Talk:Regional accents of English

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"The online encyclopaedia presents a fascinating description of regional differences in speech, not only in the UK but across other English-speaking countries too. The versions of speech used in smaller English-speaking territories such as St Helena, the Falkland Islands and Hong Kong are also included." — The Guardian, April 25, 2006
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Contents

[edit] Surfer

Dude you totally forgot the california surfer accent.

[edit] Accent vs Dialect

30aug02:

i'm not a linguist, but i know a dialect when i hear 1;-) pittsburgh & environs have a distinct 1; let me give some examples:

  • creek -> crik (i think this is also prevalent in appalachia)
  • pittsburgh -> piksburg
  • versailles -> versales
  • iron -> ahrn (as in ahrn city beer;-)
  • north side -> norsside
  • south side -> sahside
    • i've heard this described as "swallowing syllables".

airdrummer@wheel.org

These are all examples of accent differences not dialect differences. -- Derek Ross

Except for creek. That's due to some ME dialects borrowing ON kriki as crike and others as creke.

[edit] Americentric

This article seems to have been written from a US point of view - there is a list of 'general' characteristics for people from the UK, but not a similar one for Americans. I think that it would be good to add such a category. Unfortunately I'm unable to do so myself. Andre Engels 14:31 Sep 21, 2002 (UTC)

Indeed! This article can only be subjective.

[edit] Fargo

...accent from the film Fargo.

Can anyone from the US fill in a section for this delightful accent!
Sorry, I'm from California. We talk like normal people here. ;) Seriously though, that seems to be a Michigan/North Dakota accent heavily influenced by the Scandanavian population of the region. --Dante Alighieri 13:19 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)
That would be Minnesotan, though Fargo itself is in North Dakota. And yes, we really DO talk like that, Ja.  ;-) One of the reasons the movie wasn't too popular in MN was because it hit a liiiitle too close to home...  :-) User:pgdudda

[edit] Accent variation

Accents and dialects vary more widely within the U.K. itself than they do in other parts of the world owing to the longer history of the language within the countries of the U.K.

Um, perhaps in the English language, but hardly true of all countries? Are there fewer accents of Russian in Russia, fewer accents of Spanish in Spain, etc.? -- Zoe

I meant English accents and dialects. After all that was the topic of the article. -- Derek Ross | Talk

[edit] Midwest America

I've only heard "naht" around Chicago...naht on the west coast, or even Nebraska. Hence I narrowed the "Midwest and West Coast" to "Midwest (Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin)". This accent can probably also be found in Iowa, North Dakota, and South Dakota, but I can't personally vouch for that. It's not prevalent in Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, or Montana, as I recall from living in or visiting many of these states, and definitely not prevalent in Washington, Oregon or Idaho. As it turns out, the generic American accent of television anchors is deliberately a Nebraska-ish accent, if what I'm told is true - RobLa 01:52 Dec 15, 2002 (UTC)

Speaking of Midwest America, I live in Illinois (Crawford County, to be exact), and, despite what this article says, most people here in southeastern Illinois (and southwestern Indiana as well) don't pronounce "roof", "book", and "root" with the same vowel. "Roof" (pronunciations in IPA, I'm new to IPA, so sorry if I'm a bit off) (/ru:f/) and "root" (/ru:t/) have the same vowel, but "book" (/bʊk/) doesn't. However, my grandfather pronounces "Bush" as /bu:ʃ/ and "fish" as /fi:ʃ/, though most younger people use the Standard Midwestern/General American accent, so I don't know if it has to do with age, or if it's a regional thing. --Evice 07:09, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Australia and NZ

Accents do vary more in the places where the language originated. This is a well-documented phenomenon which can be used by archeologists to trace the movements of peoples back to their ancestral homes; alas, the proper term for it escapes me at the moment.

Also, I just corrected some mistakes in the Australan section - Oz and NZ accents are very different: instantly recognisable to a native born Australian or New Zealander. I'd imagine that (e.g.) a Canadian or a Californian would notice, but don't know for sure. New Zealand accents can be tricky, as they seem to vary more with social class (working class NZ is similar in some ways to outback Oz, but still has the distinctive "i"s and "e"s of an educated NZ accent), and also as many NZers spend a few years working in Oz and wind up speaking with a mixture of the two accents. As a native-born Australian, I was astonished to see Peter Garret (until last week, the lead singer of Midnight Oil) cited as having a "thick accent"! Not a good example. Note that many Australians who are prominent overseas do not have typical Oz accents - the golfer Greg Norman, for example has a heavy American overlay, and no-one would know from press baron Rupert Murdoch's (News Corp, London Times, Fox & etc) accent that he was born in Melbourne. Tannin

