This article is about current English language usage in the northern part of England. This article focuses on 'accents' and 'dialects' in the British regional area generally considered to be 'Northern England'. For Regional accents of English, see Northern England. For Regional accents of English, see English language.
The vowel sound in sun across England. Northern English dialects have not undergone the FOOT–STRUT split, distinguishing them from both Southern England and Scottish dialects.
The spoken English language in Northern England has been shaped by the region's history of settlement and migration, and today encompasses a group of related accents and dialects known as Northern England English (or, simply, Northern (English) in the United Kingdom).[2][3]
The terms 'accent' and 'dialect' are broadly defined terms in the English language,[4] this article strives to comply with these accepted definitions. This article largely focuses on accents. Most current language differences in the north of England are arguably accent orientated, though there are some clear historical influences from older true dialects that are no longer in common use.[5][6][7][8] Certain 'local words' and speech patterns certainly are inherited from older dialects that existed in the area.[9][10]
Well-known accents and dialects in the United Kingdom are Cockney, Welsh English, Yorkshire, Scouse and Scottish English; in modern Britain, these differ largely through word pronunciations, though vocabulary differences certainly still exist. These accents are not typically notable when speakers with such accents/dialects write in standard English.[11]
An accent can be thought of as a subpart of a dialect and a dialect is a subpart of a language.[12][13] The term 'dialectology' is also used in some academic studies relating to accent/dialect studies.[14]
In the context of this article, an exhibit of the relationship between key terminology is as follows:
Manchester Local Accent - Regional Dialect - British English Language.
Examples of recognized dialects that are in current use: Quebecois French, provincial Irish variations, and numerous Chinese dialects, these dialects focus on word pronunciation, vocabulary and deeper linguistic structure and are distinctive from their parent/stem dialect-language in both the spoken and written forms of the language. Dialects may also be associated with other non-linguistic cultural attributes such as 'perceived social or educational status'.[15][16]
Another more extreme example is Afrikaans and Dutch - though seen as distinctive languages they are largely mutually intelligible and serve as an interesting model for how languages develop and language dialects fork when a population is geographically isolated or comes into contact with other language groups.[17]
Northern England's urban areas have numerous distinctive accents[21] There are unique expressions and terms that are very local, and arguably were once aligned with older northern dialects.[22] Northern English accents are often stigmatized, and native speakers commonly attempt to modify their Northern speech characteristics in corporate and professional environments.[23][24][25]
In the vernacular the terms 'accent' and 'dialect' are used without a great deal of distinction, and there are clear examples of unique words or expressions that might have at one point been part of a unique dialect, in modern English speaking Britain, spoken English is broadly intelligible across the whole of the British Isle, all British English speakers can understand each other.[26]
There is some debate as to how modern spoken English has impacted modern written English in the north, though it is clearly hard to represent a spoken accent in a written language.[27] The existence of the works of well known 'Lancashire Dialect' poets emphasizes the historical shift from a true northern dialect in the 1700s to northern accents in the modern north.[28]
Many people from northern England traditionally have taken 'lessons in elocution' in order to adopt a more standard use of the English language. This has been viewed as archaic, but recent studies demonstrate attempts by professionals to 'soften their northern accents' is currently on the rise.[29][30]
Definition
The varieties of English spoken across modern Great Britain form an accent/dialect continuum, and there is no universally agreed definition of which varieties are Northern.[31] Other linguists, such as John C. Wells, describe these as the 'dialects' of the "Far North" and treat them as a subset of all Northern English accents. Conversely, Wells uses a very broad definition of the linguistic North, comprising all accents that have not undergone the TRAP–BATH and FOOT–STRUT splits.
