[Dwatted Wabbit]

When that U.V. Burlington college gal was abducted and murdered, all the Vermonters interviewed on TV--police chief, college admin, etc.--had no discernable accent.
I've lived in NH, and many folk there still have the accent. Is the New England accent alive and well in Vermont?; were these just anomalies?
Thanks, accent is a big paaht of livin' in New England. Showwah iss, aaayyup!

[Saphyre]

That's one of my favorite things about New England - the accents!

vter, chaz, Jason - anyone?

[vter]

You hear the "farmer" accent in the more rural, agricultural towns. Other than that, we don't have accents as far as I can tell. In the Burlington area you hear quite a few New York & Boston accents.

[chaz longue]

There are at least 2 distinct VT accents I can pick out. One's the rural one vter mentions, and one's quite different. This other one sounds to me like The Old North End in Burlington or like Winooski, although you'll hear it everywhere. It's more closed mouthed, and the vowel sounds are different than the "farmer accent". Farmers pronounce "Cripes" Croipes, the first sylable rhyming with "Roy". North End residents say it more quickly and it comes out almost like Crieeps...

The sound of the letter T ( as in Barton ) comes out entirely differently in the Old North End than it does on a dairy farm. So do the vowel sounds...

[Jason_Els]

The Vermont accent is the ineffable. It's impossible to learn if you're not a native and doesn't seem to come from anywhere, but it does. There are, as Chaz pointed out, regional dialects. Eastern Vermonters tend to sound more like traditional New Englanders with broad vowels and alleded dipthongs. Kingdomers tend to have a bit of the French accent thrown in from their immediate neighbors to the north, and southern Vermonters can sound like northern New Yorkers or something like, but not quite, their Mass neighbors.

What's REALLY interesting is the accent from mid-Vermont. This accent holds traces of the London (UK) tendency to drop the 'r' in words that end in that letter. It's ok though. The missing 'r' will turn-up attached to words ending in long vowels so it doesn't really go missing.

The trademarks of the accent include: Broad "a" and "e" sounds, making calf sound more like "caaf" and there like "thair"; dropping of the post-vocalic "r," making farmer sound more like "farm-uh"; and the swallowing of "t" sounds made by a momentary closure of the glottis, making bottle and Milton sound more like "baht-ul" and "Milt-uhn." The Vermont dialect, like other New England accents, also can be identified by a tendency to add "r" to words like idea, making it into "idee-er."

- Burlington Free Press, February 28, 1995

That's the technical explanation, but the strange thing about a Vermont accent is that it's so unusual and difficult to pinpoint in your head that you assume the first few people you hear it from have speech impediments. It doesn't make an appearance in all words or sentences either so you usually have to talk to someone for a bit before you realize you're hearing it.

There are some excellent articles out there on the web about the Vermont accent including a bit about Rip Torn who was starring in a film about a native and got so frustrated at trying to get it right that he gave up.

I may be a poor judge however. I'm from New York beyond where the city accents used to reach, and we share some of the similarities usual to northeastern speaking. Perhaps its much easier for someone outside the northeast to pinpoint.

[vter]

Maybe I DO have an accent, LOL!

[arel]

I'm from Brooklyn, NY. When I lived in Vermont (White River Junction) I heard someone say to someone else that I had a "distinctive accent". No escape from the accent for me.

[harry chickpea]

The "accent" is not an accent as much as a throwback. My family on my mother's side had the strong VermonTerse. I can still speak it if pressed, but one of my backwoods cousins can't avoid using it even if he tries.

The Vermont accent is actually closer to the original English speech of the 17th and 18th centuries than it is a corruption of speech or localism. Rural Vermont was largely isolated from the time of the original settlement, and even the influxes of Irish and other dialects didn't reach all the way up into the hills. (uhl thu woia oup theyahh). There were other isolated areas of the country that retained the same speech.

Not to brag, but to show how sensitive my ear is, I can usually place people that I meet from all over the country within a few miles of where they grew up, just by listening to their speech for five minutes. However, I watched a "Dirty Jobs" episode on coal mining in Pennsylvania a while back, and was amazed to hear one of the miners. If my eyes had been closed, I would have mistaken him for my cousin. Every inflection was the same.

[Dwatted Wabbit]

Originally Posted by Jason_Els

The Vermont accent is the ineffable. It's impossible to learn if you're not a native and doesn't seem to come from anywhere, but it does. There are, as Chaz pointed out, regional dialects. Eastern Vermonters tend to sound more like traditional New Englanders with broad vowels and alleded dipthongs. Kingdomers tend to have a bit of the French accent thrown in from their immediate neighbors to the north, and southern Vermonters can sound like northern New Yorkers or something like, but not quite, their Mass neighbors.

What's REALLY interesting is the accent from mid-Vermont. This accent holds traces of the London (UK) tendency to drop the 'r' in words that end in that letter. It's ok though. The missing 'r' will turn-up attached to words ending in long vowels so it doesn't really go missing.


- Burlington Free Press, February 28, 1995

That's the technical explanation, but the strange thing about a Vermont accent is that it's so unusual and difficult to pinpoint in your head that you assume the first few people you hear it from have speech impediments. It doesn't make an appearance in all words or sentences either so you usually have to talk to someone for a bit before you realize you're hearing it.

There are some excellent articles out there on the web about the Vermont accent including a bit about Rip Torn who was starring in a film about a native and got so frustrated at trying to get it right that he gave up.

I may be a poor judge however. I'm from New York beyond where the city accents used to reach, and we share some of the similarities usual to northeastern speaking. Perhaps its much easier for someone outside the northeast to pinpoint.

So yohh from Waah-wick, aaayah!
My father grew up in Concord, NH, and retained his very strong New Hampshire accent no matter where he lived. In Michigan, my friends thought he was British. He paahkt the caah, but I don't recall his ever adding the R at the end of words ending in long vowels, as per above the "Mid-Vermont" accent. He never said aaayyup or aaayuh, probably thinking it a countrification or hickism, and not appropriate for a college educated Hampshirite.
Where we live now it's almost accent-free, i.e. near-dictionary English. When I lived in the south, such clarity was welcome. But with it everywhere, it gets quite boring and bland, and I long for an occasional ME/NH/VT ahhk-sent.

[Dwatted Wabbit]

Originally Posted by harry chickpea

The "accent" is not an accent as much as a throwback. My family on my mother's side had the strong VermonTerse. I can still speak it if pressed, but one of my backwoods cousins can't avoid using it even if he tries.

The Vermont accent is actually closer to the original English speech of the 17th and 18th centuries than it is a corruption of speech or localism. Rural Vermont was largely isolated from the time of the original settlement, and even the influxes of Irish and other dialects didn't reach all the way up into the hills. (uhl thu woia oup theyahh). There were other isolated areas of the country that retained the same speech.

Not to brag, but to show how sensitive my ear is, I can usually place people that I meet from all over the country within a few miles of where they grew up, just by listening to their speech for five minutes. However, I watched a "Dirty Jobs" episode on coal mining in Pennsylvania a while back, and was amazed to hear one of the miners. If my eyes had been closed, I would have mistaken him for my cousin. Every inflection was the same.

We'll have to have kaufee and tauwkk sometime. I'd like to know what I sound like, with some midwest and southern and perhaps a touch of New England thrown in.