I tend to agree with this; being an Australian myself, some of the SAMPA vowels cited in the Australian accent section are at the extreme end of the scale. Steve Irwin's vowels may sound like these, but the so-called "Australian" vowels seem to have been taken from either him or an American actor trying to parody an Australian accent. Some of them are right on the money - /{U/ for the vowel in now, for instance - but /@U/ for soon? /U:/ is far closer. As well, the l in "Australia" is not smashed, it may be elided, but it certainly is nothing like universal. It brings back to mind the old stereotype that the Australian pronunciation of "Australian" is ostensibly Strine (SAMPA /str@In/), which may be humorous, but from what I can tell, this isn't intended to be a joke article. I've fixed this up where necessary. As well, people from the south - particularly Adelaide and environs, in South Australia - may pronounce dance or plant as SAMPA /da:ns/ and /pla:nt/ respectively. Again, though, this is by no means universal.thefamouseccles

Just added IPA for the SAMPA, but there was one vowel that doesn't seem to be SAMPA at all - [o:] in the description of gone. After reading it again I realised that I have no idea what Kesuari was getting at here. Anyone like to hazard a guess? Moilleadóir 05:41, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Tchoosday is not the only pronunciation in Australia; Tyoosday exists as well - I would say only Toosday is excluded LE✆N 02:33, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Route, Root and Rout

I'm a North Carolinian now, but grew up in California and Ohio. My parents came from France and El Salvador. I work with computers and sometimes talk about routers, which I pronounce with the vowel of "boot". Everybody else around here calls them "routers", rhyming with "pouters". To me that's a woodworking tool. It routs. A network router routes. I also rhyme "root" with "boot", but I've heard of pronouncing it to rhyme with "foot". This sometimes causes confusion when I tell someone to run route as root. They su route or run /sbin/root. Do I say "route" because I'm from California and Ohio, or because my second native language is French? -phma

Actually, the source of the rhyme with "pouters" is because many people (in Minnesota, anyway) rhyme "route" and "pout". Hence, [rawtrz] instead of [rutrz]. Hope that helps... BTW, for me "root" and "roof" rhyme with "foot", not "boot".  :-) I've heard "roof" with the vowel of "boot", but not "root", and it will mark someone as non-Minnesotan to rhyme "roof" with "boot". pgdudda
I'm guessing phma learned these pronunciations due to a logical assimilation of English (which brings knowledge of French to the fore as a reason); problem is, English is rarely logical. Rhyming "route" with "boot" is logical; however, every American I've talked to (including Californians) rhymes "router" with "pouter".
"Root" rhyming with "foot", on the other hand, I've noticed mostly in the southern US (Texas and Georgia, so it would make sense in NC as well). I see that as a regionalism, and not even unanimous in the region (especially among computer techs).
Hephaestos
I grew up in Washington and Florida and I agree that a r-ow-t-er is a woodworking tool. But most computer people I've spoken to (which isn't a lot) seem to use the pronunciation you and Hephaestos attest is the more common. My very old dictionary defines "router" as "a person or thing that routs" and gives the ow pronunciation. It also gives the primary pronunciation of "route" as the oo one, but says that sometimes, and often in the case of definition 3, it is pronounced the same as rout. Definition 3 is an order "in military usage". Definition 1 is a road or path taken...
-- SS 20:28, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
In Australia, the "pout" pronounciation is used because pronoucing it the other way turns it into a local rude word...

not true - i'm a west australian, and everyone i know pronounces 'route' and 'root' the same way. 'root' can be a rude word, but it also relates to the below-ground parts of a tree, and is pronounced with the 'oo' in this case also :o) locally 'route' pronounced with an 'ow' sound would be recognised as belonging to an american accent.

[edit] Canadian About, Aboat, Aboot

How "A Boot" not having that silly Canadian comment. I've talked to all my friends and relatives in Ontario, nobody says it that way. Only "Newfies" (from Newfoundland) say it that way, and that only is like 0.5% of our population.

Something between "a boat" and "a boot" accurately reflects the Canadian pronunciation, as heard in Tom Brokaw's speech, to this American. Your opinion will probably vary along with your accent.

