You can almost always recognize Jews and Blacks by the way they talk.

IS THIS TRUE, AND HOW SO

Dear Charles, 

"You can almost always recognize Jews and Blacks by the way they talk." 

Is this true? What an interesting, though provocative, question. 

How is the "way people talk" determined
=======================================
(1) Ethnicity and language, esp. mother tongue; 
(2) Education and class, within this mother tongue (though, of course,
it is correlated with the way one could speak other languages and at
what competence);
(3) Age; 
(4) Health and especially speech problems; 
(5) Another, important, factor is the fact that we talk differently
when we address different audiences. For example, if this is an
assignment for a linguistics class, I assume that you're a student,
and I write to you (or would have spoken with you, if I could), like I
would with a sensible person. However, if this would have came from
some ignorant racist, who thinks they could just post statements on
Google Answers, I might have used this kind of language:
An tInneal Mallachta?
<http://hermes.lincolnu.edu/~focal/scripts/mallacht.htm> 

So, after determining how people talk in general, let's look at "Jews"
and "Blacks". Do all of them belong to the same ethnic or linguistic
group? Of course not.

Since Judaism is a religion, Jews speak languages available, from
Chinese to German, from Spanish to Hebrew. Because of historical
discrimination against them, Jews have also developed languages that
were hybrid between the local language and (usually) Hebrew:
Jewish Languages
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish%20languages> 

Not only that not all Jews speak the same mother tongue to begin with,
but even when they do, not all of them share the same class, level of
education or age.

Are "Blacks" a unified group? Most "Black" people, as noted bellow me,
are Africans. There are as many as 2000 languages in Africa ["It is
estimated that there are 2000 languages in Africa (Elugbe, 1994:62)"].
Those who are in English speaking countries, or are native-English
speakers, also come from different cultures, live in different
countries, have different levels of education and don't share the same
class (e.g., the difference in accent and spoken language between Bob
Marley, Ainsley Harriot and Jesse Jackson, all "Blacks" and
native-English speakers).

Similarly to what happened to Jews because of discrimination had also
happened to Blacks. Black people have been excluded from society,
especially in the United States, and lived - sometimes forced to live
- in separate neighbourhoods, going to separate schools and developing
a separate culture. This is especially true regarding Blacks who are
"African-Americans" (I use here this term to describe people who
define themselves as such, especially people who descended from the
slaves brought to America from West Africa). This also means that
unique language patterns have developed in this group.

So, we've established that *not* all Blacks or Jews speak the same. 

Now, you might jump and say, "But in the United States..." 

This brings out two questions: 
(1) is there really a "way" all "American Jews" or "American Blacks" speak? 
(2) If so, why? 

These are not your original questions, but here we have what is
seemingly a more specified group: not "Blacks" around the world, and
not "Jews" around the world. However, again, this poses a problem.

Let's begin with Jews. Since Judaism is a religion, there are all
sorts of Jews: Blacks and Whites, educated and uneducated, southern
and northern - and as you well know, these are differences even in the
origin of Jews arriving to the United States: there's a large Hassidic
(Yiddish speaking) community in the East Coast, there's a large
community of Jews from Iran in the West Coast. This is a very
entertaining site I found, featuring a list of famous Jews in all
walks of life. As you can see here:
Jewhoo
<http://www.jewhoo.com/> 

"Jewish Accent", however, is a pronounced East-European/Yiddish
accent, when in fact many American Jews are not descendants of East
European Jews, let alone have spoken Yiddish themselves.

Same thing applies to "Black" people. In the United States, there's a
big community from Haiti, that has a different accent from
African-Americans from the West Coast, that have different accents
themselves from "Blacks" who came from Africa, Brazil, etc.

"Black Accent", however, refers to some version of an accent that
derives from Southern accent, and might be found, in fact, only among
those who descend from freed slaves, or grew up in such dense
communities, not among all "Blacks".

So, how come it seems that way? That we "feel" that there is a different accent? 

There are several studies that show that Americans have certain
stereotypes regarding the accent of the person they are talking with
over the phone:

Doss and Gross, 1994 The Effects of Black English and Code-Switching
on Interracial Perceptions.? Journal of Black Psychology 29:282-93.

