British types of English

Consonants

Most consonants are pronounced as they are in other parts of the English speaking world. A few exceptions follow:

<g> and <k> have a tendency to be dropped or unreleased in the coda (word- or syllable-finally).

<h> is realised in various ways throughout the county. When William Barrow Kendall wrote his Furness Wordbook in 1867, he wrote that <h> 'should never be dropped', suggesting the practice had already become conspicuous. It seems the elision of both <h> and <t> began in the industrial towns and slowly spread out. In the south, it is now very common.

<l> in the word final position may be dropped or realised as [w]: woo wool [?w?w]; pow pole [?p?w].

<r> is realised as [?] following consonants and in word-initial position but is often elided in the coda, unless a following word begins with a vowel: ross [???s]; gimmer [???m?]; gimmer hogg [???m?????].

<t> is traditionally always pronounced as a voiceless alveolar plosive, although in many places it has been replaced by the glottal stop [?] now common throughout Britain.

<y> may be consonantal [j] as in yam home [?jam]. As the adjectival or adverbial suffix -y it may be [?] or [i?] as in clarty (muddy) [?kla?t?]. Medially and, in some cases, finally it is [??] as in Thorfinsty (a place) [????f?nst??].

Finally, in some parts of the county, there is a tendency to palatalize the consonant cluster <cl> in word-initial and medial position, thereby rendering it as something more closely approaching [tl]. As a result, some speakers pronounce clarty (muddy) as [?tla?t?], "clean" as [?tli?n], and in some cases "likely" and "lightly" are almost indistinguishable.

Stress

Stress is usually placed on the initial syllable: yakeren acorn [?jak???n].

Unstressed initial vowels are usually fully realised, whilst those in final syllables are usually reduced to schwa [?].

9. North-East England

? Dialects in this region are often known as Geordie or Mackem. The dialects across the region are broadly similar however some differences do exist. For example, with words ending -re/-er, such as culture and father, the end syllable is pronounced by a Newcastle native as a short 'a', such as in 'fat' and 'back', therefore producing "cultcha" and "fatha" for "culture" and "father" respectively. The Sunderland area would pronounce the syllable much more closely to that of other accents. Similarly, Geordies pronounce "make" in line with standard English: to rhyme with take. However, a Mackem would pronounce "make" to rhyme with "mack" or "tack" (hence the origin of the term Mackem). For other differences, see the respective articles. For an explanation of the traditional dialects of the mining areas of County Durham and Northumberland see Pitmatic.

? A feature of the North East accent, shared with Scots and Irish English, is the pronunciation of the consonant cluster -lm in coda position. As an example, "film" is pronounced as "fillum". Another of these features which are shared with Scots is the use of the word 'Aye', pronounced like 'I', its meaning is yes.

a) Geordie

Geordie (/ddi/) is a regional nickname for a person from the Tyneside region of the north east of England, or the name of the English-language dialect spoken by its inhabitants. Depending on who is using it, the catchment area for the term "Geordie" can be as large as the whole of North East England, or as small as the city of Newcastle upon Tyne.

In most aspects, Geordie speech is a direct continuation and development of the language spoken by the Anglo-Saxon settlers of this region. They consisted of mercenaries employed by the ancientBrythons to fight the Pictish invaders after the end of Roman rule in Britannia in the 5th century; the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who thus arrived became, over time, ascendant politically and -- through population transfer from tribal homelands in northern Europe -- culturally over the native British. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that emerged during the Dark Ages spoke largely mutually-intelligible varieties of what is now called Old English, each varying somewhat in phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon. This Anglo-Saxon influence on Geordie can be seen today, to the extent that poems by the Anglo-Saxon scholar the Venerable Bede translates more successfully into Geordie than into modern-day English. Thus, in northern England, dominated by the kingdom of Northumbria, was found a distinct "Northumbrian" Old English dialect.

In recent times, "Geordie" has been used to refer to a supporter of Newcastle United football club, despite many Geordies supporting other local teams, and the Newcastle Brown Ale schooner glassware used to serve beer in the United States.

