Eastern New England English

Eastern New England English, historically known as the Yankee dialect since at least the nineteenth century,[1][2] is the traditional regional dialect of Maine, New Hampshire, and the eastern half of Massachusetts.[3][4] Features of this variety once spanned an even larger dialect area of New England, for example, including the eastern halves of Vermont and Connecticut for those born as late as the early twentieth century.[5] Studies vary as to whether the unique dialect of Rhode Island technically falls within the Eastern New England dialect region.[6]

Eastern New England English (here, including Rhode Island English) is classically associated with sound patterns such as non-rhoticity (or dropping r when not before a vowel); both variants of Canadian raising, including a fairly back starting position of the /aʊ/ vowel (as in MOUTH);[7][8] and some variation of the PALM–LOT–THOUGHT vowel distinctions, the marry–merry distinction, or both.[9] Certain Eastern New England English characteristics are retreating as some younger Eastern New Englanders avoid them, particularly non-rhoticity and the aforementioned distinctions,[10][11] which they tend to perceive as old-fashioned, overly rural-sounding,[12] or even overly urban-sounding with regards to Boston.[13] New Hampshire speakers on the whole are particularly well-documented as retreating from these traditional features of Eastern New England English since the mid-twentieth century onwards.[14][13]

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 retreating and is not found in many younger speakers,[15] for example, in virtually no speakers born since the mid-1900s in southeastern New Hampshire.[14]
  • 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), /ɑ/ (as in spa), or /ɔ/ (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.
  • Backing of /u/: The vowel of goose, rude, coup, etc. remains pronounced relatively far back in the mouth.[16]
  • 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.[17] 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.[18] 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 [ɑ̈ʊ].[17]
  • Lack of mary–marry–merry merger: Before intervocalic /r/, the vowels /ɛə/ (/eɪ/ in rhotic varieties), /æ/ and /ɛ/ (as in Mary, marry, and merry) are distinguished from one another, particularly in Southeastern New England (namely Rhode Island), which is also true in the New York City area and Britain. However, recent studies have shown that there is an emerging tendency in Northeastern New England (Boston, for example) to merge them, as in most other American accents.[17]
  • "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.
  • Fronting of PALM/START: The vowel of words like palm, spa, car, park, etc. is pronounced farther to the front of the vocal tract than in most other dialects, so that car, for example, is something like [kʰa]. 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 backed [kʰɑ].[19]

Overview of vocabulary

The terms frappe to mean "thick milkshake";[20] bubbler (also found in Wisconsin) to mean "water fountain";[21] and tonic to mean "sweet carbonated soft drink" (called "soda" elsewhere in New England),[22] 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,[23] though also stably reported in Maine, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire.[24] 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.[25]

Northeastern New England English

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 [ɒ~ɑ], 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: [haf] and [pas].

Boston
Main article: Boston accent

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.[26] Boston speech also originated many slang and uniquely local terms that have since spread throughout Massachusetts and Eastern New England.[27] Although mostly non-rhotic, the modern Boston accent typically pronounces the r sound in the NURSE vowel, /ɜr/, as in bird, learn, turkey, world, etc.

Maine
Main article: Maine accent

The old Maine accent, the closest remnant today to an old Yankee regional accent, includes the phonology mentioned above, plus the loss of the phonemic status of /ɛə/ (as in there), /ɪə/ (as in here), and /oə/ (as in more) all of which are broken into two syllables (/eɪə, i.ə, oʊə/): they-uh, hee-yuh, and moh-uh; some distinct vocabulary is also used in this accent.[28] Maine is one of the last American regions to resist the horse–hoarse merger. This continued resistance was verified by some speakers in a 2006 study of Bangor and Portland, Maine,[17] yet contradicted by a 2013 study that reported the merger as embraced by Portland speakers "of all ages".[29] The traditional horse–hoarse separation means that words like war and wore may sound different: war /wɒ/ rhyming with law /lɒ/, and wore /ˈwoʊə/ rhyming with boa /ˈboʊə/. Unlike the Boston accent, this traditional Maine accent may be non-rhotic entirely: even in the pronunciation of /ɜr/ as [ɜ].

