Received Pronunciation

15 our luggage behind and just took a rucksack with a cu... with a T-shirt
and a toothbrush and a bag of rice and a rifle. And then we had
a hammock and a mosquito net, which didn't bode well. And off we
went, erm, then w... on foot. Erm, it was very wet and, er, oh, we just
... we... and the vegetation was very thick and we... you had to...
20 we had a guide and a cook and a... and another boy... and, erm...
so we went off in our... in our canoes and then... left those in the
side, in some reeds somewhere, and then walked, erm... we walked Regional Accent
Variation
for four days into the jungle. Erm... the mosquitoes were appalling,
the rain was appalling... erm, and we were hungry, and i... in four
25 days it was just very interesting that you could feel yourself reverting
back to nature...
[Interviewer asks if speaker had been in danger at any time.] As we have already seen, the accent of British English which has been most
fully described, and which is usually taught to foreign learners, is the accent
Well if... yes. I mean there... when we first got into the i... o ... known as RP.
actually sort of out of the canoe and into the jungle... erm, our guide In this chapter we first give a brief outline of the main regional differences
had er [toe?] ... had bare feet and he... d... I mean he didn't speak to be found in accents of British English other than RP, and then compare
30 any, any English at all, but erm... suddenly you could see that he just them with RP. We do not, however, attempt to give a detailed account of all
leapt and... and you c... see the whites of his eyes, and he'd trodden the regional and social differences in pronunciation to be found in British
on a deadly poisonous snake, something called a suntcucu. And he' d've Isles English. In particular, we do not attempt at all to describe accents
been dead in thirty seconds if it'd bitten him... erm, and without him associated with traditional dialects, spoken by older people in rural areas (for
_ I mean, he was our guide - and without him we would never have these, see Wakelin 1977 and Kortmann and Upton 2008). We concentrate
35 got out again... erm, so that was quite dangerous, and... I mean instead on urban and other regional accents of the sort most widely heard
who knows what sort of... animals were... or... or reptiles were around Britain and Ireland, and which are most likely to be encountered by
around at night, and all spiders or whatever. visitors from overseas. More detailed discussion of phonological features can
[Interviewer asks if speaker had seen other forest animals.] be found in Chapter 5. Intonation is also dealt with briefly in cases where it
deviates markedly from the general RP-like pattern.
Monkeys, yeah, yeah, and turtles and... but you know, the
vegetation was so... I mean, it was so thick that... I mean... you
40 couldn't see... I don't know, te... er... ten feet in front of you... .�e..Q�?.'J�! -����'J� .�!((��e..'!.�.��
and so we we literally had machetes and we we were cutting our way The vowel /A/
through the... through the undergrowth ... but the flora and fauna
were s... I mean it was just beautiful... erm... yeah, it was a very (a) One of the best-known differences between English accents is one of
... it was a... an incredible experience really, because it's very phoneme inventory - that is, the presence or absence of particular phonemes
45 unusual in your lives that you're... or... in this civilisation that we (see page 40). Typically, the vowel /A/ does not occur in the accents of the north
live in... er, that... that you ever go without and that you actually and midlands of England, and in some accents of the Republic of Ireland. In
are concerned for your... for your welfare, or and... that you these accents, /u/ is to be found in those words that elsewhere have /A/. The
wonder where your next meal's going to come from. vowel /A/ is relatively recent in the history of English, having developed by
phonemic split from the older vowel /u/. Accents of northern England and
the Republic of Ireland have not taken part in this development. The result
is that pairs of words such as put-putt or could-cud, which are distinguished
in Welsh, Scottish and southern English accents, are not distinguished in the
north and midlands of England, where pairs like blood and good or mud and
hood are perfect rhymes. (There are a few common words, though, which
have /A/ in the south of England but which have /n/ in much of the north of