Characteristics

Geordie consonants generally follow those of Received Pronunciation. Some phonological characteristics specific to Geordie are listed as follows:

? Geordie is non-rhotic, like most Anglo-English dialects. This means speakers do not pronounce /r/ unless it is followed by a vowel sound in that same phrase or prosodic unit. The rhotic sound (/r/) in Geordie is pronounced as.

? There is some differentiation in pronunciation in the Geordie dialect based upon the speaker's sex. For example, English sound /a/, pronounced generically in Geordie as [?], may also have other, more specific pronunciations depending upon whether one is male or female. Males alone often pronounce the sound /a/ as [u], for example, the word house (/has/) pronounced as [hus]. Females, on the other hand, will often pronounce this sound as [e], thus: [hes].

? /??/ appearing in an unstressed final syllable of a word (such as in reading) is pronounced as [?n] (thus, reading is [id?n]).

? /?r/ appearing at the end of a word (such as in sugar) is pronounced as [a] (thus, sugar is [a]).

? Yod-coalescence in both stressed and unstressed syllables (so that dew becomes [du]).

? T glottalization, in which /t/ is replaced by before a syllabic nasal (e.g. button as [b?n]), in absolute final position (get as), and whenever the /t/ is intervocalic so long as the latter vowel is not stressed (pity as [pi]).

? /?/ specifically in the words had, have, has and having is pronounced as [?].

? // specifically in words with the spelling "ea" (such as bread and deaf) may be pronounced as [i].

? /?/ specifically at the ends of words, with the spelling "ow" (such as in throw and follow) is pronounced as [a] in monosyllabic words and [?] in polysyllabic words (thus, window as [wnd?]).

b) Mackem

Mackem is a term that refers to the residents of Sunderland, dialect and people of the Wearside area, or more specifically Sunderland, a city in North East England. Spelling variations include "Mak'em", "Makem", and "Maccam".

Pronunciation differences and dialect words

? Make and take are pronounced mak and tak ([?mak] and [?tak]). This variation is the supposed reason why Tyneside shipyard workers might have coined "Mackem" as an insult. This pronunciation is also used in Scots.

? Many words ending in -own are pronounced [-?un] (cf. Geordie: [-u?

? School is split into two syllables, with a short [?] sound added after the oo, separating it from the l: [sk.?l]. This is also the case for words ending in -uel or -ool, which are monosyllabic in some other dialects, such as cruel, fuel and fool which in Mackem are [kr?l], [fj?l] and [f?l]. This "extra syllable" occurs in other words spoken in a Mackem dialect, i.e. film is [fl?m] and poorly[p?li]. This feature has led to some words being very differently pronounced in Sunderland. The word face, due to the inclusion of an extra [?] and the contraction thereof, is often pronounced [fjas]. While [fjas] and some other cases of this extra vowel have been observed in the Geordie dialect, school in that variant is [skjl] versus Mackem's [sk.?l] (and [skl] or [skl] in most other dialects). This extra vowel feature is more prevalent to the north, in Scots and Scottish English, where it is due to the influence of the "Gaelic helping vowel" construction in the native Celtic, non-Germanic language Scots Gaelic.

? The word endings -re and -er are pronounced [?] as in Standard English, unlike the rhotic Scots variant. Cf. Geordie [?].

? Wesh and weshing (for wash and washing) are part of a wider regional dialectical trait which is reminiscent of Old English phonology, where stressed a mutated to e. This can also be observed in other modern Germanic languages, but it is particularly prevalent in German and Icelandic

? Dinnit (for do not or don't), as in "dinnit punch us".

? Claes for clothes

? Wee or whee for who

? Whey or wey for why: "Whey nar!" ("Why no!")

? Tee or tae for to in some constructions: "Where yae gawn tee?" ("Where are you going to?")

? Wuh or wa for we: "Wuh knew wed win" ("We knew we'd win").