Using this definition, the isogloss between North and South runs from the River Severn to the Wash – this definition covers not just the entire North of England (which Wells divides into "Far North" and "Middle North") but also most of the Midlands, including the distinctive Brummie (Birmingham) and Black Country dialects.[32]
In historical linguistics, the dividing line between the North and the North Midlands (an area of mixed Northumbrian-Mercian dialects, including the Lancashire, the West Riding and the Peak District dialects) runs from either the River Ribble or the River Lune on the west coast to the River Humber on the east coast.[33]
The dialects of this region are descended from the Northumbrian dialect of Old English rather than Mercian or other Anglo-Saxon dialects. In a very early study of English dialects, Alexander J Ellis defined the border between the north and the midlands as that where the word house is pronounced with u: to the north (as also in Scots).[34]
Although well-suited to historical analysis, this line does not reflect contemporary language; this line divides Lancashire and Yorkshire in half and few would today consider Manchester or Leeds, both located south of the line, as part of the Midlands.[32]
This approach is taken by the Survey of English Dialects (SED), which uses the historic counties (minus Cheshire) as the basis of the studies. The SED also groups Manx English with Northern dialects, although this is a distinct variety of English and the Isle of Man is not part of England.[36] Under Wells' scheme, this definition includes Far North and Middle North dialects but excludes the Midlands dialects.[32]
Scottish English is distinct from Northern England English, although the two have interacted and influenced each other.[37] The Scots language and the Northumbrian and Cumbrian dialects of English descend from the Old English of Northumbria (diverging in the Middle English period) and are still very similar to each other.[38]
History
Many historical northern accents reflect the influence of the Old Norse language strongly, compared with other varieties of English spoken in England.[39]
In addition to previous contact with Vikings, during the 9th and 10th centuries, most of northern and eastern England was part of either the Danelaw or the Danish-controlled Kingdom of Northumbria (except for much of present-day Cumbria, which was part of the Kingdom of Strathclyde). Consequently, modern Yorkshire dialects, in particular, are considered to have been influenced heavily by Old West Norse and Old East Norse (the ancestor language of modern Norwegian, Swedish and Danish).[40]
During the mid and late 19th century, there was large-scale migration from Ireland, which affected the speech of parts of Northern England. This is most apparent in the accents along the west coast, such as Liverpool, Birkenhead, Barrow-in-Furness and Whitehaven.[41]
Northern accent and dialect varieties
Variations in modern Northern English accents/dialects include:
In some areas, dialects and phrases can vary greatly within very small geographic regions. Historically, accents did change over very small distances, but this is less true in modern Britain due to enhanced geographic mobility.[47]
Phonological characteristics
Red areas are where English dialects of the late 20th century were rhotic; in the North, only some of Lancashire is included.Pronunciation of [ŋg] in the word tongue throughout England; the major Northern counties with this trait are located where the North West and West Midlands meet.
There are several speech features that unite most of the accents of Northern England and distinguish them from Southern England and Scottish accents:[48]
The accents of Northern England generally do not have the trap–bath split observed in Southern England English, so that the vowel in bath, ask and cast is the short TRAP vowel /a/: /baθ,ask,kast/, rather than /ɑː/ found in the south. There are a few words in the BATH set like can't, shan’t, half, calf, rather which are pronounced with /ɑː/ in most Northern English accents as opposed to /æ/ in Northern American accents.
The /æ/ vowel of cat, trap is normally pronounced [a] rather than the [æ] found in traditional Received Pronunciation or General American while /ɑː/, as in the words palm, cart, start, tomato may not be differentiated from /æ/ by quality, but by length, being pronounced as a longer [aː].
The foot–strut split is absent in Northern English, so that, for example, cut and put rhyme and are both pronounced with /ʊ/; words like love, up, tough, judge, etc. also use this vowel sound. This has led to Northern England being described "Oop North" /ʊpnɔːθ/ by some in the south of England. Some words with /ʊ/ in RP even have /uː/ – book is pronounced /buːk/ in some Northern accents (particularly in Lancashire, Greater Manchester and eastern parts of Merseyside where the Lancashire accent is still prevalent), while conservative accents also pronounce look and cook as /luːk/ and /kuːk/.
The Received Pronunciation phonemes /eɪ/ (as in face) and /əʊ/ (as in goat) are often pronounced as monophthongs (such as [eː] and [oː]), or as older diphthongs (such as /ɪə/ and /ʊə/). However, the quality of these vowels varies considerably across the region, and this is considered a greater indicator of a speaker's social class than the less stigmatized aspects listed above.
