Comparison of British dialects

Cockney is probably thesecond most famous British accent. It originated in the East End of London, butshares many features with and influences other dialects in that region.

Features:

· Raised vowel in words like trap and cat so thesesounds like “trep” and “cet.”

· Non-rhoticity: see explanation above under ReceivedPronunciation, above.

· Trap-bath split: see explanation above under ReceivedPronunciation.

· London vowel shift: The vowel sounds are shiftedaround so that Cockney “day” sounds is pronounced IPA dæɪ (close to American “die”) and Cockney buy verges near IPA bɒɪ(close to American “boy”).

· Glottal Stopping: the letter t is pronounced with theback of the throat (glottis) in between vowels; hence better becomes IPA be?ə(sounds to outsiders like “be’uh”).

· L-vocalization: The l at the end of words oftenbecomes a vowel sound Hence pal can seem to sound like “pow.” (I’veseen this rendered in IPA as /w/, /o,/ and /ɰ/.)

· Th-Fronting: The th in words like think or this ispronounced with a more forward consonant depending on the word: thing becomes“fing,” this becomes “dis,” and mother becomes“muhvah.”

EstuaryEnglish (Southeast British)

Estuary is an accentderived from London English which has achieved a status slightly similar to“General American” in the US. Features of the accent can be heardaround Southeast England, East Anglia, and perhaps further afield. It isarguably creeping into the Midlands and North.

Features:

· Similar to Cockney, but in general Estuary speakers donot front th words or raise the vowel in trap. There are few hard-and-fastrules, however.

· Glottal stoppingof ‘t’ and l-vocalization (see above)are markers of this accent, but there is some debate about their frequency.

West Country (Southwest British)

West Country refers to alarge swath of accents heard in the South of England, starting about fiftymiles West of London and extending to the Welsh border.

Features:

· Rhoticity, meaning that the letter r is pronouncedafter vowels. So, for example, whereas somebody from London would pronouncemother as “muthah,” somebody from Bristol would say“mutherrr”. (i.e. the way people pronounce the word in America orIreland).

· Otherwise, this is a huge dialect area, so there’stons of variation.

MidlandsEnglish

Midlands English is oneof the more stigmatized of Englishes. Technically, this can be divided intoEast Midlands and West Midlands, but I won’t get into the differences betweenthe two just now. The most famous of these dialects is Brummie (BirminghamEnglish).

Features:

· The foot-strut merger, meaning that the syllable infoot and could is pronounced with the same syllable as strut and fudge. (IPA ʊ).

· A system of vowels otherwise vaguely reminiscent ofAustralian accents, with short i in kit sometimes verging toward IPA kit(“keet”) and extremely open “loose” dipthongs.

· A variety of unusual vocabulary: some East Midlandsdialects still feature a variant of the word “thou!”

NorthernEngland English

These are the accentsand dialect spoken north of the midlands, in cities like Manchester, Leeds, andLiverpool. Related accents also found in rural Yorkshire, although there aresome unique dialect features there that I won’t get into now.

Features:

· The foot-stut merger: (see the Midlands descriptionabove).

· Non-rhoticity, except in some rural areas.

· The dipthong in words like kite and ride is lengthenedso that kite can become something like IPA ka:ɪt (i.e. it sounds a bit like “kaaaait”)

· Unique vocab includes use of the word mam to meanmother, similar to Irish English.

Geordie

Geordie usually refersto both the people and dialect of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, in Northeast England.The word may also refer to accents and dialects in Northeast England ingeneral. I would classify this as a separate region from the rest of NorthernEngland because it’s so radically different from the language spoken in nearbycities.

Features

· The foot-stut merger(see the Midlands descriptionabove).

· Non-rhoticity (in the cities at least)

· The /ai/ dipthong in kite is raised to IPA ɛɪ, so itsounds a bit more like American or Standard British “kate.”

· The /au/ dipthong in “about” is pronouncedIPA u: (that is, “oo”) in strong dialects. Hence bout can sound like“boot.”

WelshEnglish

This refers to theaccents and dialects spoken in the country of Wales. The speech of this regionis heavily influenced by the Welsh language, which remained more widely spokenin modern times than the other Celtic languages.

Features:

· Usually non-rhotic.

· English is generally modelled after ReceivedPronunciation or related accents, but with many holdovers from the Welshlanguage.

· Syllables tend to be very evenly stressed, and theprosody of the accent is often very “musical”.

· The letter r is often trilled or tapped.

· Some dialect words imported from the Welsh language.

ScottishEnglish

This is the broaddefinition used to describe English as it is spoken in the country of Scotland.Note that Scottish English is different than Scots, a language derived fromNorthumbrian Old English that is spoken in Scotland as well. That being said,Scots has a strong influence on how English in Scotland is spoken.

Features:

· Rhotic, with trilled or tapped r’s.

· Glottal stopping of the letter t when in betweenvowels (similar to Cockney and related accents).

· Monopthongal pronounciations of the /ei/ and /ou/dipthongs, so that that face becomes IPA fe:s and goat becomes IPA go:t. [10]

Conclusion

dialectstandart cockney british

In this term paper wasgiven general overview of English dialects and their role in the linguistics.Dialect is a variety of a language spoken by a groupof people and having features of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation thatdistinguish it from other varieties of the same language. Dialect is usuallydeveloped as a result of geographic, social, political, or economic barriersbetween groups of people who speak the same language. In addition to thepurely communicative function of dialect as a variety of language, we shouldnot overlook that dialect is also a powerful source of personal information, inthe sense that the way we speak our language is highly influenced by both our socialstatus and our region of origin.term paper has revealed the way of dialectcreation and development. Also we have considered English dialect as composerof Standard English. Since the formation of a literary language of a people isusually a dialect of everyday communication. Literary same language couldpotentially operate in all areas of public life – in literature, in publicadministration, in schools, and science, in the production and life, at acertain stage of development of society, he has become a universal means ofcommunication. The process is complex and diverse, as in it besides thestandard language and dialects are involved intermediate forms of everydayconversation.sum up, the term paper has attempted to provide the reader withsome insights into the influence of social values on dialectal variation inEngland. Unlike many other countries, England is an extraordinary example ofthe close relationship that there can exist between regional variation andsocial stratification. For many years, this relationship has been responsiblefor the misleading assumption that non-standard dialects are unpleasantdeviations from the purity and beauty of the standard norm. Nevertheless, fromwhat we have searched in this paper, it should be clear by now that linguisticjudgments based on aesthetic values are to be completely discarded from anykind of linguistic discussion. The growing presence of some non-standardvarieties in some of England’s official institutions (e.g. the BBC) has beenextremely beneficial to their widespread acceptance as linguistic varieties intheir own right, and not as ungrammatical or incorrect deviations.