Are accents different throughout England?
Boston accent
On the other hand, the Boston accent merges the "short "o"" with the "aw" phoneme: the two classes exemplified by "caught" and "cot" thus both become an often long and rounded , so that "caught", "cot", "law", "wand", "rock", "talk", "doll", and "wall" all are pronounced with the same vowel. By contrast, New York accents and southern New England accents have for "caught" and for "cot" and the London accents have and , respectively. In Boston and some other parts of New England, a few words ending in , e.g., "hot" and "got", can be pronounced with an entirely different phoneme, however, sounding instead like "hut" and "gut", respectively.
English language in southern England
Before the 21st Century, West Herts and Buckinghamshire tended to have r-coloured vowels; for instance, here the established dialects made a distinction between the words "farther" and "father" ( and ). However, in recent times, strong influences have come from London's Estuary English, thanks to the influx of post-World War II migrants from across London, and thus Estuary English is now the norm across West Herts and Buckinghamshire (though some of the older dialect can be heard in older generations, particularly in more rural areas).
English language in Northern England
There are traditional dialects associated with many of the historic counties, including the Cumbrian dialect, Lancashire dialect and Yorkshire dialect, but new, distinctive dialects have arisen in cities following urbanisation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: Greater Manchester has the Manchester dialect, Liverpool and Merseyside have Scouse, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne has Geordie. Many Northern English accents are stigmatised, and speakers often attempt to repress Northern speech characteristics in professional environments, although in recent years Northern English speakers have been in demand for call centres, where Northern stereotypes of honesty and straightforwardness are seen as a plus.
Rhoticity in English
Though most English varieties in England are non-rhotic today, stemming from a trend toward this in southeastern England accelerating in the very late 1700s onwards, rhotic accents are still found in the West Country (south and west of a line from near Shrewsbury to around Portsmouth), the Corby area, some of Lancashire (north and west of the centre of Manchester), some parts of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and in the areas that border Scotland. The prestige form, however, exerts a steady pressure toward non-rhoticity. Thus the urban speech of Bristol or Southampton is more accurately described as variably rhotic, the degree of rhoticity being reduced as one moves up the class and formality scales.
English language in southern England
In traditional Southern rural accents, the voiceless fricatives always remain voiceless, which is the main difference from West Country accents.
Regional accents of English
There is considerable variation within the accents of English across England, one of the most obvious being the trap-bath split of the southern half of the country.
Th-fronting
In 1988, it was noted as spreading amongst non-standard accents in England. Although "th"-fronting is found occasionally in the middle and upper (middle) class English accents as well, there is still a marked social difference between working and middle class speakers. "Th"-fronting is regarded as a 'boundary marker' between Cockney and Estuary English, as depicted in the first descriptions of the latter form of English and confirmed by a phonetic study conducted by researcher Ulrike Altendorf. Nevertheless, Altendorf points out that "th"-fronting is found occasionally in middle class (Estuary) speech as well and concludes that "it is currently making its way into the middle class English accent and thus into Estuary English".
Languages of the United Kingdom
Scots within Scotland and the regional varieties of English within England receive little or no official recognition. The dialects of northern England share some features with Scots that those of southern England do not. The regional dialects of England were once extremely varied, as is recorded in Joseph Wright's "English Dialect Dictionary" and the Survey of English Dialects, but they have died out over time so that regional differences are now largely in pronunciation rather than in grammar or vocabulary.
East Midlands
The East Midlands colloquially use a distinctive form of spoken dialect and accent in some areas. It also has some history in the beginnings of Received Pronunciation and southern England accents. The above links expand on these in detail.
Cardiff English
The Cardiff accent, also known as Cardiff English, is the regional accent of English, and a variety of Welsh English, as spoken in and around the city of Cardiff, and is somewhat distinctive in Wales, compared with other Welsh accents. Its pitch is described as somewhat lower than that of Received Pronunciation, whereas its intonation is closer to dialects of England rather than Wales.
Rillington Place
Following the second episode on 6 December, Sarah Doran of "RadioTimes.com" noted that several viewers had been confused by Mirallegro's use of two different accents while portraying Evans, as the actor switched between Cockney and Welsh accents. However, writers Ed Whitmore and Tracey Malon told the website this had been deliberate, since it was a trait adopted by Evans himself in an attempt to fit into his surroundings: "Tim moved to London from Wales around the age of eleven, his half-sister told us he was very keen to fit in and soon adopted a London 'barrow-boy' accent, but that he could slip back into his childhood accent when around members of his Welsh family. Nico [Mirallegro] wanted to reflect Tim's malleability and that desire to fit in by using different accents according to who he was talking to."
Phonological history of English low back vowels
While the accents in northeastern New England, such as the Boston accent, also remain unmerged, "lot" remains rounded and merges instead with "cloth" and "thought".
Hiberno-English
Phonologists today often divide Hiberno-English into four or five overarching classes of dialects or accents: Ulster accents, West and South-West Region accents (including, for example, the Cork accent), various Dublin accents, and a supraregional accent developing since only the last quarter of the twentieth century.
Ulster English (or Northern Irish English) here refers collectively to the varieties of the Ulster province, including Northern Ireland and neighbouring counties outside of Northern Ireland, which has been influenced by Ulster Irish as well as the Scots language, brought over by Scottish settlers during the Plantation of Ulster. Its main subdivisions are Mid-Ulster English, South Ulster English and Ulster Scots, the latter of which is more directly and strongly influenced by the Scots language. All Ulster English has more obvious pronunciation similarities with Scottish English than other Irish English dialects do.
Dialect levelling in Britain
Historical examples show that dialect levelling generally takes place anywhere and anytime in situations of extensive mobility and cultural and linguistic mixing. One historical example of dialect levelling is the change in the London dialect that took place in the fifteenth century when Northern county immigrants moved to London. Their dialect diffused into southern forms and some elements were incorporated into standard English (Milroy, 2002). Dialect levelling has become a widespread phenomenon in Britain. Southern features seem to be spreading throughout the whole country and typical vowel sounds seem to be centred on big cities like Glasgow, Manchester, or Newcastle (Kerswill, 2001).
