TheEnglish language spoken and written inEngland encompasses a diverse range of accents and dialects. The language forms part of the broaderBritish English, along with other varieties in theUnited Kingdom. Terms used to refer to the English language spoken and written in England includeEnglish English[1][2] andAnglo-English.[3][4]
The related termBritish English is ambiguous, so it can be used and interpreted in multiple ways,[5] but it is usually reserved to describe the features common to Anglo-English,Welsh English, andScottish English.
Many different accents and dialects are found throughout England, and people are often very proud of their local accent or dialect. However, accents and dialects also highlightsocial class differences, rivalries, or other associated prejudices, as illustrated byGeorge Bernard Shaw's comment:
It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.[6]
As well as pride in one's accent, there is also stigma placed on many traditional working-class dialects. Inhis work on the dialect of Bolton, Graham Shorrocks wrote:
I have personally known those who would avoid, or could never enjoy, a conversation with a stranger, because they were literally too ashamed to open their mouths. It has been drummed into people—often in school, and certainly in society at large—that dialect speech is incorrect, impure, vulgar, clumsy, ugly, careless, shoddy, ignorant, and altogether inferior. Furthermore, the particularly close link in recent English society between speech, especially accents, and social class and values has made local dialect a hindrance to upward social mobility.[7]
The three largest recognisable dialect groups in England areSouthern English dialects, Midlands English dialects andNorthern England English dialects. The most prominentisogloss is thefoot–strut split, which runs roughly from mid-Shropshire (on the Welsh border) to south ofBirmingham and then tothe Wash. South of the isogloss (the Midlands and Southern dialects), the Middle English phoneme/ʊ/ split into/ʌ/ (as incut,strut) and/ʊ/ (put,foot); this change did not occur north of the isogloss.
Most native Anglo-English speakers can tell the general region in England that a speaker comes from, and experts or locals may be able to narrow this down to within a few miles. Historically, such differences could be a major impediment to understanding between people from different areas. There are also many cases where a large city has a very different accent from the rural area around it (e.g. Bristol and Avon, Hull and the East Riding, Liverpool and Lancashire), although these differences have reduced in some parts of the country.[8][9] Speakers may also change their pronunciation and vocabulary, particularly towardsReceived Pronunciation (RP) andStandard English when in public.
British and Irish varieties of English, including Anglo-English, are discussed inJohn C. Wells (1982). Some of the features of Anglo-English are that:
As noted above, Northern versions of the dialect lack thefoot–strut split, so that there is no distinction between/ʊ/ and/ʌ/, makingput andputt homophones as/pʊt/.
In the Southern varieties, words likebath,cast,dance,fast,after,castle,grass, etc. are pronounced with the long vowel found incalm (that is,[ɑː] or a similar vowel), while in the Midlands and Northern varieties, they are pronounced with the same vowel astrap orcat, usually[a]. For more details seeTrap–bath split. Some areas of the West Country use[aː] in both the TRAP and BATH sets. The Bristol area, although in the south of England, uses the short[a] in BATH.[13]
Many varieties undergoh-dropping, makingharm andarm homophones. This is a feature of working-class accents across most of England but was traditionally stigmatised (a fact the comedy musicalMy Fair Lady was quick to exploit) but less so now.[14] This was geographically widespread, but the linguistA. C. Gimson stated that it did not extend to the far north, nor to East Anglia, Essex, Wiltshire or Somerset.[15] In the past, working-class people were often unsure where anh ought to be pronounced, and, when attempting to speak "properly", would often preface any word that began with a vowel with anh (e.g. "henormous" instead ofenormous, "hicicles" instead oficicles); this was referred to as the "hypercorrect h" in theSurvey of English Dialects, and is also referenced in literature (e.g. the policeman inDanny, the Champion of the World).
Aglottal stop for intervocalic/t/ is now common amongst younger speakers across the country; it was originally confined to some areas of the south-east and East Anglia.[citation needed][16]
Most varieties have thehorse–hoarse merger. However, some northern accents retain the distinction, pronouncing pairs of words likefor/four,horse/hoarse andmorning/mourning differently.[17]
The consonant clusters/sj/,/zj/, and/lj/ insuit,Zeus, andlute arepreserved by some.
