Baltimore dialect

A Baltimore accent, also known as Baltimorese and sometimes humorously spelled Bawlmerese
or Ballimorese, 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."The Relevatory Power of Language"
''Maryland Humanities Council''. April 14, 2017.

At the same time, there is considerable linguistic diversity within Baltimore, which complicates the notion of a singular "Baltimore accent". According to linguists, the accent of white blue-collar Baltimoreans is different from the African-American Vernacular English accent of Black Baltimoreans. 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. In Baltimore accents, sounds around are often "smoothed" or elided. For example, a word like ''bureau'' is commonly pronounced (e.g., Federal ''Beer-o'' of Investigation) and ''mirror'' is commonly pronounced ("mere"); the related mare–mayor merger also exists.

Vowels

*Several vowels undergo fronting. fronts to or . fronts to . Similarly, shifts to or even . When word-final and spelled as ''-ow'', it is pronounced like , resulting in colloquial or humorous spellings like ''pilla'' for ''pillow'' and ''winda'' for ''window''.
*No cot–caught merger: The words ''cot'' and ''caught'' 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'' or, more uniquely, ''warter'' .
*As in most Mid-Atlantic cities, short ''a'' is pronounced with a phonemic split: for example, the word ''sad'' does not rhyme with the word ''mad'' . Pronunciation is dependent upon a complex system of rules that differ from city to city. Baltimore follows the Philadelphia pattern. For more details on the Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore systems see '' :/æ/ raising''.

*The vowel in words like ''start'' is often raised and backed, resulting in a vowel close to . Likewise, as in ''bore'' can shift as high as as in ''boor''. This pattern has also been noted to occur in Philadelphia and New York.
* Canadian raising occurs for before voiceless consonants, as in Philadelphia; for instance, the word ''like'' �ʌɪkbegins with a higher nucleus than ''live'' �aɪv
*On the other hand, may undergo smoothing before liquids, becoming before and ; e.g., ''fire'' is pronounced as , in which a popular Baltimore Christmas joke: "Why were the Three Wise Men covered with soot?" "Because they came from afar."
* 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 may be realized as stops ( respectively); for instance, ''this'' may sound more like ''diss''.
* ''L''–vocalization is common at the end of a word. The sound is often replaced by the semivowel or glide and/or or . Pronunciation of words like ''middle'' and ''college'' become and respectively.
* Epenthetic often occurs; notably, ''wash'' is pronounced as , popularly written as ''warsh'', and ''Washington'' is pronounced as ''Warshington''.
*As is common in many US dialects, is frequently elided after , thus ''hunter'' is pronounced .

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 annua
Honfest summer festival
and in landmarks such as the Hontown store and the Café Hon restaurant.
*''natty boh'' – local slang for the beer originally brewed in Baltimore, National Bohemian.
*''pavement'' (commonly pronounced "payment") – means "sidewalk."
*''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

African-American Baltimore English includes the words ''ard'' for "alright", ''lor'' for "little", ''rey'' for ''ready'' (associated with Baltimore users of Black Twitter),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 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 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.

For example, among Black speakers, Baltimore is pronounced more like "Baldamore" , as compared to "Bawlmer" . Other notable phonological characteristics include vowel centralization before (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 arn urn") and the mid-centralization of , particularly in the word "dog," often pronounced like "dug," and "frog" as "frug."
The African-American Baltimore accent, or a variation thereof, is also shared by many African Americans throughout Maryland and the Washington metropolitan area.

Notable native speakers

Lifelong speakers

* Judy Agnew – U.S. Second Lady
*Spiro Agnew – U.S. Vice President
* 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
* Stavros Halkias – stand-up comedian
* Mel Kiper Jr. – football analyst for ESPN
* Barbara Mikulski – Maryland U.S. Senator (1987– 2017)
* Felicia Pearson – actress on ''The Wire''
* Nancy Pelosi – former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
* Babe Ruth – Baseball Hall of Famer
* John Waters – filmmaker

In popular culture

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''. 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. 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".

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).

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.

Kathy Bates' character on the "Freak Show" season of '' American Horror Story'' was inspired by a Baltimore accent.

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'.

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'' 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.

Comedian Stavros Halkias (a native of Greektown) was also known for performing an exaggerated version of a Baltimore accent on the podcast '' Cum Town'', when impersonating a typical citizen of Dundalk.

See also

* Culture of Baltimore
* List of people from Baltimore
* Regional vocabularies of American English

References

Bibliography

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External links

Baltimore Hon
(A through dictionary of Baltimorese)

Baltimorese (with some audio)
*

, 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 nativ
Steve Ember
A transcript and MP3 of the program – intended for those want to learn American English – can be found a

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baltimore Dialect
American English
American slang
City colloquials
European-American culture in Baltimore
White American culture in Baltimore
Languages of Maryland
Working-class culture in Maryland
African-American English