The YAT Language of New Orleans

Book excerpt: This book is more than just a record of the New Orleans “YAT” language. It was written to provide the true history of why New Orleans speech and dialect are being called the YAT language and how it all began. Many have written about the YAT language, but no one ever mentions the “true” reason why the name YAT came to be applied to our New Orleans speech. The true story of how our speech and dialect came to be known as YAT began way back in 1950’s. The word YAT evolved through three decades then came into existence in the late 50’s and early 1960’s. This book will explain the true story of what happened in New Orleans that brought about the name YAT to describe our unique speech pattern and pronunciations of words, plus a fun dictionary of the YAT words we use. Why did it become popular throughout the United States and many parts of the world? Well, it was because THE NEW ORLEANS SAINTS football team and their loyal fans created the WHO DAT NATION by using the YAT lingo, when they would yell, “WHO DAT SAY DA GONNA BEAT DEM SAINTS, WHO DAT, WHO DAT.”