Baltimore accent

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A Baltimore accent, also known as Baltimorese and sometimes humorously spelled Bawlmerese [1] or Ballimorese, [2] is an accent or sub-variety of Delaware Valley English (a dialect whose largest hub is Philadelphia) that originates among blue-collar residents of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It extends into the Baltimore metropolitan area and northeastern Maryland. [3] [4] [5]

Contents

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 white blue-collar residents closely resembles blue-collar Philadelphia-area English pronunciation in many ways. These two cities are the only major ports on the Eastern Seaboard never to have developed non-rhotic speech among European American speakers; they were greatly influenced in their early development by Hiberno-English, Scottish English, and West Country English. Due to the significant similarity between the speeches of Baltimore, Philadelphia, Delaware and southern New Jersey, sociolinguists refer to them collectively as the Mid-Atlantic regional dialect. [7] In Baltimore accents, sounds around /r/ are often "smoothed" or elided. For example, a word like bureau is commonly pronounced /ˈbiroʊ/ (e.g., Federal Beer-o of Investigation) and mirror is commonly pronounced /mir/ ("mere"); the related mare–mayor merger also exists.

Vowels

/æ/ raising in North American English [11]
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] [D]
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]
Otherwiseas, back, happy,
locality		[ æ ] [E]
  1. 1 2 3 4 In New York City and Philadelphia, most function words (am, can, had, etc.) and some learned or less common words (alas, carafe, lad, etc.) have [æ]. [16]
  2. ↑ In Philadelphia, the irregular verbs began, ran, and swam have [æ]. [17]
  3. ↑ In Philadelphia, bad, mad, and glad alone in this context have [ɛə]. [16]
  4. 1 2 The untensed /æ/ may be lowered and retracted as much as [ ä ] in varieties affected by the Low Back Merger Shift, mainly predominant in Canada and the American West. [24]
  5. ↑ In New York City, certain lexical exceptions exist (like avenue being tense) and variability is common before /dʒ/ and /z/ as in imagine, magic, and jazz. [26]
    In New Orleans, [ɛə] additionally occurs before /v/ and /z/. [27]

Consonants

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.

African-American Baltimore English includes the words ard for "alright", 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.

Notable examples of native speakers

Lifelong speakers

Films

The films of John Waters, many of which have been filmed in and around Baltimore, often attempt to capture the Baltimore accent, particularly the early films. For example, John Waters uses his own Baltimore accent in the commentary during his film Pink Flamingos . [34] John Travolta's character in the 2007 version of John Waters's Hairspray spoke with an exaggerated Baltimore accent. Likewise, several of the films of Barry Levinson are set in and around Baltimore during the 1940s-1960s, and employ the Baltimore accent. Michael Tucker who was born and raised in Baltimore, speaks with a West Baltimore accent.

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 his ESPN Radio show or SportsCenter at Night , Scott Van Pelt always ended his segments with Tim Kurkjian by mentioning names in a Baltimore accent featuring at least one fronted 'o'. [43]

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

Jason La Canfora, host of the B-More Opinionated [44] podcast with Jerry Coleman and resident of Dundalk, regularly discussed events of the National Football League for The Tony Kornheiser Show podcast and will end the segment plugging his own podcast in a heavy Baltimore accent. The accent is so distinct that his dog, Copper, will react to it, barking constantly because he knows it is time for a walk.

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western American English</span> Dialect of American English

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Midland American English</span> Variety of English spoken in the United States

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern American English</span> Class of historically related American English dialects

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York accent</span> Sound system of New York City English

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The Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change is a 2006 book that presents an overview of the pronunciation patterns (accents) in all the major dialect regions of the English language as spoken in urban areas of the United States and Canada. It is the result of a large-scale survey by linguists William Labov, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg. Speech data was collected, mainly during the 1990s, by means of telephone interviews with individuals in metropolitan areas in all regions of the U.S. and Canada. Using acoustic analysis of speech from these interviews, ANAE traces sound changes in progress in North American English, and defines boundaries between dialect regions based on the different sound changes taking place in them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Standard Canadian English</span> Variety of Canadian English

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Western New England English refers to the varieties of New England English native to Vermont, Connecticut, and the western half of Massachusetts; New York State's Hudson Valley also aligns to this classification. Sound patterns historically associated with Western New England English include the features of rhoticity, the horse–hoarse merger, and the father–bother merger, none of which are features traditionally shared in neighboring Eastern New England English. The status of the cot–caught merger in Western New England is inconsistent, being complete in the north of this dialect region (Vermont), but incomplete or absent in the south, with a "cot–caught approximation" in the middle area.

