The 'regional
accents of
English speakers' show great variation across the areas where English is spoken as a first language. This article provides an overview of the many identifiable variations in
pronunciation, usually deriving from the
phoneme inventory of the local
dialect, of the local variety of
Standard English between various
populations of native English speakers
Local accents are part of local
dialects. Any dialect of English has unique features in
pronunciation,
vocabulary, and
grammar. The term "accent" describes only the first of these, namely, pronunciation. See also:
List of dialects of the English language.
Non-native speakers of English tend to carry over the
intonation and
phonemic inventory from their
mother tongue into their English speech. For more details see
Non-native pronunciations of English.
Among native English speakers, many different accents exist. Some regional accents are easily identified by certain characteristics. It should be noted that further variations are to be found within the regions identified below; for example, towns located less than 10
miles (16
km) from the city of
Manchester such as
Bolton,
Oldham and
Salford, each have distinct accents, all of which form the Lancashire accent, yet in extreme cases are different enough to be noticed even by a non-local listener. There is also much room for misunderstanding between people from different regions, as the way one word is pronounced in one accent (for example, ''petal'' in American English) will sound like a different word in another accent (for example, ''pearl'' in Scottish English).
Great Britain
Main articles: British English
English accents and dialects vary widely in
Great Britain. This may be related to the fact that the language has its origins there and has been evolving there for several hundred years. The varieties of English in use in Great Britain are also influenced by the fact that it is comprised of
England,
Scotland, and
Wales.
England
Main articles: English English
The main accent groupings within
England are between the north and the south; the dividing line runs roughly from
Shrewsbury to south of
Birmingham and then to
The Wash. For many years, the British media and academic bodies have employed
Received Pronunciation as a 'standard', although this has become far less common in recent years. Received Pronunciation is a deliberately-structured accent, designed for clarity, which has its roots in the speech patterns of south-eastern England (home of Oxford and Cambridge Universities). The London-derived
Estuary English is now growing in importance as a widespread standard form in the south.
There is considerable variation in the accents of the English. Notable geographical accents include
West Country (the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire,Gloucestershire and Bristol), North East (Northumberland, Durham, Newcastle, Sunderland),
Lancashire (with regional variants in Bolton, Manchester, Blackpool),
Merseyside,
Yorkshire (which has huge differences between the North, West and East Ridings), West Midlands (
The Black Country, Dudley, Birmingham). The accents of the counties comprising the
East Midlands &
East Anglia (Nottingham, Derby, Lincoln, Leicester) and (Norfolk,Suffolk, Norwich) some less than 30 miles from the "west midlands" also have a distinct dialect and received pronunciation. Even within these broad categories there are considerable differences in inflection and pronunciation.
The arrival of large scale immigration to England has produced another layer of regional accents that have merged with the accents of immigrants. Such examples include London-Caribbean, West Yorkshire mixed with Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi.
Scotland
Main articles: Scottish English
Wales
Main articles: Welsh English
The accent of English in
Wales is strongly influenced by the phonology of the
Welsh language, which more than 20% of the population of Wales speak as their first or second language. North-east Wales sometimes tends to have a Northern English accent due to the large English population on the other side of the border.
Ireland
Main articles: Hiberno-English
The differences between accents in the province of
Ulster and the remaining three provinces of Ireland are significant enough that it is best to treat them separately. There are, of course, differences within each group as well, but these are often noticeable only to locals.
Ulster
The
Ulster accent has two main sub accents, namely (
Mid Ulster English) and
Ulster Scots. The language is spoken throughout the nine counties of Ulster, and in some northern areas of bordering counties such as
Louth and
Leitrim. It bears many similarities to Scottish English through influence from
Ulster Scots, which is distinct and recognized as a variety of
Scots.
Some characteristics of the Ulster accent include:
★ As in Scotland, the vowels and are merged, so that ''look'' and ''Luke'' are homophonous. The vowel is a
high central rounded vowel, .
★ The diphthong is pronounced approximately , but wide variation exists, especially between
social classes in
Belfast
★ The vowel is a monophthong in open syllables (e.g. ''day'' ) but a rising diphthong in closed syllables (e.g. ''daze'' ). But the monophthong remains when inflectional endings are added, thus ''daze'' contrasts with ''days'' .
