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Beige Scrapbook Vintage Thank You Letter

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Definition of Phonemic variation.

The variations of Phonemic variation.

Contributing factors.

Linguists are necessary to learn about phonemic variation.

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Hello! Good day everyone. My name is Marsha Maisarah binti Mohamed Nor (2023824038). For this project, I decided to take a closer look into American English. California to be exact. I hope you find all the informations I gathered useful. I had so much fun doing the assignment as I found out a lot of new informations that I find very interesting.

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A man named Ben, an American native speaker from California is reading a murder-mystery short story. He used standard, neutral American accent. It is a type of accent that is well-known and understood by majority of native speakers in the United States.

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Student's Informations

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Sound Studies Institute, University of Alberta

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Beige Illustrated Geography and History Infographic

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As to start this with a brief of self-introduction, I would like to say that I wish each of you a pleasant day. Hi and hello, my name is Fatin Adriana binti Ahmad Rossidi, 2023448698. During the process of completing this project, I have decided to play a role in both research of American and British English. I have gained uncountable joy and knowledge through the project enrolled. As much as I do, I wish people will feel the same way too! Thank you, lots of love.

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Hi everyone! My name is Nurul Sofea binti Ibrahim (2023862578). For this assignment, me and my partners have chosen to study more on British English and American English. For the American English, since the mass media often use American English, we have got to learn more on the English that we are often exposed to. For the British English, we find that since the version can be considered as one of the oldest English types, it would be fascinating to dive into the background of British English. I hope that people will find it fascinating the way that I do. Thank you!

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According to Fabbie (2014), using a linguistic element in place of another without altering the meaning of words or phrases is known as lexical variation. This variation can arise due to a few different factors including culture, regional, or historical factors. When it comes to Californian English, they are surrounded with various interesting and unique vocabulary. This can be seen by the way most Californian speak. It truly captures the essence of the place as it reflects the cultural and regional identity.

An article by Devlin (2024) mentioned that California English is mostly about slang. The term “hella” (meaning “many”) and “yee” (an expression of excitement derived from “yes”) are commonly used among Californians. California slang was confined to hippies and surfers for the majority of the late 20th century, but new expressions are starting to gain more traction in American culture.

Another lexical variation that we would like to highlight is cultural references. We noticed that Californians commonly relate their vocabulary to their unique cultural element. For example, the word “gnarly” which according to Ramirez (2010) carries the expression of seriousness represents the state’s famous activity which is surfing.

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Emma watson, an English actress, was born in Paris, France. When she was young, she moved to England to live with her mother in Oxfordshire while spending weekends at her father's house in London. It is commonly known that she speaks with received pronunciation or contemporary RP.

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ENGLISH SPEECH | EMMA WATSON: Gender Equality (English Subtitles)

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The people's history of American English

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American English has been evolving ever since North America itself was founded. Through its various twists and turns and unexpected evolutions, English has become the language we now know and love. Here's an in-depth look at the language's every iteration, from the year 1600 up through the present day.

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https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/prosodic-structure

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A brief history of the English language - Oxford International English Schools

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English takes its place as one of the world's predominant forms of communication with its influences extending over as much as +2 billion people globally.

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rɪʧ ænd ˈrɛkləs

ɪn ðə ˈhælsiən deɪz ɒv ðeə juːθ, ˈʌndə ðə ˈbaʊndləs ˈæʒə skaɪz ðæt kraʊnd ðeər ˈɒpjələnt ˈmænʃᵊnz, θriː eəz ɒv ˈfɔːʧuːn ˈʤuːliən, ɪˈmiːliə, ænd nəˈθæniəl— lɪvd wɪð ðə ˈrɛkləsnəs ɒv ɡɒdz əˈmʌŋ ˈmɔːtᵊlz. ðeə deɪz wɜː ˈwəʊvᵊn frɒm ðə ˈɡəʊldθrɛdɪd ˈfæbrɪk ɒvˈprɪvᵊlɪʤ, iːʧ ˈməʊmənt ə ˈsɪmfəni ɒv hedonistic pəˈsjuːts ænd ˈlævɪʃ ɪkˈstrævəɡᵊnsɪz, ʌnˈtʌʧt baɪ ðə ˈmʌndeɪn ˈwʌriz ðæt pleɪɡdˈlɛsə ˈbiːɪŋz.