In the sociolinguistics of the English language, raising or short-a raising is a phenomenon by which the "short a" vowel, the TRAP/BATH vowel, is pronounced with a raising of the tongue. In most American and many Canadian English accents, raising is specifically tensing: a combination of greater raising, fronting, lengthening, and gliding that occurs only in certain phonological environments or certain words. The most common context for tensing throughout North American English, regardless of dialect, is when this vowel appears before a nasal consonant.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Hold up, 'Hon': Baltimore's black vernacular youthful, dynamic if less recognized than 'Bawlmerese'".
  2. ↑ Leggett, Debbie A. (2016) "Drinking Natty Boh and speaking Ballimorese ‘Hon." Tipsy Linguist. Tipsy Linguist.
  3. ↑ Labov, William (2007) "Transmission and Diffusion", Language June 2007 p. 64
  4. ↑ 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.
  5. ↑ "The Relevatory Power of Language". Maryland Humanities Council. April 14, 2017.
  6. ↑ Jones, Taylor (2020). Variation in African American English: The great migration and regional differentiation (Doctoral dissertation), University of Pennsylvania, pp. 158, 239.
  7. ↑ "Phonological Atlas of North America". www.ling.upenn.edu. Retrieved 4 December 2018.
  8. ↑ "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.
  9. ↑ New York City and the Mid-Atlantic States
  10. ↑ 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.
  11. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 182.
  12. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 173–174.
  13. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 173–174, 260–261.
  14. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 173–174, 238–239.
  15. 1 2 3 Duncan (2016), pp. 1–2.
  16. 1 2 Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 173.
  17. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 238.
  18. 1 2 Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 178, 180.
  19. 1 2 Boberg (2008), p. 145.
  20. ↑ Duncan (2016), pp. 1–2; Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 175–177.
  21. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), p. 183.
  22. ↑ Baker, Mielke & Archangeli (2008).
  23. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 181–182.
  24. ↑ Boberg (2008), pp. 130, 136–137.
  25. 1 2 Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006), pp. 82, 123, 177, 179.
  26. ↑ Labov (2007), p. 359.
  27. ↑ Labov (2007), p. 373.
  28. 1 2 Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (2005). The Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change. Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN   978-3-11-020683-8.
  29. ↑ 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.
  30. ↑ 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.
  31. ↑ "How Baltimore talks". The Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on 2022-08-07. Retrieved 2017-12-02.
  32. ↑ 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
  33. 1 2 DeShields, Inte'a (17 May 2011). "Baldamor, Curry, and Dug': Language Variation, Culture, and Identity among African American Baltimoreans". Podcast. Retrieved 17 July 2011.
  34. ↑ "Pink Flamingos/Fun Facts - The Grindhouse Cinema Database". www.grindhousedatabase.com. Retrieved 4 December 2018.
  35. ↑ Kaltenbach, Chris. "21 actors who appeared on both 'Homicide' and 'The Wire'". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 2017-12-02.
  36. ↑ Manas Burna (2016-02-27), Homicide S01E05 Three Men and Adena, archived from the original on 2021-12-22, retrieved 2017-12-02
  37. ↑ "The Stoops". The Tracey Ullman Show. Archived from the original on 2021-12-22.
  38. ↑ "I Do Do". 30 Rock. Archived from the original on 2021-12-22.
  39. ↑ Bartel, Jordan (October 15, 2014). "'American Horror Story': The curious case of Kathy Bates' Baltimore-ish accent". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved 25 November 2015.
  40. ↑ 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.
  41. ↑ Bates, Kathy [@MsKathyBates] (9 October 2014). "@gliattoT People online. Just to clear up the mystery, my accent is Baltimore not "broad Canadian." :-)" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  42. ↑ "Kathy Bates's accent is the strangest on TV. So we asked a linguist to place it". Vox. Retrieved 2017-12-02.
  43. ↑ "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.
  44. ↑ "B-More Opinionated! – B-More Opinionated Podcast". 2019-02-03. Archived from the original on 2019-02-03. Retrieved 2020-08-11.

Bibliography

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