This week we explore the various accents of Eastern Massachusetts. Do you have an accent? Tell us about it and your experience outside of your hometown. Send us a comment or email about what you hear on the streets of Boston and other towns.
Check out the International Dialect of English Archive’s compilation of Massachusetts dialects.
Listen to the full show:
Radio Boston: Got an Accent?
Airdate: February 15, 2008
Guests:
John McCarthy, Professor of Linguistics at UMass Amherst
Rebekah Maggor, Director of the program in speaking and learning at Harvard University, and associate editor for the International Dialects of English Archive
Naomi Nagy, Professor of linguistics at the University of New Hampshire, and joined us in the Radio Boston web chat room
I read in that book Cousins Wars by Kenneth… Somebody that the Boston accent was related to the English area of East Anglia where the settlers in Massachusetts came from and that you could relate the Boston accent to the East Anglia accent. (The larger point was that English dissenters made up more of Massachusetts settlers, and that’s why revolution was so hot in Boston.) So it would be cool to find an English regional accent that related.
Massachusetts has many accents….People in Boston don’t sound like people in Barre who don’t sound like people in Springfield. And certainly the Berkshires sounds like New York.
I believe the Massachusetts accent you describe is really the Boston accent and though people inside 128 don’t think the rest of the state exists, it does, and we all know how to pronounce our r’s. I have lived in Massachusetts all of my life and when I travel no one ever says I have a Massachusetts accent.
I have lived in Massachusetts almost my whole life, growing up in Chelmsford, then living everywhere from New Bedford to Waltham to Pepperell. I have always been “accused” of having a Boston accent, even though no one else in my family does. I have no idea where I got it from, but because it has been pointed out so often I do notice it now. I went to college in PA and remember my friends actually surrounding me in the dining hall once asking me to say differet words (which was funny since most of them had very thick Jersey accents!).
I don’t think as many people from MA have an accent as one would believe..none of my friends do and the fact that I get poked fun at for mine proves it isn’t that common. I think those without an accent outnumber the ones who do have one. I also think there are variations of the accent…you have the people who have THICK accents, then you have those like me who might drop their R’s, but don’t have the stereotypical accent.
One thing that does annoy me to no end about the Boston accent is how many actors try to duplicate it on TV and in the movies…it always comes out horrible and I wish they wouldn’t even try! I have yet to hear a convincing Boston accent from a non-Bostonian!
I think it is much more a social and economic question: Those who are more affluent and live in leafy suburbs do in fact sound as if they grew up in California.
I would not call not pronouncing r’s an accent.I would call it uneducated.
Eric,
It’s so interesting that you point out the East Anglia connection… that happens to be part of what I’m looking into for this show. Different linguists have pointed me to different parts of England when looking for the source of the “Boston” accent.
Check out these voice samples I found on the BBC:
1) East Anglia (as you noted)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/individual/suffolk-edwardstone-haylock-charlie.shtml
2) Lincolnshire (as one BC professor believes is the root of the Boston Brahmin accent)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/lincolnshire/4007531.stm
3) Devonshire (as a root of the more general ‘American’ accent… I hear strong strains of Maine in this one)
http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/text-only/england/peter-tavy/
Granted, early migration patterns from England to the colonies were variable and complicated. But my guess is that Massachusetts is a mix of all these UK dialects, whereas in other parts of the country you’ll hear more German, Swedish, etc.
What do you make of it?
Joan says:
I was born and raised in Hingham but have lived in Venezuela since the early 70’s. I remember when I was a first teaching English here, my Venezuelan students couldn’t understand what “cafully” meant. I didn’t even realize that that was how I was pronouncing “carefully”!  Even after so many years away and speaking four languages, I can’t hide where I’m from! I listen to your program on line when I can. Congratulations for the show.
Hm. I get the dropped R from that first link. I wonder where the lengthened, twangy “A” comes from.
That last one the “American” accent was very odd!
Lots of Email to the Radio Boston In Box….
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John from Abington:
I don’t think people should try and get rid of their Boston accents.
I travel on business frequently and I used to be extremely self conscious of my accent, to the extent that I tried to modify it. But, that made me equally uncomfortable, so now, I make no attempt at modification and wear it as a badge of honor and pride, for the great place I come from.
When people comment on my accent I tell them that THEY are wrong. When a Midwesterner says I don’t pronounce my R’s, I reply that they pronounce their O’s wrong; they say it like Ah.
Edward from Milton has this hair to split:
–
I’m from East Boston/Revere, where our accent is quite different from Southie’s, more like Medford’s. Your caller from Northampton (who thinks she has no accent) pronounced the state Massachoozetts, which is a big pet peeve of mine. I thought it was only non-natives that pronounced it that way.
Â
Edward Onessimo (oh-NESS-ah-moe)
Milton, MA
Brian, a long-horn transplant, says his first Boston experience was:
—
“Soon after I got to New England for college — from Texas –my friends and I met a girl at Faneuil Hall, of all places, who started to talk to us about the ahminavy game. I didn’t know what ahminavy was or how you played it. I had to make her repeat it about ten times before I got it.”
Neil from another notorious R-dropping area wrote:
–
“Dave!
Here’s one for you! I’m from Long Island, have a soft “Long Island” accent, and have lived in Central Mass for about 20 years. People tell me that they can hear my accent, but it isn’t that “bad”.
Anyway, I’ve noticed that people from Worcester, when they agree to something that someone else has said, say “so DON’T I” instead of “so DO I”. And it seems that when I point it out, people from the rest of Massachusetts never knew this, but agree its local to Worcester and is funny and wrong.
Neil Vigliotta
Sutton, MA”
And there’s this theory from Sandra:
—
“I moved here about 12 years ago and have developed the “Conservation of R’s” theory after listening to the accents here. Those r’s that are missing from words like “park” and “car” show up in other words like “area”, “Cuba”, “Lisa”. I’m glad to hear the show today.
Sandra C”
In another email, Hugh dares you to try this:
–
“I love to hear a Bostonian say “modern art”
Joe had this to say in an email:
1) In college, we had a French professor from outside of New England to teach for the first time in our area. The first thing he wrote on
the board was:
djeet chet
It took him a while but finally figured out this meant:
Did you eat yet?
2) Is it unique to Boston or even Dorchester, my hometown, for these types of changes?
I’ll go wicha for I’ll go with you - I never lost this one even after moving to Asia for 15 years
or
d for th like
anuda peanut buda sandwich for another peanut butter sandwich (and there is no t in peanut, just a glottal stop)