ʤuːliən, wɪð hɪz ʃɑːp jawline ænd ə ɡeɪz æz ˈpɪəsɪŋ æz ðə ˈwɪntəz frɒst, wɒz ði ɪˈpɪtəmi ɒv ˌærɪstəˈkrætɪk əˈljʊə. hiː muːvd wɪððə ɡreɪs ɒv ə ˈpænθə, hɪz ˈɛvri wɪm əʊˈbeɪd æz ðəʊ hɪz vɔɪs ˈkæriɪd ðə weɪt ɒv ˈeɪnʃᵊnt dɪˈkriːz. ɪˈmiːliə, ə ˈvɪʒᵊn ɪn ðə flɛʃ, ˈwiːldɪd hɜː ˈbjuːti laɪk ə ˈsəptə, kəˈmɑːndɪŋ əˈtɛnʃᵊn wɪð hɜː mɜːˈkjʊəriəl ˈprɛzᵊns, hɜː ˈlɑːftər ə ˈmɛlədi ðæt bɪˈwɪʧt hɑːts ændˈɛmptiɪd ˈpɒkɪts. nəˈθæniəl, ðə ˈstrætɪʤɪst, pəˈzɛst ə maɪnd æz ˈbrɪljənt æz ðə ˈdaɪəməndz əˈdɔːnɪŋ hɪz swɪs ˈtaɪmpiːs.təˈɡɛðə, ðə ˈtriːəʊ ˈɔːkɪstreɪtɪd ðeər ˈɛskəpeɪdz wɪð ˌmækɪəˈvɛliən fɪˈnɛs.

English Words :

In the halcyon days of their youth, under the boundless azure skies that crowned their opulent mansions, three heirs of fortune. Julian, Emilia, and Nathaniel— lived with the recklessness of gods among mortals. Their days were woven from the gold-threaded fabric of privilege, each moment a symphony of hedonistic pursuits and lavish extravagances, untouched by the mundane worries that plagued lesser beings.

Julian, with his sharp jawline and a gaze as piercing as the winter's frost, was the epitome of aristocratic allure. He moved with the grace of a panther, his every whim obeyed as though his voice carried the weight of ancient decrees. Emilia, a vision in the flesh, wielded her beauty like a scepter, commanding attention with her mercurial presence, her laughter a melody that bewitched hearts and emptied pockets. Nathaniel, the strategist, possessed a mind as brilliant as the diamonds adorning his Swiss timepiece.

Together, the trio orchestrated their escapades with Machiavellian finesse.

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What is the history of American English? Who brought the English language to the American continent? How did Americans develop their distinct vocabulary and pronunciation?

The history of American English began in the seventeenth century when the first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in the Americas. Over time, they developed their unique vocabulary and pronunciation, borrowing from the native tongues of the American Indians, the earlier Spanish settlers, and even the French.

Keep reading to learn about the history of American English.

The History of American English

The history of the American English began with the first massive migration of the British settlers. Having arrived on the American continent, they found themselves in a vastly different environment from the one they'd known, filled with plants and animals that didn't exist in Europe. They needed to invent new words to describe the things they saw.

They often borrowed from the languages of the American Indians, creating anglicized words like hickory, squash, and raccoon. We also see this in place-names like Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Manhattan. They also drew upon words from earlier Spanish settlers, which had often themselves been adapted from the Indian originals by the Spanish. The English-Spanish hybrids include bronco, avocado, and canyon. Lastly, they sourced from the French, which we see in place-names like Illinois, Detroit, and New Orleans, as well as nouns like chowder and prairie.

Over time, English-speaking Americans developed their own unique vocabulary and pronunciations, many of which became widely adopted in England, as well as in whole other languages. The ubiquitous ok is maybe the best example, having worked its way into languages across every inhabited continent. Its history and origins are unclear, although linguists believe it may have arisen out the ironic wordplay of early 19th century American jokesters. Around this time, some well-educated young people in American cities led a fad of creating acronyms for deliberately misspelled phrases-thus, "ok" came from "oll korrect," meaning "all correct."

Dialects of English in the United States

The United States is a far more heterogeneous society than the United Kingdom, with a far shorter history. The sheer geographic size of the country, moreover, dwarfs that of the UK. People come to America from all over the world, and no one's ancestors have been in America as long as many people's ancestors have been in Britain. The influence of speech and language from other parts of the world is much more immediate and recent in America and is spread over a vastly greater geographical area.

Given this, one might assume a far greater variety of American speech than actually exists. But linguists have found the opposite to be the case. Over the history of its development, American English is remarkably homogenized, to such an extent that speakers on the East and West Coasts (roughly 3,000 miles apart) speak with virtually indistinguishable accents. Of course, regional accents do exist, as anyone who has been in northern New England or the Deep South can attest.

