pronounced as /notice/
Spoken English shows great variation across regions where it is the predominant language. The United Kingdom has a wide variety of accents, and no single "British accent" exists. This article provides an overview of the numerous identifiable variations in pronunciation. Such distinctions usually derive from the phonetic inventory of local dialects, as well as from broader differences in the Standard English of different primary-speaking populations.
Accent is the part of dialect concerning local pronunciation. Vocabulary and grammar are described elsewhere; see the list of dialects of the English language. Secondary English speakers tend to carry over the intonation and phonetics of their mother tongue in English speech. For more details on this, see non-native pronunciations of English.
Primary English speakers show great variability in terms of regional accents. Examples such as Pennsylvania Dutch English are easily identified by key characteristics, but others are more obscure or easily confused. Broad regions can possess subforms. For instance, towns located less than 10miles from the city of Manchester, such as Bolton, Oldham, Rochdale, and Salford each have distinct accents, all of which are grouped together under the broader Lancashire accent. These sub-dialects are very similar to each other, but non-local listeners can identify firm differences. On the other side of the spectrum, Australia has a General Australian accent which remains almost unchanged over thousands of miles.
English accents can differ enough to create room for misunderstandings. For example, the pronunciation of "pearl" in some variants of Scottish English can sound like the entirely unrelated word "petal" to an American. For a summary of the differences between accents, see the International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects.
Phonological features | United States | Canada | Republic of Ireland | South Africa | Australia | New Zealand | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
pronounced as //æ// rather than pronounced as //ɑː// in can't | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||||
father–bother merger | Yes | Yes | |||||||||
consistent intervocalic alveolar-flapping | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||||||
unrounded pronounced as /[ɑ]/ in pot | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||||||
syllabic pronounced as /[ɝ]/ in bird | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||||
cot-caught merger | Variable | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||||
– merger | Yes | Yes | |||||||||
trap-bath split | Variable | Variable | Variable | Yes | Partial | Yes | |||||
rhotic or non-rhotic | Mostly rhotic | Rhotic | Rhotic | Rhotic | Rhotic | Mostly non-rhotic | Non-rhotic | Non-rhotic | Non-rhotic | Mostly non-rhotic | |
monophthongal pronounced as //aɪ, aʊ//, close vowels for pronounced as //æ, ɛ// | Yes | Mostly | Yes | ||||||||
front pronounced as /[aː]/ for pronounced as //ɑːr// | Yes | Variable | Variable | Yes | Yes |
GA ! | Can | sound change | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
pronounced as //ɔ// | pronounced as //ɔ// | pronounced as //ɑ// | cot–caught merger | |
pronounced as //ɒ// | lot–cloth split | |||
pronounced as //ɑ// | father–bother merger | |||
pronounced as //ɑː// | ||||
pronounced as //æ// | pronounced as //æ// | trap–bath split | ||
pronounced as //æ// |
See main article: British English.
Accents and dialects vary widely across Great Britain, Ireland and nearby smaller islands. The UK has the most local accents of any English speaking country. As such, a single "British accent" does not exist. Someone could be said to have an English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish accent, although these all have many different sub-types.
There are considerable variations within the accents of English across England, one of the most obvious being the trap–bath split of the southern half of the country.
Two main sets of accents are spoken in the West Country, namely Cornish and West Country, spoken primarily in the counties of Devon, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Bristol, Dorset (not as common in Dorset), and Wiltshire (again, less common in eastern Wiltshire). A range of variations can be heard within different parts of the West Country: the Bristolian dialect is distinctive from the accent heard in Gloucestershire (especially south of Cheltenham), for example.
The Cornish accent has an east–west variation with the East of the county having influences from West country English and the West of the county having direct influences from the Cornish language.
There is great variation within Greater London, with various accents such as Cockney, Estuary English, Multicultural London English and Received Pronunciation being found all throughout the region and the Home Counties.
Other accents are those of
In February 2019, The New York Times published a quiz that maps the geographical differences between British and Irish dialects.[2]
The accents of Northern England have a range of regional variations.
Cumbria has regional variants in Western Cumbria (Workington), Southern Cumbria (Barrow-in-Furness) and Carlisle.
Modern Northumbrian has local variants in Northern Northumberland (Berwick-upon-Tweed), Eastern Northumberland (Ashington) and Newcastle, Sunderland and Mid-County Durham and Southern County Durham. A specialist dialect called Pitmatic is within this group, found across the region. It includes terms specific to coal mining.