Many Southern varieties have thebad–lad split, so thatbad/bæːd/ andlad/læd/ do not rhyme.
In most of the eastern half of England, plurals and past participle endings which are pronounced/ɪz/ and/ɪd/ (with the vowel ofkit) in RP may be pronounced with aschwa/ə/. This can be found as far north asWakefield and as far south asEssex. This is unusual in being an east–west division in pronunciation when English dialects generally divide between north and south. Another east–west division involves the rhotic[r]; it can be heard in the speech of country folk (particularly the elder), more or less west of the course of the Roman era road known asWatling Street (the modern A5), which at one time divided King Alfred's Wessex and English Mercia from the Danish kingdoms in the east. The rhotic[r] is rarely found in the east.
Sporadically, miscellaneous items of generally obsolete vocabulary survive:come in the past tense rather thancame; the use ofthou and/orye foryou.
There has been academic interest in dialects since the late 19th century. The main works areOn Early English Pronunciation byA.J. Ellis,English Dialect Grammar byJoseph Wright, and theEnglish Dialect Dictionary also by Joseph Wright. TheDialect Test was developed by Joseph Wright so he could hear the differences in the vowel sounds of a dialect by listening to different people reading the same short text passage.
In the 1950s and 1960s, theSurvey of English Dialects was undertaken to preserve a record of the traditional spectrum of rural dialects that merged into each other. The traditional picture was that there would be a few changes in lexicon and pronunciation every couple of miles, but that there would be no sharp borders between completely different ways of speaking. Within a county, the accents of the different towns and villages would drift gradually so that residents of bordering areas sounded more similar to those in neighbouring counties.
Because of greater social mobility and the teaching of "Standard English" insecondary schools, this model is no longer very accurate. There are some English counties in which there is little change inaccent/dialect, and people are more likely to categorise their accent by a region or county than by their town or village. Asagriculture became less prominent, many rural dialects were lost. Someurban dialects have also declined; for example, the traditional dialect ofBradford is now quite rarely spoken in the city, and call centres have seen Bradford as a useful location due to the fact that potential employees there nowadays generally lack dialectal speech.[18][19] Some local call centres have stated that they were attracted to Bradford because it has a regional accent that is relatively easy to understand.[20][better source needed]
Concentrations of migration may cause a town or area to develop its own accent. The two most famous examples of this[according to whom?] areLiverpool andCorby. Liverpool's dialect is influenced heavily by Irish and Welsh, and it sounds completely different from the surrounding areas ofLancashire. Corby's dialect is influenced heavily byScots, and it sounds completely different from the rest ofNorthamptonshire. The Voices 2006 survey found that the various ethnic minorities that have settled in large populations in parts of Britain develop their own specific dialects. For example,Asian may have an Oriental influence on their accent so sometimes urban dialects are now just as easily identifiable as rural dialects, even if they are not fromSouth Asia. In the traditional view, urban speech has just been seen as a watered-down version of that of the surrounding rural area. Historically, rural areas had much more stable demographics than urban areas, but there is now only a small difference between the two. It has probably never been true since theIndustrial Revolution caused an enormous influx to cities from rural areas.[citation needed]
According to dialectologistPeter Trudgill, the major regional English accents of modern England can be divided on the basis on the following basic features; the word columns each represent the pronunciation of one italicised word in the sentence "Very few cars made itup thelong hill".[21] Two additional distinguishing features—the absence or presence of atrap–bath split and the realisation of theGOAT vowel—are also represented under the "path" and "stone" columns (so that the sentence could be rendered "Very few cars made itup thepath of thelong stone hill").[22]
In general, Southern English accents are distinguished from Northern English accents primarily by not using the short a in words such as "bath". In the south-east, thebroad A is normally used before a/f/,/s/ or/θ/: words such as "cast" and "bath" are pronounced/kɑːst/,/bɑːθ/ rather than/kæst/,/bæθ/. This sometimes occurs before/nd/: it is used in "command" and "demand" but not in "brand" or "grand".
In the south-west, an/aː/ sound is used in these words but also in words that take/æ/ in RP; there is notrap–bath split but both are pronounced with an extended fronted vowel.[23]
Accents originally from the upper class speech of theLondon–Oxford–Cambridge triangle are particularly notable as the basis for RP.
