| Manchester dialect | |
|---|---|
| Mancunian, Manc | |
 | |
| Native to | England |
| Region | Greater Manchester |
| English alphabet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| IETF | en-u-sd-gbman |
 Manchester in red, Greater Manchester in light yellow | |
Manchester dialect orManchester English, known informally asMancunian (/mænˈkjuːniən/man-KEW-nee-ən) orManc, is the Englishaccent and dialect variations native toManchester and some of theGreater Manchester area of England. Sharing features with bothWest Midlands andNorthern English, it is closely related to its neighbours like theLancashire dialect and theWest Ridingdialect of Yorkshire.[1]
Manchester accents are prominent in popular media via television soap operas such asCoronation Street and members ofrock bands such asHappy Mondays,New Order,Oasis,the Fall,the Stone Roses, andTake That.[2]
Manchester was the birthplace of theIndustrial Revolution and at the start of the 18th century had a population of around 10,000 but by the start of the 20th century had a population of around 700,000.[3] Thehistory of Manchester shows that, from the Industrial Revolution onwards, the city was settled by migrants from many countries, notably fromIreland and other areas of theUnited Kingdom,Eastern Europe,Italy andGermany. In modern times, greater numbers have arrived from theIndian subcontinent and theWest Indies. It is argued that Manchester today is the second most polyglot city afterLondon, creating a melting pot of languages, accents and dialects.[citation needed] An evolving and cosmopolitan city with many different immigrant groups, Manchester has some features that stand out from the widerLancashire dialect, though distinctions between the Northern English accents exist along adialect continuum and are also influenced by demographic factors such as age, economic status, gender, etc. Manchester shares features with its neighbouring twin city ofSalford, which was home toManchester docks and could further explain the creation and emergence of an accent different from other nearby towns.
Throughout the 19th century and for most of the 20th century, speech in Manchester was considered part of theLancashire dialect, with many of the 19th-century Lancashire dialect poets coming from Manchester and the surrounding area.[4] In the early 20th century, theManchester Ballads featured Lancashire dialect extensively.[5] In the 1880s, the earlydialectologistAlexander John Ellis included the city in his survey of English speech and placed most of Greater Manchester (excluding the Bolton and Wigan areas) in a dialect district that included north-west Derbyshire.[6]
The 1982 textbookAccents of English byJohn C. Wells (himself a native ofWigan) includes the Manchester dialect, which he describes as "extremely similar" to the dialect of theWest Riding of Yorkshire.[1] His proposed criteria for distinguishing the two are that Mancunians avoidNG-coalescence, sosinger/ˈsɪŋɡə/ rhymes withfinger/ˈfɪŋɡə/ andking,ring,sing etc. all end with aplosive/ɡ/ sound (/ˈkɪŋɡ,ˈrɪŋɡ,ˈsɪŋɡ/), whereas West Riding residents employ "Yorkshire assimilation", by which voiced consonants change into voiceless consonants in words such asBradford/ˈbratfəd/,subcommittee/ˈsʊpkəmɪtɪ/ andfrogspawn/ˈfrɒkspɔːn/.[1]
InPeter Trudgill's bookThe Dialects of England, it was classified as part of the "Northwest Midlands" dialect region.[7]
Between 2019 and 2022, a team atManchester Metropolitan University under linguist Rob Drummond collected data investigating dialect features, dialect perceptions, and linguistic identities across Greater Manchester, with an "Accent Van" travelling around the area to interview residents.[8]
The Manchester accent is usually found inGreater Manchester including the cities ofSalford andManchester and also in the immediately adjacent parts of the boroughs ofBury,Oldham,Rochdale,Stockport,Tameside andTrafford. It is also prominent in "overspill" towns and estates such asHattersley,Gamesley,Handforth andBirchwood. What is known locally as 'Manc' is heard in areas of Central Manchester and neighbouring Salford whilst northern areas of Greater Manchester associate more with traditional Lancashire.[9] The derogatory term 'Yonner' was originally used to describe people from Oldham and Rochdale who spoke with a thick Lancashire accent. It is now often used to describe anyone from the northern boroughs of Greater Manchester who speak with a Lancashire accent.[citation needed]
The urban dialect itself is more distinctive than many people realise, and it is quite noticeably different from the accent spoken in adjacent towns such asBolton,Oldham,Rochdale andWigan despite them being withinGreater Manchester.[citation needed] The Mancunian accent is less dialect-heavy than neighbouring Lancashire and Cheshire accents, although words such asowt (meaning 'anything') andnowt (meaning 'nothing') remain part of the Mancunian vocabulary.
