Балтиморский акцент: особенности и связь с диалектом Средней Атлантики

Regional dialect of American English
A Baltimore accent, also known as Baltimorese (sometimes phonetically written Bawlmerese or Ballimorese), commonly refers to an accent related to Philadelphia English that originates among blue collar residents of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It extends into the Baltimore metropolitan area and northeastern Maryland. At the same time, there is considerable linguistic diversity within Baltimore, which complicates the notion of a singular "Baltimore accent". White working class families who migrated out of Baltimore to the northwestern suburbs brought local pronunciations with them.

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.

Several vowels undergo fronting. /aʊ/ fronts to or /uː/ fronts to Similarly, /oʊ/ 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. On the other hand, /aɪ/ 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.

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 .

According to linguists, the "hon" dialect that is popularized in the media and that derives historically from the speech of by 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 urn urn") and the mid centralization of , particularly in the word "dog," often pronounced like "dug," and "frog" as "frug." 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 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'.

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."

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.