Maybe I’m misunderstanding. I grew up in NYC, and “father” absolutely does rhyme with “bother”. Just listen to Run DMC: “they even bother my poor father cause he’s down with me.”
Even by how complex it is, this map is obviously an oversimplification
How can those not rhyme!?
Looks like the difference is between the rounded and unrounded back open vowels /ɑ/ and /ɒ/. This site has an IPA chart where you can hear the differences. The father-bother merger hasn’t happened in my (NE) accent, but I didn’t know that pretty much everywhere else merged the two. Interesting that cot-caught merged for NE but not father-bother.
Younger New Yorkers do have the father-bother merger, but older New Yorkers don’t.
Also, Run DMC probably speak African-American English, which, as this map says, is generally independent of other dialects and not included on this map.
I’m 41. Mary, Merry, marry, are completely different words.
This just doesn’t jibe with my experience, and I still have family there.
The Run DMC lyric actually sounds like the (previously unmerged) father vowel /ɑ/ went toward the bother vowel /ɒ/ than the other way around. I might even put it as /ɔ/ or /o/ when listening to the sounds on the IPA chart.
Whereas if you listen to the pronunciations on Merriam Webster father and bother it actually lists them both as /ä/, which is apparently a near-back vowel instead of back. I don’t know which one NY does though.
Flatbush area checking in. Yuh Fahthuh’s cawlin. Don’t bohther me
Shout Grand Concourse, ya heard?
Cool map! Do you have a source? Curious if they’ve done other countries.
Here you go, I’ll add this to the OP too https://aschmann.net/AmEng/#Au_Washington_State
There is a lot to look at here 👀
Where I’m from, “Mary,” “Marry,” and “Merry” are not pronounced the same.
Mary rhymes with airy. Marry rhymes with Barry. Merry rhymes with ferry.
Every one of those words rhyme and sound the same… Not sure if you are joking or of my accent is the joke…
Nah, you’re in the majority. We’ve got hoagie mouth.
Same here. I’m from NJ.
Hooray, I’m a “generalized American”!
“but I don’t have an accent” he said with a generalised American accent
Why do you sound weird when you say that?
Man, the breakdown of NOLA is crazy accurate.
It reminds me a lot of ourdialects.uk which does similar but for the UK and split across a few different maps. I’d love a website where it guesses where you (or someone else) are from based on some sort of quiz.
This is an awesome map
Loving the little island of French around Falher (pronounced “Fall-air”)
Nice to see the province of Alberta having a French majority area despite the hostility to francophone culture.
Interesting how Washington, DC used to be within the Southern accent territory, but this has died out to mostly older speakers.
The anecdote that really hits this home for me is that in 2006 they updated the voice on the metro which said “Doors closing, please stand clear of the doors.” The old voice had a southern accent but the new voice did not.
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I think most of this is going over my head, but I’m especially trying to wrap my head around The Midland exclaves for San Francisco, El Paso, and Tallahassee.
fascinating. you can almost see why Boston has the crazy accent.
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Not sure I agree there’s a “Hamptons” accent, I’ve lived all over long Island and currently am in the east end.
We all sound the same: like arrogant assholes. :P
