Baltimore accent
A Baltimore accent, also known as Baltimorese (sometimes phonetically written Bawlmerese
At the same time, there is considerable linguistic diversity within Baltimore, which complicates the notion of a singular "Baltimore accent".[1] According to linguists, the accent of white blue-collar Baltimoreans is different than the African-American Vernacular English accent of black Baltimoreans.[6] White working-class families who migrated out of Baltimore to the northwestern suburbs brought local pronunciations with them.
Pronunciation
The Baltimore accent that originated among
Vowels
- Several vowels undergo fronting. /aʊ/ fronts to [ɛɔ] or [æɔ]. /uː/ fronts to [ʉu].[8] Similarly, /oʊ/ shifts to [əʊ] or even [eʊ]. When word-final and spelled as -ow, it is pronounced like /ə/, resulting in colloquial or humorous spellings like pilla for pillow and winda for window.
- No cot–caught merger: The words cot /ɑ/ and caught /ɔ/ do not rhyme, with the latter vowel maintaining a raised position. Likewise, the word on rhymes with dawn and not don.
- As in Philadelphia, the word water is often pronounced as wooder [ˈwʊɾɚ] or, more uniquely, warter [ˈwɔɻɾɚ].
- As in most Mid-Atlantic cities, short a is pronounced with a phonemic split: for example, the word sad /sæd/ does not rhyme with the word mad /meəd/. Pronunciation is dependent upon a complex system of rules that differ from city to city.[9] Baltimore follows the Philadelphia pattern.[10] For more details on the Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore systems see /æ/ raising.
Following consonant |
Example words[12] |
New York City, New Orleans[13] |
Baltimore, Philadelphia[14] |
Midland US, New England, Pittsburgh, Western US |
Southern US |
Canada, Northern Mountain US |
Minnesota, Wisconsin |
Great Lakes US | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Non-prevocalic /m, n/ |
fan, lamb, stand | [ɛə][15][A][B] | [ɛə][15] | [ɛə~ɛjə][18] | [ɛə][19] | [ɛə][20] | |||
Prevocalic /m, n/ |
animal, planet, Spanish |
[æ] | |||||||
/ŋ/[21] | frank, language | [ɛː~eɪ~æ][22] | [æ~æɛə][18] | [ɛː~ɛj][19] | [eː~ej][23] | ||||
Non-prevocalic /ɡ/ |
bag, drag | [ɛə][A] | [æ][C] | [æ][15] | |||||
Prevocalic /ɡ/ | dragon, magazine | [æ] | |||||||
Non-prevocalic /b, d, ʃ/ |
grab, flash, sad | [ɛə][A] | [æ][D][25] | [ɛə][25] | |||||
Non-prevocalic /f, θ, s/ |
ask, bath, half, glass |
[ɛə][A] | |||||||
Otherwise | as, back, happy, locality |
[æ][E] | |||||||
|
- The /ɑr/ vowel in words like start is often raised and backed, resulting in a vowel close to /ɔ/. Likewise, /ɔr/ as in bore[dubious ] can shift as high as /ʊr/ as in boor. This pattern has also been noted to occur in Philadelphia and New York.[28]
- Canadian raising occurs for /aɪ/ before voiceless consonants, as in Philadelphia; for instance, the word like [ɫʌɪk] begins with a higher nucleus than live [ɫaɪv].[28]
- On the other hand, /aɪ/ may undergo smoothing before liquids, becoming [ɑ] before /r/ and /l/; e.g., fire is pronounced as [fɑɻ], in which a popular Baltimore Christmas joke: "Why were the Three Wise Men covered with soot?" "Because they came from afar."
- [ə] is often eliminated entirely from a word when before a consonant; e.g. Annapolis = Naplis, cigarette = cigrette, company = compny, Italy = Itly.
Consonants
- Th–stopping occurs, where the dental fricatives /θ, ð/ may be realized as stops (/t, d/ respectively); for instance, this may sound more like diss.
- L–vocalization is common at the end of a word. The sound /l/ is often replaced by the semivowel or glide [w] and/or [o] or [ʊ]. Pronunciation of words like middle and college become [ˈmɪdo] and [ˈkɑwɪdʒ] respectively.
- Epenthetic /r/ often occurs; notably, wash is pronounced as [wɑɻʃ], popularly written as warsh, and Washington is pronounced as Warshington.
- As is common in many US dialects, /t/ is frequently elided after /n/, thus hunter is pronounced [ˈhʌnɚ].
Lexicon
The following is a list of words and phrases used in the Baltimore area that are used much less or differently in other American English dialects.
- down the ocean – (eye-dialect spellings include dayown the ocean or downy ocean) "down to/on/at the ocean", often Ocean City, Maryland.
- hon – a popular term of endearment, short for honey, often used at the end of a sentence. This word has been a popular marker of Baltimore culture, as represented in the annual Honfest summer festival and in landmarks such as the Hontown store and the Café Hon restaurant.[29]
- natty boh – local slang for the beer originally brewed in Baltimore, National Bohemian.
- pavement (commonly pronounced "payment") – means "sidewalk" (which is used rarely).