I agree. Some may have speculated it, but it is a pretty strange speculation. There are plenty of people in the UK without respiratory diseases, and they have no problem with the accent. Also I have yet to hear of a group of US asbestos workers spontaneously spouting BBC English. Apart from that, why would respiratory disease have opposite effects in different parts of the UK, like dropping "r"s in RP vs emphasising them in Scotland. -- Chris Q 12:03 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

I've heard Ontarians complain about this before. Perhaps because they seem to be from one of the few provinces which doesn't say "aboat". It's certainly common in Alberta and BC but I've never heard anyone say it in Ontario or NS. Perhaps it has something to do with Scottish influence. Scots replace most 'ou' sounds with 'oo' sounds -- "There's a moose loose aboot this hoose", etc. -- Derek Ross | Talk 23:50, 2004 Nov 9 (UTC)

I disagree, I've lived in Alberta nearly my whole life (with a brief 4 year stint in Saskatchewan), and have never heard a single person pronounce "about" as "aboot". Except of course for the Newfies in Fort Mac.

In my part of Canada (Vancouver Island), it sounds more like "abowt" (as in "ow, I stubbed my toe."). "O" (as in pronouncing the letter "o") is also common in such words as "holy," "goal," "load," "know," etc. There is definitely a British-style precision to the vocalisation. I've occasionally been asked (usually by Americans) if I'm English. I've never even been there. Fishhead64 03:07, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
I do not agree. Some sections of Ontario pronounce it differently. A notable example is the Ottawa "valley" accent. Furthermore, there are other certain words that are spoken differently however people don't talk about them in standard conversations. For example, many Canadians say "sorry" emphasising the o while Americans say it more like "sarry". Canking 00:25, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Cape Breton and part of the northern surrounding area of NS such as "New Glasgow" should also be mentioned as having a distinctive accent. This has a greater Scottish influence vs the Newfie one which is more Irish. Canking 00:32, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What's a native speaker

Something that bothered me in the article... Sometimes the accent is compared against "native English speakers", but the complete list includes different accents in the United States and England, for some groups who ARE native speakers. I wasn't sure what the best way to correct this would be. --cprompt

-- That's all well and good... but how does a Bostonian get "fayalam" from "Fire alarm"?

--- 'Faya Alam' I'm sure you figured it out but I only bothered to put it in because I do the same thing, joining words when they have the same letter for some reason. It really makes me think that so many accents have been popularised that I've been accused of having every accent across the country. My native accent is the Washington, DC accent which I've gotten past for the most part. I don't feel confident adding to an article but if its of any relevance we change words like "everybody" to "ur-reebai". --Ahmed Stephens 12:57, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Breaking it up

Hmm, interesting article, but horribly incomplete. I think it might be more useful to have separate articles for each country. This article doesn't even begin to touch on all the available American accents (Long Island, Texan, Californian). Also, even though this article is supposed to be about accents, it contains many regional vocabulary and grammatical constructs, which I don't necessarily think of as part of the accent, and it is inconsistent in its presentation of these words/constructs; if the Canadian 'eh' should be included, so should the commonly used Scottish phrase, "I dinnae can", the Californian "hella", or the Bostonian "wicked". Basically, I'm arguing for a greater subdivision of this article, both by region and category, i.e. "accent", "grammar", and "vocabulary". Any ideas? -DropDeadGorgias

Add what you deem approprate. Let's see where that takes us. --Menchi 21:07 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)
There are many more american accents than those listed. I can distinguish speakers from Tennessee, North Carolina, Southern Indiana, Virginia, Texas, Alabama. There are a number of accents in the Northeast that aren't mentioned. The Minnesota accent is actually more pronounced up toward North Dakota. I'm glad someone mentioned the Pittsburg Accent. That one is very distinctive. The Louisiana cajun accent should be mentioned for sure --rlyd

[edit] Casual vs Formal

"Goin' up the mo'-urrway Sat-dee cos it's more be'-ur" (trans. "I'm going to use the motorway on Saturday since it represents an optimally efficient choice of routes").

This is the old joke of translating casual dialect into very formal english, to make the differnece seem more extreme. Will everyone understand or should we put in the direct translation: "Going up the motorway Saturday [be]cause it's more better"? Andy G 00:17 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

What was that "optimally efficient" thing? Please do make that closer and more understandable "translation". But since we're "translating", "more" is redundant for average English speakers. --Menchi 00:35 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Done. But I've kept "more" because I'm normalising only the words, not the deliberately bad grammar. Andy G 01:29 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)


[edit] Drop Rate Art ?

Carol never made drop rate art. What does this mean? It's supposed to be the translation into normal English (from USA/African American). I suppose you could say that Jackson Pollock made high-drop-rate art. Andy G 14:30, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Rhotic speech

South Midlands speech is rhotic. This is diagnostic for Yankees to whom it all sounds "Southern."

