'Jawn' Still Thriving

"Some dialects can be transcribed onto the page, but the Philadelphia accent really has to be heard to be believed," writes the New York Times this weekend, while considering the sad news that the Philly accent is dying out. Nonetheless, they do their damnedest to transcribe it, offering translated example sentences like "Jeet? D'jou wanna get a sawff pressle?" and "Semalem cawfy's a'ite, but it ain't Wawa." (They also declare it "arguably...the least imitable accent in North America," meaning we should cut Jon Stewart some slack for this.) [NYT]