Western New England English refers to the varieties of New England English native to Vermont, Connecticut, and the western half of Massachusetts; the New York State capital of Albany has also been documented under this category. Sound patterns historically associated with Western New England English include the features of rhoticity (full pronunciation of all r sounds), the horse–hoarse merger, and the father–bother merger, none of which are features traditionally shared in neighboring Eastern New England English. The status of the cot–caught merger in Western New England is inconsistent, being complete in the north of this dialect region (Vermont), but incomplete or absent in the south (southern Connecticut), with a "cot–caught approximation" in the middle area (primarily, western Massachusetts).
Contents
- Overview of phonology
- Northwestern New England
- Burlington
- Rural Vermont
- Rutland
- Southwestern New England
- Hudson Valley
- References
Western New England English is relatively difficult for some American laypersons and even dialectologists to identify by any "distinct" accent, compared to its widely recognized neighbors (Eastern New England English, New York City English, and Inland Northern English). According to linguistic research, however, Western New England English is not simply one single or uniform dialect. Linguist Charles Boberg proposes that it be most generally divided into a Northwestern New England English (a standalone "Vermont" dialect) and a Southwestern New England English (a less advanced subdialect of Inland Northern English). Even Boberg, however, lists the possibilities of several dialectal divisions of Western New England.
Overview of phonology
Some Western New England speakers show early stages of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift (or NCVS: the defining feature of the Great Lakes region's modern Inland North dialect) in slightly backing /ɛ/ (to [ɛ~ɜ]) and fronting /ɑ/ (to [ɑ~ä]), and in tensing all instances of /æ/ to something like [ɛə]. Though actually variable, these features occur among Western New England speakers just enough to suggest that they are the "pivot conditions" that influenced the NCVS in the Inland North, likely beginning in the early twentieth century.
Except for having uniform rhoticity and all the vowel mergers associated with General American speech, the English of Western New England is in fact fairly inconsistent throughout. In 2001, Charles Boberg, discussing that Western New England English was a likely direct influence on Inland Northern English, still identified as many as four or five English dialectal sub-regions within Western New England itself, based on data from the late 1990s:
Charles Boberg argues that Northwestern New England (Vermont) English, due to its cot–caught merger but failure to demonstrate other features of the Eastern New England dialect, must be considered as its own separate dialect. On the other hand, in discussing Southwestern New England English as its own unique dialect, he instead hesitantly proposed that it be regarded as a "subtype" of the Inland North dialect, based on the aforementioned commonalities, even if variable, such as the universal raising of the short a and no cot–caught merger. However, younger Southwestern New England speakers have diverged away from both of these features, which Boberg at least partly foresaw; such variables are discussed in greater detail below.
Northwestern New England
Northwestern New England English, popularly recognized as a Vermont accent, is the most complete or advanced Western New England English variety in terms of the cot–caught merger, occurring largely everywhere in that area north of Northampton, Massachusetts, towards [ɑ]. Today, speakers documented in Burlington (northwestern Vermont) and Rutland (southwestern Vermont) show consistent fronting of /ɑː/ before /r/, therefore towards [aɻ~äɹ], in words like car or barn. The phoneme /oʊ/ (e.g. in "goat") remains low and lax, similar to [o̞ʊ~ɔʊ], and sometimes with no glide as monophthongal [o̞]. Especially rural speakers pronounce "milk" as [mɛɫk].
Burlington
Northwestern Vermont (centered on Burlington) shows no raising of /æ/ (except before nasal consonants), and therefore /ɑ/ stays back in the mouth, leading to a cot–caught merger to [ɑ]; this whole process follows the logic of the Canadian Shift of Standard Canadian English.
Rural Vermont
Since the mid-1900s, Vermont speakers have largely avoided stigmatized local features, and now follow the rhotic r of the rest of Western New England. However, in the mid-1900s and before, the eastern edge of Vermont spoke Eastern New England English, even dropping the r sound everywhere except before vowels, as in Boston or Maine. A dwindling, generally both rural and male segment of the Vermont population, especially in northwestern Vermont, pronounces /aʊ/ with a higher starting point as [ɛʊ] (e.g. in "cows"; pronunciations by a female and male speaker), and an older segment of this same population pronounces /aɪ/ (e.g. in "lie") with a lower and/or more rounded starting point as [ɔɪ~əɪ]. These speakers may retain vestigial elements of the trap-bath split, backing and lowering /æ/ in certain environments, particularly in function words like that and have. A deep retroflex approximant for "r" is a common characteristic among many rural northwestern speakers. All these characteristics appear to be inherited from West Country and Scots-Irish ancestors. On the whole, Western New England had more West Country settlers than did eastern New England. One notable lifelong native speaker of the rural Vermont accent was Fred Tuttle.
Rutland
Southwestern Vermont (centered on Rutland) shows a universal /æ/ raising to [ɛə] and /ɑ/ fronting to [ä], but then oversteps and defies the logical direction of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift by producing a cot–caught merger to [ä]. The universal /æ/ raising is most consistently recorded in speakers born before 1950; those born since 1960 show significantly less raising.
Southwestern New England
Southwestern New England English is centered primarily around Hartford, CT and Springfield, MA. Its older speakers show more instances of universal tensing of the short a /æ/, while younger speakers show the more General American feature of tensing this vowel only before nasal consonants. The Atlas of North American English confirms that this raising phenomenon is highly variable in the region, though studies agree that raising always occurs strongest before nasal consonants.
Regarding the cot–caught merger, Southwestern New England speech has historically lacked the merger, before entering a transitional state of the merger in the mid-1900s. A "cot–caught approximation" now prevails especially in Springfield and western Massachusetts, but is variable from one speaker to the next with no apparent age-based correlation, except that the youngest speakers now are tending to demonstrate a full merger. Local, especially working-class speakers of southwestern Connecticut (especially Greater Bridgeport and New Haven) and the Albany area of New York State, strongly influenced by nearby New York City dialect, continue to resist the cot–caught merger.
Hudson Valley
Though not belonging geographically to Southwestern New England, the English of the lower half of the Hudson Valley in New York State (best recorded in Albany, New York) is a sub-type of Southwestern New England English, demonstrating additional influence from New York City English. Albany English shows Southwestern New England English's slight backing of /ɛ/ (to [ɛ~ɜ]) and fronting of /ɑ/ (to [ɑ~ä]), but New York City's caught vowel [ɔə] and, though having a continuous short-a system, still shows influence from New York City's short-a split system. Also, Albany starts /aɪ/ fairly back [ɑɪ~äɪ] and /aʊ/ somewhat forward in the mouth [aʊ].