Maine-New Hampshire English
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Maine-New Hampshire English refers to the speech patterns found mainly in the northern New England states of New Hampshire and Maine. This dialect is more common in more rural parts of each state. It somewhat resembles the Boston accent, and is known for being non-rhotic in most words ending in R. In words ending with -ing, the g is dropped. For example, working changes to workin. Also, in words that end in "a", an "r" is added. For example, "soder" instead of soda, "idear" instead of idea, etc. Perhaps some of the more notable carriers of this dialect include New Hampshire celebrity Fritz Wetherbee and Maine senator Olympia Snowe.
In New Hampshire, the dialect is strongest in backwoods towns such as Rumney, Warren or Lempster. However, in the western part of New Hampshire, the dialect tends to resemble certain aspects of Western New England or Vermont speech. In the southern part of the state and in cities such as Nashua and Manchester, the Maine-New Hampshire vernacular is nearly non-existant, and most speech patterns resemble the General American or Boston dialects.
In Maine, the accent is more closely preserved near the coast. The accent of inland Maine, as opposed to the Maine seacoast, has speech patterns resembling some elements of Canadian English. Some towns, for example Augusta and Bangor, are "transitional." Generally speaking, residents of those areas who were born before 1970 maintain the accent, whereas those born are more likely to speak with a General American dialect.
Some slang phrases include:
- Aiyah - yes, or sometimes Okay
- Wicked - very, though this is only used in areas close to "Bay State", or Mass. in M-NH.
- Dirty - Cool, rarely used
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