Eastern New England English


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 halves of Vermont and Connecticut for those born as recently as the early twentieth century. Studies vary as to whether the unique dialect of Rhode Island falls within the Eastern New England dialect region.
Eastern New England English is classically associated with sound patterns such as non-rhoticity ; both variants of Canadian raising, including a fairly back starting position of the vowel ; and some variation of the father–bother merger| vowel distinctions, the marry–merry distinction, or both. Certain Eastern New England English characteristics are retreating as some younger Eastern New Englanders avoid them, particularly non-rhoticity and the aforementioned distinctions, which they tend to perceive as old-fashioned, overly rural-sounding, or even overly urban-sounding with regards to Boston. New Hampshire speakers on the whole are particularly well-documented as retreating from those features since the mid-twentieth century onwards.

Overview of phonology

The sound system of traditional Eastern New England English includes:
The terms frappe to mean "thick milkshake"; bubbler to mean "water fountain"; and tonic to mean "sweet carbonated soft drink", are largely unique to northeastern New England English vocabulary. Using jimmies to mean " sprinkles" is primarily a phenomenon of the Boston area, though also stably reported in Maine, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. In addition to the widespread term wicked, the word pisser, often phonetically spelled pissa, is another Northeastern New England intensifier for something that is very highly regarded by the speaker.

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, 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 are pronounced with a "broad a," like in spa: and.

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 typically pronounces the r sound in the vowel,, as in bird, learn, turkey, world, etc.

Maine

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 , , and all of which are broken into two syllables : they-uh, hee-yuh, and moh-uh; some distinct vocabulary is also used in this accent. 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, yet contradicted by a 2013 study that reported the merger as embraced by Portland speakers "of all ages". The traditional horse–hoarse separation means that words like war and wore may sound different: war rhyming with law, and wore rhyming with boa. Unlike the Boston accent, this traditional Maine accent may be non-rhotic entirely: even in the pronunciation of as.

Cultivated New England

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 " Harvard accent". This accent retained an older cot–caught distinction, a less fronted vowel, non-rhotic, and a split. This accent corresponds in its sound and time-frame with the cultivated American accent promoted in prestigious Northeastern boarding schools and theatrical elocution courses in the same era.

Notable lifelong native speakers

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. 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 versus caught, plus the pronunciation of, as in car, far back in the mouth as —these three features making this New England accent noticeably similar to a New York accent. These features are often unlike the modern Northeastern New England 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. A few terms are unique only to this area, such as the word cabinet to mean "milkshake", pizza strips, and coffee milk.

Notable lifelong native speakers

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 and, variably, word-initial h-dropping.