Purnell, Idsardi, and Baugh, 1999 ?Perceptual and Phonetic Experiments
on American English Dialect Identification.? Journal of Language and
Social Psychology 18:10-30.

There is definitely something described in these studies as a "black
accent". Navaro (2002) also describes "Jewish Accent" in reference
with discrimination against Jews in Turkey: Jews have lived separately
and developed their own linguistic patterns. (see: Navaro, Leyla,
2000. "Young Jewish Women in Contemporary Turkey: Communal Pressures
and Survival Strategies" <http://www.brandeis.edu/hbi/pdf/navaro.pdf>,
please note that Navaro has written: "Do not quote, cite or reproduce
without the author?s written permission", so I prefer not to discuss
this article further, on the author's request).

Ha! 

There are two reasons why we think of things in terms that are
generalising and not accurate.

The first is media reproductions in popular culture. We see mostly
"representatives" of a group from one sector of that society, and
immediately assume that they represent that group. It will be very
interesting to check, but I have the feeling that Jews weren't so
neurotic in films and televisions before Woody Allen. In fact, there
is a difference in the way Jewish women are portrayed (heavy East
European accent, fat, always trying to feed her little Woody) and the
Jewish male (educated, insecure, balding, East-Coast accent even if
he's in the West Coast, pale, glasses, and of course, totally
neurotic). See for example:

Vincent Brook 2001. "Virtual Ethnicity: Incorporation, Diversity, and
the Contemporary 'Jewish' Sitcom" Emergences: Journal for the Study of
Media & Composite Cultures - discussing also this reproduction of the
"Jewish accent" and images.

The media also has its own image of the Black male and females. They
are almost always (I can not think right now of an opposite example)
African Americans, and not Black-Americans from the Caribbean or other
parts of the world.

So, media reproduces these images and we adopt them, especially
regarding "others". Surprisingly though, also about ourselves: people
are effected by the media images and by the language heard in media,
and try to imitate what seems to them as a normative behaviour. It is
well known, for example, that many people try to speak with "correct"
accent (that is, the accent of TV anchors). Black people might try to
imitate Black people who frequent the media: prominent politicians
(like Jackson), entertainment stars (say, Cosby; but also rappers).
Most of these people come from the same background and don't represent
the variety of the Black community in the United States.

There's another reason why it "seems" that "Jews" and "Blacks" all
talk the same: we also love having some stereotypes on the "other", it
helps us to define "us". For example, let's say that I suggest taking
you to a "European" restaurant. You'll probably laugh till your belly
aches. There is no "European" food: do you suggest that we'll eat
Smorgasbord with Tapas? Apple Crumble with Sauerkraut? Pasta with
Tzatziki? But if I'll suggest instead that we'll go to an "Asian" (or
worse, from the social-linguistics perspective: "Oriental")
restaurant, you'll know exactly what food to expect. There's no
"Asian" food: Asia is the largest continent there is. Some sort of
Westernised version of Chinese food, sometimes with additions from the
Thai (and in really bold restaurants, some sort of Japanese) food has
been moulded into "Asian". Where are the Indians? (or: Arabs,
Indonesians, Mongols, Persians, Kazakh, Turks, to mention few large
groups in Asia or - hi, while we're at it - Israel is also in Asia and
they have "Jewish" food).

This is because people create "otherness" and try to overlook the
complexities in each culture: even "Chinese" food (or language, or
culture, or religion) is not unanimous, so "Asian"? We tend to think
that all "Asians"/Jews/Blacks are the same, and we do it especially
regarding groups, where we have little knowledge about but already
some prejudices. I have never heard someone saying "All Belgians
are...? (like Jean Claude Van-Damme?), but sadly, it is very common to
meet people who think that "all Blacks", "all Arabs" or "all Jews" are
the same.

So, it is not entirely "untrue" that it seems to the untrained eye, in
American culture, that "all" Jews and Blacks act the same (though,
once you try to apply this "rule" to the world, you end up in
shambles).