? The dialect word haway or howay means come on. In Newcastle it is often spelled and pronounced howay, while in Sunderland it is almost always haway (or ha'way; the latter spelling is prominent inSunderland A.F.C.'s slogan, "Ha'way The Lads"). The local newspapers in each region use these spellings

c) Pitmatic

Pitmatic (originally "pitmatical"), also colloquially known as "yakka", is a dialect of English used in the counties of Northumberland and Durham in England. It developed as a separate dialect fromNorthumbrian and Geordie partly due to the specialised terms used by mineworkers in the local coal pits. For example, in Northumberland and Tyne and Wear the word Cuddy is an abbreviation of the name Cuthbert but in Durham Pitmatic cuddy denotes a horse, specifically a pit pony. In Lowland Scots, cuddie usually refers to a donkey or ass but may also denote a short, thick, strong horse.

Traditionally, pitmatic, together with some rural Northumbrian communities including Rothbury, used a guttural R. This is now less frequently heard; since the closure of the area's deep mines, many younger people speak in local ways that do not usually include this characteristic. The guttural r sound can, however, still sometimes be detected, especially amongst elderly populations in more rural areas.

While in theory pitmatic was spoken throughout the Great Northern Coalfield, from Ashington in Northumberland to Fishburn in County Durham, early references apply specifically to its use by miners especially from the Durham district (1873) and to its use in County Durham (1930).

Nowadays "pitmatic" is an uncommon term in popular usage. In recent times, all three dialects have converged, acquiring features from more Standard English varieties. English as spoken in County Durham has been described as "half-Geordie, half-Teesside" (see the article about Mackem).

Melvyn Bragg presented a programme on BBC Radio 4 about pitmatic as part of a series on regional dialects

d) Multicultural London English

Multicultural London English (abbreviated MLE), colloquially called Jafaican, is a dialect (and/or sociolect) of English that emerged in the late 20th century. It is spoken mainly in inner London, with the exception of areas such as Brent, Newham, Haringey and Enfield. According to research conducted at Queen Mary, University of London, Multicultural London English is gaining territory fromCockney.

It is said to contain many elements from the languages of the Caribbean (Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago), South Asia (Indian subcontinent), and West Africa, as well as remnants of traditional Cockney. Although the street name, "Jafaican", implies that it is "fake" Jamaican, researchers indicate that it is not the language of white kids trying to "play cool" but rather that "[it is] more likely that young people have been growing up in London exposed to a mixture of second-language English and local London English and that this new variety has emerged from that mix".

MLE is used mainly by young, urban working-class people.

Features

Grammar

The past tense of the verb "to be" is regularised, with "was" becoming universal for all conjugations, and "weren't" likewise for negative conjugations. This leaves "I was, you was, he was" etc., and "I weren't, you weren't, he weren't" etc.

Tag-questions are limited to "isn't it", realised as "innit", and the corresponding "is it?".

Phonology

? Like most varieties of English English, Multicultural London English is non-rhotic.

Phonetics

While older speakers in London display a vowel and consonant system that matches earlier descriptions, young speakers largely have different qualities. These qualities are on the whole not thelevelled ones noted in recent studies of teenage speakers in south-east England outside London, e.g. Milton Keynes, Reading and Ashford. We would expect the youth to show precisely these levelled qualities, with further developments reflecting the innovatory status of London as well as the passage of time. However, evidence contradicts this expectation:

? fronting of // less advanced in London than in periphery: lack of fronting of // in inner city is conservative, matching Caribbean Englishes.

? lack of /o/-fronting: fronting of the offset of /o?/ absent in most inner-London speakers of both sexes and all ethnicities, present in outer-city girls.

? Instead, /o/-monophthongisation: highly correlated with ethnicity (Afro-Caribbean, Black African) and multi-ethnic network (for whites).

? /a/-lowering across region: This is seen as a reversal of the Diphthong Shift. However, the added fronting is greater in London than in the south-east periphery, resulting in variants like [a]. Frontingand monophthongisation of /a/ is correlated with ethnicity; it is strongest among non-whites. It seems to be a geographically directional and diachronically gradual process. The change (from approximately ) involves lowering of the onset, and as such is a reversal of the Diphthong Shift. It is interpretable as a London innovation with diffusion to the periphery.

