Rhode Island Culture & Language

Rhode Island is small enough that everyone is two people away from everyone else, and the culture reflects it: local, ironic, and unusually attached to its own traditions.

Providence has the Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University at its centre, and the art school gives the city a design culture well beyond its size. Its museum is among the best in New England.

Newport carries two histories at once: the Gilded Age mansions, and a musical one — the Newport Jazz Festival has run since 1954, and the Folk Festival is where Dylan went electric in 1965.

Federal Hill is the Italian-American heart of the state, and the state's Portuguese and Cape Verdean communities are among the oldest in the country.

English is universal. Spanish is the main second language, and Portuguese is unusually well represented thanks to long-established Portuguese and Cape Verdean communities.

Local usage is worth knowing: a milkshake made with ice cream is a cabinet; a water fountain is a bubbler; a sandwich on a long roll is a grinder; and ordering a hot wiener "all the way" means meat sauce, onion, mustard and celery salt.

The accent is non-rhotic and closer to Boston's than to New York's, and the state is universally "Rhode Island" rather than any abbreviation.