Boston English
101
Main Characteristics
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
Non-rhotic

[r] does not appear at the end of a syllable or
immediately before a consonant

park [pɑ: k], car [kɑ:]
Linking R

[r] retained if the next word begins with a vowel

Car [kɑ:] park but car [kɑr] insurance

Intrusive R

[r] added after a word ending with a non-high vowel
if the next word begins with a vowel

"the tuner is" and "the tuna is" pronounced
identically
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

No father-bother merger

Father [fɑːðə]

Bother [bɒːðə]
No horse-hoarse merger

Horse [hɒːs]

Hoarse ['howəs]
Cot-caught merger

Cot, caught [kɒːt]
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Nasal short-a system

short a [æ] becomes diphthongized when followed
by nasal consonant

man [meən] planet [pleənət]
Broad A

similar to RP

aunt [ɑ: nt]
Clear distinction between short and long
vowels before medial [r]

marry [mæri], merry [mɛri], Mary [meəri]
Types of Boston accent

Linguist Robert L. Parslow identifies three
different Boston dialects

A: Average middle class speech. Heard throughout
Eastern New England

B: Brahmin. Most similar to RP, "ee" sound in words
like new, suit, due

C: Central city working class. Like A, more
intrusive R, more o vowel in words like washed,
potatoes becomes p'daydis
Lexicon

Wicked; a general intensifier


wicked good
Pissah; cool, often paired with wicked

That car is wicked pissah

Frappe; milkshake

Tonic; carbonated beverage

Grinder, spuckie; submarine sandwich

Puck; hamburger

Bubbler; drinking fountain

Packie; liquor store

Spa; convenience store

Rotary; traffic circle

Parlor; living room

Hopper; toilet or toilet seat
History


Settlers from East Anglia brought along their
distinctive flat-sounding nasal lengthening of
vowels in early 17th century
Non-rhoticity adopted in New England when
traditionally rhotic British English dialects were
starting to "soften".
In Media

Movies

The Departed

Mystic River

Good Will Hunting

The Friends of Eddie Coyle
Famous Speakers

Matt Damon, Mark Walhberg, Denis Leary, Ben
Affleck, Leonard Nimoy, Chick Corea, John F.
Kennedy, Michael Bloomberg, John Kerry
Samples

Whatayou, retahdid?

The Perfect Boston Accent on Youtube

The Speech Accent Archive

The Boston Accent on Boston.com
Sources
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

Boston accent. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Last
updated 17 November 2008
Fitzpatrick, Jim. Beantown Babble. American Voices: How
Dialects Differ from Coast to Coast. Eds. Wolfram, Walt,
Ward, Ben. Blackwell Publishing, 2006
Irwin, Patricia, Nagy, Naomi. "Bostonians /r/ speaking: A
Quantitative look at (R) in Boston". Penn Working Papers in
Linguistics 13.2 Selected papers from NWAV 35


Metcalf, Allan A. How We Talk: American Regional English
Today. Houghton Mifflin Reference Books, 2000
Wolfram, Walt, Schilling-Estes, Natalie. American English:
Dialects and Variation. Blackwell Publishing, 2006