88  The sounds of English
Standard and regional accents 89
' be
Oetm ten wt
|||
is trig)
4M
in the previous paragraph, there is considerable re-alignment of vowel hi, so that merry and marry (and sometimes Mary too) may be pronour same while short and sport may have different vowels (h\l in the fori to:] in the latter, corresponding to GB hoi).
Differences of realisation are always numerous between any two syste English pronunciation and only the most salient will be mentioned. Ai ].,• „ j
vowels this includes the realisation of the diphthongs leil and/au/ as mor.o^n._____
[ei] and [01], hence late [le:t] and load [loid]. Among the consonants, /1/ ;s tjk phonetically \\\, i.e. the tip of the tongue is curled further backwards th GB, or else a similar auditory effect is achieved by bunching the bi „,} tongue upwards and backwards (this latter form of /r/ is now intruding into III intervocalically following an accent is usually a voiced tap in GA,. ^ [bera] and may sometimes become [d] producing a neutralisation betvv and HI; and III is generally a dark [1] in all positions in GA, unlike ■ • ■ t it is a clear [1] before vowels and a dark [1] in other positions (see §<'■ " ;
A wholesale change in the realisation of the short vowels in GA is incre; reported, sometimes called the 'Northern Cities Shift',39 although it now ; more widely spread than this. The vowel principally affected by this shift v,m which becomes closer to [e] or [es], or even [e] or |eo|. This affects boih thoS words like sad which have /a/ in GB and those words like after wheit nK ;,'fj /a/ corresponds to I ail in GB. In other areas of the U.S. including Cu.ui.ibu Ohio, and Jackson, North Carolina, short vowels seem to be going in the opposite direction, i.e. /i,e,a/ are lowering and losing a tendency to diphthongisation.*1.';
7-/2.2 Standard Scottish English (SSE)
There are nowadays taken to be three languages in Scotland: Gaelic. S^ik-and (Scottish) English. The Northumbrian dialect of Old English spread into thr? south and east of Scotland at much the same time as it spread through England^ and has continued in use as present-day Scots. A different type of English \ya£* re-introduced from the south of England in the eighteenth century but was s-ibs sequently much influenced by Scots; it is this that is now described as Scottish -English. Most speakers in Scotland will slightly or considerably vary their stv'isM of speech between Scots and Standard Scottish English according to different J situations. The typical vowel system of Scottish English involves the loss of 1 the GB distinctions between la:l and /a/, between lu:l and lul, and between y.' , and M. Thus the pairs ant and aunt, soot and suit, caught and cot are pronour -c-i | the same. On the other hand there may be a phonemic split corresponding to GB lei; while most such words have a vowel of an [e] quality, a small group ofvwn ■ 1 have a vowel of an [e] quality, e.g. heaven, eleven, next. 1 SSE also has no /i8,ua/ because, like General American, it is rhotic andj beard and dour are pronounced as /bi:rd/ and /du:r/ (= [dyn]). Similarly G 1 j /ei/ (formerly leal) is followed by an hi, so fare GB Ifsil becomes SSE [fe: : j Some speakers will also have different sequences of (short) vowel plus ''r''|
i ai"
ssnt
saw
a to GB ivJ in bird, serve and turn; others have the same r-coloured ■ "itch words. Rhoticity in SSE is declining with many speakers now rhotic pre-pausal and pre-consonantal hi may be treated differ-i-er the lexical incidence of vowels before hi may not correspond •( and snort may have different vowels as in GA, short rhyming with sport with boat.
x'o.vels corresponding to GB leil and Isd are typically monophthongal I American), e.g. gate and boat are [ge:t] and [bo:t]. Moreover the
■ \ti i.'rrto soot and suit is not like either of the GB vowels in these *f'    , M -unsiderably fronted to something like [y], hence [syt]. More gener-,(.'.. e |- rn-i systemic durational difference between long and short vowels,
V1 <■ 1 ci Terences from GB in the realisation of the consonants lies in the vfa ta» e.g. red [red] and trip [trip], though there is variation between n-iJ I irl- 3 usual type in GB), the use of [j] being more common in postage positions and generally more prestigious. The phoneme III is most commonly ^ m jn all positions, little [lit!] and plough [plau]. Finally, intervocalic It/ jvl.,, ri_j! -,ed as a glottal stop (like London below), e.g. butter [bA?a-].