Yorkshire is distinctive, having regional variants around Leeds, Bradford, Hull, Middlesbrough, Sheffield, and York. Although many Yorkshire accents sound similar, accents in areas around Hull and Middlesbrough are markedly different. Due to this, the Middlesbrough accent is sometimes grouped with Modern Northumbrian accents being a mid-way between the two regions.
The Hull accent's rhythm is more like that of northern Lincolnshire than that of the rural East Riding, perhaps due to migration from Lincolnshire to the city during its industrial growth. One feature that it shares with the surrounding rural area is that an /aɪ/ sound in the middle of a word often becomes an /ɑː/: for example, "five" may sound like "fahve", "time" like "tahme".
Historic Lancashire, with regional variants in Bolton, Burnley, Blackburn, Manchester, Preston, Blackpool, Liverpool and Wigan. Many of the Lancashire accents may sound similar to outsiders, with the exception of Manchester and Wigan, where an older dialect has been maintained.[3]
The Liverpool accent, known as Scouse, is an exception to the Lancashire regional variant of English. It has spread to some of the surrounding towns. Before the 1840s, Liverpool's accent was similar to others in Lancashire, though with some distinct features due to the city's proximity to Wales. The city's population of around 60,000 was swelled in the 1840s by the arrival of around 300,000 Irish refugees escaping the Great Famine, as Liverpool was England's main Atlantic port and a popular departure point for people leaving for a new life in the United States. While many of the Irish refugees moved away, a vast number remained in Liverpool and permanently influenced the local accent.[4]
The regional accents of Scottish English generally draw on the phoneme inventory of the dialects of Modern Scots, a language spoken by around 30% of the Scottish population[5] [6] with characteristic vowel realisations due to the Scottish vowel length rule.Highland English accents are more strongly influenced by Scottish Gaelic than other forms of Scottish English.
See main article: Welsh English.
The accents of English in Wales are 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. The North Wales accent is distinct from South Wales. North East Wales is influenced by Scouse and Cheshire accents. South East Wales accents are influenced by West Country accents. The Wenglish of the South Wales Valleys shows a deep cross-fertilisation between the two.
The Cardiff dialect and accent is quite distinctive from that of the South Wales Valleys, primarily:
Manx English has its own distinctive accent, influenced to some extent by the Lancashire dialect and to a lesser extent by some variant of Irish English.
See main article: Hiberno-English. Ireland has several main groups of accents, including (1) the accents of Ulster, with a strong influence from Scotland as well as the underlying Gaelic linguistic stratum, which in that province approaches the Gaelic of Scotland, (2) those of Dublin and surrounding areas on the east coast where English has been spoken since the earliest period of colonisation from Britain, and (3) the various accents of west, midlands and south.
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 the Ulster varieties of Scots.Some characteristics of the Ulster accent include:
The accent of these three provinces fluctuates greatly from the flat tone of the midlands counties of Laois, Kildare, and Offaly, the perceived sing-song of Cork and Kerry, to the soft accents of Mayo and Galway.
Historically, the Dublin City and county area, parts of Wicklow and Louth, came under heavy exclusive influence from the first English settlements, known as The Pale. It remained until Independence from Britain as the biggest concentration of English influence in the whole island.
Some Cork accents have a unique lyrical intonation. Every sentence typically ends in the trademark elongated tail-off on the last word. In Cork heavier emphasis yet is put on the brrr sound to the letter R. This is usually the dialect in northern parts of Cork City.
Similar to the Cork accent but without the same intonation, Kerry puts even heavier emphasis on the brrr sound to the letter R. For example: the word Forty. Throughout the south this word is pronounced whereby the r exhibits the typified Irish brrr. In Kerry, especially in rural areas, the roll on the r is enforced with vibrations from the tongue, not unlike Scottish here.
"Are you?" becomes a co-joined "A-rrou?" single tongue flutter, esp. in rural areas. This extra emphasis on R is also seen in varying measures through parts of West Limerick and West Cork in closer proximity to Kerry.
Another feature in the Kerry accent is the S before the consonant. True to its Gaelic origins in a manner similar to parts of Connacht "s" maintains the shh sound as in shop or sheep. The word Start becomes "Shtart". Stop becomes Shtop.
