Baltimore accent

A Baltimore accent, also known as Baltimorese and sometimes humorously spelled Bawlmerese or Ballimorese, is an accent or sub-variety of Delaware Valley English (a dialect whose largest hub is Philadelphia) that originates among blue-collar residents of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It extends into the Baltimore metropolitan area and northeastern Maryland.

At the same time, there is considerable linguistic diversity within Baltimore, which complicates the notion of a singular "Baltimore accent". According to linguists, the accent of white blue-collar Baltimoreans is different from the African-American Vernacular English accent of black Baltimoreans. White working-class families who migrated out of Baltimore to the northwestern suburbs brought local pronunciations with them.

The Baltimore accent that originated among white blue-collar residents closely resembles blue-collar Philadelphia-area English pronunciation in many ways. These two cities are the only major ports on the Eastern Seaboard never to have developed non-rhotic speech among European American speakers; they were greatly influenced in their early development by Hiberno-English, Scottish English, and West Country English. Due to the significant similarity between the speeches of Baltimore, Philadelphia, Delaware and southern New Jersey, sociolinguists refer to them collectively as the Mid-Atlantic regional dialect. In Baltimore accents, sounds around /r/ are often "smoothed" or elided. For example, a word like bureau is commonly pronounced /ˈbiroʊ/ (e.g., Federal Beer-o of Investigation) and mirror is commonly pronounced /mir/ ("mere"); the related mare–mayor merger also exists.

The following is a list of words and phrases used in the Baltimore area that are used much less or differently in other American English dialects.

African-American Baltimore English includes the words ard for "alright", lor for "little", rey for ready (associated with Baltimore users of Black Twitter), and woe for a close friend.

According to linguists, the "hon" dialect that is popularized in the media and that derives historically from the speech of white blue-collar residents of South and Southeast Baltimore is not the only accent spoken in the region. There is also a particular Baltimore accent found among Black Baltimoreans: a sub-type of African-American Vernacular English.

For example, among Black speakers, Baltimore is pronounced more like "Baldamore" /ˌbɔldəˈmɔr/, as compared to "Bawlmer" /ˈbɔlmər/. Other notable phonological characteristics include vowel centralization before /r/ (such that words such as "carry" and "parents" are often pronounced as "curry" or "purrents", and "Aaron earned an iron urn" might sound like "Urrun urned an arn urn") and the mid-centralization of /ɑ/, particularly in the word "dog," often pronounced like "dug," and "frog" as "frug." The African-American Baltimore accent, or a variation thereof, is also shared by many African Americans throughout Maryland and the Washington metropolitan area.

The films of John Waters, many of which have been filmed in and around Baltimore, often attempt to capture the Baltimore accent, particularly the early films. For example, John Waters uses his own Baltimore accent in the commentary during his film Pink Flamingos. John Travolta's character in the 2007 version of John Waters's Hairspray spoke with an exaggerated Baltimore accent. Likewise, several of the films of Barry Levinson are set in and around Baltimore during the 1940s-1960s, and employ the Baltimore accent. Michael Tucker, who was born and raised in Baltimore, speaks with a West Baltimore accent.