English language in southern England
Estuary English is common throughout the county, particularly in the northern areas bordering on London, although many large settlements further south into Surrey, such as Guildford and Woking, share in variants of estuary English. Furthest north into Surrey is the borough of Spelthorne, where the accent is indistinguishable (as formerly part of Middlesex) from the London accent due to it sharing borders with the London boroughs of Hounslow, Richmond-upon-Thames and Hillingdon.
Culture of Bristol
A (slightly tongue in cheek) guide to Bristol's dialect is at http://www.thatbebristle.co.uk/ The linguist John C Wells codified the differences between a Bristol accent and Received Pronunciation in his "Accents of English" series in the following way. It is much more similar to General American than most other accents in Britain.
North American English regional phonology
The r-colored vowel of "cart" is back and often rounded , and not fronted as it famously is in Boston. New York City and its surrounding areas are also known for a complicated short-"a" split into lax versus tense , so that words, for example, like "cast", "calf", and "cab" have a different, higher, tenser vowel sound than "cat", "catch", and "cap". The New York accent is well attested in American movies and television shows, often exaggerated, and especially ones about American mobsters from the area. Though it is sometimes known as a "Bronx" or "Brooklyn accent", no research has confirmed differences of accent between the city's boroughs.
Regional accents of English
The accent of English in Wales is strongly influenced by the phonology of the Welsh language, which more than 20% of the population of Wales speak as their first or second language. The North Wales accent is distinct from South Wales and north east Wales is influenced by Scouse and Cheshire accents. South Wales border accents are influenced by West Country accents. The Wenglish of the South Wales Valleys shows a deep cross-fertilisation between the two.
English language in England
The Liverpool accent, known as Scouse colloquially, is quite different from the accent of surrounding Lancashire. This is because Liverpool has had many immigrants in recent centuries, particularly of Irish people. Irish influences on Scouse speech include the pronunciation of unstressed 'my' as 'me', and the pronunciation of 'th' sounds like 't' or 'd' (although they remain distinct as dental ). Other features include the pronunciation of non-initial as , and the pronunciation of 'r' as a tap .
English language in England
According to dialectologist Peter Trudgill, the major regional English accents of modern England can be divided on the basis on the following basic features; the word columns each represent the pronunciation of one italicised word in the sentence ""Very few cars made" it "up" the "long hill"". An additional feature—the absence or presence of a trap-bath split—is also represented under the "path" column (so that the sentence could be rendered ""Very few cars made" it "up" the "path" of the "long hill"").
In 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 , or : words such as "cast" and "bath" are pronounced rather than . This sometimes occurs before : it is used in "command" and "demand" but not in "brand" or "grand".
Phonological history of English diphthongs
The merger occurs in the vast majority of Modern English accents; whether the outcome is monophthongal or diphthongal depends on the accent. The traditional phonetic transcription for General American and earlier Received Pronunciation in the 20th century is , a diphthong. But in a few regional accents, including some in Northern England, East Anglia and South Wales, the merger has not gone through (at least not completely), so that pairs like "toe" and "tow", "moan" and "mown", "groan" and "grown", "sole" and "soul", "throne" and "thrown" are distinct.
Brummie dialect
The strength of a person's accent varies greatly all across Birmingham. Like most cities, the accent changes relative to the area of the city. A common misconception is that everyone in Birmingham speaks the same accent. It could be argued Brummie is an accent rather than a dialect as in Black Country, which is a dialect with unique words and phrases, as in owamya? for "how are you", which many comment is not used in Brummie speech. Similarly Brummies pronounce "I" as 'oy' whereas Black Country uses the dialect 'Ah' as in 'Ah bin' meaning I have been.
Kingdom (UK TV series)
The programme received some criticism in Norfolk for its inaccurate depiction of local accents. Local journalist and broadcaster Keith Skipper told the "Eastern Daily Press": "If they are going to set these dramas in a specific location with locals and extras surely they should get the accent right otherwise it is self defeating." An ITV spokesman told the paper: "We hired a professional dialect coach to help the actors achieve their Norfolk accent. The Norfolk accent is different in one area of Norfolk to another. What we are trying to achieve is something that resembles a Norfolk accent that cannot be pinned down." However, he failed to identify any area of Norfolk in which the accent contains a Mummerset "r".
English language in southern England
The traditional Portsmouth dialect (affectionately known as the Pompey dialect, and less favourably as Pompey Slang) is an oddity and somewhat an isolate. It stands well apart both structurally and phonetically from all other local English varieties around it. The traditional origin story is that the Dockyards attracted an influx of East Londoners at the turn of the 20th century and the accent is based in "Dockyard slang". Though structurally it is based around an East London model, it has retained a lot of traditional Hampshire features. Whilst it follows the consonant rules of Estuary English closely, the vowel sounds are quite different. The dialect is not a recent phenomenon, and can be heard in the speech of local people in their nineties. The surrounding accents geographically are quite different, and few contain as many of the "Estuary-isms" found in the Pompey dialect and some of those may actually originate from Portsmouth, rather than Estuary English.
PHMG (company)
Research into the use of regional accents and dialect by UK businesses in their on-hold marketing found a 27% rise in the use of accents between January 2012 and January 2013.
The research also looked into perceptions of accents. For example, it found the Scottish accent is perceived as trustworthy and reassuring while the Yorkshire accent, used by brands such as O2 (United Kingdom) in television and radio advertising, is seen as wise and honest.
English-language accents in film
In 2005, when Welsh-born actor Catherine Zeta-Jones encouraged Welsh singer-songwriter Charlotte Church to hide her native accent in pursuit of an acting career, Welsh film critic Gary Slaymaker and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art both decried the need for the disguise. RADA's Dominic Kelly said, "We get a couple of Welsh accents through here every year, and there's now an increasing amount of demand for them. A few years ago it was Scottish, but now Welsh is very much in vogue. As long as people can understand what you are saying, the Welsh accent is a bonus. Voices need character and individuality." Slaymaker said, "It's unlikely they'll be able to tell the difference between a Welsh or Irish accent. It'll just be seen as colourful."
English language in southern England
They persist most strongly in areas that remain largely rural with a largely indigenous population, particularly the West Country. In many other areas they are declining because of RP and Estuary accents moving to the area; for instance, strong Isle of Wight accents tend to be more prevalent in older speakers.