Irish Travellers have a very distinct accent closely related to a rural Hiberno-English, particularly the English of south-eastern Ireland. Many Irish Travellers who were born in parts of Dublin or Britain have the accent in spite of it being strikingly different from the local accents in those regions. They have their own language, Shelta, which strongly links in with their dialect/accent of English.
See main article: North American English regional phonology and North American English. North American English is a collective term for the dialects of the United States and Canada. It does not include the varieties of Caribbean English spoken in the West Indies.
The United States does not have a concrete 'standard' accent in the same way that Britain has Received Pronunciation. A form of speech known to linguists as General American is perceived by many Americans to be "accent-less", meaning a person who speaks in such a manner does not appear to be from anywhere in particular. The region of the United States that most resembles this, is the central Midwest, specifically eastern Nebraska, including Omaha and Lincoln, southern and central Iowa, including Des Moines, parts of Missouri, Indiana, Ohio and western Illinois, including Peoria and the Quad Cities, but not the Chicago area.
See main article: Canadian English. Three major dialect areas can be found in Canada: Western/Central Canada, the Maritimes, and Newfoundland.
The phonology of West/Central Canadian English, also called General Canadian, is broadly similar to that of the Western US, except for the following features:
The pronunciation of certain words shows a British influence. For instance, shone is pronounced as //ʃɒn//; been is often pronounced as //biːn//; lieutenant is pronounced as //lɛfˈtɛnənt//; process can be pronounced as //ˈproʊsɛs//; etc.
Words like drama, pajamas/pyjamas, pasta tend to have pronounced as //æ// rather than pronounced as //ɑ//~pronounced as //ɒ//. Words like sorrow, Florida, orange have pronounced as //ɔr// rather than pronounced as //ɑr//; therefore, sorry rhymes with story rather than with starry.
See main article: North American English regional phonology, North American English, American English and General American.
For discussion, see:
Australian English is relatively homogeneous when compared to British and American English. There is some regional variation between the states, particularly in regard to South Australia, Victoria, Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia.
Three main varieties of Australian English are spoken according to linguists: Broad Australian, General Australian and Cultivated Australian. They are part of a continuum, reflecting variations in accent. They can, but do not always reflect the social class, education and urban or rural background of the speaker.
See main article: New Zealand English.
The New Zealand accent is most similar to Australian accents, particularly those of Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales and South Australia, but is distinguished from these accents by the presence of three "clipped" vowels, slightly resembling South African English. Phonetically, these are centralised or raised versions of the short "i", "e" and "a" vowels, which in New Zealand are close to pronounced as /[ɨ]/, pronounced as /[ɪ]/ and pronounced as /[ɛ]/ respectively rather than pronounced as /[ɪ]/, pronounced as /[ɛ]/ and pronounced as /[æ]/. New Zealand pronunciations are often popularly represented outside New Zealand by writing "fish and chips" as "fush and chups", "yes" as "yiss", "sixty-six" as "suxty-sux".
Scottish English influence is most evident in the southern regions of New Zealand, notably in Dunedin. Another difference between New Zealand and Australian English is the length of the vowel in words such as "dog", and "job" which are longer than in Australian English, which shares the short and staccato pronunciation shared with British English. There is a tendency in New Zealand English, found in some but not all Australian English, to add a schwa between some grouped consonants in words, such that — for example — "shown" and "thrown" may be pronounced "showun" and "throwun".
Geographical variations appear slight, and mainly confined to individual special local words. One group of speakers hold a recognised place as "talking differently": the regions of Otago and especially Southland, both in the south of the South Island, harbour a "Celtic fringe" of people speaking with what is known as the "Southland burr" in which R is pronounced with a soft burr, particularly in words that rhyme with 'nurse'.[7] The area formed a traditional repository of immigration from Scotland.
Some sections of the main urban areas of Auckland and Wellington show a stronger influence of Māori and Pacific island (e.g., Samoan) pronunciations and speech patterns than most of the country.
The trilled 'r' is used by some Māori, who may pronounce 't' and 'k' sounds without aspiration, striking other English speakers as similar to 'd' and 'g'. This is also encountered in South African English, especially among Afrikaans speakers.
The English spoken in the isolated Pacific islands of Norfolk and Pitcairn shows evidence of the islands' long isolation from the world. In the case of Pitcairn, the local creole, Pitkern, shows strong evidence of its rural English 19th century origins, with an accent which has traces of both the English southwest and Geordie. The Norfolk Island equivalent, Norfuk, was greatly influenced in its development by Pitkern.