*I2.J London English, Estuary English (EE) and Multicultural London English (MLE)
ggmosi dialectal type of London speech is called Cockney. Unlike the previous iftLi /i-.lties above (General American and Standard Scottish English), Cockney -ii    nicfi a class dialect as a regional one. In its broadest form the dialect of C.ic-n..- includes n considerable vocabulary of its own, including rhyming slang.
tie v.1 aracteristics of Cockney pronunciation are spread more widely through Loi-Jm'i speech than its vocabulary; this type of pronunciation we henceforth reT?i :■) j- popular London or broad London. The prevalence of a Cockney pro-n j i> i in London is now much challenged by the growth of what has come to Jt 1 i,i >wn as Multicultural London English (MLE), dealt with towards the end «f this section.
Unlike the previous two types of pronunciation there are no differences in . the inventory of vowel phonemes between GB and popular London and there sre iv ,n vely few (compared with GA and SSE) differences of lexical incidence. -There are, however, a large number of differences of realisation. The short front ■ l." jI- lutd to be uniformly closer than in GB, e.g. in sat, set and sit, so much «nfi-'t may sound like set and set itself like sit to speakers from other regions. VJ.iimi.Lliy the short vowel l\l moves forward to almost C.[a], Among the long vowels, most noticeable is the diphfhongisation of Ihl (= [si]), lu:l (= [au]) and r k!i varies between [oo] morpheme-medially and [ows] morpheme-finally, thus bead [bsid], boot [bauf], sword [soud], saw [aws]. Broad London speech also uses distinctive pronunciations of a number of diphthongs /ei/ = [at], /ai/ = [ai], iso, = fau] and Iml = [a:], e.g. late [lart], light [lart], no [nao], now [nai]. The
90  The sounds of English
last two vowels are close enough to cause considerable confusion am London listeners, although the distinction is not usually neutralise.! i*'"^ cases special allophones are used before dark [1] (which itself = [a]-_S.JC f ho/ = [du] and /ui/ = [u:] (is monophthongal compared with the u-i " e.g. bowl [buu:], fool [fu:u]. Before the vocalised form of III there neutralisation, e.g. field and filled as [fiod], col and coal as [kno]. an J pool as [puu]. The use of the [do] variant of Isol is now spreading mor outside London RGB and may be considered a variant within GB itse]
Among the consonants most notable are the omission of Ihl and thi. s ment of/9,6/ by /f,v/, e.g. hammer Tama/, think /firjk/, father /'fcuva/ i.e. Ill in positions not immediately before vowels becomes vocalic [u], e.g ,.a [miuk], middle [miduj; hi is realised as a glottal stop following vowels, lattJ and nasals, e.g. butter ['bA?a], eat it pi:?     not that (to? ' 6a?], benefit pbeti t"1 belt up [beu? \\p]; there may be similar replacement of /p,k/ before a follow,1 consonant, e.g. soapbox ['sau?bnks], technical ['te?m?u] (in this last wori j as the realisation of III still counts as a consonant). | Popular London speech has historically been the major influence on •)& phonetic development of GB41 and, as has been outlined in section 7.8, Loi j-,g RGB, i.e. a hybrid between GB and broad London, popularly called Hst I English,42 is now widely used in south-east England and may be spreadfr & other urban areas. The phonetic features of London in Estuary English inch.* the replacement of dark [{] by [o], e.g. field [flud]; the glottalisation of III p-J consonantally, e.g. not that [no? 'fiat] and increasingly word-finally before \ I and before a following vowel, e.g. not that frm? '5a?], eat ice [ii? 'ais]: thi I of London-type realisations of the diphthongs /ei,ai/ and London-type alloph iJJ before III, e.g. cold [k«o"d], cool [ku;u].
