In the Eastern New England region, pronouncing the words MARY and MARRY differently is a key dialect feature and is also tied to local identity (Kurath, 1939; Labov, et al., 2006; Kim, et al., 2019). MARY is often pronounced with the same vowel sound as in “mate” while MARRY is pronounced with the vowel in “mat” (Labov, et al., 2006). In a 2003 survey, 49% of Massachusetts speakers stated that they pronounce these words differently (Harvard Dialect Survey: Massachusetts Results). Speakers further away from Boston in Western Massachusetts and New Hampshire tend to instead rhyme these words to distance themselves from urban Boston culture (Labov, et al., 2006; Nagy, 2001). A study of African American and Caribbean American speakers in the Boston area (Browne & Stanford 2018) showed that Black speakers in the region also followed the larger Eastern Massachusetts trend: they did not rhyme MARY and MARRY.

While we expected our sample of Black Bostonian speakers to not rhyme MARY and MARRY, we found some surprising results. 36.62% of our speakers rhyme MARY and MARRY, while only 16.9% of speakers did not rhyme MARY and MARRY. Our speakers show much more mixed results for this variable than in past studies. This highlights the importance of understanding linguistic diversity within the Black Boston community; not all speakers of AAL in Boston sound the same.

- Browne & Stanford (2018:20)
- Harvard Dialect Survey (2003: Massachusetts Dialect Survey Results)
- Kim, et al., (2019:181)
- Kurath (1939)
- Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:54)
- Nagy (2001:40)