merger: a full merger is heard in its northern reaches (namely, Vermont) and a full distinction at its southern reaches (namely, coastal Connecticut), and a transitional area in the middle. Western New England English is closely related to and influential on, but more conservative (i.e. preserving more historical features) than, the Inland North dialect which prevails farther west, and which has altered away from Western New England English due to an entirely new chain shift of the vowels since the 1900s. Some Western New England English speakers do have these shift's features, though it is not yet fully understood if and how New England directly influenced the Inland North dialect region. See also Boston accent Maine accent New England French North American English regional phonology § New England Regional accents of English speakers Regional vocabularies of American English References Bibliography Further reading Stanford, James. 2019. New England English: Large-scale acoustic sociophonetics and dialectology. Oxford University Press. 367 pages. External links American English Connecticut culture English Maine culture Languages of Massachusetts New Hampshire culture Rhode Island culture Vermont culture