NH/VT Dialect Survey

Data | Results

 

NH/VT Dialect Survey : Data collected Spring 1999

Total # of surveys entered this semester: 296

 

Geographic distribution

# of surveys

('99)

# of surveys

('98 & '99)

NH:

103

273

Keene (NH1):

12

29

Nashua (NH2):

9

41

Seacoast (NH3):

20

47

Manchester (NH4):

26

51

Concord (NH5):

19

31

Rochester (NH6):

1

4

White Mountains (NH7):

4

31

Lebanon (NH8):

0

9

Far north (NH9):

1

1

NH-unknown:

11

11

MA:

77

194

Northwest (MA1):

0

0

North (Fitchburg) (MA2):

0

2

Northwest of Boston (MA3):

26

30

North Shore (MA4):

10

55

Boston (MA5):

13

35

West (Pittsfield) (MA6):

6

7

Central (MA7):

1

8

West of Boston (Newton) (MA8):

1

2

Southwest (MA9):

0

10

South central (MA10):

0

13

Southeast/Cape (MA11):

20

29

MA-unknown:

0

  

ME:

40

  

VT:

17

  

CT:

15

  

Other:

14 (CO, IN, MI, NJ, NY, WI, and Canada)

  
This map shows the location of each region.

Distribution by age and sex ('99 data only)

AGE:

<15

15-29

30-59

60+

TOTAL

Female

7

70

65

21

163

Male

6

66

44

16

132

TOTAL

13

136

109

37

295

Results

The survey has six sections (A-F) that elicit linguistic data:

  1. A. Different words for things -- not yet analyzed.

  2. B. Different pronunciations -- Vowel mergers before /r/

  3. C. More different words for things -- None of the lexical items in this section show distributional differences between NH and MA.

  4. D. More different pronunciations -- Data analyzed only for 1998 surveys

  5. E. The father/bother question -- Existence of the broad "a" phoneme

  6. F. Borrowed words with "a" -- not yet analyzed.
Results presented at NWAVE 1998 (pilot research)
Please address questions or comments to Naomi Nagy.  This page was last updated 6/15/05.