★ The
alveolar stops become
dental before , e.g. '''t'ree'' and ''spi'd'er''
★ often undergoes
flapping to before an
unstressed syllable, e.g. ''eighty''
Connacht, Leinster and Munster
The accent of these three provinces is relatively similar throughout, and often distinguishable only by locals or those with experience. To people within the nine counties of Ulster it is more commonly a "southern accent".
Dublin is notable for having accents different to most of the rest of Ireland (although certain other accents are quite distinctive, for example
Kerry,
Cork,
Wexford and
Offaly). There is also stereotypically a difference between the accents of the
Northside and
Southside of Dublin.
Irish Travellers
Irish Travellers have a very distinct accent closely related to a rural
Hiberno-English. Many Travellers who were born in parts of Britain have the accent, despite the fact that they do not live in Ireland. They also have their own language which strongly links in with their dialect/accent of English, see
Shelta.
North America
Main articles: North American English
Canada
Main articles: Canadian English
There are numerous unique accents across Canada's various regions, with no single linguistic definition that includes Canada as a whole. However a fairly homogenous dialect exists in
Western and Central Canada. William Labov identifies an inland region that concentrates all of the defining features of the dialect centred on the Prairies, with periphery areas with more variable patterns including the metropolitan areas of Vancouver and Toronto.
[1] The
Canadian Shift is found throughout Canada except for the Atlantic Provinces.
[2] Canadian raising has a wider range, and includes some parts of Atlantic Canada, but many Canadians do not possess this feature, and defining the accent by this would exclude parts of Atlantic Canada and include some adjacent portions of the US. Except for the Canadian Shift of the short front vowels, the phonology of the English spoken in Western and Central Canada is identical to that of the English spoken in adjacent regions in the US. Except in some speakers scattered throughout the far West, the Canadian shift is absent from the US, although the
California vowel shift contains similar features. The island of Newfoundland has its own distinctive dialect of English known as
Newfoundland English (often referred to as ‘Newfie’) while many in the Maritime provinces – Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island – have an accent that sounds more like Scottish English and, in some places, Irish English than General American. There is also some French influence in pronunciation for some English-speaking Canadians who live near, and especially work with, French-Canadians. Labov considers Northern Canada to be a dialect region in formation.
[3]
United States
Main articles: American English
There is great variation among accents of English spoken in the
United States. In terms of phonology,
flapping might be the only process common to all accents of American English: not all American English accents are
rhotic, not all use the "
flat A" in words like ''half'' and ''can't'', not all have lost the
phonemic differentiation between the vowels of ''father'' and ''bother'' or the vowels of ''cot'' and ''caught'' or the consonants of ''wine'' and ''whine'', and so forth.
General American is the name given to the accent used by most TV network announcers; it is most similar to the local accents of
Iowa and adjacent parts of
Nebraska and
Illinois, but it has no set definition beyond being
rhotic. Because of this, "General American" speakers can be found throughout the United States, especially in the North, as well as in English-speaking Canada. General American makes a good reference accent, as well as a good goal for foreigners learning American English, because it is generally regarded as a "neutral" accent (when most Americans say someone "doesn't have an accent" they mean he or she has a General American accent).
West Indies and Bermuda
For discussion, see:
★
Bajan
★
Bermudian English
★
Caribbean English
★
Jamaican English
★
Trinidadian English
Southern Hemisphere
Australia
Main articles: Regional variation in Australian English
The greatest variation in
Australian accents is along
educational and occupational lines, expressed as three
class-based accents: ''Broad Australian'', ''General Australian'' and ''Cultivated Australian''. However, some regional variation has been documented. Generally, accents are found to be
broadest in the more remote and rural areas.
A 1995 survey by D. Crystal of the usage of /aː/ ("long a") and /æ/ in the same words ("graph", "chance", "demand", "dance", "castle", "grasp" and "contrast", across five cities, found that /aː/ was generally strongest in
Adelaide, where it was used on average 88% of the time, and weakest in
Hobart at 39% (Crystal, 1995, ''Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language'').
Some people in
Victoria have a tendency to pronounce the vowel in words like dress, bed and head as /æ/. As a result, the words
"celery" and "salary" are pronounced alike (
F. M. Cox & S. Palethorpe, 2003, "The border effect: Vowel differences across the NSW–Victorian Border").
In
Western Australia, a tendency to pronounce words such as "beer" with two syllables (/biː.ə/ or "be-ah"), in cases where other Australians use one syllable (/biə/), has been noted (
''Sydney Morning Herald'', January 28, 2005).
