Western New England English
The English of Western New England in fact shows many sharp differences throughout rather than one uniform accent. In 2001, Charles Boberg, discussing that Western New England English was a likely direct influence on the Inland Northern English of the Great Lakes region, still identified as many as four or five English sub-regional accents within Western New England itself, based on data from the late 1990s:
Western New England English
Southwestern New England English is centered primarily around Hartford, CT and Springfield, MA. Its older speakers show more instances of universal tensing of the short "a" , while younger speakers show the more General American feature of tensing this vowel only before nasal consonants. "The Atlas of North American English" confirms that this raising phenomenon is highly variable in the region, though studies agree that raising always occurs strongest before nasal consonants.