British types of English

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eface any word that began with a vowel with an h (e.g. "henormous" instead of enormous, "hicicles" instead of icicles); this was referred to as the "hypercorrect h" in the Survey of English Dialects, and is also referenced in literature (e.g. the policeman in Danny the Champion of the World).

?A glottal stop for intervocalic /t/ is now common amongst younger speakers across the country; it was originally confined to some areas of the south-east and East Anglia.

?The distinction between /w/ and /hw/ in wine and whine is lost in most varieties, "wh" being pronounced consistently as /w/.

?Most varieties have the horse-hoarse merger. However some northern accents retain the distinction, pronouncing pairs of words like for/four, horse/hoarse and morning/mourning differently.

?The consonant clusters /sj/, /zj/, and /lj/ in suit, Zeus, and lute are preserved by some.

?Many Southern varieties have the bad-lad split, so that bad /b?d/ and lad /ld/ do not rhyme.

?In most of the eastern half of England, plurals and past participle endings which are pronounced /?z/ and /?d/ (with the vowel of kit) in RP may be pronounced with a schwa /?/. This can be found as far north as Wakefield and as far south as Essex. This is unusual in being an east-west division in pronunciation when English dialects generally divide between north and south. Another east-west division involves the rhotic [r]; it can be heard in the words of country folk (particularly the elder), more or less west of the course of the Roman era road known as Watling Street (the modern A5), which at one time divided King Alfred's Wessex and English Mercia from the Danish kingdoms in the east. The rhotic [r] is rarely found in the east.

?Sporadically, miscellaneous items of generally obsolete vocabulary survive: come in the past tense rather than came; the use of thou and/or ye for you.

5. Southern England

general, Southern English accents are distinguished from Northern English accents primarily by not using the short a in words such as "bath". In the south-east, the broad A is normally used before a /f/, /s/ or /?/: words such as "cast" and "bath" are pronounced /kst/, /b?/ rather than /kst/, /b?/. This sometimes occurs before /nd/: it is used in "command" and "demand" but not in "brand" or "grand".the south-west, an /a?/ sound in used in these words but also in words that take // in RP; there is no trap-bath split but both are pronounced with an extended fronted vowel. Bristol is an exception to the bath-broadening rule: it uses /a/ in the trap and bath sets, just as is the case in the North and the Midlands.originally from the upper-class words of the London-Oxford-Cambridge triangle are particularly notable as the basis for Received Pronunciation.English accents have three main historical influences:

?The London accent, in particular, Cockney. [However, London has continuously absorbed migrants throughout its history, and its accent has always been prone to change quickly]

?Received Pronunciation ('R.P.').

?Southern rural accents, of which the West Country, Kent and East Anglian accents are examples.recently, the first two have increasingly influenced southern accents outside London via social class mobility and the expansion of London. From some time during the 19th century, middle and upper-middle classes began to adopt affectations, including the RP accent, associated with the upper class. In the late 20th and 21st century other social changes, such as middle-class RP-speakers forming an increasing component of rural communities, have accentuated the spread of RP. The south-east coast accents traditionally have several features in common with the West country; for example, rhoticity and the a: sound in words such as bath, cast, etc. However, the younger generation in the area is more likely to be non-rhotic and use the London/East Anglian A: sound in bath.the Second World War, about one million Londoners were relocated to new and expanded towns throughout the south east, bringing with them their distinctive London accent (and possibly sowing the seed of Estuary English).