58
59
Regional Accent Variation Regional accent variation

England. These include one and none, both of which rhyme with gone rather (1) pat, bad, cap, can, gas, land RP /pat/, etc.
than gun in these areas, and tongue, which rhymes with song rather than sung.) (2) path, laugh, grass RP /pa:8/, etc.
Many northern English speakers, perhaps under the influence of RP, have dance, grant, demand
(3) RP /dams/, etc.
a 'fudged' vowel which is between /u/ and /A/ in quality in words such as but
(and sometimes in words such as put as well). Generally, this vowel is around (4) part, bar, cart RP /pmt/1 etc.
[a]. This is particularly true of younger, middle-class speakers in areas of the (5) half, palm, banana, can't RP /ha:f/, etc.
southern midlands. Some speakers too, of course, hypercorrect (see Chapter RP has /a/ in set (1), and /a:/ in all other sets. This incidence of vowels in the
1), such that butcher might be pronounced ['bAtfa]. d �fferent sets is also found in all south-eastern English and in many southern
We can also note that many (particularly older) northern English speakers Insh accents. In the midlands and north of England, on the other hand,
who lack /A/ have /u:/ rather than /u/ in words such as hook, book, look, took words in set� (2) and (3) have the vowel /a/ rather than /a:/, although they
and cook. They therefore distinguish pairs such as book and buck, which in do have /a:/ m the classes of (4) and (5). Thus, whereas southerners say /gm:s/
the south are distinguished respectively as / buk/ and /bAk/1 as /bu:k/ and grass and /gm:nt/ grant, northerners say /gms/ and /giant/ (see Map 4.1).
/buk/. All English English accents (i.e. those of England) have shortened the This difference between the north and south of England is due to the
original long /u:/ in <-oo-> words to /u/ in items such as good and hood, and fact that the �riginal s�or: vowel /a/ was lengthened in the south of England
all seem to have retained /u:/ in words such as mood and food. But in other before the v01celess fricatives /f 8 s/, and before certain consonant clusters
cases there is variation: RP speakers may have either /u:/ or /u/ in room and containing an initial /n/ or /m/. The first change affected most words in
broom, eastern accents have /u/ rather than /u:/ in roof and hoof, while western southern English accents, though there are numerous exceptions, such
accents, as well as those from parts of Wales, may have /u/ rather than /u:/ in .
as daffodil, gaff, faffa, raffle, Catherine, maths (but afterm[a:]th), ass, crass,
tooth, and so on. gas, hassle, lass, mass, chassis and tassel, which have /a/ in RP and southern
(b) In descriptions of RP it is usual to consider /A/ and /a/ as distinct accents. There are also some words which vary: some southerners have /a/ in
vowels, as in butter /'bAta/. This also holds good for accents of the south-east graph, photograph and alas, while others have /a:/. Note the pronunciation of
of England, Ireland and Scotland. However, speakers from many parts of the word contrasted in the recording of RP speaker 1 in Chapter 3: /a:/ is the
Wales, western England and the midlands (as well as some northern speakers
expected vowel for this word in RP, but the speaker used /a/.
-see above) have vowels that are identical in both cases: butter ['bata], another
The second change, that involving clusters containing an initial /n/ or
[a'naoa] (see Table 4.1). We might wish to add /a/ to the inventory of stressable /m/, is ra:her more complex, a�d less complete. We can note the following
monophthongs for this set of accents, but given that one of the conventional phonological contexts, and typical southern English pronunciations:
defining properties of /a/ in English is that it occurs only in unstressed
syllables it might be best to view [a] in stressed syllables as a realisation of /A/ /a:/ /a/
that is neutralised with respect to unstressed [a]. -nt plant but pant
Table 4.1 /A/, /u/ and /a/ -ns dance but romance
but put
- nf" branch but mansion
RP /A/ /u/
Northern England /u/ /u/ -nd demand but band
Western England; /a/ /u/ -mp example but camp
modified northern I
Modified northern II /a/ /a/ * Many speakers have [tfj rather than [/] here (the former is more likely in branch
than in mansion). Words such as transport, plastic can have either /a/ or /a:/.
Hypercorrect northern /A/ /A/
Some Welsh and Irish accents, like many Australian accents have
/a/ and /a/ undergone the first change (/a:/ before /f 0 s/) but not the second: th:y have
/gm:s/ grass but /dans/ dance.
Another very well-known feature which distinguishes northern from southern
This discussion of the incidence of /a/ and /a:/ in words like grass and
English English accents concerns the vowels /a/ and /a/. In discussing this
dance is not relevant to Scottish and northern Irish accents (except for some
feature we have to isolate a number of different classes of words: _
RP -mfluenced accents - that used by middle-class Edinburgh speakers, for

60 61
Regional Accent Variation Regional accent variation

example). These accents do not have the /a/-/a:/ contrast, having a single Map 4.1 Distribution of /a/ and /a:/ in British English
open vowel not only in sets (1), (2) and (3) but also in sets (4) and (5). Pairs
A= /a/ In path
such as palm - Pam and calm - cam are therefore homophones. The symbol for B = /a:/ In path
the open vowel is conventionally /a/, but its pronunciation in these varieties C = /a/=/0:/ contrast absent or In doubt