New England
There are several American English accents spoken in the region (normally north of Connecticut), including New England English and its derivative known as the Boston accent, which is native to the northeastern coastal regions of New England. The most identifiable features of the Boston accent are believed to have originated from England's Received Pronunciation, which shares features such as dropping the final R and the broad A. Another source was 17th century speech in East Anglia and Lincolnshire where many of the Puritan immigrants originated. The East Anglian "whine" developed into the Yankee "twang". Boston accents were most strongly associated at one point with the so-called "Eastern Establishment" and Boston's upper class, although today the accent is predominantly associated with blue-collar natives, as exemplified by movies such as "Good Will Hunting" and "The Departed". The Boston accent and those accents closely related to it cover eastern Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine.
English language in southern England
Hampshire is often missed in dialect definitions and placed on borderlines between South East and West England. It is thought that Hampshire is generally a posh county using a Queen's English accent, however, use of Estuary English accent is also very common in Hampshire. Contrary to popular belief, it has been found [by whom?] that very few people from Hampshire use a West Country dialect or accent. [Timeline necessary - What about John Arlott, Lord Denning or Reg Presley?] Due to urbanization, the numbers have steadily decreased and it can be argued [how? by whom? vague] that Hampshire is a borderline county moving East, linguistically.
Yorkshire dialect
The following features are recessive, and are generally less common amongst younger than older speakers in Yorkshire:Most Yorkshire accents are non-rhotic. At the time of the Survey of English Dialects, fully rhotic accents could be found in Swaledale, Lonsdale, Ribblesdale, and the rural area west of Halifax and Huddersfield, and the accents on the east coast of Yorkshire were rhotic when /r/ is in final position but not in pre-consonantal position.
American English
The most marked accents of the country are New York City and Southern accents. Southern speech is defined by the vowel losing its gliding quality to approach , the initiation event for a complicated Southern vowel shift, including a "Southern drawl" that makes short front vowels into distinct-sounding gliding vowels. The strongest Southern sub-varieties exist in southern Appalachia and certain areas of Texas. Non-Southern Americans tend to stereotype Southern accents negatively, as "hick", "hillbilly", or "country" accents, while Southerners themselves tend to have mixed judgments of their own accents, including positive associations of easygoingness and humility. Southern accents, plus those spoken in the "Midland" (the vast band between the traditional dialect regions of the North and the South), tend to front the vowels of , , , and .
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.
English language in England
The accent of English English best known to people outside the United Kingdom is that of Received Pronunciation (RP), though it is used by only a small minority of speakers in England. Until recently, RP was widely considered to be more typical of educated speakers than other accents. It was referred to by some as the Queen's (or King's) English, or even "BBC English" (because for many years of broadcasting it was rare to hear any other accent on the BBC). These terms, however, do not refer only to accent features but also to grammar and vocabulary, as explained in Received Pronunciation. Since the 1960s regional accents have become increasingly accepted in mainstream media, and are frequently heard on radio and television. RP is also sometimes called an "Oxford accent"; the Oxford English Dictionary gives RP pronunciations for each word, as do most other English dictionaries published in Britain.
Northern England
Contact between English and immigrant languages has given rise to new accents and dialects. For instance, the variety of English spoken by Poles in Manchester is distinct both from typical Polish-accented English and from Mancunian. At a local level, the diversity of immigrant communities means that some languages that are extremely rare in the country as a whole have strongholds in Northern towns: Bradford for instance has the largest proportion of Pashto speakers, while Manchester has most Cantonese speakers.
Scouse
The Scouse accent is highly distinctive, and has little in common with those used in the majority of neighbouring regions. The accent itself is not specific to all of Merseyside, with the accents of residents of St Helens and Southport, for example, more commonly associated with the historic Lancastrian accent.
Essex dialect
The Essex dialect is a traditional dialect mainly confined to the north and the east of Essex. It is similar to some forms of East Anglian English, including both the Suffolk and Norfolk dialects, but has its own peculiarities. With rapid urbanisation in the twentieth century, as well as the impact of the London overspill, Estuary English, a milder form of the London accent predominant largely along the Thames Estuary and thus the name, has become common, mainly in the southern portion of the county. As a result of the growing London influence, the usage of rural accents everywhere and the rural Essex dialect is now normally, but not always, confined to older generations in some of the areas affected and the dialect itself stands in a vulnerable state in those affected parts of the county. Elsewhere in Essex, the dialect and rural accent continues.
Maine accent
The Maine accent is the local traditional pronunciation of Eastern New England English in parts of Maine, especially along the "Down East" and "Mid Coast" seaside regions. It is characterized by a variety of features, particularly among older speakers, including "r"-dropping (non-rhoticity), resistance to the horse–hoarse merger, a deletion or "breaking" of certain syllables, and some unique vocabulary. This traditional Maine accent is rapidly declining; a 2013 study of Portland speakers found the horse–hoarse merger to be currently embraced by all ages and the cot–caught merger to be resisted, despite being typical among other Eastern New England speakers, even reported in the 1990s in Portland itself. In the northern region of Maine along the Quebec border, Franco-Americans may show French-language influences in their English.
American English
American English varieties form a linguistic continuum of dialects more similar to each other than to English dialects of other countries, including some common pronunciations and other features found nationwide. Any North American English accent perceived as free of noticeably local, ethnic, or cultural markers is popularly called "General" or "Standard" American, a fairly uniform standard of broadcast mass media and the highly educated. Otherwise, according to Labov, with the major exception of Southern American English, regional accents throughout the country are not yielding to this standard, and historical and present linguistic evidence does not support the notion of there being one single "mainstream" American accent. On the contrary, the sound of American English continues to evolve, with some local accents disappearing, but several larger regional accents emerging.