According to anecdote and stereotype,
Queenslanders tend to use Broad Australian more and to
drawl, although this does not appear to have been verified by research, and General and Cultivated accents are also widespread in Queensland.
New Zealand
Main articles: New Zealand English
The
New Zealand accent is distinguished from the Australian one by the presence of short or "clipped" vowels, also encountered in
South African English. New Zealanders pronounce "fish and chips" as "fush and chups", "yes" as "yiss" and "sixty-six" as "suxty-sux". On the other hand, New Zealanders would pronounce 'bed' as 'bid'.
To American ears, the New Zealand soft "s" sounds slushy, more like "sh", so that "consumer" sounds like "con-SHOO-mer". This is attributable to the influence of
Scottish English speech patterns. The
Scottish English influence is more evident in the southern regions of New Zealand, notably
Dunedin.
Geographical variations appear slight, and mainly confined to individual special local words. One group of speakers, however, hold a recognised place as "talking differently": the South of the South Island (Murihiku) harbours a "Celtic fringe" of people speaking with a "Southland burr" in which a back-trilled 'r' appears prominently. The area formed a traditional repository of immigration from Scotland.
The trilled 'r' is also used by some Māori, who may also pronounce 't' and 'k' sounds almost as 'd' and 'g'. This is also encountered in South African English, especially among
Afrikaans speakers.
South Atlantic
Falkland Islands
The
Falkland Islands have a large non-native born population, mainly from England, but also from
Saint Helena. In rural areas, the Falkland accent tends to be stronger. The accent has resemblances to both Australia-NZ English, and that of
Norfolk in England.
Saint Helena
"Saints", as Saint Helenan islanders are called, have a variety of different influences on their accent. To outsiders, the accent has resemblances to the accents of South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.
Television is a reasonably recent arrival there, and is only just beginning to have an effect.
Southern Africa
South Africa
Main articles: South African English
South Africa has 11 official languages, one of which is English.
Afrikaners (
Boers), descendants of mainly Dutch settlers, tend to pronounce English phonemes with a strong
Afrikaans inflection, which is very similar to Dutch.
Native English speakers in South Africa have an accent that generally resembles British
Received pronunciation modified with varying degrees of Germanic inflection (caused by the Afrikaner influence). Native English speakers in South Africa also insert varying numbers of Afrikaans and Zulu loanwords into their speech.
British people often confuse South African English with Australian English while Americans often confuse it with an Upper Class British accent.
The accents of native English speakers of Johannesburg differ. Those from the northern suburbs (Parkview, Parkwood, Parktown North, Saxonwold, etc) tend to be less strongly influenced by Afrikaans. These suburbs are populated by persons with tertiary education and higher incomes. The accents of native English speakers from the southern suburbs (Rosettenville, Turffontein, etc) tend to be more strongly influenced by Afrikaans. These suburbs are populated by tradesmen and factory workers, with lower incomes. The extent of Afrikaans influence is explained by the fact that Afrikaans urbanisation would historically have been from failed marginal farms or failing economies in rural towns, into the southern and western suburbs of Johannesburg. The western suburbs of Johannesburg (Newlands, Triomf, which has now reverted to its old name
Sophiatown, Westdene, etc) are predominantly Afrikaans speaking.
Zimbabwe
In
Zimbabwe, native English speakers (mainly the white minority) have a similar speech pattern to that of
South Africa. Hence those with high degrees of Germanic inflection would pronounce 'Zimbabwe' as ''zom-'baw'-bwi'', as opposed to the African pronunciation ''zeem-'bah'-bwe''.
Namibia
Namibian English tends to be strongly influenced by that of
South Africa
Asia
Hong Kong
Main articles: Hong Kong English
The accent of English spoken in
Hong Kong follows mainly British, with rather strong influence from
Cantonese on the
pronunciations of a few consonants and vowels, and sentence grammar and structure. In recent years there are some
Canadian and
Australian influences, attributable to the return to Hong Kong of persons who had emigrated to these countries.
American influence in
vocabularies and
spellings is also substantial through
multinational conglomerates and
Hollywood movies.
South Asia
A number of distinct dialects of English are spoken in
South Asia. Accents originating in this part of the world tend to display two distinctive features:
★
syllable-timing, in which a roughly equal time is allocated to each syllable. Akin to the English of Singapore and Malaysia. (Elsewhere, English speech timing is based predominantly on stress);
★ "sing-song" pitch (somewhat reminiscent of those of
Welsh English).
