Maybe you love it or maybe you hate it or maybe you just have a hard time understanding it, but at least we can all agree by now that the accent Kathy Bates is going for on American Horror Story is, indeed, Bawlmerese.
As a non-native, I have a complicated relationship with the Baltimore accent (or dialect, if you care to be precise). I think it sounds amazing, and I love discovering it in unexpected places (like this guy running for office in Montana — can’t fool me, bud, I know where you’re from!). But I can’t imitate it no matter how hard I try. My friends who are born-and-raised Baltimoreans don’t tend to speak like a little old lady from Highlandtown, either, but they can switch the accent on when they want to. Whenever I try, though, I sound like some sort of terrible Cockney-Bostonian or something. Trust me, it’s not pretty.
So when a linguist revealed that one of the main features of the Baltimore accent is a characteristic called “fronting back vowels,” I got excited. Perhaps a good Baltimore accent was really just about vowel placement.
Well, it turns out to be more than that–but maybe if I practice the same way Kathy Bates does, I’ll be able to get it down. According to an interview she did with Buzzfeed, Bates didn’t work with an accent coach for her AHS role; instead, she listened to a lot of Barbara Mikulski interviews and studied this unofficial Bawlamarese website. To get in character, Bates says she sings “The Star-Spangled Banner” with a Baltimore accent pretty much every morning.
I’m not sure I’m willing to go that far, but I appreciate that Bates finds the Baltimore accent tricky, too: “I talk in my Baltimore accent even when I’m off set,” she told Buzzfeed. “It’s such a tough accent that I feel like if I don’t, I won’t get it back.”
She needs a little more practice. Specifically, “Son of a bitch”. It’s not “some-n-a-bitch”, it’s “sumbitch”. There’s probably not a soundbite of Barbara Mikulski saying THAT!
Lesson 1. Pronunciation Drill – Listen and Repeat:
Ball Tee More =The City of Baltimore, more commonly known as Balmer, or Baw Duh More
Merlin = Our State
Balmorese = What we’re speaking here in our State of Merlin
Allanic = an ocean
Am B’Lance = Takes sick/hurt people to the hospital
Arn = What you do to wrinkled clothes
Arnjuice = from the sunshine tree
Arouwn in all directions = norf, souf, ees, and wess
Aspern = what you take for headaches
Bald = some people like their eggs this way
Bawler = what the plumber calls your furnace
Beeno = a famous railroad
Beero = Bureau (as in FBI or dresser)
Brawl = Broil
Bulled Egg = An egg cooked in water
Calf Lick = bleevers are Protestant, Jewish, and …
Canny = a state gubmit division, such as Anne Arundel or Prince George’s
Chest Peak = A large nearby body of water
Chimley = Structure that Santa comes down
Colleyflare = A white vegetable
Crick = Where the warter runs
Downey Owe Shin = Summertime vacation destination of Ocean City, also known as Ayshun City (“Down to the ocean”)
Droodle Pork = Druid Hill Park
Drooslem = city in the Holy Land
Duddeney = yes, he does, duddeney?
Elfin = Large pachyderm at zoo
Err = a time measurement of 60 minutes
Excape = Escape
Faren Gins = Red trucks that put out fires
Far place = requires wood
Fard = area between the eyes and the hairline
Farmin = the people who fight fars
Flares = Tulips, roses, daisies, etc…
Ford = opposite of backward
Hairacane = Hurricane
Hi Hon! = How we always say “hello”
Holluntown = Highland Town
Idnit = it is, idnit?
Ignernt = ignorant
Klumya = Rouse’s new city (Columbia)
Meer = what you look at in the morning
Munlaw = married to your fodlaw
Nap Lis = State of Merlin capital, Annapolis
Norf Abnew = North Avenue
Numb = a conjunctive 1st person pronoun: “Aw’ve bin workin six errors numb tarred.”
Ole Bay = What our crabs taste like
Oreos = Not a cookie, but our baseball team
Paramore = Power mower
Payment = That strip of cement that you walk on
Pitcher = Picture
Plooshin = let’s get it out of the Chest Peak
PohLeese = Those guys in uniform that git ya when you’re speeding
Sarn = what a pleece car or Farn Gin makes noise with
Sem Lem = Seven Eleven Convenience Store
Share = Hot water that cleans you in the morning
Slong = “good-bye”
Sore = drainage under the street
Spearmint = experiment
Star Phone = Styrofoam
Tarnado = Tornado
Tarred = What happens when you work too hard
Telly Phone = Telephone
Warsh = What we do with dirty clothes
Warshnin = our nation’s capital
Warter = The clear liquid we drink, also known as Wooter
Winders = Those glass things that we look out of
Wooder = what you wrench your hands with
Yerp = Europe
Youz = you all
Zinc = where you wrench your hands or warsh your dishes
Lesson 2. Oral Exercises
Listen and Repeat:
Merlin: Ah herd sarns at sod the hass a bat hunnert toms lass not. Itsem Ann Earl Canny farn gins.
Standard: I heard sirens outside the house about a hundred times last night. It’s those Anne Arundel County fire engines.
Merlin: She raider boskle from Droodle Pork to dantan Ballmer wither oz clazed.
Standard: She rode her bicycle from Druid Hill Park to downtown Baltimore with her eyes closed.
Merlin: The Hard Canny Toms sayz the canny cancel pace pained bon ambalances.
Standard: The Howard County Times says the County Council postponed buying ambulances.
Merlin: Pitcher bane seat owen. Weer goon danny ayshun.
Standard: Put your bathing suit on. We’re going down to the ocean.
Merlin: Ah sawn ambalance good dan Rosters Tan Raid a bat a huunert molls an air, nit was porn dan rain.
Standard: I saw an ambulance going down Reisterstown Road about a hundred miles an hour, and it was pouring down rain.
Merlin: It spaced a snaid mora. Better pitcher snay tars owen.
Standard: It’s supposed to snow tomorrow. Better put your snow tires on.
Brilliant!!
Great piece. Thanks. I’m a native Baltimorean living currently in Denver. Despite 16 years in the accent-less Midwest, I still speak in Bawlmerese. My older aunts and my Dad “fronted their back vowels” even more heavily than I. Thanks for explaining the linguistics behind our cute, sometimes annoying way of talking. When one comes by it naturally, one doesn’t consider the why’s and wherefore’s.