In 1949, Professor Hans Kurath divided the US into four basic speech groups: Southern, New England, Northern, and Midland, though regional subgroups exist within these categories. Kurath also observed that the main dividing lines in American speech ran east to west, with accents becoming more homogeneous and unified the further west one went. The "borders" between these speech groups are fluid, imprecisely defined, and run across vast stretches of the continental US, but they describe the variety of American speech reasonably well.

The speech groups feature differences in pronunciation and word choice. New Yorkers call sugary, carbonated soft drinks soda, while Midwesterners call it pop. Californians are known for adding the definite article before the numbers of interstate highways, talking about " the 101" or " the 80," which is not seen in other regions of the country. Famously, southerners elongate and drawl their vowels, while New Englanders shorten and clip theirs, rendering words like park as pak. Certain words like balm, bomb, caught, and cot are great signifiers and can tell you easily where someone is from based on how they pronounce them.

The Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) records over 100,000 variations in the pronunciation and terminology for different words across the US, indicating that there is perhaps far greater linguistic variation in America than Kurath originally observed. This is especially true when one considers the enormous racial and ethnic diversity of the United States, which adds a whole other layer to how English is spoken in the country (DARE under-sampled African-Americans in its initial language survey).

The American Linguistic Melting Pot

As we've seen, American English became more homogenous across the vast tracts of the United States, populated by people from all across the globe, than in much-smaller and more ethnically homogenous England.

To be sure, there was an explosion of immigration to the US beginning in the mid-19th century and continuing well into the first two decades of the 20th century. This created ethnic and linguistic enclaves all over the country, with Pennsylvania Dutch speakers in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; Germans in Midwestern cities like St. Louis and Chicago; Italian- and Yiddish-speaking neighborhoods in New York City; and speakers of Scandinavian languages in the states of the Upper Midwest.

Throughout the history of its development, the speech patterns of American English did not diverge; instead, they converged. The movement of people within the US created a linguistic melting pot of intermingling, which homogenized speech patterns. As time went on, people faced social pressures to conform to "normal" American speech, especially the children of immigrants, who faced even stronger pressure to shed the accents and idioms of their parents.

The Myth of Antiquated Americanisms

It is sometimes said that the physical isolation of certain regions of the US, like the remote communities of parts of the Appalachians, has preserved antiquated dialects of English that date back to Elizabethan times. And it is true that many conventionally "hillbilly" expressions like consarn it and afeared bear the stamp of 16th-century England.

But to say that rural West Virginians are some sort of holdover from that era is to grossly overstate the case. The region wasn't settled until long after the Elizabethan Age and it was never as isolated from outside influences as these theories suggest.

Americanization of the English Language

In modern history, American English has come to occupy a dominant position. Given its dominant status, it is likely that the English language will become homogenized to conform to the way it's spoken in the United States. These trends are reinforced by the influences of mass media, which expose the global population to dialects of speech that they would never have otherwise heard.

On the one hand, this is positive. Americans, Britons, Australians, Canadians, South Africans, Jamaicans, and all other English-speaking nations will understand one another better, creating stronger conditions for political, social, and economic cooperation. But, on the other hand, something irreplaceable would be lost- the variety and flavor of our rich and beautiful language.

The Little-Known History of the American English

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The Little-Known History of the American English

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The history of American English began in the 17th century when the first English-speaking settlers arrived in the Americas. Learn more.

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American and Californian English history.

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American and Californian English history.

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The background history of American English.

The history of American English has begun through its massive migration from British settlers. They found themselves immensely different from the environment they were known for which has been filled with plants and animals. These two elements did not even exist in Europe which led them to create fresh new words. Then, they invent their description through the new words created.

In the meantime, British settlers also borrowed languages of American Indians often. For instance, they anglicized words like squash and raccoon. It is believed to be found in places like Manhattan, Massachusetts and Connecticut. They also drew upon words from the Spanish settlers, which put themselves to an adaptation to the Indian originals by the Spanish.

Day by day, American English’s speakers have finally developed their own unique vocabulary and pronunciations. These changes were widely influencing people in England, along with other languages.

The rise of American English.

The development of American English has reached a certain extent. It is remarkably homogenized to speakers from East and West Coasts which roughly count 3000 miles apart from each side and speak virtually distinguishable accents.

In 1919, the United States was divided into four speech groups which are known as Southern, New England, Northern and Midland by Professor Hans Kurath (an American linguist).  The borderline between these groups is imprecisely defined and run across stretches of the continental of the United States.

The features of each speech group are different in their pronunciation and word choice. The Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) recorded over 100,000 variations and terminology for different words used across the US.

The existence of Californian English.

