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Eastern New England English

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Eastern New England English, historically known as the Yankee dialect since at least the nineteenth century, is the traditional regional dialect of Maine, New Hampshire, and the eastern half of Massachusetts. Features of this variety once spanned an even larger dialect area of New England, for example, including the eastern half of Vermont as recently as the mid-twentieth century. Some studies include Rhode Island in the Eastern New England dialect region.

Contents

Eastern New England English (here, including Rhode Island English) is historically associated with sound patterns such as non-rhoticity (or r-dropping after a vowel); both variants of Canadian raising, including a fairly back starting position of the /aʊ/ vowel (as in loud); and some or total resistance to the mary–marry–merry merger. Many traditional aspects of Eastern New England speech are receding rapidly, largely due to many younger Eastern New Englanders avoiding them, especially non-rhoticity, which they perceive as old-fashioned, rural-sounding, or negatively associated with Boston.

Overview of phonology

The sound system of traditional Eastern New England English includes:

  • Non-rhoticity: The r sound may be "dropped" or "silent" if it is not before a vowel; therefore, in words like car, letter, horse, poor, etc. The feature is receding and is not found in many younger speakers, for example, in virtually no speakers born since the mid-1900s in southeastern New Hampshire.
  • Linking and intrusive r: The non-rhotic r may be pronounced after all if it is followed by a vowel, even a vowel that begins the next word in the sentence. Also, any word that ends in /ə/ (as in Cuba), /ɑː/ (as in spa), or /ɔː/ (as in law) can be followed by an unwritten r sound when followed by a vowel sound in the next word: thus, law and public safety sounds like Lauren public safety.
  • Fronting of /ɑːr/: The vowel of words like car, park, heart, stark, etc. is pronounced farther to the front of the vocal tract than in most other dialects, so that car, for example, is something like [kʰäː~kʰaː]. This, plus non-rhoticity, is often associated with the shibboleth "Park the car in Harvard yard." This fronting is seldom reported in Rhode Island, in which car is more often [kʰɑː].
  • Backing of /uː/: The vowel of goose, rude, coup, etc. remains pronounced relatively far back in the mouth.
  • Horse–hoarse merger in transition: The vowel of words like war versus wore, or morning versus mourning, are mostly produced either very close or the same in Eastern New England; however, as of the early 2000s, such vowels may still be pronounced differently by some Eastern New England speakers, especially in Maine. Conversely, the merger of the vowels is largely complete elsewhere in the United States.
  • Full Canadian raising: The tongue is raised in the first element of the gliding vowel /aɪ/ as well as /aʊ/ whenever either appears before a voiceless consonant. Therefore, a word like house /haʊs/ is often [hɜʊs~hɐʊs].
  • Backing of /aʊ/: The vowel of gouge, loud, town, power, etc. has a relatively back-of-mouth starting position: thus, something like [äʊ].
  • Lack of mary–marry–merry merger: The sounds /ær/, /ɛr/, and /ɛər/, for example, in the words Mary, marry, and merry, are pronounced each with distinct vowels. However, recent studies have shown that there is an emerging tendency in Northeastern New England to merge them to some extent, as is the case in much of the rest of the United States. In contrast, Southeastern New England (namely, Rhode Island) continues to keep them all separate, as in the New York City area and Britain.
  • "Short a" nasal system: The "short a" sound /æ/ may be tensed in various environments, though most severely before a nasal consonant; therefore, in words like man, clam, Annie, etc.

    • Overview of vocabulary

    The terms "frappe" to mean "thick milkshake"; "bubbler" (also found in Wisconsin) to mean "water fountain"; and "tonic" to mean "sweet carbonated soft drink" (called "soda" elsewhere in New England), are largely unique to northeastern (and, to a lesser extent, southeastern) New England English vocabulary. Using "jimmies" to mean "(chocolate) sprinkles" is primarily a phenomenon of the Boston area. In addition to the widespread term "wicked," the word "pisser," often phonetically spelled "pissa(h)," is another Northeastern New England intensifier (plus sometimes an uncountable noun) for something that is very highly regarded by the speaker.

    Northeastern New England

    Northeastern New England English, popularly recognized as a Boston or Maine accent, in addition to all the above phonological features, further includes the merger of the vowel in cot and caught to [ɒː~ɑː], often with a slightly rounded quality, but a resistance to the merger of the vowels in father versus bother, a merger that is otherwise common throughout North America. Also, for speakers born before 1950, the words half and pass (and, before World War II, also ask and can't) are pronounced with a "broad a," like in spa: [häːf] and [pʰäːs].

    Boston

    Boston, Massachusetts is the birthplace and most famous site of Eastern New England English. Historically, a Northeastern type of New England English spread from metropolitan Boston into metropolitan Worcester, the bulk of New Hampshire, and central and coastal Maine. Boston speech also originated many slang and uniquely local terms that have since spread throughout Massachusetts and Eastern New England. Although mostly non-rhotic, the modern Boston accent does pronounce the r sound in /ɜːr/, as in bird, learn, turkey, world, etc.

    Maine

    The Maine accent, the closest one today to an old Yankee dialect, includes the phonology mentioned above, plus the breaking of /ɛər/ (as in there), /ɪər/ (as in here), and /ɔər/ each into two syllables: they-uh, hee-yuh, and moh-uh; some distinct vocabulary is also used in this accent. Especially in Maine, the horse–hoarse merger is still strongly resisted, meaning that words like war and wore may sound different: war rhyming with law, and wore rhyming with boa. Unlike the Boston accent, the traditional Maine accent is non-rhotic entirely: even in the pronunciation of /ɜːr/.

    Notable lifelong native speakers

  • Ken Beatrice — "... the New England native with the pronounced Boston accent"
  • Lenny Clarke — "a Cambridge-raised verbal machine gun with a raspy Boston accent"
  • Nick DiPaolo — "thick Boston accent"
  • Edward "Ted" Kennedy — "No one else from Boston, or anywhere in New England, has imprinted the regional accent on the national consciousness as Senator Kennedy did."
  • Mel King — "he has the soft R's of a deep Boston accent"
  • Lyndon LaRouche — "a cultivated New England accent"
  • Christy Mihos — "speaks unpretentiously in a variation of a Boston accent, and drops the 'g' in words like talking or running."
  • Brian and Jim Moran— "The Moran brothers share[...] an unmistakable Massachusetts accent"
  • Tom Silva — "New England accent"
  • Jermaine Wiggins — "skin as thick as his East Boston accent"

    • Southeastern New England

    Southeastern New England English, popularly recognized as a Rhode Island accent, in addition to all of the features mentioned under the phonology section above, further includes a sharp distinction in the vowels of Mary, marry, and merry, as well as in the vowels in cot [ɑ] versus caught [oə], plus the pronunciation of /ɑːr/, as in car, far back in the mouth as [ɑː~ɑə], all of which makes this New England accent noticeably similar to New York City English. A few words are unique only to this area, such as the older word cabinet to mean milkshake.

    Notable lifelong native speakers

  • John Chafee — a non-rhotic, "New England accent"
  • "Pauly D" DelVecchio — "the thickest Rhode Island accent"
  • Henry Giroux
  • Spalding Gray — "his demeanor is as flat as his Rhode Island accent"

    • French-American Manchester

    An ethnic local accent has been documented among self-identifying French Americans in Manchester, New Hampshire. The accent's most prominent pronunciation features are th-stopping (pronouncing thin like tin and there like dare) and, variably, word-initial h-dropping (so that hair may sound like air).

    References

    Eastern New England English Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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