The most common R sound, when pronounced in Northern England, is the typical English postalveolar approximantⓘ; however, an alveolar tapⓘ is also widespread, particularly following a consonant or between vowels.[49] This tap predominates most fully in the Scouse accent. The North, like most of the South, is largely (and increasingly) non-rhotic, meaning that R is pronounced only before a vowel or between vowels, but not after a vowel (for instance, in words like car, fear, and lurk). However, regions that are rhotic (pronouncing all R sounds) or somewhat rhotic are possible, particularly amongst older speakers:
Lincolnshire may weakly retain word-final (but not pre-consonantal) rhoticity.[49]
Uvular rhoticity, in which the same R sound as in French and German is used, has been described as the traditional "burr" of rural, northern Northumberland—possible as well, though also rare, in County Durham.[49]
In most areas, the letter y on the end of words as in happy or city is pronounced [ɪ], like the i in bit, and not [i]. This was considered RP until the 1990s. The tenser [i] is found in the far north, and in the Merseyside and Teesside areas.
The North does not have a clear distinction between the "clear L"ⓘ and "dark L"ⓘ of most other accents in England; in other words, most Northern accents pronounce all L sounds with some moderate amount of velarization. Exceptions to this are in Tyneside, Wearside and Northumberland, which universally use only the clear L,[50] and in Lancashire and Manchester, which universally use only the dark L.[51][52]
Some northern English speakers have noticeable rises in their intonation, even to the extent that, to other speakers of English, they may sound "perpetually surprised or sarcastic."[53]
Northumberland, less rounded: [ʌ̈]; in Scouse, Manchester, South Yorkshire and (to an extent) Teesside the word one is uniquely pronounced with the vowel [ɒ], and this is also possible for once, among(st), none, tongue, and nothing
The grammatical patterns of Northern England English are similar to those of British English in general. However, there are several unique characteristics that mark out Northern English.[60]
Under the Northern subject rule (NSR), the suffix "-s" (which in Standard English grammar only appears in the third person singular present) is attached to verbs in many present and past-tense forms (leading to, for example, "the birds sings"). More generally, third-person singular forms of irregular verbs such as to be may be used with plurals and other grammatical persons; for instance "the lambs is out". In modern dialects, the most obvious manifestation is a levelling of the past tense verb forms was and were. Either form may dominate depending on the region and individual speech patterns (so some Northern speakers may say "I was" and "You was" while others prefer "I were" and "You were") and in many dialects especially in the far North, weren't is treated as the negation of was.[61]
The "epistemic mustn't", where mustn't is used to mark deductions such as "This mustn't be true", is largely restricted within the British Isles to Northern England, although it is more widely accepted in American English, and is likely inherited from Scottish English. A few other Scottish traits are also found in far Northern dialects, such as double modal verbs (might could instead of might be able to), but these are restricted in their distribution and are mostly dying out.[62]
Pronouns
While standard English now only has a single second-person pronoun, you, many Northern dialects have additional pronouns either retained from earlier forms or introduced from other variants of English. The pronouns thou and thee have survived in many rural Northern dialects. In some case, these allow the distinction between formality and familiarity to be maintained, while in others thou is a generic second-person singular, and you (or ye) is restricted to the plural. Even when thou has died out, second-person plural pronouns are common. In the more rural dialects and those of the far North, this is typically ye, while in cities and areas of the North West with historical Irish communities, this is more likely to be yous.[63]
Conversely, the process of "pronoun exchange" means that many first-person pronouns can be replaced by the first-person objective plural us (or more rarely we or wor) in standard constructions. These include me (so "give me" becomes "give us"), we (so "we Geordies" becomes "us Geordies") and our (so "our cars" becomes "us cars"). The latter especially is a distinctively Northern trait.[64]
Almost all British vernaculars have regularised reflexive pronouns, but the resulting form of the pronouns varies from region to region. In Yorkshire and the North East, hisself and theirselves are preferred to himself and themselves. Other areas of the North have regularised the pronouns in the opposite direction, with meself used instead of myself. This appears to be a trait inherited from Irish English, and like Irish speakers, many Northern speakers use reflexive pronouns in non-reflexive situations for emphasis. Depending on the region, reflexive pronouns can be pronounced (and often written) as if they ended -sen, -sel or -self (even in plural pronouns) or ignoring the suffix entirely.[63]
Vocabulary
