Bridgeport, Connecticut
The Bridgeport Accent
Bridgeport sits inside the New York City dialect area, which covers New York City, Long Island and northern New Jersey, United States. The nearest other area is Boston, about 85km away.
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What people in Bridgeport sound like
- A raised, gliding vowel in “coffee”, “talk” and “dog”.
- Variable R-dropping: “car” can end in a vowel.
- “Cot” and “caught” stay firmly distinct.
- A raised “trap” vowel before nasals — “man” towards “meh-an”.
These are the markers of the New York City accent as a whole. No survey claims every speaker in Bridgeport has all of them — the full New York City profile sets out where the region varies.
Bridgeport against Boston
Bridgeport is close enough to the Boston area that the two get confused. These are the questions where the survey expects a different answer on each side.
| Question | Bridgeport | Boston |
|---|---|---|
| When you say “car” by itself, do you pronounce an R sound at the end? | the R at the end of “car” is pronounced | “car” ends in a vowel, with no R sound |
How Connecticut answered the Harvard Dialect Survey
The Harvard Dialect Survey, collected by Bert Vaux and Scott Golder in 2002–2003, recorded how respondents in every US state answered the same questions. These are Connecticut’s answers, most common first.
| Question | Answers in Connecticut |
|---|---|
| Soda, Pop or Coke? The Map of How America Orders a Fizzy Drink | soda 95% · pop 2% · coke 2% |
| Traffic Circle, Roundabout or Rotary? | rotary 60% · traffic circle 23% · roundabout 10% |
| Water Fountain, Drinking Fountain or Bubbler? | water fountain 80% · drinking fountain 15% · bubbler 2% |
| Crawfish, Crawdad or Crayfish? | crayfish 46% · crawfish 39% · crawdad 5% |
| You Guys, Y'all or You All? | you guys 50% · you all 9% · y'all 3% |
| Kitty-Corner or Catty-Corner? | kitty-corner 63% · catty-corner 9% |
| Tennis Shoes or Sneakers? | sneakers 94% · tennis shoes 2% |
| Frosting or Icing? | frosting 52% · icing 7% |
| Scratch Paper or Scrap Paper? | scrap paper 55% · scratch paper 13% |
| Frontage Road, Service Road or Access Road? | service road 31% · access road 21% · frontage road 20% |
| Does “Route” Rhyme With “Out” or “Hoot”? | rhymes with "hoot" 67% · rhymes with "out" 3% |
| Caramel: Two Syllables or Three? | with 3 syllables ("carra-mel") 54% · with 2 syllables ("car-ml") 28% |
| Mischievous or Mischievious? | mischievous (3 syllables) 67% · mischievious (4 syllables) 13% |
| Rubber Band, Hair Tie or Elastic? | (hair) elastic 44% · rubber band 21% · hair tie 15% |
Data from the Harvard Dialect Survey (Bert Vaux and Scott Golder, 2002–2003), used under the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence. A self-selected sample from two decades ago: how people spoke then, not a census.
Dialect areas near Bridgeport
Is your accent from Bridgeport?
There is no way to answer that from a description. The test asks 29 questions about the words you use and how you say them, scores your answers against the New York City English profile and every other profile in the survey, and shows you where people who answer the way you do actually live.