Source:
- The distinctive accents and dialects that characterise the different parts of the country.
- Some are spreading; some retreating.
- Some are mutating; some are even getting stronger.
- Overall, the pronunciation and prosody of spoken English seems to vary as much as ever across the country of its birth.
- Liverpool’s “Scouse” dialect is made up of throaty, guttural utterances that emerged from a mixture of
Irish, Scots, Welsh and Lancashire accents in the late 19th century.
- For example, Liverpudlians tend to add a breathy “h” sound to words that
end with a “t”, lending their distinctive intonation to “what”, “that”
and “but”.
- Older Liverpudlians limit their use of it to words of a single syllable
but younger ones have increased the individuality of the Scouse accent
by extending it to “chocolate”, “certificate” and “aggregate”.
- Some aspects of south-eastern “Estuary English” have infiltrated northern
parts—replacing the “th” in “think” and “nothing” with an “f” sound.
- Regional accents have largely survived in northern cities, thanks to a
relative lack of immigration combined with chirpy civic pride.
- Mr Kerswill’s research finds that the distribution of accents across the country is undergoing big changes.
- While the Scouse accent grows stronger, variations of the north-eastern “Geordie” accent are not only retaining their distinctiveness but conquering fresh territory.
- The Brummie accent is spreading as its speakers move west to Wales.
- The traditional Cockney accent is fading and is no longer so common in East London.
- Mr Kerswill predicts that, by 2030, Cockney-influenced Estuary English
will dominate most of the east and south-east, as Londoners move out.
- In the capital itself a new dialect, inspired by recent immigration, is
emerging: “multicultural London English”, heavily influenced by Jamaican
with undertones of west African and Indian.
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