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Shows George Osbourne adopting a 'Mockney'/Estuary English accent to accommodate to the electorate.

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George 'Mockney' Osborne: Chancellor in Estuary accent shocker

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My word document regarding Estuary English

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My word document regarding Estuary English

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Contains lots of AO2 research

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Article about Estuary English by The Independent

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Article about Estuary English by The Independent

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THE ENGLISH language is being overwhelmed by a tide of "Estuary English", it was claimed yesterday.

Its rapid spread could most clearly be perceived by comparing the accents of Diana, Princess of Wales, the Prince of Wales and the Queen, Professor John Wells, of University College London, said.

The princess would pronounce words like "Tuesday" and "reduce" more like "chewsday" and "rejuice". Other changes were also spreading from London and the South-east, the centre of the new pronunciation, where the "l" in "milk", "myself" and "middle" was being transformed into a "w", and the glottal stop was spreading like a rash into phrases such as "not only but also", which was becoming "no' only bu' also".

Professor Wells is carrying out a study of the advance of Estuary English, which is overtaking "Received Pronunciation" (RP) as the language of educated Londoners.

"Princess Diana is a very good example of generational change in pronunciation," he said yesterday. "Compare her pronunciation with that of Prince Charles, which is much more conservative; and the Queen's, which is much more conservative than his."

The differences in age - 12 years - between Prince Charles and his former wife indicated how rapidly "Estuary English" was establishing itself. "Diana still had an upper-class accent but it was different from Prince Charles's."

Another exponent of the new accent is Tony Blair, whose accent is noticeably more glottal when he appears on popular television programmes, such as the Des O'Connor Show, than when he is making a political speech. "Tony Blair exhibits flexibility, which is a good thing," Professor Wells said. "Your accent is a badge you wear, which tells people what sort of person you are. If you can be flexible, then you can fit in with many groups."

While the new pronunciation is spreading fast, the language's content is altering more slowly. It is partly, but not exclusively, driven by American modes of speaking: for example, Americans avoid glottal stops, and talk about "zeebras" where British children describe "zebbras".

Surprisingly, ethnic groups such as West Indians and Asians are having no noticeable effect on wider pronunciation.

Professor Wells is carrying out a study to see how quickly the new pronunciations are moving from the capital to other areas.

"The spread is not influenced by the media - newsreaders and soap stars don't matter; what matters is your peer group," he said. "The only way that the media matters is that it rapidly exposes more people to different accents than their own."

The new tide of change is the third to wash over English this century. In the years to the 1940s the distinction between "flaw" and "floor" disappeared, and the phrase "very sorry" lost its hard "r".

In the middle of the century, "sure" and "poor" began to sound identical to "shore" and "pour", and words such as "perpetual" acquired a "ch" sound in the third syllable.
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Language: Estuary English engulfs a nation

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THE ENGLISH language is being overwhelmed by a tide of "Estuary English", it was claimed yesterday. Its rapid spread could most clearly be perceived by comparing the accents of Diana, Princess of Wales, the Prince of Wales and the Queen, Professor John Wells, of University College London, said.

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A blog post for A Level English Language focusing on Estuary English

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A blog post for A Level English Language focusing on Estuary English

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Contains AO1 examples and AO2 research.

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Rosewarne stated certain dialect features involving non-standard grammatical forms including the contracted word 'ain't' as a verb and nonstandard past tense forms like 'come' for 'came' in the usage like 'I come back home yesterday.'

The usage of the double negative forms has been put forward as another dialectal feature derived from Cockney, although negative constructions involving the primary verbs 'to be' 'to do' and 'to have' usually in the past tense. In these instances, the adverb 'never' is used to construct forms like 'I never did' or 'He never went', rather than the standard use of 'not', for example 'I did not.'

The emergence of Estuary English forms increasingly further afield from London signals something of the spread of the variety - and hints at its potential role inthe concept of dialect levelling, in which regional and local dialect differences begin to decrease.

*Vowel fronting = moving the place in which the vowel sound is generated towards the front of the mouth.

*Dialect levelling = is the means in which dialect differences decrease.

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Rosewarne stated certain dialect features involving non-standard grammatical forms including the contracted word 'ain't' as a verb and nonstandard past tense forms like 'come' for 'came' in the usage like 'I come back home yesterday.'

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Examples of Estuary English and characteristics

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Examples of Estuary English and characteristics

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Estuary English is a contemporary variety of British English: a mixture of non-regional and southeastern English pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary, which is thought to have originated around the banks of the River Thames and its estuary. Also known as Cockneyfied RP and Nonstandard Southern English.

In some of its features (but not all), Estuary English is related to the traditional Cockney dialect and accent spoken by people living in the East End of London.

According to Alan Cruttenden, Estuary English "is often characterised among younger speakers as having 'street credibility' or 'streetcred' or being 'cool,' i.e. as being fashionable" (Gimson's Pronunciation of English, 2014).

The term Estuary English was introduced by British linguist David Rosewarne in 1984.

