FW: New Britain, Connecticut

[Frank Abate]

What Alice refers to below is true in native central CT dialect.  Words
affected include mountain, mitten, and the like, with (expected) medial
flapped-t being realized as a glottal stop, when followed by syllabic n.
These speakers do not have the glottal stop in words such as bottle, as
characteristic of NYC dialects.  I do not know of other clear markers to
this dialect.  It is an r-ful dialect, as are most to the west of the
Connecticut River, within the state.

This from personal observation (over about 20 years as a resident of the
area) by a lexicographer, not formally trained in phonetics.

larry (horn), further comments?

Frank Abate

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
Of Alice Faber
Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2001 2:52 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: New Britain, Connecticut


AAllan at AOL.COM said:
>I got a phone message from a reporter inquiring about the dialect of New
>Britain, Connecticut. Any experts I can refer him to? Any comments?
Thanks -

Did it have to do with the pronunciation of the city name? It's very common
in Connecticut to express scorn for the pronunciation with [?] for /t/
(even though this pronunciation is unbiquitous).

I know just enough about CT dialect stuff to know that I don't know enough
to be an open-ended expert.