? raised onset of FACE: This results in variants like [e]. Like /a/, monophthongisation of /e/ is strongest among non-whites. This is also seen as a reversal of the Diphthong Shift.

? /a/ realized as [a] and not "levelled" [a]: In inner-city London, [a] is the norm for /a/. Additionally, is used by some non-whites, especially girls, in the inner city.

? backing of /k/ to [q] before non-high back vowels

Some features continue changes already noted in the south-east:

? reversal of H-dropping

? advanced fronting of /u?/: This results in realizations like. Unexpectedly, it is most advanced among non-white Londoners and whites with non-white networks.

? backing of /?/: This can result in variants like [a].

? backing of /?/: This results in variants like or, rather than .

? Th-fronting



10. Welsh English

Welsh English, Anglo-Welsh, or Wenglish refers to the dialects of English spoken in Wales by Welsh people. The dialects are significantly influenced by Welsh grammar and often include words derived from Welsh. In addition to the distinctive words and grammar, there is a variety of accents found across Wales from the Cardiff dialect to that of the South Wales Valleys and toWest Wales.

Pronunciation

Vowels

Short monophthongs

? The vowel of cat /?/ is pronounced as a more central near-open front unrounded vowel [?]. In Cardiff, bag is pronounced with a long vowel [a]. In NorthPowys, a pronunciation resembling its New Zealand and South African analogue is sometimes heard, i.e. trap is pronounced /trp/

? The vowel of end // is a more open vowel and thus closer to cardinal vowel than R.P.

? The vowel of "kit" // often sounds closer to the schwa sound of above, an advanced close-mid central unrounded vowel

? The vowel of hot // is raised towards // and can thus be transcribed as or

? The vowel of "bus" // is pronounced as, which is a shortened version of the vowel in R.P. bird and is encountered as a hypercorrection in northern areas forfoot. It is sometimes manifested in border areas of north and mid Wales as an open front unrounded vowel /a/ or as a near-close near-back vowel /?/ in northeast Wales, under influence of Cheshire and Merseyside accents.

? In accents that distinguish between foot and strut, the vowel of foot is a more lowered vowel, particularly in the north

? The schwa of better may be different from that of above in some accents; the former may be pronounced as, the same vowel as that of bus

? The schwa tends to be supplanted by an // in final closed syllables, e.g. brightest /b?i.tst/. The uncertainty over which vowel to use often leads to 'hypercorrections' involving the schwa, e.g. programme is often pronounced /pro.r?m/

Long monophthongs

? The vowel of car is often pronounced as a more central open back unrounded vowel and more often as a long open front unrounded vowel /a/

? In broader varieties, particularly in Cardiff, the vowel of bird is similar to South African and New Zealand, i.e. a lowered close-mid front rounded vowel [o]

? Most other long monophthongs are similar to that of Received Pronunciation, but words with the RP /??/ are sometimes pronounced as [o] and the RP /e/ as[e]. An example that illustrates this tendency is the Abercrave pronunciation of play-place [pleples]

? In northern varieties, coat and caught/court are often merged into /k??t/

? In Rhymney, the diphthong of there is monophthongised

Diphthongs

? Fronting diphthongs tend to resemble Received Pronunciation, apart from the vowel of bite that has a more centralised onset [???]

? Backing diphthongs are more varied:

? The vowel of low in R.P., other than being rendered as a monophthong, like described above, is often pronounced as [o

? The word town is pronounced similarly to the New Zealand pronunciation of tone, i.e. with a near-open central onset

? The /ju/ of R.P. in the word due is usually pronounced as a true diphthong [e

Consonants

? A strong tendency (shared with Scottish English and some South African accents) towards using an alveolar tap (a 'tapped r') in place of an approximant (the r used in most accents in England).

