Portland, Maine
The Portland Accent
Portland sits inside the Boston dialect area, which covers Boston and eastern New England, United States. No other dialect area in the survey comes close to it.
Take the quiz and see how close your accent is →
What people in Portland 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 Portland has all of them — the full Boston profile sets out where the region varies.
How Maine 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 Maine’s answers, most common first.
| Question | Answers in Maine |
|---|---|
| Soda, Pop or Coke? The Map of How America Orders a Fizzy Drink | soda 86% · pop 5% · coke 1% |
| Traffic Circle, Roundabout or Rotary? | rotary 70% · traffic circle 20% · roundabout 5% |
| Water Fountain, Drinking Fountain or Bubbler? | water fountain 79% · drinking fountain 14% · bubbler 4% |
| Lightning Bug or Firefly? | firefly 41% · lightning bug 17% |
| Crawfish, Crawdad or Crayfish? | crayfish 51% · crawfish 33% · crawdad 3% |
| You Guys, Y'all or You All? | you guys 52% · you all 10% · y'all 3% |
| Kitty-Corner or Catty-Corner? | kitty-corner 63% · catty-corner 6% |
| Garage Sale or Yard Sale? | yard sale 78% · garage sale 12% |
| Tennis Shoes or Sneakers? | sneakers 94% · tennis shoes 1% |
| Trash Can or Garbage Can? | trash can 41% · garbage can 17% |
| Frosting or Icing? | frosting 46% · icing 5% |
| Scratch Paper or Scrap Paper? | scrap paper 64% · scratch paper 7% |
| Frontage Road, Service Road or Access Road? | access road 30% · service road 16% · frontage road 10% |
| Does “Route” Rhyme With “Out” or “Hoot”? | rhymes with "hoot" 64% · rhymes with "out" 3% |
| Caramel: Two Syllables or Three? | with 3 syllables ("carra-mel") 57% · with 2 syllables ("car-ml") 24% |
| Mischievous or Mischievious? | mischievous (3 syllables) 69% · mischievious (4 syllables) 11% |
| Rubber Band, Hair Tie or Elastic? | (hair) elastic 59% · rubber band 15% · 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.
Is your accent from Portland?
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.