English-language vowel changes before historic /r/
Words that would have a stressed before intervocalic in the UK's Received Pronunciation (RP) are treated differently in different varieties of North American English. As shown in the table below, in Canadian English, all of these are pronounced with , as in "cord" (and thus merge with historic prevocalic in words like "glory" because of the horse–hoarse merger). In the accents of Philadelphia, southern New Jersey, and the Carolinas (and traditionally throughout the South), these words are pronounced among some with , as in "card" (and thus merge with historic prevocalic in words like "starry"). In the accents of New York City, Long Island, and nearby parts of New Jersey, these words are pronounced with like in RP. However, this is met with hypercorrection of , (thus still merging with historic prevocalic in "starry"). On the other hand, the traditional Eastern New England accents (famously, the Rhode Island and Boston accents) these words are pronounced with without hypercorrection, just like in RP. Most of the rest of the United States (marked "General American" in the table), however, has a distinctive mixed system: while the majority of words are pronounced as in Canada, the four (sometimes five) words in the left-hand column are typically pronounced with ; and the East Coast regions seem to be slowly moving toward this system over time.
Texan English
Texan English is the array of American English spoken in Texas, primarily falling under the regional dialects of Southern and Midland U.S. English. As one extensive study states, at the most basic level, the typical Texan accent is a "Southern accent with a twist." The "twist" refers to major features of the Lower and Upper South coming into contact with one another, as well as some notable influences derived from an early Spanish-speaking population and German immigrants. In fact, there is no single accent that covers all of Texas and few dialect features are unique only to Texas. The most advanced (i.e., newest and most developed) accent features of the regional Southern U.S. dialect are reported in North and West Texas (but not El Paso), associated with the Upper South, while elements of the same regional dialect are present but less consistent in East and South Texas, associated more with the Lower South. In South Texas, particularly, Mexican Spanish characteristics are heavily influential as well. Abilene, Austin, Corpus Christi appear to align to the Midland regional accent of the United States more than the Southern regional one; El Paso aligns to the Western regional accent; and Dallas is greatly variable.
Broad and general accents
Sometimes a third category is also distinguished: a "cultivated accent" that is considered particularly cultured, stylish, affluent, or even contrived, associated with the educated upper class of a given region. All three distinctions are well studied varieties within South African, New Zealand, and Australian English phonology. The capitalized term "broad" before a location is common in the United Kingdom, such as "Broad Lancashire" or "Broad Yorkshire". The alleged mainstream English accent of the United States has been called "General American" since the early-mid 20th century.
English-language accents in film
In film, English-language accents can be part of acting performances. Actors use dialect coaches to speak in an accent other than their own. Accents can vary by locality, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and other factors. In film, accents are scrutinized by film critics and film audiences alike. Throughout film history, certain actors are known for their accents, and certain accents in individual films have been judged as exceptionally good or bad.
North American English regional phonology
Regional dialects in North America are historically the most strongly differentiated along the Eastern seaboard, due to distinctive speech patterns of urban centers of the American East Coast like Boston, New York City, and certain Southern cities, all of these accents historically noted by their London-like "r"-dropping (called non-rhoticity), a feature gradually receding among younger generations, especially in the South. The Connecticut River is now regarded as the southern and western boundary of the traditional New England accents, today still centered on Boston and much of Eastern New England. The Potomac River generally divides a group of Northeastern coastal dialects from an area of older Southeastern coastal dialects. All older Southern dialects, however, have mostly now receded in favor of a strongly rhotic, more unified accent group spread throughout the entire Southern United States since the late 1800s and into the early 1900s. In-between the two aforementioned rivers, some other variations exist, most famous among them being New York City English.
North West England
In modern times, English is the most spoken language in the North West, with a large percentage of the population fluent in it, and close to 100% conversational in it. To the north-east of the region, within the historic boundaries of Cumberland, the Cumbrian dialect is dominant. The historical county of Lancashire covered a vast amount of land, and the Lancashire dialect and accent is still predominant throughout the county, and stretches as far north as Furness in South Cumbria to parts of north Greater Manchester and Merseyside in the south of the region. The region boasts some of the most distinctive accents in the form of the Scouse accent, which originates from Liverpool and its surrounding areas, and the Manc accent, deriving from the central Manchester district. The region's accents are among those referred to as 'Northern English'.
Regional accents of English
There is also great variation within greater London, with various accents such as Cockney, Estuary English, Multicultural London English and Received Pronunciation being found all throughout the region and the Home Counties.
Regional accents of English
Other accents include a range of accents spoken in the West Midlands (in the major towns and conurbations (The Black Country, Birmingham, Coventry, Stoke-on-Trent and Wolverhampton) and in rural accents (such as in Herefordshire and south Worcestershire)); the accents of the counties comprising the East Midlands (Derby, Leicester and Rutland, Lincoln, Northampton, and Nottingham), East Anglia (Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire) and the Home Counties (typically Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Essex, Berkshire, Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, Hampshire.)
Cockney
The cockney accent has long been looked down upon and thought of as inferior by many. For example, in 1909 the Conference on the Teaching of English in London Elementary Schools issued by the London County Council, stating that "the Cockney mode of speech, with its unpleasant twang, is a modern corruption without legitimate credentials, and is unworthy of being the speech of any person in the capital city of the Empire". Others defended the language variety: "The London dialect is really, especially on the South side of the Thames, a perfectly legitimate and responsible child of the old kentish tongue [...] the dialect of London North of the Thames has been shown to be one of the many varieties of the Midland or Mercian dialect, flavoured by the East Anglian variety of the same speech". Since then, the cockney accent has been more accepted as an alternative form of the English language rather than an inferior one. In the 1950s, the only accent to be heard on the BBC (except in entertainment programmes such as "The Sooty Show") was RP, whereas nowadays many different accents, including cockney or accents heavily influenced by it, can be heard on the BBC. In a survey of 2,000 people conducted by Coolbrands in the autumn of 2008, cockney was voted equal fourth coolest accent in Britain with 7% of the votes, while The Queen's English was considered the coolest, with 20% of the votes. Brummie was voted least popular, receiving just 2%. The cockney accent often featured in films produced by Ealing Studios and was frequently portrayed as the typical British accent in movies by Walt Disney.
Regional accents of English
Similar to the Cork accent but without the same intonation, Kerry puts even heavier emphasis on the brrr sound to the letter R. For example: the word Forty. Throughout the south this word is pronounced whereby the r exhibits the typified Irish brrr. In Kerry however (especially in rural areas) the roll on the r is enforced with vibrations from the tongue (not unlike Scottish here). "Are you?" becomes a co-joined "A-rrou?" single tongue flutter (esp. in rural areas). This extra emphasis on R is also seen in varying measures through parts of West Limerick and West Cork in closer proximity to Kerry.
