New England English

New England English collectively refers to the various dialects and varieties of American English originating in the New England area. Much of New England once spoke the "Yankee dialect", many of whose accent features still remain in the eastern half of New England. In fact, one common linguistic division of New England is into Eastern New England English and Western New England English (particularly based on "R-dropping" in the former but not the latter)—a trend begun with the 1939 Linguistic Atlas of New England. This trend often continues with current linguistic studies, including the 2006 Atlas of North American English (ANAE), which further argues for a division between Northern New England English and Southern New England English (especially on the basis of the cot–caught merger and /ɑːr/ fronting). At times, the ANAE also categorizes New England accents into four combinations of the above, simply defined as follows:

Some native English speakers in Connecticut and Vermont, northern New Hampshire, and western Massachusetts, as well as some younger people throughout New England, are moving closer towards a "General American" accent, some due to their historical locations and others due to recent dialect levelling. According to Labov, there are various New England Englishes. Even Charles Boberg, lists the possibilities of several dialectal divisions of New England.

New England English is not a single American dialect, but a collective term for a number of dialects and varieties that are close geographic neighbors within New England, but which differ on a spectrum that broadly divides New England English into a unique north versus south (specifically, a northern merger of the vowels /ɒ/ and /ɔː/, versus a southern distinction between these vowels), as well as a unique east versus west (specifically, an eastern pronunciation of the "r" sound only before vowels, versus a western pronunciation of all "r" sounds). Regarding the former feature, all of northern New England (most famously including Boston, but going as far southeast as Cape Cod and as far north as central Maine) historically merges the open and open-mid back rounded vowels (so that, for instance, pond and pawned are pronounced the same, which is commonly called the cot–caught merger), while southern coastal New England (including Rhode Island) historically maintains a noticeable distinction between these two vowels. Regarding the second feature, all of eastern New England is historically non-rhotic (famously pronouncing "car" like "kah"), while all of western New England is historically rhotic (or "r-ful"). Therefore, four combinations of these two features are possible, and coincidentally all four exist among New England English speakers, largely correlated with the exact geographic quadrant in New England in which a speaker was raised.

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