? Rhoticity is largely uncommon, apart from some speakers in Port Talbot who supplant the front vowel of bird with //, like in many varieties of North American English and accents influenced by Welsh

? Some gemination between vowels is often encountered, e.g. money is pronounced [m.ni]

? In northern varieties influenced by Welsh, pens and pence merge into /p?ns/ and chin and gin into /dn/

? In the north-east, under influence of such accents as Scouse, ng-coalescence does not take place, so sing is pronounced /s?/

? Also in northern accents, /l/ is frequently strongly velarised. In much of the south-east, clear and dark L alternate much like they do in R.P.

? The consonants are generally the same as R.P. but Welsh consonants like and [x] are encountered in loan words such as Llangefni and Harlech



11. Scottish English

Scottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. It may or may not be considered distinct from the Scots language. It is always considered distinct from Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language. The main, formal variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English, often abbreviated to SSE. SSE may be defined as "the characteristic speech of the professional class [in Scotland] and the accepted norm in schools."

In addition to distinct pronunciation, grammar and expressions, Scottish English has distinctive vocabulary, particularly pertaining to Scottish institutions such as the Church of Scotland, local government and the education and legal systems.

Scottish Standard English is at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum, with focused broad Scots at the other. Scottish English may be influenced to varying degrees by Scots. Many Scots speakers separate Scots and Scottish English as different registers depending on social circumstances. Some speakers code switch clearly from one to the other while others style shift in a less predictable and more fluctuating manner. Generally there is a shift to Scottish English in formal situations or with individuals of a higher social status

Phonology

The speech of the middle classes in Scotland tends to conform to the grammatical norms of the written standard, particularly in situations that are regarded as formal. Highland English is slightly different from the variety spoken in the Lowlands in that it is more phonologically, grammatically, and lexically influenced by aGaelic substratum.

While pronunciation features vary among speakers (depending on region and social status), there are a number of phonological aspects characteristic of Scottish English:

? Scottish English is a rhotic accent, meaning /r/ is pronounced in the syllable coda. As with Received Pronunciation, /r/ may be an alveolar approximant, although it is also common that a speaker will use an alveolar tap. Less common is use of the alveolar trill [r] (hereafter, <r> will be used to denote any rhotic consonant).

? While other dialects have merged / before /r/, Scottish English makes a distinction between the vowels in herd, bird, and curd.

? Many varieties contrast /o/ and / before /r/ so that hoarse and horse are pronounced differently.

? /or/ and /ur/ are contrasted so that shore and sure are pronounced differently, as are pour and poor.

? /r/ before /l/ is strong. An epenthetic vowel may occur between /r/ and /l/ so that girl and world are two-syllable words for some speakers. The same may occur between /r/ and /m/, between /r/and /n/, and between /l/ and /m/.

? There is a distinction between /w/ and /hw/ in word pairs such as witch and which.

? The phoneme /x/ is common in names and in SSE's many Gaelic and Scots borrowings, so much so that it is often taught to incomers, particularly for "ch" in loch. Some Scottish speakers use it in words of Greek origin as well, such as technical, patriarch, etc. The pronunciation of these words in the original Greek would support this. (Wells 1982, 408).

? /l/ is usually velarized (see dark l) except in borrowings like "glen" (from Scottish Gaelic "gleann") which had unvelarized l in their original form. In areas where Scottish Gaelic was spoken until relatively recently (such as Dumfries and Galloway) and in areas where it is still spoken (such as the West Highlands), velarization of /l/ may be absent in many words in which it is present in other areas, but remains in borrowings that had velarized /l/ in Gaelic, such as "loch" (Gaelic "loch") and "clan" (Gaelic "clann").

? Vowel length is generally regarded as non-phonemic, although a distinctive part of Scottish English is the Scots vowel length rule (Scobbie et al. 1999). Certain vowels (such as /i/, /u/, and /?/) are generally long but are shortened before nasals and voiced plosives. However, this does not occur across morpheme boundaries so that crude contrasts with crewed, need with kneed and side withsighed.

? Scottish English has no //, instead transferring Scots /u/. Phonetically, this vowel may be pronounced or even. Thus pull and pool are homophones.

? Cot and caught are not differentiated in most Central Scottish varieties, as they are in some other varieties.