Other broad London sounds are less likely in Estuary English, e.g. /h/-drop j monophthongisation of Isol, the wide diphthong in /so/, fronting of /a/ % use of glottal stop for III intervocalically as in [wo:?s] and the replaceme i. ij| /9,S/ by /f,v/. 1 Some other characteristics sometimes claimed for Estuary English appea icij to be based in London speech but may be changes more generally in pro i| in GB: the realisation of /r/ without a tongue tip contact, i.e. [v] or [tjuJ, an replacement of Is/ by /J7 where it is initial in consonant clusters, e.g. stop, i industry, strain, obstruct as [Jtop], [.(tea], ['mdAjfri], [Jtrein], [sb'jtrAkt]. t One intonational characteristic of London that seems to have spread ! tq Estuary English and even more widely is the use of the 'unknown' tag interrogative. In this the speaker uses an interrogative tag with a falling tone (wli. :K usually expects the listener to know enough to agree with the speaker) in ciiieS: where the listener clearly has no relevant knowledge, e.g. 'I was woken up at 6.30 this morning; the postman came knocking on the door, didn't he?' (with a falling tone on did). Similarly there may be spreading usage of preposition ~nd auxiliary verb accenting, 'I didn't do anything because there was nothing to ■ I >',; 'You couldn't have seen me in London because I haven't been in London'
Standard and regional accents 91
■many pronunciations which are standard in London RGB but which aongidered as on the verge of being acceptable as part of GB. These ? the vocalisation of dark [5] as [u] in many pre-consonanfal positions £,■trv e-g- held [neud]>^       middle [midu], and (ii) the use of [?] for ■ ui accented vowel or before a pause, e.g. not even [nt>? "i:vn], need !j ■ {] Before unaccented /i,s/ use of [?] is still stigmatised as non-GB (and f *' i" • road London) both, intra-word and inter-word, e.g. water [woi?3], got
alternative type of popular London speech has arisen over the last fifty .". a result of the large number of immigrants settling in the city. West "j-ji'- (a larae number from Jamaica) were toe first to arrive in the 1950s, fol-" j |jV Asians (the largest groups were from the Indian subcontinent and from S-1 A'nca, where a large number of Indians had previously settled), followed •ait i.wntly by those from Eastern Europe. These were the most prominent " ^ w [• it tlierc were lesser numbers from many other areas including Vietnam, \\ ica and the Middle East. So there is now a large ethnic mix in London ms to be the West Indians who take the lead in language matters and ie-u.- t'is new accent is often called Jafaican (short for fake Jamaican) or, more gefjjn (.idly- Multicultural London English (MLE).44 But some Asian, African guj l.u.ii London characteristics may be in the mix. Some of the features of fl-h .ici-'iit are the absence of the fronting of /o,u:,ua/, noted in §7.10.2 as now -en iin in GB, the monophthongisation of feif and faul to [e:] and [o:] and the .is»nice.of the London 'crossover' (of/at/ as [cu] with a back starting-point j.,., i.. as [ao] with a very front starting-point, or even [a:]). The accent, as to he *\K "ed, is not a very homogeneous one; so, for instance, /u,u:,u9/, instead ut r.'i hs-ing fronted at all, may be very fronted to [y:,Y,yi], /6,67 may be fronted to i \ I'ke Cockney, f\l may be backed and so closer to Cardinal [a]. However, tirai.11> <-ery little evidence, in the form of recordings or transcriptions, to back up wj fl,onetics of MLE (though there is more about vocabulary and grammar).
7,12.1 General Northern English (GNE)
WirL- li'-we is relative homogeneity in a broad London accent but much less so .n i icnjj il American and Standard Scottish English, the label General Northern 5 even less homogeneous (strictly speaking the label should be General \ ii I .■■ i England English). We use it here simply to identify those things which the disparate pronunciation systems in the North of England have in common (and we will also mention a few characteristics which are typical only of certain areas). The area we are talking about covers that area north of a line from the river Severn to the Wash and includes Birmingham. Within this area there was a traditional dialect distinction between the north and the south of a line joining the rivers Humber in the east and Ribble in the west. Such a distinction still remains in conservative rural dialects and is shown in features north of the line like I'r.l in mght and /a/ in long.
92   The sounds of English
■-: .it
The major identifying feature of this area is the loss of the dislinction GB lul and /a/, the single phoneme varying in qualify from [□] to [\i , has no distinction between put and putt, could and cud, and, for main s between buck and book (although others may use /u:/ in the latter we- j,' corrections may be made by those attempting RGB producing, for examnl "i f'jAga], pussy TpAsi], put [pAt], Almost as identifying a character .sii'1 change-over in lexical incidence from lail to /a/ in words with a follov. i-, ' less fricative (or a nasal followed by a further consonant), as in Genera .1 j e.g. past /past/, laugh /MI, aunt /ant/. Another type of lexical incident the occurrence of a full vowel in prefixes where GB has hi. e.g. aav| /ad'vans/, consume /ktm'sjurm/ observe, /ub'z3iv/. These full vowel prefix j generally those in closed syllables, whereas those with open syllables refeif e.g. connect /ksnekt/. The diphthongs led and I sal may be monophthongs 1 and [o;] as in GA and SSE (indeed sometimes, as in Newcastle, the diiLJi of the diphthong is reversed to [ea] and [oa]}. Many areas of Northern Ki e have a fronted articulation of both lull and laxl (the distinction between 'tarn /a:/ being carried by length alone). Vowel incidence in the final syllable of pretty, usually, etc. varies between Iv.l in, for example, Liverpool, Hu Newcastle, and III in Manchester and Leeds.