The accents heard in the islands when English is used are similarly influenced but in a much milder way. In the case of Norfolk Island, Australian English is the primary influence, producing an accent which is like a softened version of an Australian accent. The Pitcairn accent is for the most part largely indistinguishable from the New Zealand accent.
See main article: Falkland Islands English.
The Falkland Islands have a large non-native born population, mainly from Britain, 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, and contains a number of Spanish loanwords.
"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.
"Saint" is not just a different pronunciation of English, it also has its own distinct words. So 'bite' means spicy, as in full of chillies; 'us' is used instead of 'we' ('us has been shopping'); and 'done' is used to generate a past tense, hence 'I done gorn fishing' ('I have been fishing').[8]
Television is a reasonably recent arrival there, and is only just beginning to have an effect. American terms are becoming more common, e.g. 'chips' for crisps.[8]
See main article: South African English.
South Africa has 11 official languages, one of which is English. Accents vary significantly between ethnic and language groups. Home-language English speakers, Black, White, Indian and Coloured, in South Africa have an accent that generally resembles British Received Pronunciation, modified with varying degrees of Germanic inflection due to Afrikaans.[9]
The Coloured community is generally bilingual. English accents are strongly influenced by primary mother-tongue, Afrikaans or English. A range of accents can be seen, with the majority of Coloureds showing a strong Afrikaans inflection. Similarly, Afrikaners and Cape Coloureds, both descendant of mainly Dutch settlers, tend to pronounce English phonemes with a strong Afrikaans inflection. The English accents of both related groups are significantly different and easily distinguishable, primarily because of prevalent code-switching among the majority of Coloured English speakers, particularly in the Western Cape of South Africa. The range of accents found among English-speaking Coloureds, from the distinctive "Cape Flats or Coloured English" to the standard "colloquial" South African English accent, are of special interest. Geography and education levels play major roles therein.
Black Africans generally speak English as a second language. Accent is strongly influenced by mother-tongue, particularly Bantu languages. Urban middle-class Black Africans have developed an English accent, with similar inflection as first-language English speakers. Within this ethnic group, variations exist: most Nguni (Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi and Ndebele) speakers have a distinct accent, with the pronunciation of words like 'the' and 'that' as would 'devil' and 'dust', respectively, and words like 'rice' as 'lice'.
This may be as a result of the inadequacy of 'r' in the languages. Sotho (Tswana, Northern Sotho and Southern Sotho) speakers have a similar accent, with slight variations. Tsonga and Venda speakers have very similar accents with far less intonation than Ngunis and Sothos. Some Black speakers have no distinction between the 'i' in determine and the one in decline, pronouncing it similarly to the one in 'mine'.
Black, Indian and Coloured students educated in former Model C schools or at formerly White tertiary institutions will generally adopt a similar accent to their White English-home-language speaking classmates. Code-switching and the "Cape Flats" accent are becoming popular among White learners in public schools within Cape Town.
South African accents vary between major cities, particularly Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg, and provinces (regions). Accent variation is observed within respective citiesfor instance, Johannesburg, where the northern suburbs (Parkview, Parkwood, Parktown North, Saxonwold, etc.) tend to be less strongly influenced by Afrikaans. These suburbs are more affluent and populated by individuals 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. In a similar fashion, people from predominantly or traditionally Jewish areas in the Johannesburg area (such as Sandton, Linksfield or Victory Park) may have accents influenced by Yiddish or Hebrew ancestry.
South African English accent, across the spectrum, is non-rhotic.
Examples of South African accents (obtained from http://accent.gmu.edu)
Additional samples of South African accents and dialects can be found at http://web.ku.edu/~idea/africa/southafrica/southafrica.htm
Regardless of regional and ethnic differences (in accents), South African English accent is sometimes confused with Australian (or New Zealand) English by British and American English speakers.
See main article: Zimbabwean English. In Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, native English speakers, mainly the White and Coloured minority, have a similar speech pattern to that of South Africa. Those with high degrees of Germanic inflection pronounce 'Zimbabwe' as zim-bah-bwi, as opposed to the African pronunciation zeem-bah-bweh.