may be [re], [a], [B] or [a]; such variation is licensed by the fact that there is no
second open vowel for it to contrast with. eNowcastle upon Tyne
The homophony of pairs like palm and Pam noted above is also true of
those accents most typical of the south-west of England (see Map 4.1). RP
speakers in this area do, of course, have the /a/-/a:/ contrast, as do many
other middle-class speakers whose accents resemble RP. But speakers with
more strongly regional south-western accents do not have the contrast, or
at most have a contrast that is variable or doubtful. It is certain that south­
western accented speakers have /a/ (often pronounced with a half-long [a•])
in words of classes (1), (2) and (3) (for class (4), see below). The doubt lies in
what these speakers do with words of set (5). Typically, it seems, words such
as father, half and can't have /a/. Words such as palm and calm often retain
the /1/, and generally have /a/, as in /palm/. Words that were borrowed into
English more recently- banana, gala or tomato, for example, which have /a:/ in
south-eastern and northern English accents and /a/ in Northern Ireland and
Scotland - most typically have /a/ but may have /a:/, and are even pronounced
[ta'mautau], and so on by some speakers from western England.
10Dmlles
100kllometres

/I/ and /i/

Another major north/south differentiating feature involves the final vowel
of words like city, money or coffee (as well as unstressed fotms of me, he, we). /II
In most parts of northern England these items have /r/, as in /'srtr/ city. In the All English accents permit /1/ where it occurs before a vowel, as in rat, trap or
south of England, on the other hand, these words have /i/, as in /'srti/; as we carry. They vary, however, in whether they permit the pronunciation of /1/
saw in the preceding chapter, this has been called 'happY-tensing' (page 48). after a vowel (post-vocalic /1/)1 as in words such as bar, bark, firm or butter. RP
The dividing line between north and south is in this case a good deal further does not have post-vocalic /1/1 so for these words has /ba:/, /ba:k/, /£3:m/ and
north than in the case of the previous two features, with only Cheshire, /'bAta/. Scottish and Irish accents (like most North American accents) typically
Lancashire and Yorkshire and areas to the north being involved - except do, by contrast, have /1/ in this position. These /1/-pronouncing accents are
that, again, Liverpool in this case patterns with the southern rather than the known as rhotic accents (or, especially by Americans, as 'r-ful' accents); those
northern accents. Tyneside and Humberside also have /i/ rather than /r/. The which do not permit post-vocalic /l/ are called non-rhotic (or 'r-less') accents.
quality of the /r/ vowel in parts of northern England may actually be markedly Beyond the UK, non-rhotic accents can be found in many parts of the world,
more open than the close value suggested by [r], with pronunciations as open including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, West Africa, the southern
as [i::] being heard in Lancashire, for example. United States, New York City, parts of New England and the Caribbean.
Scottish accents typically have the same vowel in this final position as Within England and Wales the position of post-vocalic /l/ in regional accents
they have in words such as gate or face, so that for example racy is ['rese]. In is quite complex, but we can generalise and say that /l/-ful pronunciations
north-east Scotland, the final vowel in words like racy, city, seedy, jetty and so are being lost - post-vocalic /l/1 in other words, is dying out - and that one is
on may 'harmonise' with the preceding stem vowel, such that it is predictable more likely to hear post-vocalic /1/ in the speech of older, working-class rural
which of two subforms [e] and [i] will occur depending on how close the speakers than from younger middle-class urban speakers. It is also receding in
stem vowel is, and what consonant intervenes; some consonants 'block' the urban Scotland, where the speech of young working-class people in Glasgow
harmony, while others are 'transparent' (Paster 2004). and Edinburgh is derhotacising. Map 4.2 shows those areas where post­
Accents of the Republic of Ireland typically have /i/. vocalic /1/ still occurs in the British Isles.

