New England English collectively refers to the various distinct dialects and varieties of American English originating in the New England area. Most of eastern and central New England once spoke the "Yankee dialect", and many of those accent features still remain in eastern New England, such as "R-dropping". One linguistic division of New England is into Eastern and Western New England English, as defined in the 1939 Linguistic Atlas of New England and the 2006 Atlas of North American English. The ANAE further argues for a division between Northern and Southern New England English, especially on the basis of the cot–caught merger and fronting. The ANAE also categorizes the strongest differentiated New England accents into four combinations of the above dichotomies, simply defined as follows:
Northeastern New England English with non-rhoticity and the cot–caught merger. It centers on Boston, Massachusetts, extending into New Hampshire and coastal Maine.
Northwestern New England English with rhoticity and the cot–caught merger. It centers on Vermont.
Southwestern New England English with rhoticity and a lack of the cot–caught merger. It centers around the Hartford-Springfield area of Connecticut and western Massachusetts.
Overview
Phonology
Distinctions
New England English is not a single American dialect, but a collective term for a number of dialects and varieties that are close geographic neighbors within New England, but which differ on a spectrum that broadly divides New England English into a unique north versus south, as well as a unique east versus west. Regarding the former feature, all of northern New England historically merges the open and open-midbackrounded vowels, while southern coastal New England historically maintains a noticeable distinction between these two vowels. Regarding the second feature, all of eastern New England is historically non-rhotic, while all of western New England is historically rhotic. Therefore, four combinations of these two features are possible, and coincidentally all four exist among New England English speakers, largely correlated with the exact geographic quadrant in New England in which a speaker was raised.
Commonalities
All of New England raises the tongue in the first element of the diphthong before voiceless consonants; eastern New England, specifically, also raises the first element of before voiceless consonants. All the local dialects of New England are also known for commonly pronouncing the unstressed sequences and as . This form of t-glottalization is found commonly in other parts of the country as well, like in the word "Britain". The extent that speakers raise the tongue in the English "short a vowel varies widely in New England; however, across the board, New England speakers demonstrate a definite "nasal" short-a system, in which the vowel is always raised the absolute strongest whenever occurring before the nasal consonants and . In all of New England except Rhode Island and southern Connecticut, the short a may also be noticeably raised in many other environments.
Vocabulary
The following terms originate from and are used commonly and nearly exclusively throughout New England:
grinder for sub, a long, large sandwich
package store or packie for liquor store
tag sale for garage sale or yard sale
rotary for traffic circle or roundabout
As in the rest of the Northeast, sneakers is the primary term for athletic shoes, and common typically before adjectives or adverbs, wicked is used as an intensifier word. Many Boston-originating local terms have dispersed throughout Eastern New England and, prominently, all the rest of Massachusetts.
Eastern New England English encompasses Boston and Maine accents, and, according to some sources, the distinct Rhode Island accent. All Eastern New England English is famous for non-rhoticity, meaning it drops the r sound everywhere except before a vowel: thus, in words like car, card, fear, and chowder. The phrase Park the car in Harvard Yard—dialectally transcribed —is commonly used as a shibboleth, or speech indicator, for the non-rhotic Eastern New England dialect running from Boston north to Maine, and as far west as Worcester, which contrasts with the generally rhotic dialects elsewhere in North America. In all of Eastern New England, except Rhode Island, words like caught and cot are pronounced identically, because those two vowel sounds have fully merged. A phenomenon called Canadian raising occurs throughout Eastern New England, causing writer to have a different stressed vowel sound than rider, and for the verb house to have a different vowel sound than the noun house. and have relatively back starting positions. The horse–hoarse distinction is still present to some extent in some areas, as well as the Mary–marry–merry distinction in many speakers.
Western New England English
Western New England English encompasses the accents of Vermont, western Massachusetts, and Connecticut. These accents are fully rhotic, meaning all r sounds are pronounced, as in most of North America. Here, and have slightly fronted starting positions, and the Mary–marry–merry merger and horse–hoarse merger are fully complete. Western New England English exhibits the entire continuum for the cot–caught merger: a full merger is heard in its northern reaches and a full distinction at its southern reaches, including a transitional area in the middle. Western New England English is closely related to and influential on, but more conservative than, the Inland North dialect which prevails farther west, and which has altered away from Western New England English due to an entirely new chain shift of the vowels since the 1900s. Some Western New England English speakers do have these shift's features, though it is disputed whether New England influenced the Inland North dialect region.
