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Barre None

by Will

In the middle of a phone conversation with a local Wilkes-Barre reporter, I noticed that her pronunciation of Barre comes out sounding like “burra,” not “bar.” A co-worker with family in Pennsylvania confirms that I did not mishear her, and that most people in the area prefer “burra.” My first guess was that “Barre” is some Scots-Irish bastardization of “borough,” but it turns out that Wilkes-Barre was founded by Connecticut settlers under the auspices of Isaac Barré, a British MP of French extraction. Did subsequent waves of Scots-Irish settlers eventually mangle “Barré,” transforming it into something approximating the more familiar “borough?” Adjacent cities and towns sound very British – Edwardsville, Hazleton, Exeter, Ashley – so I’m not sure this is right, though English settlers may just as well be responsible for mangling the name. I’m also curious to learn how people from Barre, Massachusetts and Barre, Vermont (both also named for M. Barré) pronounce their towns’ names.

Anyone hail from Wilkes-Barre around these parts of the Internets?

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7 comments

1 Mark Thompson { 04.29.09 at 9:01 am }

Strange – everyone I know in the Jersey and Philly areas, which are pretty close to Wilkes-Barre, has always pronounced it more like “Berry.”

2 Will { 04.29.09 at 9:15 am }

Weird.

3 Clint { 04.29.09 at 10:37 am }

I believe it is pronounced “shithole.”

4 Grunthos { 04.29.09 at 12:06 pm }

The natives appear to prefer “burra”, but pronunciation then gets distorted the farther from NE PA you get. As Mark notes, in Philly and Trenton it’s “berry”. In southern PA and Maryland, it is more frequently “barry”. I’ve also heard “barra”, possibly favored on another point of the compass. Then, once you get outside the region, most people default to “bar”.

Clint, however, really has identified the definitive position. :)

5 Will { 04.29.09 at 12:12 pm }

Grunthos -

Fascinating stuff, and thanks for the phonetics tutorial. Clint’s take may be definitive though.

6 lebecka { 04.30.09 at 10:19 am }

Poor Wilkes-Barre! Clint, you sound like you might be a bit of a jerk. What has this poor little town ever done to you?

7 Joseph FM { 04.30.09 at 1:24 pm }

I’ve always known it as wilksberra, myself…my family reunions in Scranton.