62 63
 Regional accent variation
Regional Accent Variation

soar /sJ:/ soar up /sJ:i Ap/

Map 4.2 Post-vocalic /ii in the UK and Ireland
Ac::: post-vocalic /l/ present
we now also have :
8= post-vocalic/I/absent
draw /drn/ draw up /dJJ:J Ap/
•·
It will be recalled that an /l/ which occurs in the latter position - that is
Aberdeen in cases where there is no <r> in the sp elling (which of course reflects the
original pronunciation) - is known as 'intrusive /l/'. B ecause there is no <r>
in the spelling, intrusive /1/ has often been frowned upon in the past by
schoolteachers and others as 'incorre ct'. However, it is now quite normal in
non-rhotic accents of English in the UK, and in RP it is usual for speakers to
say:
G Newcastle upon Tyne
idea [1] of Shah [1] ofIran Hannah [1] is
draw [1] it china [1] ornament pizza [1] and chips
We can say that where one of the vowels /a: J: 3: ra Ea a/ occurs before
another vowel, an /l/ is automatically inserted. This process is so automatic
that speakers are usually unaware that the y do it, even if they consider the
habit an unattractive or 'careless' sp eech trait. Generally, too, we can say that
the tendency is now so widespread that if speakers with a south- eastern-typ e
English accent fail to use intrusive /1/1 esp ecially after /a/ or /ra/, it may be
an indication that the y are not native sp eakers. Some more conservative RP
sp eakers carefully avoid the use of intrusive /1/ within words, and will not say
drawing /'dJJ:JII]/, as many non-RP sp eakers do (but might all the same use
/1/ in, say, banana-y ('tasting like banana' ), it being difficult to see how else
it might be pronounced). The stigma attached to intrusive /1/ has receded to
a linguistic change the point where many younger RP sp eakers app ear to have no objection to it
This difference between English accents is due to
c enturie s ago in the whatso ever, and express surprise when informed that some p eople consider
involving the loss of post-vocalic /1/1 which began som
e
r re gions . This loss of /1/ it incorrect or ugly (see also page 47, and Foulkes 1998 for further discussion).
south-east of England, and has since spread to othe
). Th conso nant /l/ was Accents such as Scottish accents which have preserved post-vocalic /1/
has also had a further consequence (see also page 47
e
in cart, but was retained hardly ever, of course, exhibit intrusive /II (the analogical process do es not
lost in these accents b efore a following consonant, as
wheth r or not the /1/ apply), and Scottish speakers often observe, for example, that 'English people
before a following vowel, as in carry. This meant that
e
ther it was follow d by a say India /'rndra1/'. English people, in fact, do not normally say /'rnd1a1/ if the
was pronounced in words like car dep ended on whe
e

a conso nant ( or by a word is uttered on its own, but they do pronounce the word this way if it is a
word beginning with a vowel or a word b eginning with
phrase such as /'mdra1 an pa:kJ'stam/ India and Pakistan. Scottish sp eakers may
pause). Thus we have
occasionally be heard to use intrusive /1/ in phrases like idea of, but it is rare.
car alarm with /r/ /'kaua'la:m/
It will be interesting to see whe ther the frequency of intrusive /l/ go es up as
but car keys without /1/ /'ka:'ki:z/ urban Scottish English derhotacises.
Loss of post-vocalic /1/ in RP and many other accents also means that
The /J/ in the pronunciation of car alarm is known as 'linking /1/', as we saw
in the previous chapter. Originally, we can assume, what happ ened was that many words, such as butter, better or hammer, end in -/a/ (rather than -/a1/).
When new words such as America, china, banana or algebra were adopted into
sp eakers dele ted (or failed to pronounce) the /1/ b efore a following consonant.
English, there was in these accents therefore no problem. They fitted into
Subsequently, however, this pattern has for most speakers been restructured,
the same pattern and were pronounced with final /a/ (plus intrusive /JI, of
analogically, so that it is now interpreted in such a way that /l/ is inserted
course, if the next word b egan with a vowel). However, in accents where
be fore a following vowel. This means that analogous to:

