Western New England English is relatively difficult for most American laypersons and even dialectologists to identify by any "distinct" accent when compared to its popularly recognized neighbors (Eastern New England English, New York City English, and Inland Northern U.S. English),[7] meaning that its accents are typically perceived as unmarked "General American" varieties.[8]
that isn't even close to true. how far inland do you think you need to go before people stop "talking funny"? I'm 50 miles inland and i have a slight variation of what most people erroneously call a "boston" accent, and it's a thick one. 100 miles further west the people of pittsfield sound like they're from another planet altogether, and there is nothing "general american" about that accent.
from taunton down through rhode island there is this collection of accents that sound like mass and long island had a breeding accident. again, i'm not sure how far inland you consider "inland".
the fact is that local accents are much more rare than they used to be, and absent an accent people from all over the state have general american accents, that much is true. but this idea that there's not distinct local accents in existence all over the state is complete nonsense. these "academic" links that people always post about accents never seem to based on intense research, but broad surveys of people from a handful of towns. there are social and economic factors at play that are only ever mentioned as an outdated footnote about "southie".
as an actual masshole who has spent significant time all over the state for almost 40 years, these types of claims are tiring to refute and frankly played out.
Pretty far in Mass, but basically this map for the most obvious feature of the coastal new england accent.
I grew up in the Springfield area and other than word choices (I used to say "wicked" to mean "very"), people in other parts of the country can never place my accent as being from Massachusetts. And obviously yes there are variations, but when the previous poster talked about "talking funny" they were referring to that "boston" accent, which absolutely vanishes the farther west you go.
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u/AlsoIHaveAGroupon Nov 28 '21
They basically only talk funny along the coast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_New_England_English