If I understand it, this implies that Southern (USA) speech is non-rhotic. Which regions are non-rhotic. I have been to Texas, Western Louisiana and briefly to Oklahoma and they are all rhotic. I was under the impression that all of the US was rhotic! -- Chris Q 15:38, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Louisiana was probably the only area in that list where you were at hazard of hearing non-rhotic speech. The speech of New Orleans differs somewhat from general Southern, by my understanding. Non-rhotic areas of the U.S. are generally found on the northeast coast (New York City and northward) and the southern coast (from Washington DC southward). Ebonics is non-rhotic countrywide. Non-rhotic speech is not admired in the USA, and has tended to shrink somewhat at the expense of network English. More information is at American English. -- IHCOYC 15:51, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)


[edit] L -- Clear vs Dark

About Ireland : « "l" is clear wherever it occurs in a word, as in French ».
I'm not sure about the meaning of "clear" here, does is mean that the "l" are not pronouced in French ? If so I'm a bit doubtful since I can't find a single word in which the "l" is not pronounced in French ?
Just a remark
→ SeeSchloß 16:42, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I suspect that the distinction being made here is between "clear" L, the usual English "l" sound as in "millet;" and "dark" L, which is velarized and tends towards the qualities of /w/; in those varieties of English in which it appears, it tends to appear before consonants, especially stops, such as in "melt." The author of that paragraph says that Irish English lacks this w-like L -- IHCOYC 16:35, 9 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Ok, I think I approximately understand (although I do not really understand what these different "l" sound like since I do not know whether "millet" is pronouced the same way as in the French word or rather like "hello", in English :-D Do you realize how deep my ignorance is ?). The problem was only my english since I did not see "clear" as the opposed of dark, but as a synonym of "erase". But in this case I suppose it would have been « "l" is cleared... ». Thanks for the enlightenment :-] → SeeSchloß 20:04, 9 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Some Lowland Scottish speakers only ever use dark "L". Some Highland Scottish speakers only ever use clear "L". -- Derek Ross | Talk 23:50, 2004 Nov 9 (UTC)

Michael Howard, leader of the Conservative Party in the UK, always seems to use the clear L where most people use the dark L, although his accent is otherwise RP. This has not escaped the notice of cartoonists and impressionists. rossb 11:12, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)


I agree with lhcoyc about 'clear' and 'dark': in standard modern phonetic jargon (which people ought to use when discussing phonetics!) these are 'palatalised'-to-neutral and 'velarised' versions of the /l/ phoneme respectively. British RP does not strongly palatalise /l/ sounds, but does velarise them after a vowel and before another consonant, as in "bell" or "milk". This gives the "l" a "ol" or "ul" quality, as noted by Tolkien in one of the appendices to "Lord of the Rings" (when describing how elves would have written Modern English". Ulster, Scottish lowland/midland and many American accents use the velarised "dark" /l/ much more widely. Conversely, Welsh and Southern Irish accents use it less. Welsh /l/ tends to be neutral-to-clear even after a vowel and before a consonant (like German), while Irish English inherits the habits of Irish Gaelic, which treats palatalised and velarised /l/ as separate phonemes (like Russian). Michael Howard was born in South Wales of immigrant Romanian-Jewish parents, all of which would tend to make his /l/ sounds less velar than usual in England. 150.203.69.27 05:49, 16 December 2005 (UTC) AGC 16Dec05

As a Southern Irish person I am not so sure that Cavan accents fall into the Ulster accent category. Monaghan and Donegal, yes. But whenever I have heard Cavan people on TV they always sound Southern accent-wise. (Southern Irish)

[edit] Yorkshire phrase

About Yorkshire : The phrase as written "I were wearing t'red coat" sounds more like "I were wearin't red coat"

agreed. 193.131.186.150 13:23, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)
agreed but the "t"is not always pronounced as a "t" anyway; (more likely to be so before a vowel) often it is more like a glottal stop. Paul Tracy 09:40, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I spent the first 28 years of my life in working class sheffield and halifax, and only rarely heard this "t" sound, and then it was usually a form of self celebratory exaggeration, permissable only as a substitute for the definite article at the beginning of a clause ("al mis 'im, t'owd lad"). Mind, i never lived out in rural yorkshire, so i can't speak of what passes for a yorkshire dialect out there beyond saying that it is often very much stronger than that heard in urban yorkshire.
jonathan riley

[edit] Article headings

This article was in serious want of section headings, which I have added. I separated Scotland & Wales from the UK section and renamed the UK section to England, since the history and Gaelic underpinnnings of Scotland & Wales make them distinct from England, in terms of language and culture. I also added mention of the late, great Mid-Atlantic accent formerly used by actors & announcers in Canada and the USA, since it is a now virtually extinct but once very distinctive English accent. --Sewing 18:53, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Brooklyn