Southern English accents have three main historical influences:
Relatively recently, the first two have increasingly influenced southern accents outside London viasocial class mobility and the expansion ofLondon. From some time during the 19th century, middle and upper middle classes began to adopt affectations, including the RP accent, associated with the upper class. In the late 20th and 21st century other social changes, such as middle class RP-speakers forming an increasing component of rural communities, have accentuated the spread of RP. The South East coast accents traditionally have several features in common with the West Country; for example, rhoticity and the a: sound in words such asbath,cast, etc. However, the younger generation in the area is more likely to be non-rhotic and use the London/East Anglian A: sound inbath.
After theSecond World War, about one million Londoners were relocated tonew and expanded towns throughout the south east, bringing with them their distinctive London accent.
During the 19th century distinct dialects of English were recorded inSussex,Surrey andKent. These dialects are now extinct or nearly extinct due to improved communications and population movements.
The West Country dialects and accents are the Englishdialects andaccents used by much of the indigenous population ofSouth West England, the area popularly known as theWest Country.
This region encompassesBristol,Cornwall,Devon,Dorset andSomerset, whileGloucestershire,Herefordshire andWiltshire are usually also included, although the northern and eastern boundaries of the area are hard to define and sometimes even wider areas are encompassed. The West Country accent is said to reflect the pronunciation of theAnglo-Saxons far better than other modern English Dialects.
In the nearby counties ofBerkshire,Oxfordshire,Hampshire and theIsle of Wight, it was possible to encounter comparable accents and, indeed, distinct local dialects until perhaps the 1960s. There is now limited use of such dialects amongst older people in local areas. Although natives of such locations, especially in western parts, can still have West Country influences in their speech, the increased mobility andurbanisation of the population have meant that local Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire and Isle of Wight dialects (as opposed toaccents) are today essentially extinct.
Academically the regional variations are considered to be dialectal forms. TheSurvey of English Dialects captured manners of speech across the West Country that were just as different from Standard English as anything from the far North. Close proximity has completely different languages such asCornish, which is aCeltic language related toWelsh, and more closely toBreton. TheCornish dialect of English spoken inCornwall byCornish people is to some extent influenced byCornishgrammar, and often includes words derived from the language.
TheNorfolk dialect is spoken in the traditional county of Norfolk and areas of north Suffolk. The group FOND (Friends of Norfolk Dialect) was formed to record the county's dialect and to provide advice for TV companies using the dialect in productions.
East Anglian dialect is also spoken in areas of Cambridgeshire. It is characterised by the use of[ei] for/iː/ in FLEECE words.[24]
As in the North, Midlands accents generally do not use abroad A, so thatcast is pronounced[kast] rather than the[kɑːst] pronunciation of most southern accents. The northern limit of the[ɑː] in many words crosses England from mid-Shropshire toThe Wash, passing just south ofBirmingham.
Additionally, just like the North, most accents in the Midlands lack the foot–strut split, with words containing[ʌ] likestrut orbut being pronounced with[ʊ], without any distinction betweenputt andput.
TheWest Midlands accent is often described as having a pronounced nasal quality, theEast Midlands accent much less so.
Old andcold may be pronounced as "owd" and "cowd" (rhyming with "loud" in the West Midlands and "ode" in the East Midlands), and in the northern Midlandshome can become "wom".
Whether Derbyshire should be classed as the West or East Midlands in terms of dialect is debatable.Stanley Ellis, a dialect expert, said in 1985 that it was more like the West Midlands, but it is often grouped with the East and is part of theregionEast Midlands.[citation needed]
Cheshire, although part of the North-West region, is usually grouped the Midlands for the purpose of accent and dialect.
There is noNg-coalescence. Cases of the spelling -ing are pronounced as[ɪŋɡ] rather than[ɪŋ]. Wells noted that there were no exceptions to this rule in Stoke-on-Trent, whereas there were for other areas with the[ɪŋɡ] pronunciation, such as Liverpool.[25]
Dialect verbs are used, for exampleam forare,ay foris not (related toain't),bay forare not,bin foram or, emphatically, forare. Hence the following joke dialogue about bay windows: "What sort of windas am them?" "They'm bay windas." "Well if they bay windas wot bin them?".[citation needed]
The Birmingham andCoventry accents are distinct, even though the cities are only 19 miles/30 km apart. Coventry is closer to an East Midlands accent.[citation needed]
AroundStoke-on-Trent, the shorti can sometimes sound rather likeee, as very obvious when hearing a local sayit, however this is not always the case as most other words such as "miss" or "tip" are still pronounced as normal. ThePotteries accent is perhaps the most distinctly 'northern' of the West Midlands accents, given that the urban area around Stoke-on-Trent is close to theCheshire border.