English language in England
There are several accent features which are common to most of the accents of northern England (Wells 1982, section 4.4).Some dialect words used across the North are listed in extended editions of the Oxford Dictionary with a marker "North England": for example, the words "ginnell" and "snicket" for specific types of alleyway, the word "fettle" for to organise, or the use of "while" to mean "until". The best-known Northern words are "nowt", "owt" and "summat", which are included in most dictionaries. For more localised features, see the following sections.
American English
In 2010, William Labov noted that Great Lakes, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Western accents have undergone "vigorous new sound changes" since the mid-nineteenth century onwards, so they "are now more different from each other than they were fifty or a hundred years ago". However, a General American sound system also has some controversial degree of influence, for example, gradually ousting local accents in urban areas of the South and at least some in the Inland North. Rather than one particular accent, "General American" can be defined as any American accent that does not incorporate features associated with some particular region, ethnicity, or socioeconomic group. General American features are embraced most by Americans who are highly educated or in the most formal contexts, and regional accents with the most "General American" native features include North Midland, Western New England. and Western accents. Typical General American features include rhoticity, the "father–bother" merger, "Mary–marry–merry" merger, and pre-nasal "short "a"" tensing.
Lancashire dialect
The "Lancashire Dictionary" stated that the Furness (Barrow, Ulverston etc.) had always had more in common with Cumbrian (Cumberland and Westmorland) dialect than with the rest of Lancashire, and so excluded it. With regards to Scouse, the accent is gradually spreading amongst younger people in Merseyside in certain areas. According to Crosby, the "border" between Scouse and Lancashire dialect is loosely estimated between Garswood and Bryn. However, Lancastrian accents are found west of Garswood, most notably in St Helens as shown in the accents of local celebrities and broadcasters such as Johnny Vegas and Ray French. Steven Gerrard from Whiston, Merseyside sounds notably different from Vegas (originally from Thatto Heath). This illustrates that the variation between Scouse and St Helens accents occurs within only a few miles.
Norfolk dialect
The Norfolk accent sounds very different from that of London and the Home Counties. The main characteristics of the accent are set out below, usually with reference to the standard English accent known as Received Pronunciation (RP). Phonetic symbols (in square brackets) and phonemic symbols (in slant brackets) are used where they are needed to avoid ambiguity (brackets in IPA). Five characteristics are particularly important:
The study of intonation remains undeveloped in linguistics. Writing in 1889, the phonetician Alexander John Ellis began his section on East Anglian speech with these comments:
English language in southern England
There are differences between and even within areas of East Anglia: the Norwich accent has distinguishing aspects from the Norfolk dialect that surrounds itchiefly in the vowel sounds. The accents of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire are different from the Norfolk accent.
Cardiff English
Cardiff English shares many phonetic traits with the English spoken in the Severnside area of England, but differs in being non-rhotic. A notable characteristic in the accent is the lack of rounding lips when pronouncing consonants and vowels. While in Received Pronunciation, lip-rounding is a common feature to distinguish vowels, in Cardiff English this is not often observed.
West Midlands English
Certain areas of the West Midlands are stereotyped as having stronger accents than others, Dudley in the Black Country being an example. There are some local phrases in the Black Country that are renowned. People do tend to substitute a reply of "arr" for "yes". Generally, most words are shortened, most commonly being "I haven't" to "I ay" (which can be argued as an even shorter form of "I ain't").
In the south of the West Midlands (southern Warwickshire and Worcestershire), the accent is more similar to the general southern accent.
English language in southern England
Accents today are a cross between Estuary English and Received Pronunciation which both evolve over time and are becoming significantly more similar; where towards the former, accents have been strongly influenced by proximity to towns in the London Gateway involved in heavy trades, fishing and repairs and merchant sides of the Royal Navy, which was concentrated in Greenwich and Chatham. This corresponds to the name of the dialect which refers to the Thames Estuary. 'H dropping' is in general rare, as in the other Home Counties, but 't dropping' or substitution with a weaker vowel is common.
Regional accents of English
In Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, native English speakers (mainly the white and Coloured minority) have a similar speech pattern to that of South Africa. Hence those with high degrees of Germanic inflection would pronounce 'Zimbabwe' as "zim-bah-bwi", as opposed to the African pronunciation "zeem-bah-bweh". Zimbwabwean accents also vastly vary, with some Black Africans sounding British while others will have a much stronger accent influenced by their mother tongues, usually this distinction is brought about by where speakers grew up and the school attended. For example, most people that grew up in and around Harare have a British sounding accent while those in the rural areas have a more "pidgin-english" sort of accent
British people
Throughout the United Kingdom there are distinctive spoken expressions and regional accents of English, which are seen to be symptomatic of a locality's culture and identity. An awareness and knowledge of accents in the United Kingdom can "place, within a few miles, the locality in which a man or woman has grown up".
Cardiff English
In a survey, carried out by the BBC, Welsh accents are among the least popular accents in the UK. However, the Cardiff accent was rated higher than that of nearby Swansea.
General American
Though General American accents are not commonly perceived as associated with any region, their sound system does have traceable regional origins: specifically, the English of the non-coastal Northeastern United States in the very early twentieth century. This includes western New England and the area to its immediate west, settled by members of the same dialect community: interior Pennsylvania, upstate New York, and the adjacent "Midwest" or Great Lakes region. However, since the early to middle twentieth century, deviance away from General American sounds started occurring, and may be ongoing, in the eastern Great Lakes region due to its Northern Cities Vowel Shift (NCVS) towards a unique Inland Northern accent (often now associated with the region's urban centers, like Chicago and Detroit) and in the western Great Lakes region towards a unique North Central accent (often associated with Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota).
Accent (sociolinguistics)
When a group defines a standard pronunciation, speakers who deviate from it are often said to "speak with an accent". However, everyone speaks with an accent. People from the United States would "speak with an accent" from the point of view of an Australian, and vice versa. Accents such as BBC English or General American may sometimes be erroneously designated in their countries of origin as "accentless" to indicate that they offer no obvious clue to the speaker's regional or social background.