The characteristics listed for the Brooklyn accent seem to me to be found throughout New York City and environs (e.g. Nassau and Suffolk Counties to the east, Westchester County, parts of New Jersey). This is borne out by the examples: Groucho Marx never lived in Brooklyn. Lenny Bruce, who grew up in Nassau County, had roughly the same accent Brooklynite Woody Allen does. --Calieber 19:00, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

[edit] London vs Cockney

What is the difference between London and Cockney? 193.131.186.150 13:23, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Cockney is a very specific London accent that is only spoken by a small part of the London population. Americans often imagine that they can speak in a Cockney accent -- Dick van Dyke's attempt at this in Mary Poppins is still a cause of hilarity in London decades afterwards.

Londoners speak in a wide range of accents, ranging from RP and middle-class "Home Counties" English to a wide variety of ethnic accents (Greek, Turkish, Jamaican, black British, Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, Vietnamese...) together with a mix of "Estuary English", Cockney, and other working-class accents. As with other large places like New York, districts like Hackney and Islington can have their own accents. They all blur into one another, with people picking up faint tinges of one another's accents. Somewhere in all that mix is the "London accent": it's more of a cloud of accents than a single clear note.

-- The Anome 13:34, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Estuary English and POV

The section on Estuary English is very POV. Whoever wrote it is trying to stating that such speakers don't understand grammar whereas it's quite clear that the writer doesn't understand it either.

For instance there is no "subjunctive tense" in English. There is a "subjunctive mood". And it's not completely lost since even in the writer's illustration a single past form (rather than the plural past form) is being used which is never used in a non-subjunctive mood in the present. A complete loss would be "I wouldn't do that if I am you". — and nobody would ever say that. In any case this development in the English subjunctive is present in just about every dialect that I'm exposed to - not just Estuary English.

Other loaded POV words which need to go are "mangle" and "smashed". I also find the "pronunciation spelling" used to be offensive as well as vague and shows the writer's ignorance. Even a simple phonetic transcription would be much better.

— Hippietrail 01:31, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Ever since I first saw it I've not been happy with the estuary English stuff on the wikipedia. I'm not sure I accept the existence of it anyway. When it comes to Essex I think they're just trying to deny that there is such a thing. There is, I'm from Essex and we have our own accent and it's just as legitimate as anyone else's, but Geordies, Glaswegians etc., are all allowed their regional dialects and accents (and they even get them called falsely a seperate language), but Essex people are not. I don't find that people from Kent or London speak the same as people from Essex i.e. have Essex accents.

"Home Counties Estuary English (see below) is extremely prevalent in the Home Counties, ...Southern and Western Home Counties (i.e. Surrey, Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, Buckinghamshire) tend to adopt a slightly "posh" (RP) accent. Essex in general uses Estuary English;" They don't, they just speak with an Esssex accent and use Essex dialect words sometimes. The wikipedia is in general anti-British, anti-English and it doesn't suprise me to then find the anti-Essex attitude on here as well. ...this is in fact where it originated. Northern Home Counties (e.g. Herts) is more akin to the West Country rural accent, but with dropped 'h's being common. " WikiUser 19:51, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'ver tried to re-work the south east stuff, having recently mistaken a native Essex accent for soemthing else - it is very distinctive and very different to Estuary. The stuff on Herts was over-simple and the lumping in of Kent with Sussex and Surrey absurd. Icundell 20:51, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] St. Louis and vicinity

  • Some, usually older generations, pronounce measure as /"meIZ.@r/.
  • Some pronounce wash as /wOrS/ or /wArS/, e.g. /"wOrS.IN.t@n/ for Washington.
  • Some speakers errantly pronounce Italian as /aI.t{l.j@n/ and mostaccioli as /mVskAtSoli:/. This seems ironic, with the presence of The Hill.

I am not sure whether these are issues of accent or dialectal pronunciation. Do any of these occur in other regions? Pædia | talk 05:36, 2004 May 2 (UTC)

/"aIt{lj@n/ or /aI"t{lj@n/ was what my grandparents in Melbourne, Australia always used to say but I've never heard it from younger generations. I always assumed it was affected by the wartime derogatory term /"aItaI/ - which I don't even know how to spell. — Hippietrail 00:15, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation of article title

I moved this page from Distinguishing accents of English to Regional accents of English speakers to disambiguate its meaning. The prior title was ambiguous since it could have meant:

  • How to distinguish one spoken accent of people in England from another (as in Pygmalion)
  • How to distinguish one spoken accent of English-speaking people worldwide from another
  • Examples of things that make a particular English speaker's accent unique
  • Usage of accents in written English -- Cecropia | Talk 14:36, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Scottish sounds

A feature of Scottish English is the replacement of the "ow" sound with "oo" (cow -> coo, now -> noo).


