Vowels START

Some variation between the central and back variants is seen for this vowel in NH. Our older male western NH speaker produced START with the central [a], while the younger female eastern NH speaker produced it with [a]. The vowel /a/ before  appears as [a] even along the ME/New Brunswick border, in spite of the contact with Canadian   pronunciations (Miller 1989: 88). Examples include tomorrow, sorry and borrow. This pattern was also reported in LANE (Kurath 1939–43: Map 72, vol. I, Part 1 and Map 564–5, vol. III, Part 1). However, all of Miller’s sixteen speakers report   for orange (Miller 1989: 89), while LANE (Map 273, vol. II, Part 1) reported  for this area.