? In most varieties, there is no /?/-/??/ distinction; therefore, bath, trap, and palm have the same vowel.

? The happY vowel is most commonly /e/ (as in face), but may also be /?/ (as in kit) or /i/ (as in fleece).

? /?s/ is often used in plural nouns where southern English has /?z/ (baths, youths, etc.); with and booth are pronounced with /?/. (See Pronunciation of English th.)

? In colloquial speech, the glottal stop may be an allophone of /t/ after a vowel, as in [b?r]. These same speakers may "drop the g" in the suffix -ing and debuccalize /?/ to [h] in certain contexts.

? // may be more open for certain speakers in some regions, so that it sounds more like (although // and // do not merge). Other speakers may pronounce it as , just like in many other accents, or with a schwa-like ([?]) quality. Others may pronounce it almost as in certain environments, particularly after /w/ and /hw/.



12. Ulster Scots

(called Ulster-Scotch by the Ulster-Scots Agency and Ulster-Scots Language Society) generally refers to the dialects of Scots spoken in parts of Ulster in Ireland. Some definitions of Ulster Scots may also include Standard English spoken with an Ulster Scots accent. This is a situation like that of Lowland Scots and Scottish Standard English - where lexical items have been re-allocated to the phoneme classes that are nearest to the equivalent standard classes. Ulster Scots has been influenced by Mid Ulster English and Ulster Irish. Ulster Scots has also influenced Mid Ulster English, which is the dialect of most people in Ulster. As a result of the competing influences of English and Scots, varieties of Ulster Scots can be described as 'more English' or 'more Scots'.

Scots dialects were brought to Ulster during the early 17th century, when large numbers of Scots speakers arrived from Scotland during (and following) the Ulster Plantation. The earliest Scots writing in Ulster dates from that time, and until the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, written Scots from Ulster was almost identical with that of Scotland.

Since the 1990s, new orthographies have been created, which seek "to be as different to English (and occasionally Scots) as possible". It has been claimed that the recent "Ulster-Scots language and heritage cause has been set rolling only out of a sense of cultural rivalry among some Protestants and unionists, keen to counter-balance the onward march of the Irish language movement



13. Hiberno-English

Hiberno-English (also known as Irish English) is the dialect of English written and spoken in Ireland (Hibernia).

English was first brought to Ireland during the Norman invasion of the late 12th century. Initially it was mainly spoken in an area known as the Pale around Dublin, with Irish spoken throughout the rest of the country. By the Tudor period, the Irish culture and language had regained most of the territory initially lost to the colonists: even in the Pale, `all the common folk … for the most part are of Irish birth, Irish habit and of Irish language'. However, the resumption of English expansion following the Tudor conquest of Ireland saw a revival in use of their language, especially during the plantations. By the mid-19th century, English was spoken by half of the population and the decline of Irish was only going to worsen; It has retained this status to the present day, with even the minority whose first language is Irish usually being fluent in English as well.

Modern English as spoken in Ireland today retains some features showing the influence of the Irish language, such as vocabulary, grammatical structure and pronunciation.

Pronunciation

Hiberno-English retains many phonemic differentiations that have merged in other English accents.

? With some local exceptions, /r/ occurs postvocally, making most Hiberno-English dialects rhotic. The exceptions to this are most notable in Dublin and some smaller eastern towns likeDrogheda. In Dublin English, a retroflex is used (much as in American English). This has no precedent in varieties of southern Irish English and is a genuine innovation of the past two decades. Mainstream varieties still use a non-retroflex (as in word-initial position). A uvular is found in north-east Leinster. /r/ is pronounced as a postalveolar tap in conservative accents. Micheal O Muircheartaigh and Jackie Healy-Rae are both good examples of this.

? /t/ is not pronounced as a plosive where it does not occur word-initially in some Irish accents; instead, it is often pronounced as a slit fricative [?].

? The distinction between w /w/ and wh /hw/, as in wine vs. whine, is preserved.

