Connecticut

Connecticut English is basically that of the Northern dialect, but features of the eastern New England subdialect occur east of the Connecticut River. In the east, half and calf have the vowel of father: box is /bawks/ and cart is /kaht/; yolk is /yelk/; care and chair have the vowel of cat; and many speakers have the intrusive / r/, as in swaller it (swallow it). In the western half, creek is /krik/ ; cherry may be /chirry/; on has the vowel of father ; an /r/ is heard after a vowel, as in cart . Along the Connecticut river, butcher is / boocher/, and tomorrow is pronounced /tomawro/. Along the coast, the wind may be breezing on , and a creek is a saltwater inlet. The sycamore is buttonball , one is sick to his stomach, gutters are eavestroughs, a lunch between meals is a bite, and in the northwest, an earthworm is an angledog .

In 2000, 2,600,601 Connecticuters (81.7% of the resident population five years old and older, down from 84.8% in 1990) spoke only English at home.

The following table gives selected statistics from the 2000 census for language spoken at home by persons five years old and over. The category "Other Indo-European languages" includes Albanian, Gaelic, Lithuanian, and Rumanian.