New Orleans developed a distinctive local dialect that is neither Cajun English nor the stereotypical Southern accent that is often misportrayed by film and television actors. Like earlier Southern Englishes, it features frequent deletion of the pre-consonantal "r", though the local white dialect also came to be quite similar to New York accents. No consensus describes how this happened, but it likely resulted from New Orleans' geographic isolation by water and the fact that the city was a major immigration port throughout the 19th century and early 20th century. Specifically, many members of European immigrant families originally raised in the cities of the Northeast, namely New York, moved to New Orleans during this time frame, bringing their Northeastern accents along with their Irish, Italian (especially Sicilian), German, and Jewish culture.