- went up (shortened from "went up to heaven") – commonly used when an appliance dies; e.g., our refrigerator went up
- yo – as a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun[1][30]
African-American Baltimore English includes the words lor for "little",[31] rey for ready (associated with Baltimore users of Black Twitter),[32] and woe for a close friend.
African-American variations
According to linguists, the "hon" dialect that is popularized in the media and that derives historically from the speech of by white blue-collar residents of South and Southeast Baltimore is not the only accent spoken in the region. There is also a particular Baltimore accent found among Black Baltimoreans: a sub-type of African-American Vernacular English.[33]
For example, among Black speakers, Baltimore is pronounced more like "Baldamore" /ˌbɔldəˈmɔr/, as compared to "Bawlmer" /ˈbɔlmər/. Other notable phonological characteristics include vowel centralization before /r/ (such that words such as "carry" and "parents" are often pronounced as "curry" or "purrents", and "Aaron earned an iron urn" might sound like "Urrun urned an urn urn") and the mid-centralization of /ɑ/, particularly in the word "dog," often pronounced like "dug," and "frog" as "frug."[1][33] The African-American Baltimore accent, or a variation thereof, is also shared by many African Americans throughout Maryland and the Washington metropolitan area.
Although the white Baltimore accent has historically been analyzed and popularized in media more than the African-American Baltimore accent, the latter has since gained fame on the internet through internet memes spread through social media, such as the "Baltimore accent challenge" and a video of a Baltimorean barber speaking and singing in an exaggerated Baltimore accent that has become popular as a meme on YouTube.[citation needed]
Notable examples of native speakers
Lifelong speakers
- Ben Cardin – Maryland U.S. Senator (2007–present)
- Mary Pat Clarke – Baltimore City Councilwoman (1975–2020)
- Divine – actor
- Charley Eckman – NBA coach and referee, sportscaster
- Mel Kiper Jr. – Football analyst for ESPN
- Barbara Mikulski – Maryland U.S. Senator (1987– 2017)
- Felicia Pearson – actress on The Wire
- Babe Ruth – Baseball Hall of Famer
- John Waters – filmmaker
- Nancy Pelosi – former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
- Stavros Halkias – Stand-up Comedian
In popular culture
Films
The films of
Television
Television drama series Homicide: Life on the Street and The Wire are both set in Baltimore and in some cases include actors who are native white and black Baltimoreans.[35] In the early Homicide: Life on the Street episode "Three Men and Adena", a suspect, Risley Tucker, describes how he can tell whereabouts in or around the city a person comes from simply by whether they pronounce the city's name as "Balti-maw", "Balti-moh", or "Bawl-mer".[36]
In Season 4, Episode 7 of The Tracey Ullman Show, Baltimore actor Michael Tucker portrays the father of Ullman's character JoJo. The skit is set in a Baltimore row house. Tucker advises Ullman to "take a Liverpool accent and Americanize it." The episode called "The Stoops" begins with Tracey washing her marble stoops, which are the most common small porches attached to most Baltimore town homes (called row houses in Baltimore).[37]
In the 30 Rock episode, "I Do Do", Elizabeth Banks parodies the accent by portraying Avery Jessup, the spokesperson for the fictional Overshoppe.com in a flashback scene.[38]
Kathy Bates' character on the "Freak Show" season of American Horror Story was inspired by a Baltimore accent.[39][40][41][42]
Whether it was on
Music
Singer-songwriter Mary Prankster uses several examples of Baltimore slang in her song, "Blue Skies Over Dundalk," from the album of the same name, including, "There'll be O's fans going downy ocean, hon."
Podcasts
See also
- Culture of Baltimore
- List of people from Baltimore
- Regional vocabularies of American English
References
- ^ a b c d "Hold up, 'Hon': Baltimore's black vernacular youthful, dynamic if less recognized than 'Bawlmerese'".
- ^ Leggett, Debbie A. (2016) "Drinking Natty Boh and speaking Ballimorese ‘Hon." Tipsy Linguist. Tipsy Linguist.
- ^ Labov, William (2007) "Transmission and Diffusion", Language June 2007 p. 64
- ^ Malady, Matthew J.X. (2014-04-29). "Where Yinz At; Why Pennsylvania is the most linguistically rich state in the country". The Slate Group. Retrieved 2015-06-12.
- ^ "The Relevatory Power of Language". Maryland Humanities Council. April 14, 2017.
- ^ Jones, Taylor (2020). Variation in African American English: The great migration and regional differentiation (Doctoral dissertation), University of Pennsylvania, pp. 158, 239.
- ^ "Phonological Atlas of North America". www.ling.upenn.edu. Retrieved 4 December 2018.
- ^ "Dew as you dew: Baltimore Accent and The Wire". Word. The Online Journal on African American English. 2012-08-15. Archived from the original on 2013-07-08.
- ^ New York City and the Mid-Atlantic States
- ^ Ash, Sharon. 2002. “The Distribution of a Phonemic Split in the Mid-Atlantic Region: Yet More on Short a.” In “Selected Papers from NWAV 30,” edited by Sudha Arunachalam, Elsi Kaiser, Daniel Ezra Johnson, Tara Sanchez, and Alexander Williams. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 8.3: 1–15. http:// repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol8/iss3/2.
- ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 182.
- ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 173–174.
- ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 173–174, 260–261.
- ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 173–174, 238–239.
- ^ a b c Duncan (2016), pp. 1–2.
- ^ a b Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 173.
- ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 238.
- ^ a b Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 178, 180.
- ^ a b Boberg (2008), p. 145.
- ^ Duncan (2016), pp. 1–2; Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 175–177.
- ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 183.
- ^ Baker, Mielke & Archangeli (2008).
- ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 181–182.
- ^ Boberg (2008), pp. 130, 136–137.
- ^ a b Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 82, 123, 177, 179.
- ^ Labov (2007), p. 359.
- ^ Labov (2007), p. 373.
- ^ ISBN 978-3-11-020683-8.
- ^ Rizzo, M. (2010). Hon-ouring the past: play-publics and gender at Baltimore's HonFest. International Journal Of Heritage Studies, 16(4-5), 337-351.
- ^ Stotko, E. M., & Troyer, M. (2007). A new gender-neutral pronoun in Baltimore, Maryland: A preliminary study. American Speech: A Quarterly of Linguistic Usage, 82(3), 262.
- ^ "How Baltimore talks". The Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on 2022-08-07. Retrieved 2017-12-02.
- ^ Jones, T. (2015) Toward a description of African American Vernacular English dialect regions using “Black Twitter.” American Speech, 90(4): 403-440. doi:10.1215/00031283-3442117
- ^ a b DeShields, Inte'a. "Baldamor, Curry, and Dug': Language Variation, Culture, and Identity among African American Baltimoreans". Podcast. Retrieved 17 July 2011.
- ^ "Pink Flamingos/Fun Facts - The Grindhouse Cinema Database". www.grindhousedatabase.com. Retrieved 4 December 2018.
- ^ Kaltenbach, Chris. "21 actors who appeared on both 'Homicide' and 'The Wire'". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 2017-12-02.
- ^ Manas Burna (2016-02-27), Homicide S01E05 Three Men and Adena, archived from the original on 2021-12-22, retrieved 2017-12-02
- ^ "The Stoops". The Tracey Ullman Show. Archived from the original on 2021-12-22.
- ^ "I Do Do". 30 Rock. Archived from the original on 2021-12-22.
- ^ Bartel, Jordan (October 15, 2014). "'American Horror Story': The curious case of Kathy Bates' Baltimore-ish accent". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 25 November 2015.
- ^ Schremph, Kelly (October 8, 2014). "Kathy Bates' Accent on 'AHS: Freak Show' Is an Enigma That Needs to Be Unraveled". Bustle. Retrieved 25 November 2015.
- ^ Bates, Kathy [@MsKathyBates] (October 9, 2014). "@gliattoT People online. Just to clear up the mystery, my accent is Baltimore not "broad Canadian." :-)" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- ^ "Kathy Bates's accent is the strangest on TV. So we asked a linguist to place it". Vox. Retrieved 2017-12-02.
- ^ "Scott Van Pelt uses his Baltimore accent to turn Tim Kurkjian into a giggling child". For The Win. 2015-09-15. Retrieved 2017-11-30.
- ^ "B-More Opinionated! – B-More Opinionated Podcast". 2019-02-03. Archived from the original on 2019-02-03. Retrieved 2020-08-11.
Bibliography
- Baker, Adam; Mielke, Jeff; Archangeli, Diana (2008). "More velar than /g/: Consonant Coarticulation as a Cause of Diphthongization" (PDF). In Chang, Charles B.; Haynie, Hannah J. (eds.). Proceedings of the 26th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics. Somerville, Massachusetts: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. pp. 60–68. ISBN 978-1-57473-423-2.
- Boberg, Charles (2008). "Regional phonetic differentiation in Standard Canadian English". Journal of English Linguistics. 36 (2): 129–154. S2CID 146478485.
- Duncan, Daniel (2016). "'Tense' /æ/ is still lax: A phonotactics study" (PDF). In Hansson, Gunnar Ólafur; Farris-Trimble, Ashley; McMullin, Kevin; Pulleyblank, Douglas (eds.). Supplemental Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Meeting on Phonology. Vol. 3. Washington, D.C.: Linguistic Society of America. )
- Labov, William (2007). "Transmission and Diffusion" (PDF). Language. 83 (2): 344–387. S2CID 6255506.
- Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (2006). ISBN 978-3-11-016746-7.
External links
- Baltimore Hon (A through dictionary of Baltimorese)
- Baltimorese (with some audio)
- "The Mid-Atlantic Dialects", Evolution Publishing
- In March 2011, the VOA Special English service of the Voice of America broadcast a 15-minute feature on Bawlmerese, written and voiced by longtime VOA Special English announcer, photographer, voice-over artist, and Baltimore native Steve Ember. A transcript and MP3 of the program – intended for those want to learn American English – can be found at An Extended Lesson in Bawlmerese