The PRICE vowel has a very far back starting-point, and can be realised as[ɑɪ].[26]
Yod-dropping, as in East Anglia, can be found in some areas,[where?] for examplenew as/nuː/, sounding like "noo".
In Lincolnshire, sounds like theu vowel of words likestrut being realised as[ʊ] may be even shorter than in the North.
InLeicester, words with short vowels such asup andlast have a northern pronunciation, whereas words with vowels such asdown androad sound rather more like a south-eastern accent. The vowel sound at the end of words likeborder (and the name of the city) is also a distinctive feature.[27]
Lincolnshire also has a marked north–south split in terms of accent. The north (aroundGrimsby andScunthorpe) shares many features with Yorkshire, such as the opena sound in "car" and "park" or the replacement oftake andmake withtek andmek. The south of Lincolnshire is close to Received Pronunciation, although it still has a short Northern a in words such asbath. Accents in the north of the county are often classified as a form ofYorkshire, influenced byHull,Doncaster andSheffield.[28]
Mixing of the wordswas andwere when the other is used in Standard English.
InNorthamptonshire, crossed by the north–southisogloss, residents of the north of the county have an accent similar to that ofLeicestershire and those in the south an accent similar to ruralOxfordshire.
The town ofCorby in northernNorthamptonshire has an accent with some originally Scottish features, apparently due to immigration of Scottish steelworkers.[29] It is common in Corby for the GOAT set of words to be pronounced with/oː/. This pronunciation is used across Scotland and most of Northern England, but Corby is alone in the Midlands in using it.[30]
There are several features that are common to most of the accents of northern England:[17]
Northern English tends not to have/ʌ/ (strut,but, etc.) as a separate vowel. Most words that have this vowel in RP are pronounced with/ʊ/ in Northern accents, so thatput andputt are homophonous as[pʊt]. But some words with/ʊ/ in RP can have[uː] in the more conservative Northern accents, so that a pair likeluck andlook may be distinguished as/lʊk/ and/luːk/.
The accents of Northern England generally do not use a/ɑː/. socast is pronounced[kast] rather than the[kɑːst] pronunciation of most southern accents. This pronunciation is found in the words that were affected by thetrap–bath split.
For many speakers, the remaining instances of RP/ɑː/ instead becomes[aː]: for example, in the wordspalm, cart, start, tomato.
The vowel indress, test, pet, etc. is slightly more open, transcribed by Wells as[ɛ] rather than[e].
The "shorta" vowel ofcat, trap is normally pronounced[a] rather than the[æ] found in traditional Received Pronunciation and in many forms ofAmerican English.
In most areas, the lettery on the end of words as inhappy orcity is pronounced[ɪ], like thei inbit, and not[i]. This was considered RP until the 1990s. The longer[i] is found in the far north and in the Merseyside area.
The phonemes/eɪ/ (as inface) and/oʊ/ (as ingoat) are often pronounced as monophthongs (such as[eː] and[oː]). However, the quality of these vowels varies considerably across the region, and this is considered a greater indicator of a speaker's social class than the less stigmatised aspects listed above.
Some dialect words used across the North are listed in extended editions of the Oxford Dictionary with a marker "North England": for example, the wordsginnell andsnicket for specific types of alleyway, the wordfettle for to organise, or the use ofwhile to meanuntil. The best-known Northern words arenowt,owt andsummat, which are included in most dictionaries. For more localised features, see the following sections.
The "present historical" is named after the speech of the region, but it is often used in many working class dialects in the south of England too. Instead of saying "Isaid to him", users of the rule would say, "Isays to him". Instead of saying, "Iwent up there", they would say, "Igoes up there."
