Do you speak Boston?

When I lived in Ukraine, I got to the point with many of the classes that I frequently taught where I would refer to the English I speak as "American" and the English that most Ukrainian schools study as "British." I understood that neither of those designations are actual, official languages, but there are so many differences between the two dialects that it was helpful to differentiate. I got pretty good at understanding a lot of their "British," by the way. I had to...otherwise, I was extremely confused with things they would choose to say.

Surprisingly, Boston presents some similar challenges, linguistically. A lot of the folks that we're friends with or go to church/attend classes with aren't native to Massachusetts, so the accents aren't quite so different. Fun fact: in our home group from church, which is made up of about 15ish people, only two are native to Massachusetts. However, when we're out and about, we run into all kinds of hard-to-interpret language hurdles. As a cultural observation experience, I've begun recording phonetic transcriptions (of sorts) of the pronunciations that we hear around here. Here are some of my interpretations (I'll include translations for you further down):

1. labstuh
2. pack
3. havuhd
4. jazz
5. shack
6. alington
7. yad
8. heuh
9. are-eh-gann
10. khakis
11. laud
12. shoe-uh
13. smat

Reading these back to myself, I can totally see the connections. When I hear them, though, I have to pause and think before these words register. Here's the translation:

1. lobster
2. park
3. Harvard
4. jars
5. shark
6. Arlington
7. yard
8. here
9. Oregon
10. car keys
11. Lord
12. sure
13. smart

Having grown up in the South where there are stereotypes of Boston accents, I was a little misinformed about what an actual Boston accent sounds like. For example, a phrase that people like to quote is "Park the car in Harvard yard." Only, in the South, people tend to pronounce is like "Pahk the cah in Hahvahd yard" as if it's a classy British accent. 

Y'all. That's not what it sounds like. Read this out loud:
Pack the cat(<---don't say the "T") in Havuhd yad.

Does that sound classy or British to you? My Downton Abbey friends say no.

My favorite one is khakis. Khakis, or, you know, car keys. Think about that one for a minute. The Arlington one is interesting to me because it's a stop on the train, meaning that the conductors will say the name as you pull in. The thing is, though, when they say it, it doesn't sound like Arlington. I wrote it as "Alington" in the first list; make sure you read that with an "Al" that sounds like the first part of "Alabama." Then read it in a garbly, over-the-train speakers voice. 

Yeah. You better look out the train window and make sure that you read what the sign says or you might miss your stop.

Anyway, Brad and I love to capture words or phrases we hear (heuh) so that we don't forget what an interesting place this is. We've made a little game of noting random words or sounds that as just "so Boston." We think we're rather wicked smat.