Chapter 2. The main varieties of British English

On the British Isles there are some local varieties of English which developed from Old English local dialects. There are six groups of them: Lowland (Scottish), Northern, Western, Midland, Eastern, Southern.[See Appendix 1 ] These varieties are used in oral speech by the local population. Only the Scottish dialect has its own literature (R. Burns). There are some origins of dialects which are the most popular.

Southern dialects

Southern dialects comprise East Anglican dialect, Estuary English, Cockney, West Country dialects.

Southern English engages in r-dropping, that is, r's are not pronounced after vowels, unless followed by another vowel.  Instead, vowels are lengthened or have an /'/ off-glide, so fire becomes /fai'/, far becomes /fa:/, and so on.

• regular use of "broad a" (/a:/), where GA (General American) would use /æ/.

• "long o" is pronounced /'u/, where GA uses /ou/.

• final unstressed i is pronounced /i/, where GA uses /i:).

• t between vowels retained as /t/ (or a glottal stop, in its variants), where GA changes it to /d/.

The English of well-bred Londoners, especially graduates of the public schools (e.g. Eton and Harrow) and "Oxbridge" universities, was the origin of "the Queen's English," also known as Received Pronunciation (RP), BBC, or "posh." [11; 159]

Estuary English

Estuary English is a name given to the formulation(s) of English widely spoken in South East England and the East of England; especially along the River Thames and its estuary, which is where the two regions meet.[See Appendix 1] Estuary English is commonly described as a hybrid of Received Pronunciation (RP) and South Eastern Accents, particularly from the London, Kent and Essex area — i.e., the area around the Thames Estuary.

A reason posited for the growth of EE, especially among young people, is that it is said to obscure social origins and is very often adopted as a neutral accent. Those who have come from a traditional RP background, adopt it because it increases "street credibility," and those who have local accents adopt it because it sounds more "sophisticated." Rosewarne thus sees the acquisition of Estuary English as part of the process of accommodation and a shift to the "middle ground" so that the RP accent is accommodated "downwards" and the local accent is accommodated "upward", resulting in accent convergence. The sociolinguistic consequences of this are that for over a decade, it has been common for the young people in the south eastern segment of England to speak differently from their older family members.

This somewhat "new" accent has also been heard on the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), by members in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords in Parliament as well as by business men in the "City" which is the heart of the business district of the city of London.

• L vocalization

Use of /w/ where RP uses /l/ in the final positions or in a final consonant cluster. An Estuary English speaker may use an articulation like a /w/ instead of the /l/ as many as ten times in the following utterance. "A real salesman will always feel a fool if he fails to sell or his deal falls through."

• /r/ realization in Estuary English

The realization of /r/ is different in EE versus in RP and in Cockney. In Estuary English realization of /r/ the "tip of the tongue is lowered and the central part raised to a position close to, but not touching, the soft palette." He describes it as sounding similar to a general American /r/ but without the retroflection. He provides examples of two British comedians, Tony Slattery and Paul Merton as exhibiting this pattern.

• Stress and intonation

The intonation in Estuary English is characterized by "frequent prominence being given to prepositions and auxiliary verbs which are not normally stressed in General R.P.

There also appears to be a narrower pitch of intonation patterns in Estuary English than in RP. This is especially true where rises do not reach as high a pitch as they would in RP, Rosewarne sees the overall effect as being interpreted as one of "deliberateness" and possibly an "apparent lack of enthusiasm