In the far north of England, the local speech is virtually indistinguishable fromScots. Wells claimed that northernmost Northumberland, "though politically English is linguistically Scottish".[31]
The Liverpool accent, known as Scouse colloquially, is quite different from the accent of surrounding Lancashire. This is because Liverpool has had many immigrants in recent centuries, particularlyIrish people. Irish influences on Scouse speech include the pronunciation of unstressed 'my' as 'me' and the pronunciation of 'th' sounds like 't' or 'd' (although they remain distinct as dental/t̪//d̪/). Other features of Scouse include the pronunciation of non-initial/k/ as[x] and the pronunciation of 'r' as a tap/ɾ/. Also,buck andbook are usually distinguished as /bʊk/ and /buːk/.
Wuthering Heights is one of the few classic works of English literature to contain a substantial amount of dialect, specifically Yorkshire dialect. Set inHaworth, the servant Joseph speaks in the traditional dialect of the area, which many modern readers struggle to understand. This dialect was still spoken around Haworth until the late 1970s, but now only a minority of the dialect's features are still in everyday use.[32]The old dialect is now mainly encountered inSkipton,Otley,Settle and other similar places where older farmers from deep in the dales live.Examples of differences from RP in Yorkshire pronunciation include, but are not limited to:
H-dropping
/t/,/d/ and/k/ are often replaced with aglottal stop,[ʔ]
The[ŋ] inhearing andeating is often changed to[n], though[ŋɡ] can be heard inSheffield
The accents ofTeesside, usually known as Smoggy, are sometimes grouped with Yorkshire and sometimes grouped with the North-East of England, for they share characteristics with both accent regions. As this urban area grew in the early 20th century, there are fewer dialect words that date back to older forms of English; Teesside speak is the sort of modern dialect that Peter Trudgill identified in his "The Dialects of England". There is a Lower Tees Dialect group.[33]
A recent[when?] study found that most people from Middlesbrough do not consider their accent to be "Yorkshire", but that they are less hostile to being grouped with Yorkshire than to being grouped with the Geordie accent.[34]Intriguingly, speakers from Middlesbrough are occasionally mistaken for speakers fromLiverpool[35] as they share many of the same characteristics. It is thought the occasional similarities between the Middlesbrough and Liverpool accent may be due to the high number of Irish migrants to both areas during the late 1900s.[citation needed] Some examples of traits that are shared with [most parts of] Yorkshire include:
H-dropping.
An/aː/ sound in words such asstart, car, park, etc.
In common with the east coast of Yorkshire, words such asbird, first, nurse, etc. have an[ɛː] sound. It can be written as,baird, fairst, nairse. [This vowel sound also occurs in Liverpool and Birkenhead].
Examples of traits shared with the North-East include:
Glottal reinforcement for/k/,/p/ and/t/ can all occur.
The vowel in "goat" is an/oː/ sound, as is found in both Durham and rural North Yorkshire. In common with this area of the country, Middlesbrough is a non-rhotic accent.
The vowel in "face" is pronounced as/eː/, as is commonplace in the North-East of England.
People from theFurness peninsula in south Cumbria tend to have a more Lancashire-orientated accent, whilst the dialect ofBarrow-in-Furness itself is a result of migration from the likes ofStrathclyde andTyneside. Barrow grew on theshipbuilding industry during the 19th and 20th centuries, and many families moved from these already well-established shipbuilding towns to seek employment in Barrow.
Dialects in this region are often known asGeordie (for speakers from theNewcastle upon Tyne area) orMackem (for speakers from theSunderland area). The dialects across the region are broadly similar however some differences do exist. For example, with words ending -re/-er, such as culture and father, the end syllable is pronounced by a Newcastle native as a short 'a', such as in 'fat' and 'back', therefore producing "cultcha" and "fatha" for "culture" and "father" respectively. The Sunderland area would pronounce the syllable much more closely to that of other accents. Similarly, Geordies pronounce "make" and "take" in line with the standard English pronunciation. However, a Mackem would pronounce these words as "mack" or "tack" (hence the origin of the term "Mackem"). For other differences, see the respective articles. For an explanation of the traditional dialects of the mining areas ofCounty Durham and Northumberland seePitmatic.