It seems so of three reasons: 
(1) *Some* Jews and Blacks share language patterns (e.g., Black people
who grew up during segregation; Jews who grew up discriminated from
the rest);
(2) The image of *these" Jews and Blacks are reproduced in the media
as representatives of their own groups, when it tends to overlook the
complexities and varieties in each group; The media sets our image of
these people, but also sets a normative model for people from these
subgroups, who reproduce this behaviour and speech patterns;
(3) Human beings tend to generalise regarding other groups, so people
happily adopt stereotypes.


Links for further reading
=========================

A Guide to Regional English Pronunciation
<http://students.csci.unt.edu/~kun> - how accents differ, even in the United States

The Guardian: The plot thickens, February 16, 2001
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,438605,00.html> - "The
Archers" is a radio soap by the BBC. What happens when there's a South
African character? Can the listeners identify him by his accent?

Daddy, Papa and Me: Racial Stereotyping
<http://www.lathefamily.org/warren3/blogs/000855.shtml> - An entry in
a blog of two guys who have adopted a girl (apparently, they're White,
and the girl is Black, if I follow the plot correctly):

"Had a strange experience last night. We were at a cafe (internet) and
I was watching Emma as she explored a bit and we were waiting for Guy.
She climbed up on a chair next to a middle-aged women and smiled. The
woman asked if we were her 'daddies'. I answered yes and was greeted
with a very warm smile.

The woman asked if Emma could talk yet. I said she said a few words,
understood a lot. She then proceeded to speak directly to Emma, and
the words that ensued were a bit strange...

She basically was telling Emma what her future would be like she was a
fortune teller...saying, (as best as I can recount)

*You are going to grow up very beautiful, but when you open your mouth
and speak, out will come a perfect white accent*

uh... white accent? which one? my partner's Utah thing? my slight
Virginian usage? San Francisco mix? Bostonian? surfer dude? valley
girl? Georgian twang? Mid-western? Cockney? what?

and as opposed to what? a 'black' accent? which one? the one my
neighors spoke in Southern Virginia (much like ours)? inner city
Chicago? Hip hop slang? Georgian? middle class Californian?

*and people will realized you were raised by a white family*

oh really? by an accent? because they _assume_ that speaking a
'standard' American TV announcer English you _couldn't_ have been
raised by a black family?"

Barbra Streisand ~ Cindy Harrelson
<http://www.partypop.com/Vendors/3534005.htm> - how the media
reproduces a stereotype that there is such a thing as a "Jewish
accent" (at least she writes "New York Jewish accent", which means
that there is another accent for Jews from California...)

Helen Shapiro, "A Jewish Accent" Montreal Mirror - Letter to the Editor
<http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2003/010903/letters.html> 
"A "Jewish accent?" What's that? As a Canadian born, Anglophone Jew,
my accent is very different from that of my partner, a francophone Jew
born in Morocco. It is also very different from that of my 83-year-old
grandmother, a Holocaust survivor born in Poland, or from that of Jews
born in Israel. Again, my own "accent" is not discernibly different
from other Canadian born Anglos, Jewish or not."

Marilyn Moss, "Do You Speak American?", Hollywood Reporter, 5 January,
2005, <http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/reviews/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000745829>

Matthew Bell, "oi! just you mind your language", Midweek, a London
freesheet, 8 Jan 1999,
<http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/midweek.htm>

I hope this answered your question. Please contact me if you need any
clarification on this answer before you rate it.

Are you posing a statement or a question?

THIS IS A QUESTION, and I have to somehow prove it for my Linguistics Class

From personal experience, I have been taken aback by black people with
british accents. It happens all the time. Quite a large population of
the Black's in the world speak French, and in turn have French
accents. Now, take a Black person from South Central LA, and I can
almost guarantee that they won't have a british accent.

So it can't be proven. Because it isn't true.

When I was part of a team developing an educational software
multimedia product, a big prospective customer was the city of
Detroit.  Detroit required that a certain proportion of the (unseen)
voice talent for the audio portions had to be African-American.  We
had to certify that, with names, or Detroit wouldn't purchase the
product.  But--here's the catch--they had to *not sound "black"* or we
would be guilty of stereotyping and they wouldn't purchase the
product.

