STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
You know, years ago, I lived in New York. I came to think of myself as a New Yorker, though it sometimes seemed there was no such thing as a New Yorker. People were, instead, New Yorkers. People would talk of taking their coat off because it's stuffy in the office on this job.
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
That would be an old-school New York accent. Residents of the city, of course, know there are many varieties of speech constantly evolving. And those patterns of speech are now the subject of a documentary, "If These Knishes Could Talk: The Story of the New York Accent."
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GREENE: Forget about it. The accent grows out of New York's mixture of ethnic and racial groups: Irish, Italian and many more. Congressman Charlie Rangel, who's black, spent part of his childhood in a Jewish neighborhood. He didn't realize it affected his speech until he resettled in Harlem.
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INSKEEP: And then there's Amy Heckerling, the Hollywood director who grew up in New York and picked up the city's special relationship with the letter R.
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INSKEEP: Why? The documentary also features the attorney, Alan Dershowitz, who says that the...
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "IF THESE KNISHES COULD TALK: THE STORY OF THE NEW YORK ACCENT")
INSKEEP: Whatever. A deaf man also appears in this film, and explains New York's sign language through an interpreter.
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INSKEEP: The director of the documentary is Heather Quinlan, a New Yorker, who said the film has been a labor of love. She spent time standing on street corners with a sign asking: Do you have a New York accent.
HEATHER QUINLAN: I'd say, say coffee, coffee, talk, talk. And it's, like, you have a New York accent.
INSKEEP: "If These Knishes Could Talk," premiers at the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival tonight. It's MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
GREENE: And I'm David Greene. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.