American English
Many British accents have evolved in other ways compared to which General American English has remained relatively more conservative, for example, regarding the typical southern British features of a trap–bath split, fronting of , and H-dropping, none of which typical American accents show. The innovation of /t/ glottaling, which does occur before a consonant (including a syllabic coronal nasal consonant, like in the words "button" or "satin") and word-finally in General American, additionally occurs variably between vowels in British English. On the other hand, General American is more innovative than the dialects of England, or English elsewhere in the world, in a number of its own ways:
New York accent
The sound system of New York City English is popularly known as a New York accent. The New York metropolitan accent is one of the most recognizable accents of the United States, largely due to its popular stereotypes and portrayal in radio, film, and television. The accent is strongest among white members of the middle and lower class in New York City proper, western Long Island, and northeastern New Jersey, though it may be spoken to various extents by all classes in the New York City metropolitan area, and some of its features have diffused to many other areas; for example, the accent spoken by natives of New Orleans, Louisiana, locally known as Yat, is strikingly similar to the New York accent. The New York accent is not spoken in the rest of New York State beyond the metropolitan area; Upstate New York speakers instead generally fall under the Hudson Valley and Inland North dialects. The traditional New York accent is predominantly characterized by the following sounds and speech patterns:While the following consonantal features are central to the common stereotype of a "New York accent", they are not entirely ubiquitous in New York. By contrast, the vocalic (vowel) variations in pronunciation as described above are far more typical of New York area speakers than the consonantal features listed below, which carry a much greater stigma than do the dialect's vocalic variations:Despite common references to a "Bronx accent" or a "Brooklyn accent," no published study has found any feature that varies internally within the dialect due to any sort of geographic differences. Impressions that the dialect varies geographically may be a byproduct of class and/or ethnic variation. However, one study has found that more speakers from Queens born in the 1990s and later are showing a cot–caught merger than in other boroughs, though this is likely class-based rather than location-based. Increasing levels of the cot–caught merger among New York natives also appears to be correlated with foreign parentage.
The classic New York dialect is centered on middle- and working-class White Americans, and this ethnic cluster now accounts for less than half of the city's population, within which there is even some degree of ethnic variation. The variations of New York City English are a result of the waves of immigrants that settled in the city, from the earliest settlement by the Dutch and English, followed in the 1800s by the Irish and western Europeans (typically of French, German, and Scandinavian descent). Over time these collective influences combined to give New York its distinctive accent.
Phonological history of English consonants
Certain English accents feature variant pronunciations of these sounds. These include fronting, where they merge with /f/ and /v/ (found in Cockney and some other dialects); stopping, where they approach /t/ and /d/ (as in some Irish speech); alveolarization, where they become (in some African varieties); and debuccalization, where becomes before a vowel (found in some Scottish English).
English language in England
In the nearby counties of Berkshire, Oxfordshire, 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 speech, the increased mobility and urbanisation of the population have meant that local Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire and Isle of Wight dialects (as opposed to "accents") are today essentially extinct.
Phonological history of English consonant clusters
This change from to , which had occurred in London by the end of the 17th century, did not take place in all dialects. A few dialects, notably in Wales, as well as in some parts of northern England, New England and the American South, still retain a (falling) diphthong where standard English has – these dialects therefore lack the clusters with and have not been subject to the reductions described here.
Rhoticity in English
American English is predominantly rhotic today, but at the end of the 1800s non-rhotic accents were common throughout much of the coastal Eastern and Southern U.S., including along the Gulf Coast. In fact, non-rhotic accents were established in all major U.S. cities along the Atlantic coast except for the Delaware Valley area centered around Philadelphia and Baltimore. During the early to mid-1900s (presumably correlated with the Second World War), rhotic accents began to gain social prestige even in the these traditionally non-rhotic areas. Thus, non-rhotic accents are increasingly perceived by Americans as sounding foreign or less educated, while rhotic accents are increasingly seen as sounding more "General American".
English language
As the place where English first evolved, the British Isles, and particularly England, are home to the most diverse dialects. Within the United Kingdom, the Received Pronunciation (RP), an educated dialect of South East England, is traditionally used as the broadcast standard and is considered the most prestigious of the British dialects. The spread of RP (also known as BBC English) through the media has caused many traditional dialects of rural England to recede, as youths adopt the traits of the prestige variety instead of traits from local dialects. At the time of the Survey of English Dialects, grammar and vocabulary differed across the country, but a process of lexical attrition has led most of this variation to disappear.
British English
Since the mass internal immigration to Northamptonshire in the 1940s and its position between several major accent regions, it has become a source of various accent developments. In Northampton the older accent has been influenced by overspill Londoners. There is an accent known locally as the Kettering accent, which is a transitional accent between the East Midlands and East Anglian. It is the last southern Midlands accent to use the broad "a" in words like "bath"/"grass" (i.e. barth/grarss). Conversely "crass"/"plastic" use a slender "a". A few miles northwest in Leicestershire the slender "a" becomes more widespread generally. In the town of Corby, north, one can find Corbyite, which unlike the Kettering accent, is largely influenced by the West Scottish accent.
English language
English in England can be divided into four major dialect regions, Southwest English, South East English, Midlands English, and Northern English. Within each of these regions several local subdialects exist: Within the Northern region, there is a division between the Yorkshire dialects, and the Geordie dialect spoken in Northumbria around Newcastle, and the Lancashire dialects with local urban dialects in Liverpool (Scouse) and Manchester (Mancunian). Having been the centre of Danish occupation during the Viking Invasions, Northern English dialects, particularly the Yorkshire dialect, retain Norse features not found in other English varieties.
Western New England English
Southwestern New England English is centered primarily around Hartford, CT and Springfield, MA. Its older speakers show more instances of universal tensing of the short "a" , while younger speakers show the more General American feature of tensing this vowel only before nasal consonants. "The Atlas of North American English" confirms that this raising phenomenon is highly variable in the region, though studies agree that raising always occurs strongest before nasal consonants.
Phonological history of English consonant clusters
Some accents, however, do not show the full effects of NG-coalescence as described above, and in these accents "sing" may be found with , the suffix "-ing" may be pronounced (though G-dropping is another possibility), and "singer" may rhyme with "finger". This is particularly associated with English English accents in an area of northern England and the Midlands, including the cities of Birmingham (see Brummie), Manchester, Liverpool (see Scouse), Sheffield and Stoke-on-Trent. It is also associated with some American English accents in the New York City area.