65
64
Regional Accent Variation Regional accent variation

post-vocalic /.l/ was preserved there were no words that ended in -/a/, other pairs like art and heart, or arm and harm, are pronounced the same way. The
than proper names such as Hannah or Noah. The problem therefore arose loss of /h/ is a change that has been ongoing for centuries - there is evidence
of how to incorporate these new words into the sound structures of these that it began perhaps as early as the sixteenth century - and it has been the
particular varieties. In many Scottish accents the solution seems to have been target of disapproving criticism for much of that time (Mugglestone 1995;
to end words such as these with /a/ (the vowel of hat) or /A/ (as in hut), as Beal 1999). /h/ is retained in accents of the north-east of England such as that
in for example /'tfama/ china or /a'mrnkA/ America. In accents in the west of of Newcastle, although it disappears quickly as one travels southwards from
England, on the other hand, another solution was sometimes adopted and there: /hi-dropping is reported for Sunderland, and is virtually categorical in
the new words assimilated to the pattern of butter. We therefore find, in cities Middlesbrough and other parts of the Teesside conurbation. Scottish and Irish
such as Southampton, pronunciations such as /ba'na:rn1/ banana, /va'mla1/ accents do not feature /hi-dropping.
vanilla, /'molta1/ Malta (perhaps by analogy with Gibraltar); this is not the An unexpected trend in contemporary London speech and in south­
same phenomenon as intrusive /1/1 because in these accents the /.1/ occurs eastern England more generally concerns the restoration of /h/ in appropriate
even where there is a following consonant. In Bristol, the solution was to contexts. Cheshire et al. (2008) found that young people in Hackney, in north
assimilate them to the pattern of bottle and apple /'apal/. This is the so-called London, used /h/ in words like heart and harm very much more frequently
'Bristol /1/' (see page 8n as in America /a'mrnkal/, Eva /'i:val/, and so on. A than did people of their grandparents' generation: overall, the young speakers
similar, but wholly independent, phenomenon is also reported for south­ dropped only one /h/ in every nine cases where the /h/ was potentially
east Pennsylvania English (Gick 2002), so it could be argued that there is pronounceable, while the elderly speakers dropped /h/ nearly two thirds of
something phonetically natural about the insertion of the so-called 'liquid' the time.
consonants /1/ and /.l/ after word-final /a/ in English.
Note that the actual pronunciation of /1/ also varies quite widely. In [?]
Scotland, Wales and northern England a frequent pronunciation is the RP speakers may use the glottal stop (see pages 43-44) word-initially before
alveolar tap [r]; in the south-west of England, in the Highlands of Scotland vowels, as in [?ant] ant, or before certain consonants or consonant clusters,
and in Ireland a retroflex approximant [U is used; and in south-eastern for example ['fr?rns] fitness, ['a?las] atlas, [ba?tf] batch, [si?ks] six, ['sim?pli]
England the usual form is the alveolar approximant [l] that is also usual in RP. simply (Brown 1990; Fabricius 2002; Altendorf 2003). In most British regional
The alveolar trill [r] is stereotypical of Scottish English, and although it is used accents, however, the glottal stop is more widely used, particularly as an
in many accents around Scotland, it now has a somewhat old-fashioned and/ allophone of word-medial and word-final /t/. It is most common in the
or rural flavour, and is in any case not particularly common even in accents speech of younger urban working-class speakers, and is now found in almost
that feature it (see pages 128, 132, 162). Other variants include the uvular all regions of the UK, with the particular exception of many parts of Wales
fricative [1!] in rural north-east England, and the labio-dental [v] which is now and northern Scotland. It occurs much more frequently in some phonological
very common among younger speakers in England, principally in the south contexts than others:

l
but increasingly in other areas of the country. See also Chapter 5. most frequent word-final pre-consonantal that man
/w./ and /u/ before a syllabic nasal button
We have already noted that Scottish and Northern Irish accents have no word-final pre-vocalic that apple
distinction between /a/ and /a:/. The same is also true, for the most part, of
the similar pairs of vowels /u/ and /u:/, and /o/ and /J:/. Thus Scottish speakers before syllabic [U bottle
make no distinction between pairs of words such as the following: least frequent word-internal pre-vocalic better
Pam~ palm
As was noted in Chapter 1, it appears that many younger RP speakers are also
pull~ pool adopting [?] in some of the above contexts, despite (or perhaps because of)
cot~ caught the stigma of ugliness, inarticulacy and 'sloppiness' that is often attached to
the form. The fact that prominent public figures such as the former Prime
/h/ Minister Tony Blair and certain younger members of the British royal family
Unlike RP, most urban regional accents of England and Wales do not have can be heard to use glottal stops in pre-consonantal, pre-nasal and even word­
/h/, or are at least variable in its usage. For speakers of these accents, therefore, final pre-vocalic positions suggests that this stigma is receding, however.