The existence of Californian English also has its own phases of reasoning. The United States did not add Western states such as California, Oregon, and Washington until the mid to late nineteenth century. To be actual, California did not become a state until 1850, 74 years after the founding of the United States. A big quantity of English speakers did not arrive on the West Coast until events such as the California Gold Rush in 1849. Until then, Spanish was the most often spoken language. However, by 1870, English had taken over as the most popular.

Even now, most Americans believe that Californians have a general American accent. The simplest way to characterize General American is by recognizing that the speaker is from America but they are unable to identify a specific locale. However, linguists are increasingly categorizing many Californians based on one factor, which is the California vowel shift. Californians did not have a uniform accent until well after World War II, owing to late migration and a wide range of accents and dialects. It took several generations for all the accents to blend into a single speaking style.

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ðə dɒɡ ænd ðə ˈʃædəʊ

wʌn deɪ, ə dɒɡ hæd faʊnd ə piːs ɒv miːt ænd wɒz ˈkæriɪŋ ɪt həʊm ɪn ɪts maʊθ tuː iːt. ɒn ɪts weɪ həʊm ɪt hæd tuː krɒs ə ˈrʌnɪŋ kriːk. æz ɪt krɒst. ɪt lʊkt daʊn ɪn ðə ˈwɔːtər ænd sɔː ɪts əʊn ˈʃædəʊ ɪn ðə ˈwɔːtə. ɪt θɔːt ðə ˈʃædəʊ wɒz əˈnʌðə dɒɡ wɪð əˈnʌðə piːs ɒv miːt.

ɪt meɪd ʌp ɪts maɪnd tuː hæv ðæt ˈsɛkənd piːs ɒv miːt. səʊ ɪt ˈstɑːtɪd tuː hɪt ðə ˈʃædəʊ wɪð ɪts maʊθ, bʌt æz ɪt ˈəʊpᵊnd ɪts maʊθ ðə piːs ɒv miːt fɛl ˈɪntuː ðə ˈwɔːtər ænd wɒz ˈnɛvə siːn mɔː. ðə dɒɡ wɛnt həʊm ˈsædli wɪð nəʊ fuːd tuː iːt.

English words:

The Dog and the Shadow

Oneday, a dog had found a piece of meat and was carrying home in its mouth to eat. on its way home it had to cross a running creek. As it crossed, it looked down in the water and saw its own shadow in the water. It thought the shadow was another dog with another piece of meat.

It made up its mind to have that second piece of meat. So it started to hit the shadow with its mouth, but as it opened its mouth the piece of meat fell into the water and was never seen more. The dog went home sadly with no food to eat.

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Californian Vowel Shift! #linguistics #language #todayilearned #california #uncutgems #uncutjams #losangeles #usa

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@litelinguistics
Californian Vowel Shift! #linguistics #language #todayilearned #california #uncutgems #uncutjams #losangeles #usa
♬ original sound - Lite Linguistics

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With the largest population of any state in America, there are a lot of Californians around. Odds are, you've probably ran into a Californian or two even if you've never traveled to The Golden State (California's official nickname).

Do you remember what they sounded like? If you don't, that's okay!

Most people, even if they've met someone from California, still portray (describe someone a certain way) them as sounding like a Valley Girl or Surfer Dude . Screenwriters from the 80s and 90s overused these dialects in countless movies and TV shows.

A variety of other California dialects also made their way onto our screens through the years. Without a doubt, these characters gave viewers a false sense of what a real California accent sounds like. Take this hilarious SNL skit for example.

To understand the California accent , we need to look past the portrayals. It's important to dig deeper and recognize that California is huge, has a population of nearly 40 million as of 2020, and is the most ethnically diverse state in the US.

Sorry to bring things into reality, but most people in California don't sound like the entertaining characters on TV. So let's investigate! Here is our analysis of the California Accent vs California English.

Early Origins of California English

To start, let's look into some of the history of the West Coast in America.

The United States didn't add Western states like California, Oregon, or Washington until the mid to late 19th century. In fact, California didn't officially become a state until 1850-74 years after the beginning of the U.S.

Because of the late migration and the variety of accents and dialects, Californians didn't have a unified accent until well after World War II. It took a few generations for all the accents to merge into a common speaking style.

But that doesn't mean the California accent magically appeared. Even until the 2000s, linguists grouped most states West of Texas into a single accent. There simply wasn't a big enough difference between the speaking styles of California, Arizona, Oregon, Colorado, etc.

Pinpointing California English: Dialects Rule California

But before we point out the single distinguishing factor, it's important to again highlight the ethnic diversity of the state. For many people, when they hear the term California accent , it associates with white people. But only 37% of the state is white .

California has a very large Latin American population ( mostly Mexican American) and many people from those communities speak with a Chicano accent . Also, the state is home to a large black population with many who speak in African American Vernacular English .

