Origins of the south-western Pennsylvania slang word “Yinz”

Question

A common slang word used in south western Pennsylvania and the forefront example of of what is commonly known as "Pittsburghese" is the word:

Yinz

Pronounced:

| yinz |

Or alternatively it is less commonly used in long form, Youins:

| ju ɪnz |

To use it in a sentence would be similar to the slang conjugation Y'all when addressing or questioning an unnamed or understood group of people informally in a sentence.

Are yinz comin' out to our place before we head to the Steelers game?

Are y'all coming to the speedway for the NASCAR race?

As a native of Pittsburgh, we proudly use this word in conversation despite the seeming confusion and disdain that outsiders seem to have for this word. Two separate friends, one from Boston and one from Brooklyn, both criticize me when I use the word as well as other common regional differences like "this task needs finished..." or "I left the warsh rag by the sink". They say it makes me sound unintelligent and that I should teach myself to lose regional diction for the sake of my career.

I was often curious about the origins of the word. With south western PA being an old melting pot of original English/Scotch/Irish settlers, Italian, Polish and Slovak immigrants coming to work in the steel mills, I have heard from Italians that it came from the Polish, while the Polish claim it was from the Italians (I am mostly Italian and Polish by blood so I have both cultures in my family). Others still claim it was a derivation of African-American slang that everybody picked up because all of these different peoples worked closely in the same factories and mills.

Is there an official analysis on the origins of this word or is it forever to be a mystery lost in cultural history?

Answer 1

Wikipedia says the Irish did it:

Crozier (1984) suggests that during the 19th century, when many Irish speakers switched to speaking English, they filled this gap with you ones, primarily because Irish has a singular second-person pronoun, tu, as well as a plural form, sibh. The following therefore is the most likely path from you ones to yinz: you ones [juː wʌnz] > you'uns [juːʌnz] >youns [juːnz] > yunz [jʌnz] > yinz [jɪ̈nz].

Their citation is:

Crozier, A. (1984). The Scotch-Irish influence on American English. American Speech 59: 310-331.

In this lecture starting at about 19:58, Barbara Johnstone, Professor of Rhetoric and Linguistics at Carnegie Mellon University, also suggest the "you ones" origin. (The first several minutes of that lecture give more background on the immigration patterns that shaped language in Pittsburgh.) h/t Paul Placeway for pointing out the video to me.

I grew up (and still live) in Pittsburgh and I remember yunz being more common 30-40 years ago, though yinz seems to be more common now.

Answer 2

Internally (within Pittsburgh) "yinzer" seems to be reserved as a label for citizens with a pronounced Pittsburgh accent. If you've ever seen the Wachowski Brothers movie Bound, imagine Joey Pantoliano's character with the heavy chicago accent, except make it a Pittsburgh accent.

Yuengling beer is sometimes referred to as Yinzerling. For several years Yuengling beer (brewed in PA) wasn't available in southwestern PA (rumor had it there was a lawsuit over the southwestern PA distribution contract, which included an injunction preventing Yuengling getting a new distributor in the region). This ended about 15–20 years ago and it's now widely available and popular with yinzers.