The so-called Boston accent, which many know from nothing more first-hand than "Family Guy" or "The Departed", is not limited to Boston, nor does it cover all of New England. In fact, it often has more in common with the various accents of Metro New York than it does with the rest of its own region.
Boston Accent: Origins
The Boston accent, as well as the various accents of New York City, are nothing organic or original. They did not form from successive waves of immigration, nor did they evolve from centuries of isolation from England. In fact, it is quite the opposite.
The Boston and New York accents in fact come from a 19th Century effort on behalf of the upper crust of those cities to sound more English. It was a trend during Queen Victoria's reign known as "Anglomania". French girls wore English curls in their hair, German men wore English attire, American townspeople built Victorian mansions and cottages, and people in Boston and New York attempted to keep up with the Joneses across the Pond by modifying their own manner of speaking. The terrible accents which we are left hearing today are a result of the rest of the cities' populations following suit and imitating their local millionaires (who of course themselves were no more than imitating others thousands of miles away).
The present-day boundaries of the Boston accent have spread dramatically, fueled in large part by longer commutes within Boston's own tri-state (now virtually quad-state) metro area. Many a present-day Bostonian will also tell you that that irritating accent comes in from the areas surrounding Boston more than from within the city. This is also largely true, as the people who once filled the city proper (many of them Irish) have since become suburbanized.
The really harsh, unique Boston accent then covers the metro Boston area. However, the accent - and less pronounced variants thereof - also covers the North Shore and South Shore of Massachusetts; Worcester, MA; Rhode Island, and areas of Southern New Hampshire and Maine where I-93 and I-95 bring commuters back and forth from work in Boston. This linguistic sphere of influence roughly covers the area within the red line. Worcester, which is on the outer limits of said sphere, is said by some to be the worst offender, with the local edition of the "Boston" accent actually sounding like a made-up exaggeration of the real thing. Someone who lives within one of these localities may be able to tell the differences from one area to the next. I personally think every accent within the red line sounds virtually the same as the next, with varying degrees of separation from standard American English.
Outside of Boston
Now here when I write Boston, I mean everything within the red line. I mean honestly, it is the same local culture, the same Boston-centric economy, and the same grouping of accents.
New England outside of Boston would be everything outside the red line, including Western Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, most of New Hampshire, and most of Maine.
If anyone from outside New England were to go to Western Massachusetts, the only way they would know they were even in Massachusetts would be the iconic white signs posted on each road as one enters and leaves a town. It lies between Connecticut and Vermont, and borders upstate New York, is in some places over 100 miles from the Atlantic, and contains only about 1/10 of the state's population. They may be mostly Sox fans, but you will not hear any talk about "wicked pissahs" unless you are on the state university's campus, and the one doing the talking is some suburban kid from the Boston area.
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| This is Massachusetts - Conway, Massachusetts |
The Pioneer Valley of Western Mass is a hub of higher education, while the famed Berkshires region is known for vacationing New Yorkers and reclusive artists. New Hampshire has a southeastern region which is essentially a Boston suburb, while the rest of the state remains largely rural. Vermont is very rural, with only a few large towns or small cities. Between the 1960s and now, both New Hampshire and Vermont have been havens for urban refugees, often with a split along ideological lines. More conservative migrants have settled in New Hampshire, while more liberal and progressive individuals moved to Vermont.
While all of these places did have scores of Yankee farmers with their own rural New England accents (my late great-grandfather comes to mind), decades of children moving to the cities and urban refugees moving in have greatly standardized the accents of these areas of New England.
Connecticut really blends into the background here, with most residents possessing a vaguely northeastern manner of speaking. Of course, this changes slightly where the Hartford area hits the Springfield, MA area along I-91 (see yellow area on map). Here, on both sides of the state line (especially in and around Springfield, MA) long-time residents have a strikingly and inexplicably Upper Midwestern accent. Seriously. Do not ask me why. It sounds like a massive number of people from Michigan and Chicago just moved into this one particular area. Don't believe me? Go on YouTube and look up a clip of Congressman Peter Welch speaking. Though a long-time resident of Vermont and its current man in the House, he still retains his accent from his childhood in West Springfield.
Maine - well, the Maine accent could take up a whole book by itself. The southern corner of the state is largely filled with people who commute to Boston and former Massachusetts residents who have built beach houses on the shore there. From there north, you move into Downeast Maine, which is also a tourist area. Maine is known for words like "ayuh" for yes, and is probably the best image one could have in mind for a coastal Yankee. As far as the accents go, look at it this way: the state goes from one side being a 20-minute drive from Eastern Mass the other protruding into Atlantic Canada. Ayuh indeed.
Well, this has been a crash course in New England accents and it should provide a good background to readers for any future region-specific rants. While any one of the areas mentioned merits a book of its own, I wanted to give a brief overview of them all to illustrate one very important point:
WE ARE NOT ALL FROM BOSTON!
We do not all say "wicked pissah", "swayuhtuhgawd", or "fuckin' A"! Even if you are from Massachusetts, born and raised, it is quite possible to be minutes from Albany, and well over 100 miles from Boston. So please, the next time you meet some one from New England, and especially if that person is from Massachusetts, please do not ask them about things "back" in Boston!
Now, with all of that said, I look forward to all of your thoughts, especially the disagreements and commentary from my fellow New Englanders who have taken the time to read this. Bring on the critics!
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