Eastern New England English in the context of "Yankee"

Western New England English refers to the varieties of New England English native to Vermont, Connecticut, and the western half of Massachusetts; New York State's Hudson Valley (from Albany to Poughkeepsie) also aligns to this classification. Sound patterns historically associated with Western New England English include the features of rhoticity (full pronunciation of all r sounds), the horse–hoarse merger, and the father–bother merger, none of which are features traditionally shared in neighboring Eastern New England English. The status of the cot–caught merger in Western New England is inconsistent, being complete in the north of this dialect region (Vermont), but incomplete or absent in the south (southern Connecticut), with a "cot–caught approximation" in the middle area (primarily, western Massachusetts).

Western New England English is relatively difficult for most American laypersons and even dialectologists to identify by any "distinct" accent when compared to its popularly recognized neighbors (Eastern New England English, New York City English, and Inland Northern U.S. English), meaning that its accents are typically perceived as unmarked "General American" varieties. Linguistic research, however, reveals that Western New England English is not simply one single or uniform dialect. Linguist Charles Boberg proposes that it be most generally divided into a Northwestern New England English (a standalone "Vermont" accent) and a Southwestern New England English (a less advanced subdialect of Inland Northern English); however, even Boberg lists the possibilities of several distinct accent divisions of Western New England.

A Northeastern elite accent is any of the related American English accents used by members of the wealthy Northeastern elite born in the 19th century and early 20th century, which share significant features with Eastern New England English and Received Pronunciation (RP), the standard British accent. The late 19th century first produced audio recordings of and general commentary about such accents used by affluent East Coast and Northern Americans, particularly New Yorkers and New Englanders, sometimes directly associated with their education at private preparatory schools.

On one hand, scholars traditionally describe these accents as prescribed or affected ways of speaking consciously acquired in elite schools of that era. From the 1920s through 1950s specifically, these high-society speaking styles may overlap with a briefly fashionable accent taught in certain American courses on elocution, voice, and acting, including in several public and private secondary schools in the Northeast. Both types of accent are most commonly labeled a Mid-Atlantic accent or Transatlantic accent. On the other hand, linguist Geoff Lindsey argues that many Northern elite accents were not explicitly taught but rather persisted naturally among the upper class; linguist John McWhorter expresses a middle-ground possibility.

New England English is, collectively, the various distinct dialects and varieties of American English originating in the New England area. Most of eastern and central New England once spoke the "Yankee dialect", some of whose accent features still remain in Eastern New England today, such as "R-dropping" (though this and other features are now receding among younger speakers). Accordingly, one linguistic division of New England is into Eastern versus Western New England English, as defined in the 1939 Linguistic Atlas of New England and the 2006 Atlas of North American English (ANAE). The ANAE further argues for a division between Northern versus Southern New England English, especially on the basis of the cot–caught merger and /ɑr/ fronting (applying twice, for example, in the phrase Park the car). The ANAE also categorizes the strongest differentiated New England accents into four combinations of the above dichotomies, simply defined as follows:

• Northeastern New England English shows non-rhoticity, the cot–caught merger, and strong /ɑr/ fronting. It centers on Boston, Massachusetts, extending into New Hampshire and coastal Maine.
• Southeastern New England English shows non-rhoticity, no cot–caught merger, and no strong /ɑr/ fronting. It centers on Providence, Rhode Island and the Narragansett Bay.
• Northwestern New England English shows rhoticity, the cot–caught merger, and strong /ɑr/ fronting. It centers on Vermont.
• Southwestern New England English shows rhoticity, no (or a transitional state of the) cot–caught merger, and no strong /ɑr/ fronting. It centers around the Hartford–Springfield area of Connecticut and western Massachusetts.