Last, recent studies have shown that there is even a difference in dialect between Northern and Southern California. There is also a difference between urban, coastal Californians and those that live in inland, rural areas of the state.

Labeling all the dialects as a California accent wouldn't make sense. Instead, linguists put them in a category called California English which encompasses (to include) all of the accents and dialects in the state.

So What's A California Accent Then?

Even now, most Americans would say that Californians have a General American accent. The easiest way to describe General American is: anyone would know that the speaker is from America but wouldn't be able to place the person as from a specific region.

But linguists are now putting many Californians in their own category because of one factor: the California vowel shift .

A vowel shift means people move their tongue differently when pronouncing vowels. And when one vowel shifts it has a domino effect (one event change starts to affect others) on the others.

The California vowel shift moves vowels forward when spoken. So a word like "right" sounds like "raught," "time" sounds like "Tom," or "cot" and "caught" have no difference in sound.

You'll hear these shifts mainly with younger Californians, and they make up the sound we now know as the California accent. Naturally , it led to many videos on YouTube and TikTok featuring the California accent challenge .

However, this vowel shift is becoming widespread with many linguists citing shifts in Canada, the American South, and cities in Michigan . Also, other cultural dialects have taken in the shift.

Cambridge University did a very extensive study on this shift.

California Slang

The vowel shift is the only distinguishing factor of a California accent. But if an ESL speaker wants to understand California English, then they need to understand (or at least know a little...) California slang .

Bro/Brah/Bruh - Shortened term for "brother." Mostly it means friend, but it can also be used to confront or call someone out.

Quotative Like

If you're remotely familiar with American pop culture, you've probably heard a few of those terms. However, the most widely used California English term is a variation on the word "like." Linguists call it a quotative like .

A quotative like is when someone introduces a quote with the word "like" while telling a story. For example, someone could say:
We were at school and she was all like, "I'm not going out with you this weekend!" So I was like, "Well why not?"
Whether you like or dislike that sentence structure, it's in American vernacular and it's here to stay.

"The + Highway"

And the final California slang example could be very important for an ESL speaker if you ever travel to the state. It involves the way Californians give driving directions, so pay attention if you don't want to get lost in the state.

When Californians, especially Southern Californians, refer to a freeway or highway, they put the word "the" in front of the number instead of saying interstate, loop, freeway or highway . So, in Los Angeles, Interstate 10 or 405 would be "the 10" or "the 405."

I used to live in Los Angeles, so here is an actual example of how I would tell someone to get to my old apartment from Downtown.
Hop on the 110 and exit on the 10 West, and then drive like 15 minutes and exit on Robertson.
Summary

As always, for all things English grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary, visit the Magoosh speaking blog!

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The California Accent or California English: A Guide for ESL Learners

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With the largest population of any state in America, there are a lot of Californians around. Odds are, you've probably ran into a Californian or two even if you've never traveled to The Golden State (California's official nickname). Do you remember what they sounded like? If you don't, that's okay!

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It was the invasion of Britain during the 5th century that really accelerated the expansion of the English language. Three Germanic tribes crossed over from the North Sea seeking new lands. They were the Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles. In Britain, people spoke various dialects of Celtic languages, leading to the creation of the English language we know today through different English language courses.

It is believed that during the invasion of Britain by the Romans, the native Britons were driven north and west into lands that we know today as Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. There is a strong connection between the word England and English, both of which originate from Old English words such as Engla-land, which means the "land of the Angles", where they spoke English.

Old English (5th to 11th Century)

One of the English professors at the University of Pennsylvania, Albert Baugh, has noted amongst his published works[1] that it is estimated that around 85% of Old English has become extinct; however, remnant elements of it have become the basis of the Modern English language.

There are several subcategories of Old English:

Primitive or prehistoric [2] (5th to 7th Century) - not much literature is available on this period aside from some Anglo-Saxon runes;

Old English (7th-10th Century) - Some of the earliest records of the English language have been found in this period. Authors like Cynewulf and Aldhelm were illustrious figures in Anglo-Saxon literature during this period.

Late Old English (10th to 11th Century) - the language that evolved after the Norman invasion of England brought about the end of the Old English language. As a result of this evolution, English became Early Middle English at the end of this period.

Early Middle English

A significant change in the English language occurred during this period, specifically with regard to syntax and grammar. In a language, syntax refers to how words and phrases are arranged to create well-formed sentences, and we find that despite Anglicisation by the British government and its wealthy citizens, Norman and French influences remained prevalent.