Malaysia and Singapore
English is the
lingua franca of
Malaysia and
Singapore, two former British colonies. It also is the most frequently used language in the homes of about 23% of Singaporeans (see http://www.singstat.gov.sg/papers/c2000/adr-literacy.pdf).
The Singaporean and
Malaysian accents are fairly similar and the distinctions between the two are analogous to that between the American and Canadian accents. The Singaporean/Malaysian accent is so distinctive that it is one of the ways Singaporeans and Malaysians recognize one another when they are overseas.
The Singaporean/Malaysian accent appears to be a melding of British, Chinese, and Malay influences.
Many Singaporeans and Malaysians adopt different accents and usages depending on the situation, for example an office worker may speak with less colloquialism and with a more British accent at the job than with friends or while out shopping.
''See also
British and Malaysian English differences,
Malaysian English, and
Singlish (Singapore Colloquial English)''.
★
syllable-timing, where speech is timed according to syllable, akin to the English of the Indian Subcontinent. (Elsewhere, speech is usually timed to stress.)
★ A quick, staccato style, with "puncturing" syllables and well-defined, drawn out tones.
★ No
rhotic vowels, like British English. Hence "caught" and "court" rhyme, both being pronounced , "can't" rhymes with "aren't", etc.
★ Much dropping off of final consonants: "must" becomes "mus'", "cold" becomes "co'", etc.
★ The "ay" and "ow" sounds in "raid" and "road" ( and respectively) are pronounced as
monophthongs, i.e. with no "glide": and .
★ is pronounced as /t/ and as /d/; hence, "thin" is and "then" is .
★ Depending on how colloquial the situation is: many
discourse particles, or words inserted at the end of sentences that indicate the role of the sentence in discourse and the mood it conveys, like "lah", "leh", "mah", "hor", etc.
★ The main shiboleth for distinguishing a Singaporean and a Malaysian would be the pronunciation of the word "Malaysia." A Singaporean is more likely to say "Malay-zhuh", while a Malaysian would more likely say "Malayss-syuh."
Philippines
Philippine English is heavily influenced by American English but it is also influenced by
Tagalog and other
Philippine languages.
Many vowels and consonant sounds such as [f] and [v] or [e] and [i] are interchanged frequently
Philippine languages so they are realized differently by Filipinos.
★ Filipino: [pilipino]
★ Victor: [biktor]
★ Family: [pamili]
★ Varnish: [barnis]
★ Fun: [pan]
★ Vehicle: [bihikel]
★ Lover = [laber]
★ Find = [paInd]
★ Official: [opisyal]
★ Very = [beri]
Currently, Filipinos are more sensitive to pronunciation due to their large exposure to English movies and books. English is also the second language in the Philippines and it is used as the medium of around 80% of the schools' subjects. Also, due to the vast entry of business processes outsourcing (BPO) companies like call centers, English tutorial schools and medical transcription companies; it was an avenue to the improvement and utilization of the English language and its pronunciation.
See also
★
List of dialects of the English language
External links
★
The Speech Accent Archive 633 audio samples of people with various accents reading the same paragraph.
★
Sounds Familiar? — Listen to examples of regional accents and dialects from across the UK on the British Library's 'Sounds Familiar' website
★
Sound Comparisons Project Hear the same words pronounced in English accents from around the world - instantaneous playback online
★
International Dialects of English Archive
★
English Accents and Dialects Searchable free-access archive of 681 speech samples, England only, wma format with linguistic commentary
★
Britain's crumbling ruling class is losing the accent of authority An article on the connection of class and accent in the UK, its decline, and the spread of Estuary English
★
The Telsur Project Homepage of the telephone survey of North American English accents
★
Pittsburgh Speech & Society A site for non-linguists, by Barbara Johnstone of Carnegie-Mellon University
★
Linguistic Geography of Pennsylvania by Claudio Salvucci
★
Phillyspeak A newspaper article on Philadelphia speech
★
J.C. Wells' English Accents course Includes class handouts describing Cockney, Scottish, Australian, and Scouse, among other things.
★
Evaluating English Accents Worldwide
★
Do You Speak American? A series of web pages by PBS that attempts to discuss the differences between dialects in the United States
★
American Regional Accent Map A continuously-updating map based on users' responses to quizzes
★
whoohoo.co.uk British Dialect Translator Fun site that translates phrases into the different dialects of the British Isles.
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