? There is some variation with the consonants that are dental fricatives in other varieties (/?/ and /?/); after a vowel, they may be dental fricatives or dental stops ([t] and [d] respectively) depending on speaker. Some dialects of Irish have a "slender" (palatalised) d as /?/ and this may transfer over to English pronunciation. In still others, both dental fricatives are present since slender dental stops are lenited to [?] and [?].

? The distinction between // and /o/ in horse and hoarse is preserved, though not usually in Dublin or Belfast.

? A distinction between in herd-bird-curd may be found.

? /l/ is never velarised, except in (relatively recent) South Dublin English, often derisively termed D4 English, after the area where the accent predominates.

? The vowels in words such as boat and cane are usually monophthongs outside of Dublin: [bot], and [ken].

? The /a/ in "night" may be pronounced in a wide variety of ways, e.g. [?], and, the latter two being the most common in middle class speech, the former two, in popular speech.

? The // in "boy" may be pronounced (i.e. the vowel of thought plus a y) in conservative accents (Henry 1957 for Co. Roscommon, Nally 1973 for Co. Westmeath).

? In some varieties, speakers make no distinction between the in putt and the in put, pronouncing both as the latter. Bertz (1975) found this merger in working-class Dublin speech, and a fluctuation between merger and distinction in General Dublin English (quoted in Wells 1982). Nevertheless, even for those Irish people who, say, have a different vowel sound in put and cut, pairs such as putt and put, look and luck may be pronounced identically.

? In some highly conservative varieties, words spelled with ea and pronounced with [i] in RP are pronounced with [e], for example meat, beat.

? In words like took where "oo" usually represents //, speakers may use /u/. This is most common in working-class Dublin accents and the speech of North-East Leinster.

? Any and many is pronounced to rhyme with nanny, Danny by very many speakers, i.e. with each of these words pronounced with /a/ or /.

? /e/ often becomes // in words such as gave and came (becoming "gev" and "kem")

? Consonant clusters ending in /j/ often change.

? /dj/ becomes /d/, e.g. dew/due, duke and duty sound like "jew", "jook" and "jooty".

? /tj/ becomes /t/, e.g. tube is "choob", tune is "choon"

? The following show neither dropping nor coalescence:

? /kj/

? /hj/

? /mj/

Irish English also always uses the alveolar or "light" L sound, as opposed to other English dialects which use a velar or "dark" L in word-final position. The naming of the letter H as "haitch" is standard, while the letter R is called "or", the letter A is often pronounced "ah", and the letter Z is often referred to as "e-zed" in working-class Dublin accents or parodies of same. Some words like the English word for movie "film" become "fillum" in Irish speech.



14. Leinster and Greater Dublin

Dublin has a number of dialects which differ significantly based on class and age group. These are roughly divided into three categories: "local Dublin", or the broad-working class dialect (sometimes referred to as the "working-class", or "inner city" accent); "mainstream Dublin", the typical accent spoken by middle-class or suburban speakers; and "new Dublin", an accent among younger people (born after 1970). Features include:

? // as in lot has a variety of realizations. In Local, this vowel is often quite front and unrounded, ranging to [a]. In Mainstream, the sound varies between and. New Dublin speakers often realize this phoneme even higher, as.

? // as in thought: In Local and Mainstream accents, this vowel is usually a lengthened variant of the corresponding LOT set (i.e. [a] in Local and in Mainstream.) In New Dublin accents, this sound can be as high as [o].

? // as in strut: in Local Dublin, this sound merges with the sound in foot, so that strut is pronounced [str?t]. In Mainstream, a slight distinction is made between the two, with the vowel for strutvarying greatly from to. In New Dublin this vowel can shift forward, toward.

? /o/ as in goat: in Dublin English, unlike other Hiberno-Englishes, this vowel is almost always dipthongized. Local Dublin features a low inglide, rendering this sound as [o], whereas Mainstream features a tighter diphthong: [o]. New Dublin has a slightly fronter realization, ranging to [?].

? /u/ as in goose. Local Dublin features a unique, palatized realization of this vowel, [u], so that food sounds quite similar to feud. In Mainstream and New Dublin, this sound ranges to a more central vowel, .