66 67
 Regional accent variation
Regional Accent Variation

In some areas, especially the north-east of England, East Anglia, Northern formerly had /j/, is today pronounced /lu:k/ (except that some - particularly
Ireland and north-eastern Scotland, the glottal stop may also be pronounced Scottish - accents still preserve /j/ in words like illumine and allude). /j/
simultaneously with the voiceless stops /p t k/ in certain positions, most has also been substantially lost after /s/: suitable still contains /j/ for many
strikingly when between vowels: RP speakers, and some older, very conservative RP speakers may retain /j/
in suit, but pronunciations like super /'sju:pa/ have long been considered
flipper ['f1Ip?a(1)] amusingly old-fashioned. Impersonators lampooning the hyper-conservative
city ['srt?i] RP speech of the art critic Brian Sewell (pages 46-47) take full advantage of
flicker ['flrk?a(1)] the comic potential of these affected-sounding pronunciations, one of which
conveniently occurs in Sewell's own surname. In RP and many other English
/IJ/ accents, though, this simplification of initial /Jju:/1 /lju:/1 and /sju:/ sequences
through the process of yod-dropping is as far as the process has gone, and /j/
(a) Most non-RP speakers of English, particularly when using informal
styles, do not have /IJ/ in the suffix -ing. In forms of this type they have can still occur before /u:/ after most other consonants.
/n/ instead: In certain regional accents, however, the change has progressed a good
deal further. In parts of the north of England, for example, /j/ has been lost
singing /'srIJm/ after /8/, so that enthuse may be /m'8u:z/. In London, /j/ is very often absent
walking /'wJ:km/ after /n/, so news may be /nu:z/ rather than the RP-type /nju:z/. Additionally,
as in a number of North American accents, /j/ can also, at least in northern
This pronunciation has also been stereotypically associated (see also
areas of London, be lost after /t/ and /d/1 giving tune /tu:n/ and duke /du:k/
pages 45-46) with older members of the aristocracy, who have often
rather than /tju:n/ and /dju:k/, as in RP.
been caricatured as being particularly interested in huntin� shootin 1
In a large area of eastern England, /j/ has been lost before /u:/ before
and fishin 1• It should be noted that although this habit is popularly
all consonants. The area in question covers Norfolk and parts of Suffolk,
termed 'dropping [9]11 it is a process of simple substitution of /IJ/ for
Essex, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Leicestershire,
/n/1 as nothing is dropped or omitted as such. It is also important to
Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, and includes the cities of Norwich,
remember that the phenomenon applies only to /IJ/ where it occurs in
Ipswich, Cambridge and Peterborough. In this area, pronunciations such as
the -ing suffix and analogous words like ceiling, or in words containing
pew /pu:/, beauty /'bu:ti/, view /vu:/, few /fu:/, queue /ku:/1 music /'mu:zrk/ and
the morpheme -thing (nothing, anything, etc.). /IJ/ in words like sing (or
human /'hu:man/ are quite usual.
sang, singer, finger) is never replaced by /n/ in any accent.
(b) In an area of western central England which includes Birmingham,
long mid diphthonging
Manchester and Liverpool, words which elsewhere have /IJ/ and are
spelled with <ng> are pronounced with [IJg], a sequence which has Accents in the south-eastern and southern-central part of England have
been labelled the 'velar nasal plus': undergone a process known as long mid diphthonging (see Wells 1982).
This means that the vowels of bait and boat have a diphthongal character.
singer ['srIJga] (rhymes with ['frIJga] finger and ['lrIJga] linger)
Indeed, many analyses of English phonology assume that these vowels are
thing [8rIJg] intrinsically diphthongal and so should be grouped with those of bite and
(c) A similar pronunciation can be heard in the -thing class words in bout. There is a great deal of variety in how the vowels may be realised, and
London working-class speech, where [kl rather than [g] follows [IJ]: it can quite reasonably be said that these two vowels are the most variable
for example, ['nAfrIJk] nothing. Words ending in -ing (running, etc.) are, vowels in English. Diphthongs may range from [&i] in bait and [Au] in boat in
however, not affected: the final nasal is either [IJ] or [n]. London and the south, through [ei] and [Ju], to [ei] and [ou] in the north of the
affected area. That is, the more southerly the accent, the 'wider' the diphthong
/j/-dropping (where 'wide' means that the start and end points of the vowel are widely
separated from each other in vowel space). In local accents elsewhere in the
At an earlier stage in the history of English, words like rude and rule were,
British Isles - the far south-west of England, the far north of England, Wales,
it is thought, pronounced /lju:d/ and /1ju:l/. In modern English, however,
Scotland and Ireland - these vowels have retained the older, monophthongal
the /j/, where it occurred after /1/, has been lost through a process known
pronunciations, such as [be:t] and [bo:t]. Again, there is variation within the
as yod-dropping, and the words are now pronounced /m:d/ and /m:1/. The
set of monophthongal forms, whereby (for example) the vowels are markedly
same thing is true of earlier /ju:/ after /1/: the name Luke, for instance, which

68 69
Regional Accent Variation
Regional accent variation

more open in West Yorkshire ([e:] and [J:] being typical values) than they are Map 4.3 Accent groups of the British Isles
in Scotland. In certain parts of northern England the vowels, especially that
of boat, may be centralised towards the middle of the vowel space. In some NE -North-east
places, for example in cities like Hull or Newcastle-upon-Tyne, it can be har� CN -Central North

,.·
to distinguish between words like joke and jerk, and in Middlesbrough the bait CL-Central Lancashire
vowel may be quite [a)-like, so that wake and work sound similar. The fact that M -Merseyside
in the latter accent the vowel in words of the work set is often fronted to a H -Humberside
quality approaching [E] contributes further to this similarity. NWM -North-west Midlands
EM - East Midlands
WM - West Midlands