Zimbwabwean accents vastly vary, with some Black Africans sounding British while others will have a much stronger accent influenced by their mother tongues. Usually this distinction is brought about by where speakers grew up and the school attended. For example, most people that grew up in and around Harare have a British sounding accent, while those in the rural areas have a more "pidgin-english" sort of accent.
Example of a Zimbabwean English accent (obtained from http://accent.gmu.edu)
See main article: Namlish.
Namibian English tends to be strongly influenced by South African English. Most Namibians who grew up in and around the capital city Windhoek have developed an English accent. Those in the rural areas have an accent strongly influenced by their mother tongue, particularly Bantu languages.
Nigerian English varies by constituent units. The accents are influenced by the various mother tongues of the Nigerian constituent units.
See main article: Indian English, Pakistani English, Bangladeshi English, Sri Lankan English and Nepalese English.
A number of distinct dialects of English are spoken in South Asia. There are many languages spoken in South Asia like Nepali, Hindi, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Sindhi, Balochi, Pashto, Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Marathi, Odia, Maithili, Malayalam, Sinhala, Tamil, Telugu, Tulu, Urdu and many more, creating a variety of accents of English. Accents originating in this part of the world tend to display several distinctive features, including:
See main article: Philippine English.
Philippine English employs a rhotic accent that originated from the time when it was first introduced by the Americans during the colonization period in an attempt to replace Spanish as the dominant political language. As there are no /f/ or /v/ sounds in most native languages in the Philippines, [p] is used as an alternative to /f/ as [b] is to /v/. The words "fifty" and "five" are often pronounced as and by many Filipinos. Similarly, /θ/ is often changed to [t] and /ð/ to [d].[10]
"Three" becomes /tri/ while "that" becomes /dat/. This feature is consistent with many other Malayo-Polynesian languages. /z/ is often devoiced to [s], whereas [ʒ] is often devoiced to [ʃ] or affricated to [dʒ], so words like "zoo", "measure", and "beige" may be pronounced [su], [ˈmɛʃoɾ], and [beɪdʒ].[11]
Apart from the frequent inability to pronounce certain fricatives (e.g., [f], [v], [θ], [ð], [z], [ʒ]), in reality, there is no single Philippine English accent. This is because native languages influence spoken English in different ways throughout the archipelago. For instance, those from Visayas usually interchange the sounds /e/ and /i/ as well as /o/ and /u/ because the distinction between those phonemes is not very pronounced in Visayan languages.
People from the northern Philippines may pronounce /r/ as a strong trill instead of a tap, which is more commonly used in the rest of the Philippines, as the trill is a feature of the Ilocano language. Ilocano people generally pronounce the schwa sound /ə/ better than other Filipinos, because they use a similar sound in their native language that is missing from many other Philippine languages.
See main article: 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.
See main article: Malaysian English.
See also: Manglish.
Malay is the lingua franca of Malaysia, a federation of former British colonies and similar dependencies. English is a foreign language with no official status, but it is commonly learnt as a second or third language.
The Malaysian accent appears to be a melding of British, Chinese, Tamil and Malay influences.
Many 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 on the job than with friends or while out shopping.
See main article: Singapore English.
See also: Singlish.
Singapore is effectively a multilingual nation. The Singapore government recognises four official languages: English, Malay, Mandarin Chinese, and Tamil.
Students in primary and secondary schools learning English as the language of instruction also learn a second language called their "Mother Tongue" by the Ministry of Education, where they are taught Mandarin Chinese, Malay or Tamil. A main point to note is while "Mother Tongue" generally refers to the first language (L1) overseas, in Singapore, it is used by the Ministry of Education to denote the traditional language of one's ethnic group, which sometimes can be their second language (L2).
There are two main types of English spoken in Singapore – Standard Singapore English and Singlish. Singlish is more widely spoken than standard English. It has a very distinctive tone and sentence structure which are both strongly influenced by Malay and the many varieties of Chinese spoken in the city.
A 2005 census showed that around 30% of Singaporeans speak English as their main language at home.
There are many foreigners working in Singapore. 36% of the population in Singapore are foreigners, and foreigners make up 50% of the service sector. Therefore, it is very common to encounter service staff who are not fluent in English. Most of these staff speak Mandarin Chinese. Those who do not speak Mandarin Chinese tend to speak either broken English or Singlish, which they have learnt from the locals.
Phonetic change in the English spoken at a base in Antarctica has been registered.[12] This has been referred to as the start of a new accent called Antarctic English.[13]