6. South West England

West Country dialects accents are generic terms applied to any of several English dialects and accents used by much of the indigenous population of South West England, the area popularly known as the West Country.region encompasses Bristol, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset, while Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Wiltshire are usually also included, although the northern and eastern boundaries of the area are hard to define and sometimes even wider areas are encompassed. The West Country accent is said to reflect the pronunciation of the Anglo-Saxons far better than other modern English Dialects.the nearby counties of Berkshire, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, it was possible to encounter comparable accents and, indeed, distinct local dialects until perhaps the 1960s. There is now limited use of such dialects amongst older people in local areas. Although natives of such locations, especially in western parts, can still have West Country influences in their words, the increased mobility and urbanisation of the population have meant that local Berkshire, Hampshire and Isle of Wight dialects (as opposed to accents) are today essentially extinct.the regional variations are considered to be dialectal forms. The Survey of English Dialects captured manners of words across the West Country that were just as different from Standard English as anything from the far North. Close proximity has completely different languages such as Cornish, which is a Celtic language related to Welsh, and more closely to Breton.

) Norfolk

Norfolk dialect is spoken in the traditional county of Norfolk and areas of north Suffolk. Famous speakers include Lord Nelson and Keith Skipper. The group FOND (Friends of Norfolk Dialect) was formed to record the county's dialect and to provide advice for TV companies using the dialect in productions.Anglian dialect is also spoken in areas of Cambridgeshire. It is characterised by the use of [ei] for /i:/ in FLEECE words.

) Midlands

?As in the North, Midlands accents generally do not use a broad A, so that cast is pronounced [kast] rather than the [k??st] pronunciation of most southern accents. The northern limit of the [??] in many words crosses England from mid-Shropshire to The Wash, passing just south of Birmingham.

?Midlands words also generally uses the northern short U, so putt is pronounced the same as put. The southern limit of this pronunciation also crosses from mid-Shropshire to the Wash, but dipping further south to the northern part of Oxfordshire.

?The West Midlands accent is often described as having a pronounced nasal quality, the East Midlands accent much less so.

?Old and cold may be pronounced as "owd" and "cowd" (rhyming with "loud" in the West Midlands and "ode" in the East Midlands), and in the northern Midlands home can become "wom".

?Whether Derbyshire should be classed as the West or East Midlands in terms of dialect is debatable. Stanley Ellis, a dialect expert, said in 1985 that it was more like the West Midlands, but it is often grouped with the East and is part of the region East Midlands.

?Cheshire, although part of the North-West region, is usually grouped the Midlands for the purpose of accent and dialect.

) West Midlands

?The best known accents in the West Midlands area are the Birmingham accents (see "Brummie") and the Black Country accent (Yam Yam).

?There is no Ng-coalescence. Cases of the spelling -ing are pronounced as rather than. Wells noted that there were no exceptions to this rule in Stoke-on-Trent, whereas there were for other areas with the pronunciation, such as Liverpool.

?Dialect verbs are used, for example am for are, ay for is not (related to ain't), bay for are not, bin for am or, emphatically, for are. Hence the following joke dialogue about bay windows: "What sort of windas am them?" "They'm bay windas." "Well if they bay windas wot bin them?". There is also humour to be derived from the shop-owner's sign of Mr. "E. A. Wright" (that is, "He ay [isn't] right," a phrase implying someone is saft [soft] in the jed [head]). Saft also may mean silly as in, "Stop bein' so saft".

?The Birmingham and Coventry accents are quite distinct, even though the cities are only 19 miles/30 km apart. Coventry being slightly closer to an East Midlands accent.

?Around Stoke-on-Trent, the short i can sound rather like a short e, so milk and biscuit become something like "melk" and "bess-kit". Strong 'Potteries' accents can even render the latter as "bess-keet". The Potteries accent is perhaps the most distinctly 'northern' of the West Midlands accents, given that the urban area around Stoke-on-Trent is close to the Cheshire border.

?Herefordshire and parts of Worcestershire and Shropshire have a rhotic accent somewhat like the West Country, and in some parts mixing with the Welsh accent, particularly when closer to the English/Welsh border.

) East Midlands

?East Midlands accents are generally non-rhotic, instead drawing out their vowels, resulting in the Midlands Drawl, which can to non-natives be mistaken for dry sarcasm.

?The PRICE vowel has a very far back starting-point, and can be realised as.

?Yod-