···Regional
····· ·· ········accent classification
······ ··· ········· ··············· Scotland
SM -South Midlands
ESW-Eastern South-west
To summarise the contents of this chapter, we can point out that the way in WSW- Western South-west
which most of the features we have been discussing are regionally distributed SE -South-east
EA -East Anglia
makes it possible to construct a classification of the major accent types to be
found within the British Isles. This is illustrated in Map 4.3, which shows accents
of English divided into their main divisions and subdivisions, although note
must be taken of the fact that the drawing of regional linguistic boundaries is a
notoriously difficult and somewhat arbitrary task, and cases could certainly be
made for different classifications from those we have used here. Note also that
the political frontiers between Northern Ireland and the Republic ofireland, and
between England and Wales, do not coincide exactly with accent classification
boundaries, though that between Scotland and England corresponds closely
with a large number of linguistic discontinuities or isoglosses (Llamas 2010).
Map 4.3 shows a division of English accents into five major groups in
the British Isles: the south of England; the north of England; Wales; the
south of Ireland; and Scotland and the north of Ireland. To help clarify the
geographical positions of the subdivisions of the north of England and south
!!!!l!l!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!;;:=::::J1oom11es
of England groups, note the position of urban areas as follows: 111111111==:1 100 kllometres

North-east: Newcastle, Sunderland, Durham, Middlesbrough ,

Central north: Lancaster, York, Bradford, Leeds
Central Lancashire: Blackburn, Burnley, Accrington
by having the vowel /A/ in words like putt and cud. Within the southern area,
Merseyside: Liverpool, Birkenhead
the two south-western areas are distinguished by having /JI in bar and bark,
Humberside: Scunthorpe, Hull, Grimsby
and by lacking the distinction between /a/ and /a:/ (see above). They are
North-west Midlands: Manchester, Derby, Stoke-on-Trent, Chester
distinguished from each other by the absence of long mid diphthonging in
East Midlands: Nottingham, Leicester, Grantham
the western south-west. East Anglia has preserved initial /h/, and both East
West Midlands: Walsall, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Coventry
Anglia and the south Midlands have categorical /j/-dropping.
South Midlands: Bedford, Northampton, Milton Keynes
Accents in the north of England are distinguished by lacking the vowel
East south-west: Bristol, Gloucester, Southampton
/A/ in putt, having /u/ in both putt and put. As can be seen from the map,
West south-west: Plymouth, Exeter
the north of England area is divided up into nine sub-areas. These are
South-east: London, Brighton, Dover, Reading
characterised by the following features:
East Anglia: Norwich, Ipswich
I
(a) /h/ is preserved in the north-east (but not Teesside)
The five south of England areas (the western south-west, the eastern south­ (b) Words such as singer are pronounced with /IJg/ in central Lancashire,
west, the south-east, the south Midlands, and East Anglia) are distinguished Merseyside, the north-west Midlands and the West Midlands r:

70
T1
Regional Accent Variation

(c) Postvocalic /1/ is preserved in a small area of central Lancashire

(d) Words like money have final /i/ in the north-east, Hum,berside,
Merseyside and West Midlands areas
(e) Long mid diphthonging in bait and boat occurs in Merseyside, the
North-west Midlands, the East Midlands and the West Midlands (just
as it does in the south of England), although it has been spreading into

British tsl s
other areas of England in recent decades
(f) /j/-dropping is found in the East Midlands

Accents and Dialects

Ireland and Scotland lack long mid diphthonging; they preserve /h/ and non­
prevocalic /1/; and, like the south of England, they have /A/ in putt. The north
of Ireland and Scotland also lack the distinctions between /u/ and /u:/, /a/ and
/a:/, and /n/ and /J:/.
Wales is distinguished by lacking /h/, postvocalic /l/, and long mid In this chapter we look in greater detail at the speech of 23 different areas of
diphthonging (though this can be heard in urban south Wales). Welsh accents the British Isles. These correspond to the recordings of conversations on the
also have /i/ in money, JA/ in putt, and /a/ in path (though see Chapter 5). companion website ( http://www.routledge.com/cw/hughes/). The speakers
For the summary of these facts, see Table 4.2. have quite distinct accents, and have been chosen to provide a sample of
regional variation which is linguistically and geographically representative.
Table 4.2 Key phonological characteristics of accents of English in the British Isles The towns and cities that the first set of speakers come from are:
London (two varieties: the first, traditional working-class Londo
n English, is
/A/ /a:/ /a:/ Ii/ /l/ /u/ /h/ lg! /j/ /er/ known colloquially as 'Cockney'; the second is London Englis
h that has been
in in in in in in in in in in influenced by West Indian English and Caribbean creoles)

-
mud path palm hazy bar pull harm sing few gate Norwich (East Anglia)
Scotland & + - -- - + + - + - Bristol (the west of England)
N. Ireland " ---_
Southampton (the south of England)
S. Ireland + + + + + + + - + - Pontypridd (south Wales)
North�east - - -+ + - + + - + -- Walsall (West Midlands)

