Oct 6, 2025
Louis Zukofsky translates Guido Cavalcanti’s “Donna me prega” into Brooklynese.
(A reading by Louis Zukofsky, recorded at Johns Hopkins University, December 13, 1975.)
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Louis Zukofsky translates Guido Cavalcanti’s “Donna me prega” into Brooklynese.
(A reading by Louis Zukofsky, recorded at Johns Hopkins University, December 13, 1975.)
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We speak Brooklyn here: one of the first cars to enter the Brooklyn end of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel hands policeman his ticket, May 25, 1950.
Paul Bernius for the NY Daily News via Getty Images
So I was reading your "How to Brooklyn" masterpost, and I have a question about the use of the word "to". It seems like there's a lot of relaxed pronouciation in the Brooklyn dialect. I feel like when "to" is used after an word ending in "t", they're generally combined ("got to" becomes "gotta", etc.). I'm writing out the phrase "how we meant to", and I feel like I should be combining "meant" and "to" in some way, but I'm not sure how to write that out. Suggestions?
Hello friend!  Thanks for reading.  “Meant to” is fine.  It’s not so much that T words combine - more like New Yorkers tend to pronounce T’s more like D’s, and also rush through their sentences like they’re late for the train.  You might hear the sentence come out as “we meant ta” or “we meanna” (where the T is swallowed up entirely), but since “how we meant to” is sort of by nature a more formal phrasing, I think the T separation would survive.
But I wouldn’t get too bogged down in it.  There’s so much inaccurate dialect used in fic that it’s sort of become its own distinct language (New Yorkers can’t really be said to drawl, and “ain’t” is not white Irish Brooklynese, even though it pops up in just about every Stucky fic.  You do hear New Yorkers saying “ain’t,” but they ain’t white).  I'd recommend listening to some youtube videos of James Cagney, and focusing in on the rhythm of what makes up the classic Irish-Brooklyn accent, rather than faithfully transcribing every mumbled and swallowed syllable.
Speak Brooklyn. #speakbrooklyn #brooklyn #nyc #brooklynese (at Fishs Eddy)
i’m with her every step of the way. mint.
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TN'S Guide to Gifts that Don't Suck: Fishs Eddy Brooklynese Collection
[dropcap]E[/dropcap]very December my gal pals and I take the Northeast Corridor train down to New York City to do some Christmas shopping. The lights! The sales! The bouts of agita as we elbow through the throngs of people trying to get to Rockefeller Plaza! It’s a giant tree people. BFD. Al Roker is not there. Stop asking.
Our long weekend usually goes like this: French toast. Shop. Bloody…
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