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Some Northeastern New England accents are unique in North America for having resisted what is known as father–bother merger: in other words, the stressed vowel phonemes of father and bother remain distinct as /a/ and /ɒ/, so that the two words do not rhyme as they do in most American accents.
A cultivated or elite Northeastern U.S. accent, one subset being a "Boston Brahmin accent" in Boston, was once associated with members of upper-class Northeastern (largely, New England and New York City) families in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
A Northeastern elite accent is any of the related American English accents used by members of the wealthy Northeastern elite born in the 19th century and early 20th century, which share significant features with Eastern New England English and Received Pronunciation (RP), the standard British accent.
New England English is, collectively, the various distinct dialects and varieties of American English originating in the New England area. [1] [2] Most of eastern and central New England once spoke the "Yankee dialect", some of whose accent features still remain in Eastern New England today, such as "R-dropping" (though this and other features are now receding among younger speakers). [3]
Boston was the American center for training in elocution, public speaking, and acting at this time; [18] [10] [2] therefore, these Northeastern-originated accents also likely contributed to the sound then becoming popular in the American theatre. In particular, the accents of the Northeastern elite already held established connotations of high ...
The early 20th-century accent of the Inland North was the basis for the term "General American", [6] [7] though the regional accent has since altered, due to the Northern Cities Vowel Shift: its now-defining chain shift of vowels that began in the 1930s or possibly earlier. [8]
Mid-Atlantic accent or Transatlantic accent may refer to: Good American Speech, a consciously learned American accent incorporating British features, mostly associated with early 20th-century actors and announcers; Northeastern elite accent, an accent of the Northeastern elite of the United States born between the 19th century and early 20th ...
A Boston accent is a local accent of Eastern New England English, native specifically to the city of Boston and its suburbs. Northeastern New England English is classified as traditionally including New Hampshire, Maine, and all of eastern Massachusetts, while some uniquely local vocabulary appears only around Boston.