I've done a fairly major rewrite of the Scottish section, trying to focus on the Scottish-English accent rather than the Scots Language user: adambisset 9th October 2004 12:00

[edit] Scottish sounds again

The pronunciation of the word loch involves a sound that is heard in German but not south of the border in the UK. The English (or American) would simply say a sound like "lock". The Scots therefore have an extra consonant.

Agreed. A possible exception is in the Liverpool (or Scouse) accent discussed in the article - the gutteral 'ch' sound is used in the broadest of Scouse accents. Adambisset 13:22, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That could be a Gaelic thing. The Irish pronounce loch (or lough) the same way. Liverpool has a large Irish population so maybe that's where the gutteral, "soften" c comes from. Afn

[edit] UK Regions (to do)

This whole set of sections is very wanting, example:

  1. The implication that there is a "Welsh Accent" without even being pedantic about differences between Cardiff and Swansea, the accent in North Wales is different enough for many from other pars of the UK to mistake it for somewhere near the Northwest of England.
  2. People in Hampshire "speaking posh" (a silly POV word incidentally) I would have said the actaul accent is far more Estuary, and in parts lightly seasoned with a west country lilt.
  3. I am also not satisfied that there are sufficient divisions in accent. For the North West we are limited to Scouse and Lancashire.

I don't know enough to rewrite it at present, but could we work at it? Dainamo 09:37, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] IPA/SAMPA tables

For the purpose of accents, as opposed to dialects, would the page not be far more useful if it included SAMPA tables for each accent? (GCarty 20:46, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC))

[edit] Yorkshire - Owt and Nowt

I changed

  • Many dialect words, for example "owt" and "nowt" (both examples rhyme with "note", whereas the Lancastrian "nowt and "owt" rhyme with "out") for "anything" or "nothing", "bevvy" for drink etc.

to

  • Many dialect words, for example the archaic "aught" and "naught" ("owt" and "nowt") for "anything" and "nothing". In some areas these both rhyme with "note", in others they rhyme with "out".

- There are many Yorkshire accents and it is not true to say that they all rhyme "owt" with "note". In any case it depends how you pronounce "note"! "Bevvy" is not exclusive to Yorkshire. Comments on Lancashire belong in the Lancashire section. Paul Tracy

Quite correct. I'm a Yorkie and I pronounce 'owt' the same as 'out'.GordyB 14:45, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
It's pronounced 'Out' in North-East BrE aswell. 82.22.134.112 11:38, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Birmingham accent-- inaccuracies

Hey everyone:

  • I've lived in Birmingham for nearly twenty-five years, as a writer. Despite talking with thousands of people throughout my lifetime, I have never heard anyone but two or three old men use 'bin' or 'bay.' Ai and er are used for aren't and are. Another recent phenomenon is the use of 'was' and 'wasn't' for 'were' and 'were not', but 'weren't' for what would be in standard English 'was not'.


[edit] Alaskan accent?

I'm from Alaska, and I was curious about my own accent (Southern Alaskan, not Native Alaskan), and I can't find anything anywhere. :( Maybe someone here knows what an Alaskan accent sounds like? (Maybe it's pretty weak, I dunno...) If not, covering Native Alaskan accents might be a fun addition. <shrug>

I'm from Southeastern Alaska. Now I live in Anchorage. Whenever I go to visit relatives in Montana and Idaho they tell me that I have an accent that sounds like a cross between a British Columbian Canadian (roll the "r" a teensy bit long and say "Eh?" at the end of sentences)... and a Montanan (use colloquial interjections like "You Betcha," "Darn Tootin'," and "Durn it all!").

They also tell me I speak rather slowly and in a measured way. I attribute this aspect of my Alaskan accent to having lived in a predominantly native village for over 20 years. We just weren't in a hurry to say everything, I guess!  :)----

[edit] Florida

The Florida section looks dubious to me. I can't find any information that indicates that 40% of all southern Florida residents are native New Yorkers. However, since I've never even been to Florida and live on the other side of the continent, I'm not in a position to change it significantly. Anyone from Florida care to comment? Kukuman 01:52, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If you want to research the link between New York City and Florida, you should look into the Jewish emigration from Europe post WWII. The holocaust and the war made New York City the home of the largest population of Jews in the world for decades. When the survivor population aged to retirement,-- i believe in the 70's for the majority-- there was a massive migration to Florida. Florida, is afterall the retirement capital of the country. Because of this, New York no longer houses the largest jewish population, and a large portion of Florida's population is Jewish, New Yorker. Hence that certain strain of floridian accent that's suspiciously similar to Jewish New Yorker. (Mary Bluestocking, 20, Nov. 2005)

