish]] culture.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.jewishnola.com/page.html?ArticleID=165388 |title=Newcomers' Incentive Extension |publisher=Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans |access-date=March 22, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080524200300/http://www.jewishnola.com/page.html?ArticleID=165388 |archive-date=May 24, 2008}}</ref>

One of the strongest varieties of the New Orleans accent is sometimes identified as the [[Yat dialect]], from the greeting "Where y'at?" This distinctive accent is dying out in the city, but remains strong in the surrounding parishes.

Less visibly, various ethnic groups throughout the area have retained distinct language traditions. Since Louisiana became the first U.S. state to join the {{Lang|fr|[[Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie]]}} in 2018, New Orleans has reemerged as an important center for the state's francophone and creolophone cultures and languages, as seen in new organizations such as the Nous Foundation.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Hasselle |first=Della |date=October 13, 2018 |title=Louisiana Joins International Organization of French-speaking Governments |language=en |work=NOLA.com |url=https://www.nola.com/news/article_302082ef-9b0e-59de-8583-4e320c5c792a.html |access-date=February 2, 2022 |archive-date=July 26, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726110030/https://www.nola.com/news/article_302082ef-9b0e-59de-8583-4e320c5c792a.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Although rare, [[Louisiana French]] and [[Louisiana Creole]] are still spoken in the city. There is also Louisiana-Canarian Spanish dialect, the [[Isleño Spanish]], spoken by the [[Isleño]] people and older members of the population.