Cultivated New England
Main article: Mid-Atlantic accent

A cultivated New England accent, sometimes known as a "Boston Brahmin accent" within Boston, was once associated with members of wealthy New England families in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; it is now essentially extinct. Notable example speakers included many members of the Kennedy family born in this time period, including President John F. Kennedy, whose accent is not a common Boston accent so much as a "tony Harvard accent".[30] This accent retained an older cot–caught distinction, a less fronted START vowel in some speakers, non-rhotic NURSE, and a TRAP–BATH split ([æ] versus [a]). This accent corresponds in its time-frame and in much of its sound with the cultivated American accent promoted in prestigious Northeastern boarding schools and theatrical elocution courses in the same era.[31]

Notable lifelong native speakers


Rhode Island English

The traditional Southeastern New England English accent, popularly known as a Rhode Island accent, is spoken in Rhode Island and the western half of Bristol County, Massachusetts.[44] In addition to all the features mentioned under the phonology section above, the Rhode Island accent also includes a sharp distinction in the vowels of Mary, marry, and merry and in the vowels in cot [ɑ] versus caught [oə],[45] plus the pronunciation of /ɑr/, as in car, far back in the mouth as [ɑ~ɑə]—these three features making this New England accent noticeably similar to a New York accent.[46][47] These features are often unlike the modern Northeastern New England (NENE) dialect of Boston, as is Rhode Island's feature of a completed father–bother merger, shared with the rest of the country outside of NENE.[44] A few terms are unique only to this area, such as the word cabinet to mean "milkshake" (particularly, coffee cabinets),[20] pizza strips (Italian tomato pie strips served cold without cheese), and coffee milk.[48]

Notable lifelong native speakers

French-American Manchester

An ethnic local accent has been documented among self-identifying French Americans in Manchester, New Hampshire.[53] 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).[54]