Central north --_ -

---
.., + ---- � - + - ... --
+ -
Leicester (East Midlands)
Bradford (West Yorkshire)
Central Lanes. ,... - + - + + - , __ + + -:- Hull (East Yorkshire)
Merseyside - � + + - - + + -_+ - - Liverpool (Merseyside)
- - - - -- -
--

Humberside + + + + Manchester (north-west Midlands)

- - - - - Middlesbrough (north-east England)
NW. Midlands + + + + + Carlisle (north-west England)
E. Midlands - - + - - + - - - + Edinburgh (central Scotland)
W. Midlands - - + + - + - + + + Aberdeen (north-east Scotland)
S. Midlands + + + + - + - - - + B elfast (Northern Ireland)
E. South-west + - - + + + � - +
Dublin (eastern Republic of Ireland)
Galway (western Republic of Ireland)
W. South-west + - - + + + - - +_ -
- - - We also investigate the English of five areas where traditional dialects are
-
South-east + + + + + + +
EastAngl/a _+ + + + + - - - +
spoken. The speakers come from the mainly rural county of Devon in
south-west England, from rural Lancashire in north-west England, from
Wales + - + + - + + - + - Northumberland in the far north of England, from the Lowlands of
Scotland (that area lying between and around Glasgow and Edinburgh, but

72
73
British Isles Accents and Dialects
1 London ('Cockney')

also extending up the east coast of Scotland to Fife, Angus and Aberdeenshire),
1 London ('Cockney')
and from the Shetland Islands in the far northern extremity of the British
Isles. The locations of these areas are shown on the map on the inside front
cover.
We treat each area in turn, indicating first the principal distinguishing
features of the particular accent, and making reference where possible
to examples of them in the recording (identified by line number in the
transcript, e.g. 1. 10). This is followed by an orthographic transcription of the
relevant recording, and notes on interesting grammatical and lexical features
which appear in the recording.
We should point out here that the recordings were not made by actors or
in a studio. For the most part they are of people talking with friends in their
own homes. In order to obtain 'natural' speech, we wanted the speakers to
feel comf ortable and relaxed, and to speak as they usually would in friendly
conversation. We think that in general we have achieved this. Some of the
recordings date back to well before the publication of the first edition of this
book in 1979, however, and the conditions in which the recordings were
made mean that there is sometimes considerable background noise, and there Map 5.1 London
are occasions when speakers get excited, are interrupted, turn away from the
microphone, or rattle a teacup in its saucer, and for this reason it is not always 1.1 The traditional working-class London accent informally termed
absolutely clear what has been said. Some recordings have been electronically 'Cockney' is, of course, a southern accent.
filtered so as to reduce the levels of background noise, but there are limits (a) /u/ and /A/ are both present and distinguish between, for example,
to how much noise can be removed without affecting the intelligibility of put and putt (WL 4, 5; see pages 59-60). /A/ is realised as [aJ (Figure
the speaker's voice, or otherwise creating distracting changes in the sound 5.1, a clear example being blood, 1. 10).
quality. (b) /a/ and /a:/ are distributed as in RP (WL 21-6; see pages 60-62). /a/
The recordings for each of the first 19 areas begin with the reading of a is realised as [i;.], or as a diphthong, [e� (Figure 5.1; WL 21; bag, 1. 35).
word list designed to bring out the principal differences between British Isles (c) Unlike RP, the final vowel of city, etc., is /i/ and not /r/ (WL 19, 20).
accents. For comparison, the very first recording on the website is of an RP
1.2 /h/ is almost invariably absent. When it is present, it is likely to be in a
speaker reading the list. The list, together with the RP pronunciation of it,
stressed position (happened, 1. 26).
is given on page xi (and is referred to subsequently as WL, with the number
identifying the word. WL 5, for example, is the word putt). 1.3 The glottal stop, [?], is extremely common in London speech. As well
In the following sections we will repeatedly want to talk about the qualities as in the environments in which it occurs in RP (pages 43-44), it is also
of different vowels. In working-class London speech ('Cockney'), for example, found:
although the vowel /A/, as in cup, is to be found in the same set of words as it is (a) accompanying /p/ between vowels (paper, 1. 2)
in RP, its realisation - that is, the actual sound made - is consistently different
(b) representing /t/ between vowels and before a pause (WL 1-6 etc.;
from the equivalent RP vowel. To show these differences (which, of course,
butterfly, 1. 18; wet, 1. 3).
can be heard in the website recordings) we make use of vowel charts of the
kind introduced in Chapter 3. 1.4
(a) The contrast between /0/ and /f/ is variably lost through the process
known as (th)-fronting, which collapses the distinction betwee
n
labia-dental and dental fricatives (see page 44):
initially thin /frn/
medially Cathy /'kafi/
finally both /bauf/

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