Early Modern English

It was during this period that English language changes occurred, which were not just pronunciation, vocabulary, or grammar changes but also the beginning of the English Renaissance itself.

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Previous findings

Wells (1982) states that the most distinctive characteristic of a northern accent is the absence of a rhyme between class and farce, which is even more distinctive than the rhyming of foot and strut. As such, we might expect to see the North/South divide represented more starkly for class-farce than for foot-strut.

Our findings

As expected, we find a major divide between the North and South with regard to this variable. At its most extreme, we find 90% of London speakers rhyming the two words, contrasting with a mere 7% of speakers from the North West. In the Midlands, only 25% of speakers associate with the southern tendency to rhyme class and farce. This contrasts with the southern tendency of distinguishing foot and cut, which is exhibited by 52% of Midlands speakers. This confirms the prediction that it is the rhyming of class and farce, not the presence of a foot-strut split, that is most characteristic of the South.

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Lexical variation - Download as a PDF or view online for free

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California, if you didn't know, is a very big state. It has the largest population of any state in the United States, and it's the third biggest based on geographic size. And yet, if you asked someone what a Californian accent sounds like, there's a good chance they'll answer with something that sounds a bit like the voice in Moon Zappa's "Valley Girl."

You've probably heard Valley girl, which is the stereotyped speech of upper-middle class teenage women who live on the outskirts of Los Angeles. The Valley girl speaker is often represented as an airhead, which has been used for comedic effect in movies like Legally Blonde, in which a rich young woman from SoCal is admitted to Harvard University and struggles to fit in because she's "more ditzy" than the other students. This movie did subvert some of the expectations of someone who sounds like that, but reinforced some others.

This is just one of a few Californian archetypes. There's also the surfer, the hippie, the Silicon Valley bro and more. But as mentioned, California is huge. To really get at Californian English, you have to look past the caricatures.

The Slow Beginnings Of California English

For a long time, the West Coast was seen as a monolith of language. The western states were added to the United States later than the eastern ones, so the linguistic communities of California et al. got off to a late start. In 1941, one linguist declared California spoke no differently than New York.

When linguists William Labov, Sharon Ash and Charles Boberg created The Atlas of North American English to document the major dialects of the United States in 2005, the East Coast (where Labov studied) was packed with dialect communities like Boston, New York City and Philadelphia. On the other side of the map, the entirety of the western United States was grouped together with a single label. Linguists who studied California around the time of World War II just couldn't find any substantive speaking differences between anyone west of Texas.

The map of dialects in the United States. As defined in 2006, the East Coast is dense with linguistic varieties, while the West is one big green blob.Where did these westerners come from, anyway? Let's step further back in time. California got its first big influx of English speakers thanks to the California Gold Rush in the middle of the 19th century. People from all over the United States came to California, and they brought their developing dialects with them. All of these new voices contributed to a new way of speaking, but it took a few generations for this hodgepodge of accents to develop into a single western voice. Given a few more generations, the homogeneity started breaking apart.

Hella Dialects Form In The State

Before getting specifically into what defines California English, it should be noted how many different accents exist across California. For the past few years, Stanford University has been host to the Voices of California project, which documents various dialects throughout the state. The work is ongoing, but they've already found many differences between, say, a Northern and a Southern Californian.

Geographic location isn't the only cause of these differences. Due to a large Mexican-American population, many Californians speak a dialect of Chicano English. There's also a large black population that uses African American Vernacular English. These speakers don't fall under California English because they're established linguistic communities. But because they don't exist in vacuums, all of these accents regularly influence each other.

Who are the speakers of California English, then? It would be nice to just say "Californians," but not all Californians sound alike. It refers only to white people, which make up less than 40 percent of the state's population. And because California is no longer a linguistic monolith, California English is really used as the umbrella term for a range of accents throughout the state. "California English" could more aptly be named "Average White Upper-Middle Class Bay Area Resident English," but that would be too long.

The Sound Of California

If you watch the news broadcast above, you'll see that Californians seem shocked - shocked! - at the suggestion that they have an accent. Their accent is indeed similar to General American, meaning it sounds to American ears like it isn't an accent at all. Everyone has an accent, however.

As with most accents, the vowels are what really set Californians apart. The news broadcast makes reference to the fact that the Southern accent has had an effect on California because of western migration in the 20th century. Notably, there's the cot-caught merger, which means both "cot" and "caught" sound the same, with an unrounded "ah."

