The D.C. Accent
by Rax King
Like the D.C. native herself, the D.C. accent is rarely even named, much less considered and discussed. Linguists have a hard time nailing it down because the city’s population is so transient, changing over with every new congressional and presidential term. A minority of the adults who live in D.C. were born there; the D.C. Policy Center puts the figure at about one-third. The city was majority Black once, but its Black natives have long been getting priced out to Prince George’s County—as the balance of the population shifts, the transience of white professionals only grows more pronounced. These people move to D.C. to work in government, lobbying, or defense contracts. They spend a few years poisoning the phonemic pool with their own far-flung accents and then, when contracts call them elsewhere or their guy is no longer in the Oval Office, they leave.
There is a D.C. accent, though—a faint drawl drifting northward from Virginia, some oceanic vowels swimming in from the Eastern Shore, particularly O’s, which in the D.C. native’s mouth contain more than a hint of E. My hometown speaks in its own voice, offers its own culture, whether the people who move there for work care to participate in it or not. And as the city resigns itself to yet another four-year Trumpian nightmare, questions of its identity weigh on me more heavily than ever. If not even the government workers’ jobs are safe—those people who have long comprised the Washington that outsiders care about—what’s going to become of my fellow servers, strippers, and cashiers?
Keep us breathing fire!
For $3/month you can read this whole post and get our weekdaily newsletter too!