[edit] Cleanup

It seems to me this page is in dire need of cleanup. It's also way too long. If no one objects, I'm going to start moving details of individual accents to the articles on those accents, and just have short précis here of the accents discussed elsewhere. --Angr 08:06, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I've done it. I've moved a lot of content to English English, Welsh English, Scottish English, Hiberno-English, Canadian English, American English, and Australian English. I have actually deleted very little, just things that were made redundant by the move, and vague impressionistic statements like "it's a very soft accent" which are unencyclopedic. --Angr 17:37, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Quebec

Is the Quebec entry under Canadian refering to francophones? The anglos certainly speak the generic "western canadian" accent that characterises the English of Ontario & Provinces west (& the territories?). Well there are some nonuniformities across this accent, Quebec Anglophones speak with this accent, and the article creates a deceiving impression the way its set up now that the Quebec English accent is somehow different from the usual variation level - but it isn't. WilyD 15:13, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

A common difference between Montreal English and that spoken in Southern Ontario the way "A" is pronounced. For example "garage" when the emphasis on the second a instead of "garoge" where the "A" sounds more like an "o". Another example is somebody from "Barrie" Ontario will pronounce the "a" like an "é" whereas in Montreal the "A" will be expressed differently. Canking 00:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] General American?

The General American, aka "non accent" is said to be from "Iowa and adjacent parts of Nebraska, and Illinois". The Berkshires region and/or Western Mass also has a "non accent". I haven't spoken with any one from those locations personally but there is a local radio personality who is from Iowa and doesn't have any kind of discernable accent compared. I can only assume some how Western Mass has escaped the (horrid) accents of both Boston and Worchester. Is it possible that there are other "pockets" of the General American accent in the US besides the ones mentioned in the article?

I am not a linguist (hell i'm not even 18 ;)) so i would like to know the thoughts of someone who has more experience in these matters. Especially if they for some unknown reason were in the same place talking with someone from Des Moines, Iowa and Springfield, Mass. Which is hopeful thinking at best. izret10122:46, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

General American isn't exactly from Iowa and adjacent parts of NE and IL; rather the local accents there come closest to being GenAm. That's not to say there aren't other regions that come close to it too. Angr (talk • contribs) 05:49, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recordings

This article would benefit hugely from recordings of the "typical" accents. I know that it's impossible to have a standard speaker of each accent, but even a rough idea would make this article much more comprehensible and lively. CJHung 23:55, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Ulster dialect"

I don't think the supposed 'Ulster dialect' of English differs significantly from the other dialects in Ireland. Unfortunately I don't enough about linguistics to be sure of this, the only thing I'm sure of is that 'look' and 'luke' are pronounced the same in all of Ireland and, I would assume, in Scotland also. I've deleted this and the au pronounced ow thing. Could someone with linguistic knowledge and a knowledge of Irish accents review this section please? - User:Dalta

Look and Luke are not pronounced the same in all of Ireland, they're only pronounced the same in Ulster and Scotland. In the rest of Ireland, they are pronounced differently, although for many people look and luck are the same. I'll have a look into the pronunciation of /au/ when I get a chance, but for now it looks like the claim in the article is fairly reasonable. User:Angr 06:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
As someone who was born and grew up in Scotland, and has encountered probably, almost every Scottish accent, (perhaps excepting some borders and island accents), I would like to point out, I am aware of only a handful that pronounce look and Luke the same way. However, accents of Manchester and Lancashire (I believe, certainly accents from that general area) do notably pronounce these two the same. Jamesaf87 (talk) 18:15, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hiberno-English

The article states:

"Hiberno-English is spoken throughout the Republic of Ireland, except in Counties Donegal, Monaghan and parts of County Cavan, which belong linguistically to Ulster, the province to which the six counties of Northern Ireland belong."

Surely Hiberno-English is, by definition, the type of English spoken in Ireland? The Hiberno-English article seems to think so, and it would be somewhat ludicrous to argue that Irish hasn't affected Northern Irish speech. Isn't Mid-Ulster English a variant of Hiberno-English, as opposed to them being two distinct things?