See also

Notes
  1. Robert Hendrickson (2000). The Facts on File Dictionary of American Regionalisms. Infobase. p. 326. ISBN 9781438129921.
  2. Sletcher, Michael (2004). New England. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. p. 264
  3. Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:137)
  4. Stanford et al. (2012: 130)
  5. Stanford et al. (2012: 161)
  6. See, for example, that Labov's 2006 Atlas of North American English frequently includes Providence/Rhode Island under this general dialect, yet his 1997 Regional Telsur Map does not.
  7. Nagy & Roberts (2004:276)
  8. Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:154, 227)
  9. Stanford et al. (2012: 154)
  10. Stanford et al. (2014: 120)
  11. Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:226)
  12. Stanford et al. (2012: 160-1)
  13. Nagy, Naomi (2001). " 'Live Free or Die' as a Linguistic Principle". American Speech, Volume 76, Number 1, Spring 2001, pp. 30-41.
  14. Platt, Melanie, "Do you "park your car" or "pahk your cah?: The Changing Dialect of Southern New Hampshire" (2015). Inquiry Journal 2015. 5. http://scholars.unh.edu/inquiry_2015/5
  15. "Is That New England Accent in Retreat?". 15 August 2012.
  16. Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:154)
  17. Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:227)
  18. Boberg, Charles (2010). The English Language in Canada: Status, History and Comparative Analysis. Cambridge University Press. p. 156. ISBN 9781139491440.
  19. Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:111)
  20. Vaux, Bert and Scott Golder. 2003. "What do you call the drink made with milk and ice cream?." The Harvard Dialect Survey. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Linguistics Department.
  21. Vaux, Bert and Scott Golder. 2003. "What do you call the thing from which you might drink water in a school?." The Harvard Dialect Survey. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Linguistics Department.
  22. Vaux, Bert and Scott Golder. 2003. "What is your generic term for a sweetened carbonated beverage?." The Harvard Dialect Survey. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Linguistics Department.
  23. Jan Freeman (March 13, 2011). "The Jimmies Story: Can an ice cream topping be racist?". boston.com. Retrieved March 4, 2015.
  24. Kim, Chaeyoon (2016). "A large-scale online study of dialect variation in the US Northeast: Crowdsourcing with Amazon Mechanical Turk". Dartmouth Senior Theses Presentations.
  25. "10 Boston Phrases You Should Know".
  26. Labov, Ash & Boberg 2006:225)
  27. "Wicked Good Guide to Boston English".
  28. Fowles, Debby (2015). "Speak Like a Mainer". About Travel. About.com. Retrieved 20 May 2015.
  29. Ryland, Alison (2013). "A Phonetic Exploration of the English of Portland, Maine". Swarthmore College.
  30. "John F. Kennedy". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009.
  31. Knight, Dudley. "Standard Speech". In: Hampton, Marian E. & Barbara Acker (eds.) (1997). The Vocal Vision: Views on Voice. Hal Leonard Corporation. pp. 160.
  32. Shapiro, Leonard (June 2, 2010). "Top 10: Dialing up the best in Washington sports radio". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 18, 2015.
  33. Miller, Gregory E. (2018) "Bill Burr vows to never become an ‘old cornball’". New York Post. NYP Holdings, Inc.
  34. Metcalf, A. (2004). Presidential Voices. Speaking Styles from George Washington to George W. Bush. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. pp. 150.
  35. Sullivan, Jim (2001-04-18). "Lenny Clarke Deftly Handles Nightschtick". The Boston Globe.
  36. Calhoun, Ada (2004-03-29). "Did You Hear The One About The @&%#! Comic?". New York. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
  37. Healy, Patrick (2009-09-02). "A Mannah of Speaking". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-10-18.
  38. Concannon, Jim (May 12, 2009). "Mel's Vision". The Boston Globe.
  39. King, Dennis (1989). Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism. New York: Doubleday. p. 306.
  40. Mooney, Brian C. (2006-02-19). "The nonpolitician who would be governor". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2009-02-26.
  41. Gardner, Amy (2009-02-11). "A Time to Reevaluate Family Ties". Washington Post. Retrieved 2009-02-27.
  42. Bizjak, Marybeth (February 2007). "Mr. Fix-It". Sacramento Magazine. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
  43. Jensen, Sean (2004-12-03). "Despite his unlikely build, Vikings' Wiggins gets it done at tight end". Saint Paul Pioneer Press. Archived from the original on 2014-06-11. Retrieved 2009-02-26.
  44. Johnson, Daniel Ezra (2010). "Stability and Change Along a Dialect Boundary: The Low Vowels of Southeastern New England". American Dialect Society 95. p. 100.
  45. "Guide to Rhode Island Language Stuff". Quahog.org. Retrieved May 30, 2007.
  46. "This phonemic and phonetic arrangement of the low back vowels makes Rhode Island more similar to New York City than to the rest of New England".Labov, Ash & Ash (2006:226)
  47. Boberg, Charles (2001). "The Phonological Status of Western New England". American Speech. 76 (1): 28, 3–29. doi:10.1215/00031283-76-1-3.
  48. Musto, Marisa (2018). "Famed Rhode Island Foods". AAA Northeast.
  49. Brady, James (1997). "Don't Spend Any Time Trying to Detonate John Chafee". Advertising Age.
  50. "Raffert Meets the Press". John Carroll University. 2011. Archived from the original on 23 October 2010. 'Pauly D has the thickest Rhode Island accent I've ever heard,' [Brian] Williams told us.
  51. De Vries, Hilary (1990). "Spalding Gray: His New Favorite Subject--Him". Los Angeles Times.
  52. Barboza, Scott (2011). [www.espn.com/boston/columns/story?columnist=barboza_scott&id=6584856 The rise, fall and recovery of a phenom]". ESPN. ESPN.
  53. Nagy & Roberts (2004:278)
  54. Nagy & Roberts (2004:296)

References
  • Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (2006), The Atlas of North American English, Berlin: Mouton-de Gruyter, ISBN 3-11-016746-8
  • Nagy, Naomi; Roberts, Juli (2004), "New England phonology" (PDF), in Schneider, E., K., B. Kortmann, R., and C.; Burridge, K.; Mesthrie, R.; Upton, C. (eds.), Handbook of Varieties of English, 1, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 270–281
  • Stanford, James N.; Leddy-Cecere, Thomas A.; Baclawski Jr., Kenneth P. "Farewell To The Founders: Major Dialect Changes Along The East-West New England Border." American Speech 87.2 (2012): pp. 126–169. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.
  • Stanford, James N.; Severance, Nathan A.; Baclawski Jr., Kenneth P. "Multiple vectors of unidirectional dialect change in eastern New England." Language Variation and Change (2014) Vol.26 (1), pp. 103–140.
  • Stanford, James. 2019. New England English: Large-scale acoustic sociophonetics and dialectology. Oxford University Press. 367 pages.
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