Northern and Midland Accents

Midland accents, Yorkshire, for example. West Midland and North-West accents have very much in common with Northern ones. Therefore they are combined in this book into one group; peculiar realization of vowels and consonants will be marked, of course, when each subgroup is described separately.

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Northern accents

The counties of northern England are not far from the Scot­tish border, so the influence of Scotch accent is noticeable, though there are of course many features of pronunciation char­acteristic only of northern English regions. The most typical rep­resentative of the speech of this area is Newcastle accent. It dif­fers from RP in the following:

in vowels

1. RP [ʌ] is realized as [u]: love [lʌv] — [luv];

2. RP final [ı] sounds like [i:]: city ['sıtı] — ['siti:];

3. words like dance, chance which in RP have [a:] are pro­nounced with [æ]: [dæns], [ʧæns];

4. [ei], [ɜu] are either monophthongs, or much narrower diph­thongs than the ones in the south of England, or they may even sound as opening diphthongs [ıe], [uo]: bay [be:], [bie], plate [ple:t], [plıet], boat [bo:t], [buot];

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5. words that have "al" in spelling — talk, call, all, are pro­nounced with [a:]: [ta:k], [ka:l], [a:l];

6. RP words with [ɜ:] are pronounced with [ɔ:] in a broad Ty-neside accent: first [fɔ:st], shirt [ʃɔ:t]; so first, forced; shirt, short are homonyms;

7. [ai] is [ɛi]: right [rɛit];

8. words which in RP have [au] may have [u:], e.g. about ['əbu:t].

ln consonants

1. [1] is clear in all environments;

2. [h] is usually present in all positions;

3. -ing is [ın]: shilling ['ʃılın];

4. [p, t, k] between vowels are accompanied by glottal stop [ʔ]: pity ['pıtʔi:];

5. in parts of Northumberland and Durham [r] may be uvular (in its production the tongue and the uvular, not the tongue and the alveolar ridge take part).

Yorkshire accents

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Yorkshire and Bradford accents are identical with northern vowel features in points 1, 3, 4 (only many speakers pronounce words which have "ow", "ou" in spelling with [ɜu]: know [nɜu]; with northern consonant features in point 3.

Now having accomplished the description of regional non-RP accents of England we would like to say that we didn't attempt to give a detailed account of all the regional differences in ac­cents of remote rural areas. Rather we concentrated on urban ac­cents which can be heard when one travels throughout the country and which are most likely to be encountered by foreign tourists. Intonational features were not dealt with.

II. Welsh English

As everyone probably knows Wales is a bilingual area. This speech situation in linguistics is known as exoglossic. In Wales English dominates over Welsh in urban areas, in the west and north-west of the country the balance being in favour of Welsh, where English is learnt at schools as a second language. At the moment nationalistic feelings are rather strong in Wales and we are witnessing a movement in favour of the revival of the Welsh language and its spread in all areas of Wales.

However, Welsh English at the level of educated speech and writing is not much different from that of English English. Most differences are found at the level of more localized dialects.

In this chapter we shall give a brief outline of Welsh English pronunciation standard.

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The principal phonological differences between WE and RP are the following:

ln vowels

1. The distribution of [æ] and [a:] is as in the north of Eng­land. Last, dance, chance, etc. tend to have [æ] rather than [a].

2. unstressed orthographic "a" tends to be [æ] rather than [ə], e.g.: sofa ['so:fæ];

3. there is no contrast between [ʌ] and [ə]: rubber ['rəbə];

4. [ı] at the end is a long vowel: city ['sıti:];

5. in words like tune, few, used we find [iu] rather than [ju:]: tune [tiun];

6. [ei], [ɜu] may become monophthongs: bake [bɛ:k], boat

[bo:t];

7. the vowel [з:] as in girl is produced with rounded lips ap­proaching [o:];

8. the vowels [iə], [uə] do not occur in many variants of Welsh English: fear is ['fijə], poor is ['pu:wə].

ln consonants

1. W. E. is non-rhotic, [r] is a tap, or it is also called a flapped [r]. Intrusive and linking [r] do occur.

2. Consonants in intervocalic position, particularly when the preceding vowel is short are doubled: city ['sitti:].

3. Voiceless plosives tend to be strongly aspirated: in word final position they are generally released and without glottaliza-tion, e.g. pit [p^hit^h].

4. [l] is clear in all positions.

5. Intonation in Welsh English is very much influenced by the Welsh language.

 

III. Scottish English

We must first make clear that the status of Scottish English is still debated. Some linguists say that it is a national variant. Oth­ers say that it is a dialect.

English has been spoken in Scotland for as long as it has been spoken in England. In the Highlands and Islands of north-em and western Scotland, however, Gaelic is still the native lan­

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guage of thousands of speakers from these regions. A standard­ized form of this language, known as Scots, was used at the court and in literature until the Reformation. Then it was gradu­ally replaced by English. Incidentally a number of writers and poets of the likes of R. Bums retained their native language.

Nowadays educated Scottish people speak a form of Scottish Standard English which grammatically and lexically is not differ­ent from English used elsewhere, although with an obvious Scot­tish accent. We must admit, however, that non-standard dialects of Scotland still resemble Scots and in many respects are radical­ly different from most other varieties of English. It is very difficult to understand them for students who learn RP.

At the moment there is currently a strong movement in Scot­land for the revival of Scots. Nevertheless Scottish Standard Eng­lish is still more prestigeous and in this book we concentrate on Scottish English as used and spoken by educated urban Scots.

As for the status of Scottish English, in this book it will be treated as a dialect though it is fair to say that there is much in favour of calling it a national variant of English.

Vowels

1. Since Sc. Eng. is rhotic, i.e. it preserves post-vocalic [r], vowels such as RP [iə], [ɜ:], [ɛə], [uə] do not occur:

	RP	Sc. Eng.
beer	[biə]	[bir]
bird	[bɜ:d]	[bird]
hurt	[hɜ:t]	[hʌrt]
bard	[ba:d]	[ba:rd]
moor	[muə]	[mur]

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2. Length is not a distinctive feature of Scottish vowels. So pairs like pool — pull, cot — caught are not distinguished. It should be noted, however, that vowels are longer in final stressed open syllables than elsewhere.

3. Monophthongs are pure, there is no trace of diphthongiza-tion with the exceptions of [ai — ɛi], [au — ɛu] and [ɔı].

4. The RP [æ — ɑ:(a)] distinction doesn't exist: hat [hat], dance [da:ns],

5. [i], [u], [ʌ], [ə] may be central.

6. In non-standard Sc. Eng. accent [u:] often occurs when RP has [au]: house [haus — hu:s]

7. It is interesting to mention that [ɒ] and [ɜu] may be not contrasted:

socks    [soks]

soaks      

 not      [not]

note

8. In very many regional accents do, to are pronounced as [de], [tə].

9. In some accents words such as arm, after, grass may have [ɛ] rather than [a:]: after ['ɛftə].

Consonants

1. Sc. Eng. consistently preserves a distinction between [ʍ] and [w]: which [ʍiʧ] — witch [wiʧ].

2. Initial [p, t, k] are usually non-aspirated.

3. [r] is most usually a flap.

4. Non-initial [t] is often realized as glottal stop [ʔ].

5. [ł] is dark in all positions.

6. The velar fricative [x] occurs in a number of words: loch [lɒx].

7. -ing is [in].

8. [h] is present.

9. A specific Scottish feature is the pronunciation of [Ɵr] as [ʃr]: through [ʃru:].

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