A big factor that distinguishes California English is the California vowel shift, which is being led by young people. When vowels shift, it means a person is positioning their tongue in their mouth differently when pronouncing a specific vowel. And when one vowel starts to shift, usually others start to as well. The vowel in "dude" moves forward in the mouth, leading to the famous Californian "duuuuuude." The vowel in "hut" moves forward to sound like "het," the vowel in "back" moves to sound like "bock" and the vowel in "lit" moves to sound more like "let" (the last one leading to the pin-pen merger). The chain reaction of vowel shifting creates a distinctive Cali sound.

The California vowel shift is part of a larger pattern among the youths in North America. Similar things are happening in Canada, the South and the northern cities near the Great Lakes. This has led to Californian and Canadian sounding awfully similar, which is kind of weird. The wide usage of these shifting vowels suggests that it will spread throughout the country over time.

The Linguistic Capital Of America

While learning about vowels is great, California English is really all about the slang. This is where young people's linguistic innovation really shines.

If you're below a certain age, you've probably heard Californian English words like "hella" (meaning "many") and "yee" (an expression of excitement derived from "yes"). For most of the late 20th century, the slang in California was relegated to hippies and surfers, but now, new terms are achieving a wider influence in American culture. Using "hella" will likely still mark you as a west coaster, but all the youths use originally Californian phrases like "that's sketchy," "you're rocking those sunglasses" and "I'm gonna bail."

A prime example of California's immense influence on English is the quotative "like," which started over on the west coast. For example, when someone tells a story and introduces quotes this way: "He was like, 'How are you?' And I'm like, 'Good, you?'" Many people hate this construction, but linguists say it's going to be used by pretty much everyone in the country eventually. It literally changed the way people tell stories about themselves.

California has a lot going for it in the spread of linguistic variants. It has a big music scene and it's the home of Hollywood, meaning much of the pop culture Americans consume comes from there. So while it's a relatively young state, it has certainly matured. The rich language of the area, aided by its intermingling of many different cultures, is perhaps the most influential in the country.

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The United States Of Accents: California English

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In this United States of Accents, we explore what California sounds like and why it's difficult to define a 'typical Californian.'

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With the largest population of any state in America, there are a lot of Californians around. Odds are, you've probably ran into a Californian or two even if you've never traveled to The Golden State (California's official nickname).

Do you remember what they sounded like? If you don't, that's okay!

Most people, even if they've met someone from California, still portray (describe someone a certain way) them as sounding like a Valley Girl or Surfer Dude . Screenwriters from the 80s and 90s overused these dialects in countless movies and TV shows.

A variety of other California dialects also made their way onto our screens through the years. Without a doubt, these characters gave viewers a false sense of what a real California accent sounds like. Take this hilarious SNL skit for example.

To understand the California accent , we need to look past the portrayals. It's important to dig deeper and recognize that California is huge, has a population of nearly 40 million as of 2020, and is the most ethnically diverse state in the US.

Sorry to bring things into reality, but most people in California don't sound like the entertaining characters on TV. So let's investigate! Here is our analysis of the California Accent vs California English.

Early Origins of California English

To start, let's look into some of the history of the West Coast in America.

The United States didn't add Western states like California, Oregon, or Washington until the mid to late 19th century. In fact, California didn't officially become a state until 1850-74 years after the beginning of the U.S.

Because of the late migration and the variety of accents and dialects, Californians didn't have a unified accent until well after World War II. It took a few generations for all the accents to merge into a common speaking style.

But that doesn't mean the California accent magically appeared. Even until the 2000s, linguists grouped most states West of Texas into a single accent. There simply wasn't a big enough difference between the speaking styles of California, Arizona, Oregon, Colorado, etc.

Pinpointing California English: Dialects Rule California

But before we point out the single distinguishing factor, it's important to again highlight the ethnic diversity of the state. For many people, when they hear the term California accent , it associates with white people. But only 37% of the state is white .

California has a very large Latin American population ( mostly Mexican American) and many people from those communities speak with a Chicano accent . Also, the state is home to a large black population with many who speak in African American Vernacular English .

Last, recent studies have shown that there is even a difference in dialect between Northern and Southern California. There is also a difference between urban, coastal Californians and those that live in inland, rural areas of the state.

Labeling all the dialects as a California accent wouldn't make sense. Instead, linguists put them in a category called California English which encompasses (to include) all of the accents and dialects in the state.

So What's A California Accent Then?

Even now, most Americans would say that Californians have a General American accent. The easiest way to describe General American is: anyone would know that the speaker is from America but wouldn't be able to place the person as from a specific region.

But linguists are now putting many Californians in their own category because of one factor: the California vowel shift .

A vowel shift means people move their tongue differently when pronouncing vowels. And when one vowel shifts it has a domino effect (one event change starts to affect others) on the others.

