London
There are many accents traditionally associated with London. The most well known of the London accents long ago acquired the Cockney label from London's East End, which is heard both in London itself, and across the wider South East England region more generally. The accent of a 21st-century Londoner varies widely; what is becoming more and more common amongst the under-30s however is some fusion of Cockney with a whole array of ethnic accents, in particular Caribbean, which form an accent labelled Multicultural London English (MLE). The other widely heard and spoken accent is RP (Received Pronunciation) in various forms, which can often be heard in the media and many of other traditional professions and beyond, although this accent is not limited to London and South East England, and can also be heard selectively throughout the whole UK amongst certain social groupings. Since the turn of the century the Cockney dialect is less common in the East End and has 'migrated' east to Havering and the county of Essex.
English-language vowel changes before historic /r/
In local (working-class) Dublin, the West and South-West Region, and other very conservative and traditional varieties of Irish English, ranging from the south to the north of the island, the typical English phoneme actually retains an opposition as two separate phonemes: and . For example, the words "earn" and "urn" are not pronounced the same in these varieties. In these traditional accents, this vowel, when after a labial consonant (e.g. "fern"), when spelled as "ur" or "or" (e.g. "word"), or when spelled as "ir" after an alveolar stop (e.g. "dirt") is pronounced as ; in all other situations, this vowel is pronounced as . Example words with include "certain" , "chirp" , "circle" , "earn" , "earth" , "girl" , "germ" , "heard" or "herd" , "irk" , and "tern" . Example words for include "bird" , "dirt" , "first" , "murder" , "nurse" , "turn" , "third" or "turd" , "urn" , "work" , and "world" . In non-local (middle- and upper-class) Dublin and in younger and supraregional Irish accents, this opposition is seldom preserved, with both of the phonemes typically merged as , the same as, or similar to, most American accents.