some would suggest otherwise.

While many New Yorkers believe the influx of Irish, Jewish, and Italian immigrants played heavily on the accent, Prof Labov says that this is not the case.

"A lot of people think that the migration from different parts of Europe is responsible for the speech that we hear in the big cities of the United States.

"But just the opposite is true. If your parents spoke Yiddish, Italian, Greek, Ukrainian, it's not going to have any particular influence upon the way you use NYC speech.