While vacationing with her family in Florida last spring, Christen Cromwell finally became aware of her self-described heavy Baltimore accent.
"I finally noticed the thickness of my own accent when I was sitting by the pool and a lady in passing asked about my hometown," Cromwell, a sophomore, said. "So, I probably said Baltimore maybe five different times and she looked at me like she had no idea of what I was saying."
The popularized and often parodied dialect, known as part of the "Hon culture," is most often heard in the Hamden or its neighboring Canton neighborhoods. According to an online Bawlamerese lexicon, words conventionally heard as "sink" or "forward" become "zink" or "ford" when translated into the Baltimore tongue.
Eric Roberts, a junior, said that he first noticed the distinctive nature of the "Hon culture" while walking through The Avenue in Hamden, towards Angelo's Pizza.
"As much as it is a dialect, the popularized Hon culture, identified with residents of Hamden, tend to also have a certain aspect of toughness inherent to their collective persona," Roberts said. "I remember getting ready to order at Angelo's and the waitress would say, `What are ya having, hon?' It really is a very distinctive personality, as well as a dialect."
Roberts, a Staten Island native, said that he initially didn't expect much from Baltimore, but became quickly enchanted with the culture and composition of the city.
"Initially, I didn't expect much from the city, when I was getting ready to enter college," he said. "But then, I started to gain a sense of appreciation for the different neighborhoods, culture and people that I met. Even though I'm a New Yorker, I began to develop a sense of pride for Baltimore."
Cromwell similarly added that while the different neighborhoods of the Baltimore city have their own distinctive flair, the city as a whole remains distinctively separate from the rest of the state.
"I remember talking to a friend from Montgomery County and I told her that I was really `smashed' because I was hungry," she said. "When I said that, she just looked at me funny because apparently it would have meant I just had sex. From there, I began to notice how the city's slang is really much different from the rest of Maryland."
Growing up in Gardenville, on the eastern edge of the city-line, Cromwell said that much of the differences in dialect are tied to racial and socioeconomic factors. She said that South and West Baltimore, home to poorer neighborhoods like Cherry Hill, tend to emphasize a mixture of Ebonics.
"The west and south side of Baltimore tend be like the areas portrayed in The Wire," Cromwell said. "The people tend to sound more like the inhabitants of another poorer area like Harlem. You will words like `yo' or other common terms more often, as opposed to hearing what you might in Hamden."
She said that she can sometimes voluntarily speak without the Baltimore twang, but she acknowledged that it is impossible to completely shake the accent.
"Even with many of my friends, they can leave and go to college out of state, but you can always hear a tinge of Bawlmarese in their speech," she said. "It really is something that stays with you for life. No matter where you go, people will be able to identify you with the city of Baltimore."