"[Paul] Coggle [lecturer in modern languages at the University of Kent] predicts that Estuary English (think Jonathan Ross) will eventually take over from RP. Estuary already predominates in the South East and has apparently spread as far north as Hull." (Emma Houghton, "It's Not What You Say." The Independent, Oct. 15, 1997)

"Not so long ago some academics argued that estuary English (or non-standard southern English, as linguistics experts prefer to call it) was, thanks to TV shows such as EastEnders, slowly taking over the whole country and that some northern accents--particularly Glaswegian--were being diluted. But [Jonnie] Robinson [curator of English accents and dialects at the British Library] points out that this latest version of the imperialist south has turned out to be a false alarm.
"'There is no doubt the London dialect we have come to call estuary has spread out across the south-east,' he says, 'but research has shown that northern accents and dialects have withstood its spread.'" (John Crace, "It's the Way That You Say It." The Guardian, April 3, 2007)

"Features of Estuary English include the glottalisation (replacing 't' with a glottal stop, as in butter pronounced as 'buh-uh'), pronunciation of 'th' as 'f' or 'v' as in mouth pronounced as 'mouf' and mother pronounced as 'muvver,' the use of multiple negation, as in I ain't never done nothing, and the use of the non-standard them books instead of those books." (Linda Thomas et al., Language, Society Power. Routledge, 2004)

"One popular explanation for the development of Estuary English put forward by linguists including David Crystal (1995) is that RP is going through a process of casualisation at the same time as Cockney speakers are experiencing social mobility and thus moving away from the most stigmatised variety.
"Estuary English is seen by sociolinguists as evidence that a process known as dialect leveling is taking place, as certain features from this southeast variety have been witnessed spreading across the country...
"From a grammatical perspective, Estuary English speakers will omit the '-ly' adverbial ending as in 'You're moving too quick' . . .. There is also usage of what is known as the confrontational tag question (a construction added to a statement) such as 'I told you that already didn't I.'" (Louise Mullany and Peter Stockwell, Introducing English Language: A Resource Book for Students. Routledge, 2010)

"Jonathan Harrington, Professor of Phonetics at the University of Munich, conducted a thorough acoustic analysis of the Queen's Christmas broadcasts, and concluded that Estuary English, a term coined in the 1980s to describe the spread of London's regional pronunciation features to counties adjoining the river, might well have had an influence on Her Majesty's vowels. 'In 1952 she would have been heard referring to "thet men in the bleck het." Now it would be "that man in the black hat,"' the article notes. 'Similarly, she would have spoken of . . . hame rather than home. In the 1950s she would have been lorst, but by the 1970s lost.'" (Susie Dent, The Language Report: English on the Move, 2000-2007. Oxford University Press, 2007)

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Estuary English is a contemporary variety of British English: a mixture of non-regional and southeastern English pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary, which is thought to have originated around the banks of the River Thames and its estuary. Also known as Cockneyfied RP and Nonstandard Southern English.

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A website explaining what Estuary English is by an Estuary speaker

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A website explaining what Estuary English is by an Estuary speaker

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It contains an audio recording of the interview.

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Spoken by a large and growing number of people in the South of England, Estuary is tipped to dominate general British pronunciation within 50 years. But what is it exactly? What does it sound like? And why do some scholars think it doesn't exist?

In order to explore the matter, we took the bold step of asking a Received Pronunciation (RP) speaker to interview an Estuary (EE) speaker:

https://pronunciationstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Estuary-English.mp3

Well, it's from the South of England, but it isn't cockney, and it isn't RP. It's somewhere in between, so some people are a bit more towards cockney than others.

I see. Why's it called 'Estuary'?

Obviously because it's spoken around the river Thames, but it's spread a lot now, you'll hear it pretty much everywhere within a 50 mile radius of London these days. Everywhere from Essex to Oxford, Kent to Milton Keynes, which is where I'm from.

Is it posh?

No, not like you. But lots of posh people sound a bit Estuary when they're trying to impress their mates in the pub, which is pathetic really. It's a sort of classless accent, but posh people copy it to sound cool.

So it's cool, is it?

Yeah. Definitely. You should try it.

Thanks for the tip. Presumably lots of trendy famous people speak it then? A-list celebrities and the like.

Loads of famous people speak it, yeah. Comedians like Ricky Gervais and Russell Brand, presenters like Jonathan Ross and the TV chef Jamie Oliver. Loads of singers too, like Adele and the late Amy Winehouse. The new mayor of London, as well, he's a little bit Estuary.

What's Estuary's most striking feature?

We often use a glottal stop instead of a /t/ in words like LITTLE and WHAT. Oh yeah, and I replace /l/ with/u/ at the end of words, like MINIMAL.

Very fashionable. I've noticed that you don't say the /j/ in Estuary. I imagine you drop it in 'tuna', 'tube' and 'Tunisia' too, explain please.

Well, actually it sounds better if you pronounce them with /tʃ/ - TUNA, TUBE, TUNISIA and ESTUARY of course. See? That's much better.

If you say so. I've also spotted that you pronounce some of your Hs, but not all of them. Why?

Sometimes I drop /h/, sometimes I keep it. It depends on my mood and my company. I definitely don't drop it all the time, though, no. Have you got the time? I'm due back at the hotel.

There's only a few questions left, I won't keep you. Do you pronounce < th > on the teeth?

I fink so. Ha ha, only joking. I think I do. Hang on, I'm not sure. Ask me something else.

I think you just said "somefing". Anyway, lots of academics can't work Estuary out, can they? They call it all sorts of things, like "London Regional General British" and "Popular London". Journalists aren't much kinder, with one national cricket correspondent calling it a "ghastly estuary sludge". Others suggest that it's not really an accent at all. How do you feel about that?

You should hear what they say about you."Queen's English", "BBC", "Oxford". At least real people actually speak Estuary. Anyway, who cares what people say? Next question.

Some predict that Estuary will replace RP within 50 years - what's your opinion on that?

I really hope so. Can I go now?

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What is 'Estuary English'? Spoken by a large and growing number of people in the South of England, Estuary is tipped to dominate general British pronunciation within 50 years. But what is it exactly? What does it sound like? And why do some scholars think it doesn't exist? In