Word: barbaroi
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Yiddish. Griffith argues forcefully that it is rooted in Gaelic. He notes that the dialect appeared after a wave of Irish immigrants settled in Brooklyn in the late 19th century. Moreover, Griffith finds that the trademark Brooklyn diphthong oi also appears in many Gaelic words; taoiseach (leader) and barbaroi (barbarians), for example. He also points out that the th sound is absent in both Gaelic and Brooklynese, in which it becomes a hard / or d (as in da dame wid tin legs). Some classic Brooklyn expressions, he adds, come directly from the Gaelic: whudda card (joker) is a corruption...
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