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Archive 1

Maine

The Maine section has some problems:

Should use IPA instead of ad-hoc pronunciation spellings.

I agree with you all the way. Thegryseone (talk) 00:10, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

"All "a" and "e" sounds broaden; i.e., calf becomes "cahf," bath becomes "bahth," etc. The "a" sounds that "broaden" are specific, "cat" and "hat" don't, calf and bath do. The so-called "trap-bath" split. Needs a link the the Broad A article. As for the "e" sound, either a citation or deletion is needed.

The intrusive "r" is also a lot less general than the article pretends. It's usually an intervocalic intrusive R, but much rarer as a postvocalic (at the end of a word not followed by a vowel). California is not pronounced with a postvocalic intrusive R unless it's also an intervocalic; that is, if the word California is followed by a vowel sound, as in this sentence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.156.147.40 (talk) 03:59, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Hey, I'm doing some edits on this article. Thegryseone (talk) 21:24, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

How Detailed Should We Get Here?

I've looked at various sources and I've realized that New England is very complex. How detailed should this article be? Thegryseone (talk) 23:01, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

My opinion is that this article shouldn't exist in its current form, since there is no dialect called "New England English". (Or maybe there is, but it's more properly called "Eastern New England English".) This page should either be a disambig page for Boston accent and a few other pages that don't exist yet, or it should be renamed "Dialectology of New England" and provide an overview of the region as a whole, in context. AJD (talk) 14:51, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Right, I agree. When people say "New England English", they usually mean "Eastern New England English" seeing as how that's the most distinctive dialect of the two. Thegryseone (talk) 20:35, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. When people talk about "American English", there is no presumption that there is one American English dialect. There is America the social entity, and American English refers to the varieties of English found within this entity. Similarly, "New England" is a social entity, and it is perfectly coherent to have an article describing the English spoken there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.66.237.162 (talk) 00:23, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
Two? Three or more: ENE, RI, and WNE—and WNE should probably be regarded as two dialect areas as well. AJD (talk) 00:00, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I just meant out of WNE and ENE. Those are the biggies. I realize there are divisions within those regions as well; I was trying to address that in this article. Thegryseone (talk) 03:39, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Archive 1