North Providence, Rhode Island
The North Providence Accent
North Providence sits inside the Boston dialect area, which covers Boston and eastern New England, United States. The nearest other area is New York City, about 184km away.
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What people in North Providence sound like
- Non-rhotic — “park the car” as “pahk the cah”.
- Intrusive R between vowels: “the idear of it”.
- A broad, fronted vowel in “park”, “aunt” and “half”.
- Local vocabulary: “bubbler” for a drinking fountain, “wicked” as an intensifier.
These are the markers of the Boston accent as a whole. No survey claims every speaker in North Providence has all of them — the full Boston profile sets out where the region varies.
North Providence against New York City
North Providence is close enough to the New York City area that the two get confused. These are the questions where the survey expects a different answer on each side.
| Question | North Providence | New York City |
|---|---|---|
| When you say “car” by itself, do you pronounce an R sound at the end? | “car” ends in a vowel, with no R sound | the R at the end of “car” is pronounced |
How Rhode Island 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 Rhode Island’s answers, most common first.
| Question | Answers in Rhode Island |
|---|---|
| Soda, Pop or Coke? The Map of How America Orders a Fizzy Drink | soda 94% · coke 2% · pop 1% |
| Traffic Circle, Roundabout or Rotary? | rotary 72% · traffic circle 16% · roundabout 4% |
| Water Fountain, Drinking Fountain or Bubbler? | bubbler 73% · water fountain 20% · drinking fountain 4% |
| Lightning Bug or Firefly? | firefly 53% · lightning bug 22% |
| Crawfish, Crawdad or Crayfish? | crayfish 47% · crawfish 40% · crawdad 3% |
| Kitty-Corner or Catty-Corner? | kitty-corner 59% · catty-corner 3% |
| Garage Sale or Yard Sale? | yard sale 74% · garage sale 19% |
| Tennis Shoes or Sneakers? | sneakers 97% · tennis shoes 0% |
| Trash Can or Garbage Can? | trash can 38% · garbage can 24% |
| Frosting or Icing? | frosting 55% · icing 2% |
| Scratch Paper or Scrap Paper? | scrap paper 54% · scratch paper 10% |
| Frontage Road, Service Road or Access Road? | service road 39% · access road 23% · frontage road 12% |
| Does “Route” Rhyme With “Out” or “Hoot”? | rhymes with "hoot" 66% · rhymes with "out" 3% |
| Caramel: Two Syllables or Three? | with 3 syllables ("carra-mel") 52% · with 2 syllables ("car-ml") 20% |
| Mischievous or Mischievious? | mischievous (3 syllables) 69% · mischievious (4 syllables) 14% |
| Rubber Band, Hair Tie or Elastic? | (hair) elastic 55% · rubber band 18% · hair tie 13% |
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 North Providence
Is your accent from North Providence?
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 Boston / Eastern New England English profile and every other profile in the survey, and shows you where people who answer the way you do actually live.