Do You Speak Yat?

Do You Speak Yat?

I do. First, let me explain what Yat is. Yat is a dialect of English spoken by native-born New Orleanians. The word comes from the greeting, “Where y’at?” which is the New Orleans way of saying. “Where are you at?”, meaning. “How are you?”

After more than 30 years of living away from New Orleans, most of my distinctive New Orleans accent has vanished, however it is still faintly discernable when I try to pronounce words like “iron”. It comes out something like “irn”. I still remember my grandmother’s (the one we called Mia, another New Orleaniism.) burl, and url (for boil and oil), and zink (for sink).

So, I’m reading Dava Sobel’s “Galileo’s Daughter”. Yesterday I read that while Galileo was in Rome being tried for heresy (He had the nerve to suggest that the earth moves around the sun instead of being stationary at the center of the universe), his hometown in Tuscany was being decimated by the bubonic plague. This is where the connection to the New Orleans dialect comes in: those stricken by the plague would develop festering sores called bubos.

When I was growing up we called any little cut, scratch or bruise a “bobo”, not a “booboo”, but a “bobo”. So when I was reading about bubos in Sobel’s book it got me wondering if bubos were related to my childhood bobos. After looking up the origin of bubo, I doubt it, bubos are strictly related to infectious sores from diseases like the bubonic plague. Bobos were simple little childhood booboos that your mom could kiss and make all better.

Some other “yat” expressions I remember from my childhood:

Dodo: sleep

Make big dodo (go to sleep)

Cap: An expression my dad used to call other men, usually a stranger, I’ve found out it’s a shortened form of Captain.

Cher: dear, my grandmother (the one we called Granmere), used this a lot, it means dear.

Minoux: a word for cat, we had a cat we called minoux, but shortened it to mimi

Alligator pear: These used to grow on a vine in our backyard, also known as mirliton. I’ve seen them in grocery stores in California called chayote squash.

More to come…