The City of Manchester and most other areas of Greater Manchester, such as Stockport and Wigan, arenon-rhotic, meaning /r/ is not pronounced unless followed by a vowel. A few parts of Greater Manchester north of the city proper, such as Rochdale and Oldham, may exhibit some residual rhoticity, though this has been continuously declining due to non-rhoticity now spanning the bulk of urban Lancashire (Greater Manchester included).[10][11][12]
H-dropping, i.e. the omission of the sound /h/ (e.g. pronouncinghead as [ɛd] rather than [hɛd]), is common in speakers of Manchester English, especially among the working class population.[13]Th-fronting, i.e. pronouncing the dental fricatives /θ, ð/ as labio-dental [f, v] (e.g. pronouncing boththree andfree asfree), is also found in Manchester, especially in younger speakers and among working-class men.[13]
Manchester English has also been described as having so-called "dark" (i.e. velarised) /l/ in both onset and coda position (i.e. at the beginning and end of a syllable, e.g. inleap andpeel), though some speakers may still have a less dark onset than coda /l/.[14][15]
Mancunians have no distinction between the STRUT and FOOT vowels, and also the BATH vowel is the same as TRAP, rather than PALM. This means thatbut andput are rhymes, as aregas andglass (which is not the case in Southern England).[1]
The unstressed vowel system of Manchester, specifically the final vowels in words such ashappY andlettER, is often commented on by outsiders. Phonetically, both vowels are lowered and backed for certain Mancunian speakers. This means that the final vowel inhappY sounds most like the vowel in DRESS (rather than the vowel in KIT, as in Yorkshire or other Northern accents, or the vowel in FLEECE, as in many Southern English accents), and the final vowel inlettER is often perceived as being similar to the vowel in LOT (although this has been found to be a slight exaggeration of the true pronunciation).[16]
The GOAT and GOOSE vowels show socioeconomic variation in Manchester. A fronter and more diphthongal GOAT vowel (less like the Lancashire and Yorkshire pronunciations) is positively correlated with higher social classes whereas a fronter GOOSE before /l/ is correlated with lower social classes.[17] In other phonological environments, GOOSE-fronting is found across all social classes.[17]
Manchester is one of the very few areas of England where significant numbers of speakers still resist thehorse-hoarse merger, maintaining a distinction between the vowels in thenorth andforce lexical sets, using a more open vowel (roughly [ɒː]) in the former and a closer vowel (roughly [ɔː]) in the latter. Therefore pairs which have become homophones in most of England such ashorse andhoarse,war andwore,morning andmourning can remain distinct in Manchester.[18][19]
Another notable aspect of the phonology of Manchester English is "velar nasal plus" or the retention of [ɡ] after [ŋ] (where it has been lost in almost all other modern varieties of English), such that the wordssinger andfinger rhyme for Manchester speakers, both having a medial [ŋɡ] cluster.[20][21] Word-finalng clusters likewise often retain the plosive (or are otherwise reduced simply to [n] or sometimes [ŋ]), especially before a pause, where ejective [kʼ] is not an uncommon allophone.[20][21]
A further trait of Manchester English, especially among younger residents, is the pronunciation of /s/ before /tɹ, tj, tʃ/ as [ʃ] in words such asstreet,district,stupid,moisture andmischief.[22] This is a phenomenon known as /s/-retraction and is also found in various other varieties of English.