English language in England
In the 1950s and 1960s the Survey of English Dialects was undertaken to preserve a record of the traditional spectrum of rural dialects that merged into each other. The traditional picture was that there would be a few changes in lexicon and pronunciation every couple of miles, but that there would be no sharp borders between completely different ways of speaking. Within a county, the accents of the different towns and villages would drift gradually so that residents of bordering areas sounded more similar to those in neighbouring counties.
Regional accents of English
Accents and dialects vary widely across the Great Britain, Ireland and nearby smaller islands. As such, a single "British accent" does not exist. However, someone could be said to have an English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish accent, although these all have several different sub-types.
Boston accent
A Boston accent is a local accent of Eastern New England English native specifically to the city of Boston and its suburbs. Eastern New England English also traditionally includes New Hampshire, Maine, all of eastern Massachusetts, and arguably Rhode Island, though some uniquely local vocabulary appears only around Boston. Some of the characteristics of traditional Boston accents may be retreating, particularly among younger residents. However, linguist William Labov claims that, in the twenty-first century, there remains a relatively stable Boston accent.
Cardiff English
Although based in nearby Barry, accents heard in the sitcom "Gavin & Stacey" are not Cardiff or Barry accents, with the exception of the character Nessa, played by Ruth Jones who was brought up in Bridgend but now resides in Cardiff.
List of dialects of English
Dialects can be defined as "sub-forms of languages which are, in general, mutually comprehensible." English speakers from different countries and regions use a variety of different accents (systems of pronunciation), as well as various localized words and grammatical constructions; many different dialects can be identified based on these factors. Dialects can be classified at broader or narrower levels: within a broad national or regional dialect, various more localized sub-dialects can be identified, and so on. The combination of differences in pronunciation and use of local words may make some English dialects almost unintelligible to speakers from other regions.
Received Pronunciation
Like all accents, RP has changed with time. For example, sound recordings and films from the first half of the 20th century demonstrate that it was usual for speakers of RP to pronounce the sound, as in "land", with a vowel close to , so that "land" would sound similar to a present-day pronunciation of "lend". RP is sometimes known as the Queen's English, but recordings show that even Queen Elizabeth II has changed her pronunciation over the past 50 years, no longer using an -like vowel in words like "land". 
Some changes in RP during the 20th century include:The change in RP may be observed in the home of "BBC English". The BBC accent of the 1950s is distinctly different from today's: a news report from the 1950s is recognisable as such, and a mock-1950s BBC voice is used for comic effect in programmes wishing to satirise 1950s social attitudes such as the Harry Enfield Show and its "Mr. Cholmondley-Warner" sketches.
Phonological history of English high back vowels
This has remained as such in some Welsh, northern English, and American accents, so that, in a variety of Welsh English, "threw" is distinct from "through" . In the majority of accents, however, the falling diphthong turned into a rising diphthong, which became the sequence . This change had taken place in London by the end of the 17th century. Depending on the preceding consonant and on the dialect, this either remained as or developed into by the processes of yod-dropping or yod-coalescence. Hence the present-day standard English pronunciations of "duke" (or ), "new" , "few" and "rude" .
Regional accents of English
Similarly, Although a lot of Yorkshire accents sound similar,
the Hull city accent is markedly different. The rhythm of the accent is more like that of northern Lincolnshire than that of the rural East Riding, which is perhaps due to migration from Lincolnshire to the city during its industrial growth, one feature that it does share with the surrounding rural area is that an /aɪ/ sound in the middle of a word often becomes an /ɑː/: for example, "five" may sound like "fahve", "time" like "tahme".
Regional accents of English
Two main sets of accents are spoken in the West Country namely, Cornish (with Eastern and Western variants) and West Country spoken primarily in the counties of Devon, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Bristol, Dorset (not as common in east Dorset), and Wiltshire (again, less common in eastern Wiltshire). However, a range of variations can be heard within different parts of the West Country; the Bristolian dialect is distinctive from the accent heard in Gloucestershire (especially south of Cheltenham), for example.
Phonological history of English high front vowels
In RP, the contrast between and weak is maintained. In other accents of the British Isles behavior may be variable; in Irish English the merger is almost universal.
Northern England
Northern English accents have not undergone the – split, and a common shibboleth to distinguish them from Southern ones is the Northern use of the short a (the near-open front unrounded vowel) in words such as "bath" and "castle". On the opposite border, most Northern English accents can be distinguished from Scottish accents because they are non-rhotic, although a few rhotic Lancashire accents remain. Other features common to many Northern English accents are the absence of the – split (so "put" and "putt" are homophones), the reduction of the definite article "the" to a glottal stop (usually represented in writing as "t"), and the T-to-R rule that leads to the pronunciation of "t" as a rhotic consonant in phrases like "get up" ().
North American English regional phonology
The local and historical dialect of the coastal portions of New England, sometimes called Eastern New England English, now only encompasses Northeastern New England: Maine, New Hampshire (some of whose urban speakers are retreating from this local accent), and eastern Massachusetts (including Greater Boston). The accents spoken here share the Canadian raising of as well as often , but they also possess the cot-caught merger, which is not associated with rest of "the North". Most famously, Northern New England accents (with the exception of Northwestern New England, much of southern New Hampshire, and Martha's Vineyard) are often non-rhotic. Some Northeastern New England accents are unique in North America for having resisted what is known as father–bother merger: in other words, the stressed vowel phonemes of "father" and "bother" remain distinct as and , so that the two words do not rhyme as they do in most American accents. Many Eastern New England speakers also once had a class of words with "broad "a""—that is, as in "father" in words that in most accents contain , such as "bath", "half", and "can't", similar to their pronunciation in London and southern England. The distinction between the vowels of "horse" and "hoarse" is maintained in traditional non-rhotic New England accents as for "horse" (with the same vowel as "cot" and "caught") vs. for hoarse, though the horse–hoarse merger is certainly on the rise in the region today. The phoneme has highly distinct allophones before nasal consonants. fronting is usual.