Our resourceful audio folks came through on both counts.

And...Jews?  That's a religion, not an ethnicity.

As golchocobo says, I think you're going to have to defend a negative
thesis.  Any time you see the word "always," isn't the safest course
to bet against it?

Archae0pteryx

To last poster: Jewish can refer to both religion and race, because it is both.

To the last poster p1212: Jewish is NOT a race. Judaism is a religion.
 There are Hispanic Jews, Caucasian Jews, etc etc.

Judaism originates from primarily two of the twelve tribes of Israel
mentioned in the Old Testament, the tribes of Judah, and Benjamin.  It
is, in fact a race as well as a religion.

Dear  byuengineer, 

First, it is possible that Jews refer themselves to a common
historical origin - that of the tribes of Judas and Benjamin - but
that doesn't turn them into a "race", sharing the same "genetically
transmitted physical characteristics", as in the case of, for example,
"Black" people. It is true that the word "race" has more than one
meaning, but attributing importance to this common historical myth,
disregards the fact that many Jews today accept Judaism of different
reasons, and some have converted.

There are "Black" Jews, White Jews, Asian Jews, and everything in between: 

Ethiopian Synagogue
<http://www.israelimages.com/files/10786.htm> 

Chinese Synagogue (Kaifeng)
<http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Reln270/Images270/Kaifeng.JPG> 

Indian Synagogue (Cochin)
<http://www.krysstal.com/images/rel30.jpg> 
Islamabad
<http://www.ort.org/ort/edu/monument/india/gif/bd2int.gif>

There are, of course, also African Americans who have converted to
Judaism or come from Jewish Families:
Black and Jewish
<http://www.blackandjewish.com/bajpages/bajindex.html> 
Black Jews.org
<http://blackjews.org/> 

Which of course brings out the question, which reveals the paradox and
prejudices underlying such assumptions as the one in the question:
Does a "Black Jew" speak like a "Jew" or like a "Black"?

politicalguru certainly did a good job.  
Thirty years ago in most parts of the States, there was a pretty large
possibility that one could recognize a black person by the way he or
she spoke, but this much less likely now - and not just with persons
on TV or radio.  That is, one cannot "always" recognize a black person
- or a Jew - by the way he or she speaks.
BUT -  if the question by charles2006 means:  When you recognize that
someone has (what you think is) a Jewish or black accent, how accurate
would your assumption be that the person is Jewish or black?  Then you
would probably be correct in your assumption.

I was saying that both types of Jews exist.  some examples of Jewish people:

1.  Someone who is of Jewish ancestry and professes the religion
2.  Someone of any ancestry who professes the religion
3.  Someone of Jewish ancestry who does not profess the religion.  

1 is a Jew in race and religion, 2 only in religion, and 3 only in race.

The ethnicity is Semitic, not Jewish, is it not?

Archeo, 

I am tired of trying to reason to byuengineer that they're wrong.
"Race" is not equal to "ehtnic ancestry", and especially not to some
obscure one, as relating to the tribes of Judas and Benjamin.

Just like we cannot talk about "Russian", or any other ethnicity as a
"race". Jews don't have any different features than the rest of us.
Not significantly anyway.

In general, talks about "races" of people, when not in an anthropology
class, makes me a bit nauseated.

"Semitic" and "Antisemitic" is an invention Wilhelm Marr, a German
racist, in order to distinguish himself from the Jews. Yes, Hebrew is
a semitic language (just like Arabic, Amhari or Armean), and
therefore, it could be said that they are a "Semite" people, at least
by association. However, the term "Semitic" does not refer to "race"
(but to culture or language), and would be similar to saying that the
Hungarians are Finno-Ugrians.

You are right, politicalguru, may as well give it up.  Thank you for
the education on the term "Semitic," whose history I did not know.  I
used it as taught to me by some teacher, but I will no longer.

However, I did say ethnicity (heritage and culture) and not race.  The
use of "race" in byuengineer's sense doesn't make any sense to me and
makes me suspect some intent other than clarity of expression.

Archae0pteryx