Glottal reinforcement for/k/,/p/ and/t/. This feature is usually transcribed as [p͡ʔ], [t͡ʔ] and [k͡ʔ] or [ʔ͡p], [ʔ͡t] and [ʔ͡k].[36]
A feature of the North East accent, shared withScots andIrish English, is the pronunciation of the consonant cluster-lm in coda position. As an example, "film" is pronounced as "fillum". Another of these features which are shared withScots is the use of the word 'Aye', pronounced like 'I', its meaning is yes.
Also similar to Scots, the modals 'can', and less commonly 'will', have contracted forms "cannet" and "winnet". Additionally, distinct negative forms of 'do' exist. In Tyneside and Northumberland, the local form is "divvent", whereas "dinnet" is prevalent in Sunderland and Durham.[37]
Mockney: used byGuy Ritchie and many musicians, it is a variant of the London regional accent characterised by a non-standard mixture of linguistic andsocial class characteristics.
Sheffield: Ken Loach's 1977 filmThe Price of Coal was filmed almost entirely in the traditional dialect of the Sheffield-Rotherham area, but this variety of speech is receding. For examples of less marked Sheffield speech, seeSean Bean, the bandPulp, the filmThe Full Monty and the bandArctic Monkeys.
^The traditional feature of rhoticity in Lancashire is increasingly giving way to non-rhoticity: Beal, Joan (2004). "English dialects in the North of England: phonology".A Handbook of Varieties of English (pp. 113–133). Berlin, Boston: Mouton de Gruyter. p. 127.
^[ɪ] defines the Central Midlands (centred on Nottingham and Derby).
^[uː] defines the East Midlands (centred on Leicester and Rutland) and partly defines the South Midlands (centred on Northampton and Bedford).
^[eː] defines South Humberside or North Lincolnshire (centred on Scunthorpe).
^[ɪo] defines the South Midlands (centred on Northampton and Bedford).
^[eː] defines the Lower Southwest (Cornwall and Devon).
^Shorrocks, Graham (1998).A Grammar of the Dialect of the Bolton Area. Pt. 1: Introduction; phonology. Bamberger Beiträge Zur Englische Sprachwissenschaft; Bd. 41. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. p. 90.ISBN3-631-33066-9.
^Voices 2005: Accent – a great leveller? BBC 15 August 2005. Interview with Professor Paul Kerswill who stated "The difference between regional accents is getting less with time".
^Alvarez, Lizette (15 March 2005)."Liverpool Journal; Baffling Scouse Is Spoken Here, So Bring a Sensa Yuma".International Herald Tribune. Paris.While most regional accents in England are growing a touch less pronounced in this age of high-speed travel and 600-channel satellite systems, it seems that the Liverpool accent is boldly growing thicker. ... migrating London accents are blamed for the slight changes in regional accents over the past few decades. ... That said, the curator of English accents and dialects at the British Library said the Northeast accents, from places like Northumberland and Tyneside, were also going stronger.
^Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (2006).The Atlas of North American English. chpt. 17
^Ihalainen, Ossi (1992). "The Dialects of England since 1776". InThe Cambridge History of the English language. Vol. 5, English in Britain and Overseas: Origins and Development, ed. Robert Burchfield, pp. 255–258. Cambridge University Press.
^Kortmann, Bernd; Schneider, Edgar W; Burridge, Kate, eds. (2004).A handbook of varieties of English a multimedia reference tool. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 124, 138, 170, 187, 198.ISBN978-3-11-019718-1.
^Hughes; Trudgill; Watts, eds. (2005). "chapter on Leicester's speech, Hodder Arnold".English accents and dialects: an introduction to social and regional varieties of English in the British Isles.
^Beal, Joan C.; Burbano-Elizondo, Lourdes; Llamas, Carmen (2012).Urban North-Eastern English: Tyneside to Teesside. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.ISBN978-0-7486-4152-9.JSTOR10.3366/j.ctv2f4vkb3.
^Beal, Joan C. (2012).Urban North-eastern English: Tyneside to Teesside (Dialects of English). Edinburgh University Press.
Partridge, A. C. (1969).Tudor to Augustan English: a Study in Syntax and Style, from Caxton to Johnson, in series,The Language Library. London: A. Deutsch. 242 p. SBN 233-96092-9
English Accents and Dialects: searchable free-access archive of 681 English English speech samples, wma format with linguistic commentary including phonetic transcriptions inX-SAMPA, British LibraryCollect Britain website.