English language in Northern England
In some areas, it can be noticed that dialects and phrases can vary greatly within regions too. For example, the Lancashire dialect has many sub-dialects and varies noticeably from West to East and even from town to town. Within as little as 5 miles there can be an identifiable change in accent. The Yorkshire Dialect Society has always separated West Riding dialect from that in the North and East ridings.
English language in southern England
While in North Bedfordshire especially near the border with Northamptonshire it can be argued that the dialect is one which sounds more like East Midlands English, Bedford itself is linguistically diverse, reflecting the more varied demographics of the town (compared with the surrounding villages). A typical Bedford accent is more similar to a Londonian Luton or Dunstable accent, due largely to movement of people from these places to Bedford.
Trap-bath split
Most accents of American English and Canadian English are unaffected by the split. The main exceptions are parts of New England ("see Boston accent"), where the broad sound can be used in some of the same words as in southern England, such as "aunt, ask, bath" etc. ("aunt" though is unique, as the broad-a pronunciation is found sporadically throughout the US, not only in New England)
Regional accents of English
For a summary of the differences between accents, see International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects.
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation (RP) is an accent of Standard English in the United Kingdom and is defined in the "Concise Oxford English Dictionary" as "the standard accent of English as spoken in the south of England", although it can be heard from native speakers throughout England and Wales. Peter Trudgill estimated in 1974 that 3 per cent of people in Britain were RP speakers, but this rough estimate has been questioned by the phonetician J. Windsor Lewis. Clive Upton notes higher estimates of 5% (Romaine, 2000) and 10% (Wells, 1982) but refers to all these as "guestimates" that are not based on robust research.
Culture of New England
The New England English dialect and Boston accent are native to the region. Many of its most stereotypical features (such as r dropping and the so-called broad A) are believed to have originated in Boston from the influence of England's Received Pronunciation, which shares those features. While some Boston accents are most strongly associated with the so-called "Eastern Establishment" and Boston's upper class, the common accent is locally prevalent and predominantly associated with blue-collar natives exemplified by movies like "Good Will Hunting" and "The Departed". The Boston accent and accents closely related to it cover eastern Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine.
East Midlands English
Minor variations still endure between Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Though all native speakers sound similar, there are noticeable differences between the accents of residents of, for example, Nottingham and Derby, or Mansfield and Bolsover which is pronounced locally as .
Rhotic consonant
English has rhotic and non-rhotic accents. Rhotic speakers pronounce a historical in all instances, while non-rhotic speakers only pronounce before or between vowels.
On the Spot (2011 TV series)
Can a cow have an accent?
Comparison of General American and Received Pronunciation
One aspect of the differences between American and British English is that of pronunciation, as described in American and British English pronunciation differences. The General American (GA) and the British Received Pronunciation (RP) accents have some significant points of difference, described in this article. However, other regional accents in each country also show differences, for which see regional accents of English speakers.
Gillian Anderson
Anderson is bidialectal. With her English accent and background, she was mocked and felt out of place as a teenager in the American Midwest and soon adopted a Midwestern accent. To this day, she easily shifts between her American and English accents. In May 2013, during an interview with BlogTalkRadio, Anderson addressed the matter of her national identity: "I've been asked whether I feel more like a Brit than an American and I don't know what the answer to that question is. I know that I feel that London is home and I'm very happy with that as my home. I love London as a city and I feel very comfortable there. In terms of identity, I'm still a bit baffled."
Regional accents of English
Three main varieties of Australian English are spoken according to linguists: "Broad Australian", "General Australian" and "Cultivated Australian". They are part of a continuum, reflecting variations in accent. They can, but do not always reflect the social class, education and urban or rural background of the speaker.The New Zealand accent is most similar to Australian accents (particularly those of Victoria and South Australia) but is distinguished from these accents by the presence of three "clipped" vowels, slightly resembling South African English. Phonetically, these are centralised or raised versions of the short "i", "e" and "a" vowels, which in New Zealand are close to , and respectively rather than , and . New Zealand pronunciations are often popularly represented outside New Zealand by writing "fish and chips" as "fush and chups", "yes" as "yiss", "sixty-six" as "suxty-sux". Scottish English influence is most evident in the southern regions of New Zealand, notably Dunedin. Another difference between New Zealand and Australian English is the length of the vowel in words such as "dog", and "job" which are longer than in Australian English which shares the short and staccato pronunciation shared with British English. There is also a tendency in New Zealand English, also found in some but not all Australian English, to add a schwa between some grouped consonants in words, such that — for example — "shown" and "thrown" may be pronounced "showun" and "throwun".
Phonological history of English low back vowels
As a result of the lengthening and raising, in the above-mentioned accents "cross" rhymes with "sauce", and "soft" and "cloth" also have the vowel . Accents affected by this change include American English and, originally, RP, although today words of this group almost always have short in RP. The split still exists in some older RP speakers, including Queen Elizabeth II.
English-language accents in film
Because of the Welsh language's musical quality, the Welsh English accent is difficult for non-Welsh actors to master. The language has Celtic roots like Irish Gaelic but is more arcane. Dialect coach Penny Dyer said, "The Welsh language has the loosest intonation system in the whole of the British Isles." The accent is more difficult than Irish and Scottish. For "How Green Was My Valley" (1941), set in Wales but filmed in California, director John Ford avoided depicting the Welsh accent by casting British and Irish actors who spoke with Irish accents. For the British film "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain" (1995), director Christopher Monger sought to capture the accent onscreen by having actors Colm Meaney, Tara FitzGerald, and Ian Hart trained to sound like denizens of South Wales.
Regional accents of English
"Saints", as Saint Helenan islanders are called, have a variety of different influences on their accent. To outsiders, the accent has resemblances to the accents of South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.
Brummie dialect
The Brummie accent and the Coventry accent are also quite distinct in their differences, despite only separating the cities. To the untrained ear, however, all of these accents may sound very similar, just as British English speakers may find it hard to distinguish between different North American accents or Australian and New Zealand accents.
English language in southern England
The east Herts accent traditionally spoken is akin to a native central/north Essex rural accent. The largest towns in particular have the diverse sociolect variants of Received Pronunciation and Estuary English as seen in London, with smaller settlements tending towards the traditional dialects or variants of RP.