Traditionally, the Manchester area was known for glottal reinforcement of theconsonants/p,t,k/,[23] similar to modern speech inNorth East England. More recent research has found that /t/ most often undergoes full glottal replacement, being realised as a glottal stop [ʔ] rather than as an alveolar plosive with glottal fortification [ʔt], in a process known ast-glottalisation.[13][24]
In 2021, Manchester Voices published heat maps of the Greater Manchester area highlighting key differences between the accents of Manchester, Salford, Trafford, Stockport and Tameside and the accents of the northern boroughs of Wigan, Bolton, Bury, Rochdale and Oldham. Examples of these differences includedbear being pronounced asburr andbus being pronounced asbuz almost exclusively in the northern boroughs, where a more traditional Lancastrian accent is spoken as opposed to a more local Mancunian one in the southern boroughs.[25][26]
Below are some of the most notable dialectal words, phrases and sayings in Mancunian English. Not all of these are used by the city's entire population:
Hiberno-English influences from Ireland include the pronunciation of the letter 'h' as/heɪtʃ/ (although this pronunciation is now widespread, being used by approximately 24% of British people born since 1982)[27] and the plural of 'you' asyouse/yous. Spoken word performer and poet Argh Kid (David Scott) breaks down Mancunian vocabulary in his piece "Nanna Calls Me Cock".[28]
In 2015,Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) produced an accent map of Greater Manchester, based inperceptual dialectology, which showed that the accents of Manchester andSalford were described as "diverse", "rough", and "common", while the word "scally" was also used as a description.[29] However, other popular media outlets have variously described social labels for the dialect, including "twangy",[30] "euphonic",[31] or even one of the "friendliest" accents in the UK.[32] The MMU team's research concluded in 2023, finding that urban varieties within the county tend to be judged negatively relative to rural varieties.[33] Among locals of Greater Manchester itself, the socially unattractive accents are associated with Salford, low social status, and urban areas, whereas socially attractive accents are associated with the northern boroughs, particularly the Bolton–Bury area, which carry social sentiments of quaintness, traditional Lancashire, and possibly rurality.[34]
A 2021 article inThe Guardian expressed some of the variation within the county, stating "Greater Manchester is only about 30 miles from east to west but it has long been famed for its linguistic diversity: the richrolling Rs and extra long 'oos' of the northern mill towns where people looook in coook booooks are a world away from the nasal Mancunian drawl where your brother is 'ahh kid' and words which end in a Y finish instead with an 'eh' (yacheekeh monkeh)."[35]
Particularly strong examples of the accent can be heard spoken byDavy Jones ofthe Monkees who was born inOpenshaw,Mark E. Smith (Salford-born, Prestwich-raised singer withthe Fall), the actorJohn Henshaw (from Ancoats) andLiam andNoel Gallagher fromBurnage bandOasis. The actorCaroline Aherne (raised in Wythenshawe) spoke with a softer, slower version of the accent. Stretford-raisedMorrissey – like many Mancunians, from an Irish background – has a local accent with a noticeable lilt inherited from his parents. Salford-bornTony Wilson retained his Mancunian accent, albeit somewhat modified by his upbringing in Marple and hisCambridge education. Salford poetJohn Cooper Clarke is another example of a working-class Mancunian accent as can be heard in his spoken-word recordings. Also from Salford is comedianJason Manford, whose Manc accent adds to his comedic style. Other notable Manc speakers include boxerRicky Hatton (from Hattersley, Hyde) and the actorBernard Hill (from Blackley).Dominic Monaghan (who grew up inHeaton Moor, Stockport) speaks with a notable Manc accent, and his characters in bothLost andFlashForward have made note of it. Less well known outside of the area, and with pronounced local accents, are local broadcasters Eamonn O'Neal,Mike Sweeney and Jimmy Wagg. The TV broadcasterTerry Christian (from Old Trafford) has a particularly prominent voice. The Mancunian accent is prominent in the locally-set TV seriesShameless,The Street andThe Royle Family. The characterJack Regan in the 1970s police dramaThe Sweeney (played by Longsight-born actorJohn Thaw) is a Mancunian with an accent heavily modified by years of living in London. Another example of a Mancunian speaker isKarl Pilkington, a radio and TV personality who was born in Sale (then part of Cheshire, but now Greater Manchester).
Manchester's most famous soap operaCoronation Street has, despite being based in the city (a fictionalised version of Salford), less pronounced Mancunian accents than other TV shows set in the area. Several of the show's cast members do speak with pronounced Mancunian accents in the series. They includeMichelle Keegan (Tina McIntyre),Helen Flanagan (Rosie Webster) andSimon Gregson (Steve McDonald). TheWest Sussex-raised British actress,Jane Leeves, portrayed the character ofDaphne Moon, a Manchester emigrant to Seattle with a supposed Mancunian accent which was actually closer to a broadLancashire dialect, in the American sitcomFrasier.
the rich heritage of language and dialect throughout Greater Manchester