Wp/pgh/Pittsburghese Wiki:Writing

Dis article's written in Standard Inglish.

Here at Pittsburghese Wiki, it's recommended that contributors follow the orthographic conventions set out by site administrators. However, this does not mean that you are prohibited from using your own spellings for dialectal terms. You may use your own spellings so long as they are supported by a secondary source, make sense, and are generally in line with English orthography.

Spelling
Obviously, since Pittsburghese is a non-standard dialect, it lacks any sort of formal orthography. Spelling is loosely based on pronunciation, and spellings that differ from Standard English are typically used when there is a difference in pronunciation. For certain words, such as jagger, there is an agreed upon spelling, while for others, such as jynt in Jynt Iggle, there are multiple variants. You are expected to follow such agreed upon spellings and use common variants if a word lacks an agreed upon spelling. However, you may use your own spellings as long as they are reasonable.

Here are some general rules of thumb for phonetic spelling: Please note that these rules do not apply to every possible word, so please follow them cautiously. If you are unsure about how a word should be spelled, do not be afraid to ask someone.
 * the ou sound in words like "hour" and "out" becomes ah, except in words where the sound is at the end of the word, such as how and now
 * the ee sound in words like "steel" and "really" usually becomes ih, so they become "still" and "rilly"
 * the i sound in words like "pile" and "tile" usually becomes ah, so they become "pahl" and "tahl"
 * the th sound in words like "the" and "that" becomes d, so they become "da" and "dat", or it is removed entirely so "the" and "that" become "'e" and "'at"
 * the oo sound in words like "fool" and "pool" becomes the u sound in full and pull before l, so they become homonyms with full and pull respectively

Grammar
Pittsburghese grammar is generally identical to that of Standard English, however there are some distinct characteristics. Here are some examples:
 * All to mean all gone: When referring to consumable products, the word all has a secondary meaning: all gone. For example, the phrase the butter's all would be understood as "the butter is all gone." This likely derives from German.
 * "Positive anymore": In addition to the normal negative use of anymore it can also, as in the greater Midland U.S. dialect, be used in a positive sense to mean "these days" or "nowadays". An example is "I wear these shoes a lot anymore". While in Standard English anymore must be used as a negative polarity item (NPI), some speakers in Pittsburgh and throughout the Midland area do not have this restriction.
 * Reversed usage of leave and let: Examples of this include "Leave him go outside" and "Let the book on the table". Leave is used in some contexts in which, in standard English, let would be used; and vice versa. Used in Southwestern Pennsylvania and elsewhere, this is either Pennsylvania German or Scots-Irish.
 * "Need, want, or like + past participle": Examples of this include "The car needs washed", "The cat wants petted", and "Babies like cuddled". More common constructions are "The grass needs cutting" or "The grass needs to be cut" or "Babies like cuddling" or "Babies like to be cuddled"; "The car needs washing" or "The car needs to be washed"; and "The cat wants petting" or "The cat wants to be petted."
 * "Punctual whenever": "Whenever" is often used to mean "at the time that" (Montgomery 2001). An example is "My mother, whenever she passed away, she had pneumonia." A punctual descriptor refers to the use of the word for "a onetime momentary event rather than in its two common uses for a recurrent event or a conditional one".
 * Yet can be used in place of still.
 * Words referring to measurements or amounts, such as mile or year, do not have plural endings, e.g. Fifteen mile, two year.
 * The suffix -ing is replaced with -in.
 * Use of was in place of were, or other words regularizing the past tense of be to was.
 * Use of don't in place of doesn't.
 * Use of seen in place of saw.
 * The construction "don't...no" is used with transitive verbs to indicate the negative, e.g. "He don't know no better." This is commonly referred to as the double negative, and is either negative or emphatically negative, never positive. "None" is often used in place of "any," as in "I don't have none."
 * Verb forms for the verb "to lay" are used instead of forms of the verb "to lie." For example, "Lay down and hush."
 * "Them" is sometimes used in place of "those" as a demonstrative in both nominative and oblique constructions. Examples are "Them are the pants I want" and "Give me some of them crackers."
 * Oblique forms of the personal pronouns are used as nominative when more than one is used (cf. French moi et toi). For example, "Me and him are real good friends" instead of "He and I are really good friends."

Vocabulary
Pittsburghese, formally known as Western Pennsylvania English or Pittsburgh English among linguists, is a distinct dialect of American English. As such, it is not simply standard English with an accent. It has its own unique words and phrases. Pittsburghese Wiki prohibits the use of standard English, unless it is for informational articles or sections such as this, and wholeheartedly encourages the use of dialectal terms. The whole point of this Wiki project is to create an encyclopedia in the Pittsburghese dialect, not standard English, there already is a Wikipedia for that.

A vocabulary list complete with a dictionary and list of phrases can be found here.