In addition to Standard English terms, the Northern English lexis includes many words derived from Norse languages, as well as words from Middle English that disappeared in other regions. Some of these are now shared with Scottish English and the Scots language, with terms such as bairn ("child"), bonny ("beautiful"), gang or gan ("go/gone/going") and kirk ("church") found on both sides of the Anglo-Scottish border.[65] Very few terms from Brythonic languages have survived, with the exception of place name elements (especially in Cumbrian toponymy) and the Yan Tan Tethera counting system, which largely fell out of use in the nineteenth century. The Yan Tan Tethera system was traditionally used in counting stitches in knitting,[66] as well as in children's nursery rhymes,[66]counting-out games,[66] and was anecdotally connected to shepherding.[66] This was most likely borrowed from a relatively modern form of the Welsh language rather than being a remnant of the Brythonic of what is now Northern England.[66][67]
The forms yan and yen used to mean one as in someyan ("someone") that yan ("that one"), in some northern English dialects, represents a regular development in Northern English in which the Old English long vowel /ɑː/ <ā> was broken into /ie/, /ia/ and so on. This explains the shift to yan and ane from the Old English ān, which is itself derived from the Proto-Germanic*ainaz.[68][69]
A corpus study of Late Modern English texts from or set in Northern England found lad ("boy" or "young man") and lass ("girl" or "young woman") were the most widespread "pan-Northern" dialect terms. Other terms in the top ten included a set of three indefinite pronounsowt ("anything"), nowt ("naught" or "nothing") and summat ("something"), the Anglo-Scottish bairn, bonny and gang, and sel/sen ("self") and mun ("must"). Regional dialects within Northern England also had many unique terms, and canny ("clever") and nobbut ("nothing but") were both common in the corpus, despite being limited to the North East and to the North West and Yorkshire respectively.[70]
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances is the de facto common language used in government, education and commerce. It is also the official language of most US states. Since the late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide.
Hiberno-English or Irish English (IrE), also formerly sometimes called Anglo-Irish, is the set of English dialects native to the island of Ireland.
In phonetics, rhotic consonants, or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including ⟨R⟩, ⟨r⟩ in the Latin script and ⟨Р⟩, ⟨p⟩ in the Cyrillic script. They are transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by upper- or lower-case variants of Roman ⟨R⟩, ⟨r⟩: ⟨r⟩, ⟨ɾ⟩, ⟨ɹ⟩, ⟨ɻ⟩, ⟨ʀ⟩, ⟨ʁ⟩, ⟨ɽ⟩, and ⟨ɺ⟩. Transcriptions for vocalic or semivocalic realisations of underlying rhotics include the ⟨ə̯⟩ and ⟨ɐ̯⟩.
Spoken English shows great variation across regions where it is the predominant language. The United Kingdom has a wide variety of accents, and no single "British accent" exists. This article provides an overview of the numerous identifiable variations in pronunciation. Such distinctions usually derive from the phonetic inventory of local dialects, as well as from broader differences in the Standard English of different primary-speaking populations.
Pitmatic is a group of traditional Northern English dialects spoken in rural areas of the Northumberland and Durham Coalfield in England.
H-dropping or aitch-dropping is the deletion of the voiceless glottal fricative or "H-sound",. The phenomenon is common in many dialects of English, and is also found in certain other languages, either as a purely historical development or as a contemporary difference between dialects. Although common in most regions of England and in some other English-speaking countries, and linguistically speaking a neutral evolution in languages, H-dropping is often stigmatized as a sign of careless or uneducated speech.
West Country English is a group of English language varieties and accents used by much of the native population of the West Country, an area found in the southwest of England.
The Yorkshire dialect is a traditional dialect of English, or rather a geographic grouping of several dialects, spoken in the Yorkshire region of Northern England. The dialects have roots in Old English and are influenced to a greater extent by Old Norse than the Standard Language. Yorkshire's dialects have faded and face extinction, but organisations such as The Yorkshire Dialect Society and the East Riding Dialect Society exist to promote their use.
In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions and so fewer vowel phonemes occur before than in other positions of a word.
North American English regional phonology is the study of variations in the pronunciation of spoken North American English —what are commonly known simply as "regional accents". Though studies of regional dialects can be based on multiple characteristics, often including characteristics that are phonemic, phonetic, lexical (vocabulary-based), and syntactic (grammar-based), this article focuses only on the former two items. North American English includes American English, which has several highly developed and distinct regional varieties, along with the closely related Canadian English, which is more homogeneous geographically. American English and Canadian English have more in common with each other than with varieties of English outside North America.
English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, whose speakers, called Anglophones, originated in early medieval England. The namesake of the language is the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain.
The Lancashire dialect refers to the Northern English vernacular speech of the English county of Lancashire. The region is notable for its tradition of poetry written in the dialect.