Also, isn't it rather confusing to be discussing a dialect in an article about accents, as though the two terms were freely interchangeable? People can have different accents, but use the same dialect, or the same accent and different dialects for instance. Martin 19:55, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 'Colonial' English Accents

I have a query I haven't been able to have answered so far, despite asking linguists at my university: Are 'colonial' English accents influenced at all by Indigenous peoples' accents? For instance, I am Australian and have noticed many accent similarities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal English speakers. Obviously some of these similarities come from loanwords used by non-Aboriginal Australians such as 'kangaroo' and 'barramundi', but does this borrowing extend beyond Aboriginal words to English ones? Does the mainstream Australian accent have influences from Aboriginal languages, or are Aboriginal-English accents affected by the ways non-Aboriginal speakers talk? Some examples of the kind of thing I'm thinking of are the widespread substitution of 'd' for 't', as in "gedoudovit" ("get out of it"), the common omission of an 'r' sound, as in "haahdly" ("hardly"), "neeahly" ("nearly"), "paahk" ("park"), etc, and the 'Aboriginalisation' of non-Aborignal words such as 'Nullarbor' (which is actually Latin but is never pronounced that way). It also seems to me that something similar is happening with Maori and non-Maori New Zealand English speakers, and First Nations and non-Indigenous American and Canadian English speakers. The reason I ask this is it seems that large parts of the Australian and New Zealand accents in particular seem quite far removed from their supposed English/Scottish/Irish origins. 130.95.121.91 04:54, 24 November 2006 (UTC) machyak

All of the examples you give of "Aboriginalisation" in Australian accents also appear in some British and/or Irish accents, so I would need to see more evidence of this. Also, I don't see the relevance of your theory to regional accents within Australia, which is what the article is about. Grant | Talk 18:55, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Attractiveness

Would it be possible to get some reliable information into this article about perceptions of the attractiveness of various accents? For example, I think that a considerable number of my fellow Americans find many non-American accents to be attractive. I think this sort of info would be quite interesting. Thanks to anyone who can include reliable and sourced info along these lines. Dave Runger(t)⁄(c) 08:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Attractiveness is an opinion, therefore not something that can be taken from a NPOV. There is no topic regarding this matter.--Hamster X (talk) 14:57, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
But there can be NPOV reports about people's opinion. For example, I understand that Dennis Preston's research has demonstrated that the New York accent is stereotyped as unpleasant by people from the South and Midwest. AJD (talk) 18:22, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Disputed: Australian accents

The class-based definition is outmoded, and there are no references. The remarkable homogeneity of the accent, despite the vastness of the continent, is not highlighted. Tony 12:53, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and will someone please remove the "Good job" banner at the top. This is a pretty bad article. Tony 12:55, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

The divide between Broad/General/Cultivated is very well-known in the relevant academic circles. What is your reference for the claim that the "class-based definition" is outdated? Grant | Talk 18:49, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NZ & Melburnian Accent

Coming from New Zealand and having a relatively mild accent I find many similarities between the way I speak and the way most people talked while I was in Melbourne. I Generally found most people's Australian accents in Melbourne to be a lot milder to those in Queensland. Anybody else have any views on this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 121.72.245.240 (talk) 14:43, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

If by "milder" you mean "more like New Zealand speech", then I think you mean this:
The salary-celery merger is a conditioned merger of /æ/ (as in bat) and /ɛ/ (as in bet) when they occur before /l/, thus making salary and celery homophones.[1][2][3] This merger occurs in the English spoken in New Zealand and the Australian state of Victoria. In varieties with the merger, salary and celery are both pronounced /sæləri/ (Cox & Palethorpe, 2003).
The merger is not well studied. It is referred to in various sociolinguistic publications, but usually only as a small section of the larger change undergone by vowels preceding /l/ in articles about l-vocalisation. Most Victorians and New Zealanders do not exhibit l-vocalisation."
From English-language vowel changes before historic l. Grant | Talk 18:41, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] India and Liberia

I would be very interested in reading about the accents of India and Liberia. Thank you.

Does anyone kow when Americans started talking like Americans? I'm sure the colonists at Jamestown and Plymouth had the same accent they had back in England. John Harvard probably pronounced his name pronounced his name like an Englishman, not like a Bostonian, ie Havid. Is there a history of English accents anyhwere?24.39.17.223 14:10, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed move

Regional accents of English speakers → Regional accents of English. FilipeS 18:37, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Oxford accent

Went i took my linguistics class in college, I saw a video that mention "Oxford accent" as the most respected accent in Britain and its colonies. Is that accent/dialect mentioned anywhere on Wikipedia? --Voidvector (talk) 22:44, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Google search shows that "BBC English" is almost interchangeable with "Oxford accent". There is an article for BBC English, so I figured they are the same. --Voidvector (talk) 22:50, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Map

 It is requested that a map or maps be included in this article to improve its quality.

A map would probably be helpful. -- Beland (talk) 02:40, 28 January 2008 (UTC)