? /a/ as in price: Traditionally this vowel ranges in pronunciation from [?i] in Local Dublin speech to [ai] in Mainstream Dublin. Among speakers born after 1970, the pronunciation often occurs before voiced consonants and word-finally.

? /a/ as in mouth is usually fronted, to [?u] in Mainstream and New Dublin and more typically [u] in Local.

? // as in choice: This sound ranges greatly, from [a] in Local Dublin to a high-back realization [o] in New Dublin. Mainstream Dublin more typically tends toward.

Rhoticity

Rhoticity and rhotic consonants vary greatly in Dublin English. In Local Dublin, "r" can often be pronounced with an alveolar tap, whereas Mainstream and New Dublin almost always feature the more "standard" alveolar approximant.

Post-vocalically, Dublin English maintains three different standards. Local Dublin is often non-rhotic (giving lie to the repeated claim that Hiberno-English is universally rhotic), although some variants may be variably or very lightly rhotic. In non-rhotic varieties, the /?r/ in "lettER" is either lowered to or in some speakers may be backed and raised to. In Mainstream Dublin, this sound is gently rhotic ([?], while New Dublin features a retroflex approximant [?]. Other rhotic vowels are as follows:

? // as in start: This vowel has a uniquely high realization in Local Dublin, ranging to []. In Mainstream Dublin, this sound is more typically [a], whereas New Dublin can feature a more back vowel,

? The "horse-hoarse" distinction in other Irish dialects is heavily preserved in Local Dublin, but only slightly maintained in Mainstream and New varieties. In Local, "force" words are pronounced with a strong diphthong, [o], while "north" words feature a low monophthong, [a]. Mainstream Dublin contrasts these two vowels slightly, as [] and [o], while in New Dublin, these two phonemes are merged to [o].

? // as in nurse. In local Dublin, this phoneme is split, either pronounced as or . In this accent, words written as "-ur" are always pronounced as, while words written as either "-er" or "-ir" are pronounced as, unless "-er" or "-ir" follows a labial consonant (e.g. bird or first), when this sound has the realization. In Mainstream and New Dublin this distinction is seldom preserved, with both phonemes typically merging to.

Dublin Vowel Lengthening

In Local Dublin, long monophthongs are often dipthongized, and while some diphthongs are tripthongized. This process can be summarized with these examples:

? School [skul] = [skuw?l]

? Mean [min] = [m?j?n]

? Five [fa?v] = [f?j?v]

Consonants

? Final "t" is heavily lenited in Local Dublin English so that "sit" can be pronounced [s?h], [s??] or even [s?].

? Intervocalically, "t" can become an alveolar approximate in Local Dublin (e.g. "not only" = [na ? ?onli], while in New and Mainstream varieties it can become an alveolar tap [?], similar to American and Australian English.

? ? and ?, as in "think" and "this", usually become alveolar stops [t] and [d] in Local Dublin English, while Mainstream and New Dublin maintains the more standard dentalized stops common in other varieties of Hiberno-English.

? In Local Dublin, stops are often elided after sonorants, so that, for example sound is pronounced [s??n].

? Mid Ulster English is the dialect of Hiberno-English spoken by most people in the province of Ulster in Ireland. The dialect has been greatly influenced by Ulster Irish, but also by the Scots language, which was brought over by Scottish settlers during the plantations.

? Mid Ulster English is the main subdivision of Ulster English (also called Northern Hiberno-English). The varieties spoken in south Armagh, southMonaghan, south Fermanagh, south Donegal and north Cavan are termed South Ulster English by linguists. Conversely, the varieties spoken in much of north County Antrim are termed Ulster Scots. The Mid Ulster English dialect is used in the area between these.



Список литературы:

? McArthur, Tom (2002). Oxford Guide to World English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-866248-3 hardback, ISBN 0-19-860771-7 paperback.

? Bragg, Melvyn (2004). The Adventure of English, London: Sceptre. ISBN 0-340-82993-1

? Peters, Pam (2004). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-62181-X.

? Simpson, John (ed.) (1989). Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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