Older Southern American English is a diverse set of American English dialects of the Southern United States spoken most widely up until the American Civil War of the 1860s, before gradually transforming among its White speakers, first, by the turn of the 20th century, and, again, following the Great Depression, World War II, and, finally, the Civil Rights Movement. By the mid-20th century, among White Southerners, these local dialects had largely consolidated into, or been replaced by, a more regionally unified Southern American English. Meanwhile, among Black Southerners, these dialects transformed into a fairly stable African-American Vernacular English, now spoken nationwide among Black people. Certain features unique to older Southern U.S. English persist today, like non-rhoticity, though typically only among Black speakers or among very localized White speakers.
The English language spoken and written in England encompasses a diverse range of accents and dialects. The language forms part of the broader British English, along with other varieties in the United Kingdom. Terms used to refer to the English language spoken and written in England include English English and Anglo-English.
Northumbrian dialect refers to any one of several traditional English dialects spoken in the historic counties of Northumberland and County Durham. The term 'Northumbrian' can refer to the region of Northumbria but can also refer specifically to the county of Northumberland. This article focuses on the former definition and thus includes varieties from throughout the wider region, including Durham as well as Northumberland.
Mancunian, sometimes shortened to Manc, is the accent and dialect of English spoken in Manchester and some of the wider Greater Manchester area. It is also the name of a native or resident of Manchester. Described as "twangy" and "euphonic", it is sometimes regarded as one of the friendliest accents in the UK.
Welsh English comprises the dialects of English spoken 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, a variety of accents are found across Wales, including those of North Wales, the Cardiff dialect, the South Wales Valleys and West Wales.
The distinction between rhoticity and non-rhoticity is one of the most prominent ways in which varieties of the English language are classified. In rhotic accents, the sound of the historical English rhotic consonant,, is preserved in all pronunciation contexts. In non-rhotic accents, speakers no longer pronounce in postvocalic environments: when it is immediately after a vowel and not followed by another vowel. For example, in isolation, a rhotic English speaker pronounces the words hard and butter as /ˈhɑːrd/ and /ˈbʌtər/, but a non-rhotic speaker "drops" or "deletes" the sound and pronounces them as /ˈhɑːd/ and /ˈbʌtə/. When an r is at the end of a word but the next word begins with a vowel, as in the phrase "better apples," most non-rhotic speakers will preserve the in that position since it is followed by a vowel in this case.
The Black Country dialect is spoken by many people in the Black Country, a region covering most of the four Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton. The traditional dialect preserves many archaic traits of Early Modern English and even Middle English and may be unintelligible for outsiders. This dialect is distinct from and maintains more traditional characteristics than the dialect of Birmingham, which has been more influenced by standard English due to having been urban for a longer time. It has also influenced the accents of the towns and villages in the counties to the north, south and west of the region.
The pronunciation of the phoneme in the English language has many variations in different dialects.
↑ On early English pronunciation: with especial reference to Shakspere and Chaucer, containing an investigation of the correspondence of writing with speech in England from the Anglosaxon period to the present day (1889), Alexander John Ellis, page 19, Line 6
↑ Hughes, Arthur, Peter Trudgill, and Dominic James Landon Watt. English Accents & Dialects: an Introduction to Social and Regional Varieties of English in the British Isles. 5th ed. London: Hodder Education, 2012. p. 116
↑ Cruttenden, Alan (March 1981). "Falls and Rises: Meanings and Universals". Journal of Linguistics Vol. 17, No. 1: Cambridge University Press. p. 83. "[T]he rises of Belfast and some northern English cities may sound perpetually surprised or sarcastic to southern Englishmen (the precise attitude imputed will depend on other factors like pitch height and the exact type of rise)".
↑ Watt, Dominic; Allen, William (2003), "Tyneside English", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 33 (2): 267–271, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001397
Beal, Joan (2004). "English dialects in the North of England: phonology". In Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive (eds.). A handbook of varieties of English. Vol.1: Phonology. Mouton de Gruyter. pp.113–133. ISBN3-11-017532-0.
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![Pronunciation of [NGg] in the word tongue throughout England; the major Northern counties with this trait are located where the North West and West Midlands meet. Ng-coalescence.svg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Ng-coalescence.svg/220px-Ng-coalescence.svg.png)