Other vowel changes (compared with GB) characteristic of particular weti| include the loss of the le:/-/3il distinction in Liverpool (the local accent is calfJT Scouse) and its common realisation as [oe:], e.g. both fare and fur are prom ,;;>cs4» [fee:]; a similar neutralisation and realisation of le:l and /a:/ in Hull where i ioi.i«T notable feature is the monophthongisation of Isvl to [3:]; the realisation if /au/ in many words as [u:J in broad Newcastle (where the local accent is calls! Geordie) while liv.l itself becomes [is], e.g. about [a'buifj. ], boot [bist]; and tffl use of a particularly close hi in all positions in Birmingham, e.g. pit is . i <1| [pit], where the distinction between pit and peat will depend on length al vjl Most notable among the consonants of GNE is the realisation of Ixl as If] m a number of conurbations including Leeds, Liverpool and Newcastle, and til lack of the GB allophonic difference between clear [1] and dark [1], clear rfj being used in all positions in many areas, e.g. Newcastle, and dark [1] in otherl| e.g. Manchester. In a quite extensive area from Birmingham to ManclKstef and Liverpool the GB single consonant /rj/ becomes [rjg], e.g. singing ['suiuinqjp Also in a number of urban areas, notably south-east Lancashire, /p,t,k/ in 1 liljj position (i.e. before pause) may be realised as ejectives, e.g. stop [stop']. 1 A number of the features above are incorporated into the northern typ. of RGB. This applies particularly to the use of /a/ rather than la:l in words like path and dance and the use of full vowels in some suffixes like those in cons. • "0,1 object and advance. ;
7.(2.5 Australian English (ANE)
There is little regional variation in Australian English (ANE), the variation which does occur being largely correlated with social class and ranging from:
Standard and regional accents 93
■U the way up to GB. The broad accent described here shares many abroad London speech, but has of course a particular combination f lj otncr features which identify it.
j": ,on; jhere are no differences of phonemic inventory from GB and Jr^ jve „umher of words involved in differences of incidence. It is the "j^.jpjjg:./a:/ as [a;] which more than any other identifies ANE, e.g. ä-Sa] Part [Pa:tl (*us' f°r example, making it distinctively different '"'«rj'i' African English). Words which fa GB have la:l before clusters '       another consonant, e.g. dance, advantage, chance, vary between säCK! c.j (u '■,•:]) in ANE; pronunciations with [ai] are by some considered ' eus by others affected. Like London, IvJ and /u:/ are realised as [ai] and
I.a the short front vowels are all closer than GB, the distance between ~ei 'g thus reduced (compare this with New Zealand where /a,e/ are equally I arid/if/ becomes [i], almost indistinguishable from Is/). diphthongs ANE is again like London having /ei/ = [ai] and /ai/ = [ai] 'ing a convergence of quality of Isul and. ao : hs,usl are monophthon-:0 ,ir»"' -      clear [kin] (leading to an accumulation of three vowels, ihd [7:] in the close front area), while Ivsl is either replaced by IvJ as in Aj,ri i>- becomes disyllabic as in sewer /'su:s/.
A..l.nilgh ANE, in its broader form, does drop /h/, it does not use glottal stop lor dce< it vocalise III, having dark [1] in all positions.
j, -A PJ! icular development in Australian English (and in New Zealand) which {ja« ,t::i the subject of much discussion recently, both in newspapers and in aadi nc journals,45 is the increasing use of a high rising tone on declarative cia.i.=.-' (where a fall would normally have been expected). The meaning of this ten* and the reasons behind its increased use have also been much discussed {^ealso 57.10.2(9) and §11.6.3).
7,12.6 Caribbean English
Die ni 4 populous islands of the Caribbean where English is spoken as a first jiiij..^? are Jamaica, Trinidad (including Tobago) and Barbados, together with ULvöiia on the adjacent mainland; and there are numerous less populous islands. These islands (and Guyana) usually have a continuum in dialect from a broad ■•■a. iety generally referred to as a Creole (a creole being a first language which h.-.= been derived from a pidgin) to a high variety which approaches GB and can be regarded as a type of RGB. What is described here is the broad creole variety. There are few descriptions of the English accent of most of the islands;"6 only Jamaica has been the topic of a number of articles and books.47
I he most obvious characteristic of the vowel system is that it is like that of tiR rather than that of General American. The second most obvious character-'-■-.c is the absence of isl, this vowel usually being replaced by /a/ (although semelimes by other full vowels), e.g. father ['fa:da], woman ['wuman]. Replace-nienl of [a] by [a] also occurs in the second part of the diphthongs ending in [a]; corresponding to GB fisl and lt\l is a diphthong approximating to [ea], e.g. beer