The California vowel shift moves vowels forward when spoken. So a word like "right" sounds like "raught," "time" sounds like "Tom," or "cot" and "caught" have no difference in sound.

You'll hear these shifts mainly with younger Californians, and they make up the sound we now know as the California accent. Naturally , it led to many videos on YouTube and TikTok featuring the California accent challenge .

However, this vowel shift is becoming widespread with many linguists citing shifts in Canada, the American South, and cities in Michigan . Also, other cultural dialects have taken in the shift.

Cambridge University did a very extensive study on this shift.

California Slang

The vowel shift is the only distinguishing factor of a California accent. But if an ESL speaker wants to understand California English, then they need to understand (or at least know a little...) California slang .

Bro/Brah/Bruh - Shortened term for "brother." Mostly it means friend, but it can also be used to confront or call someone out.

Quotative Like

If you're remotely familiar with American pop culture, you've probably heard a few of those terms. However, the most widely used California English term is a variation on the word "like." Linguists call it a quotative like .

A quotative like is when someone introduces a quote with the word "like" while telling a story. For example, someone could say:
We were at school and she was all like, "I'm not going out with you this weekend!" So I was like, "Well why not?"
Whether you like or dislike that sentence structure, it's in American vernacular and it's here to stay.

"The + Highway"

And the final California slang example could be very important for an ESL speaker if you ever travel to the state. It involves the way Californians give driving directions, so pay attention if you don't want to get lost in the state.

When Californians, especially Southern Californians, refer to a freeway or highway, they put the word "the" in front of the number instead of saying interstate, loop, freeway or highway . So, in Los Angeles, Interstate 10 or 405 would be "the 10" or "the 405."

I used to live in Los Angeles, so here is an actual example of how I would tell someone to get to my old apartment from Downtown.
Hop on the 110 and exit on the 10 West, and then drive like 15 minutes and exit on Robertson.
Summary

As always, for all things English grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary, visit the Magoosh speaking blog!

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The California Accent or California English: A Guide for ESL Learners

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Have you ever wanted to learn about the California accent or California English? Read on and learn with our analysis for ESL learners.

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Researchers say Californians really do have an accent

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reprinted with permission, Illinois Reading Council Journal 47(4), pp. 72-76.

In this column, I'm going to talk about the American flap, a phonological feature of the American English dialect. Those of us with backgrounds in ESL/EFL learn about this in our masters programs, but I have found that even teachers who have taken a course in linguistics may not be aware of the flap and its important implications for listening, reading, and spelling in English (Lems, Miller, & Soro, 2017).

The American flap can be described as the sound made when the tip of the tongue lightly touches the roof of the mouth as we say a word that contains it. Because the tongue bounces quickly off the soft palette, many refer to it as a "flap."

The flap is commonly seen in two syllable words in which the first syllable is stressed and ends with a vowel or an "r," and the second syllable begins with the letters t, tt, d, or dd and is followed by a vowel sound. Here are examples of some common words that use the flap:

waiting reading letter writing party

wider better dirty didn't little

item city bottle thirty later

You may have already noticed that these words can be the source of spelling problems not only for English language learners but for native English speakers. That is because the letters don't "sound" like other words in which these letters appear.

In addition to common words like those above, there are other places we find the flap: in longer words when the last syllable begins with one of those letters; or between words, when the first of the words ends with one of the letters. Here are examples of each:
Longer words:
ability elevator president alligator comedy
Between two words:
A lo t of ge t over no t only i t is di d it sai d it Ar t I nstitute

Between two words, when the "h" sound of him or her is muted:

angered [h]im go t [h]er paper wro te [h]i m a letter

Also, between two words when the "th" sound is muted for the word them, in fast speech:

ge t [th]em hi d [th]e m

There are even cases of several flaps in a row, in particular word combinations:

There are two interesting exceptions to the application of the flap sound.

The first consists of words that seem to meet the criteria for a flap but end with the syllable -en/-in/-ain. Examples of this are: kitten, harden, Britain, sodden, whiten, eaten, and even "rootin-tootin." These look like they should use a flap, but they don't (unless you happen to be Australian). That is because, in the American dialect, the last syllable is called a "syllabic" syllable; we change its pronunciation into either a stop and a nasal sound (with the "t" words) or just a nasal sound (with the "d" words), in which we hold the tongue against the roof of our mouth making the sound "n". This particular feature varies among different national dialects of English, but we normally pronounce these words with syllabic syllables in American English. So - no flap for these!

The second exception should be especially interesting to teachers of K-3 because it connects closely to a common spelling error. Words that have an "n" instead of an "r" at the end of a first stressed syllable often sound like they have a flap, such as the words center, hunter, renting, and landing. The reason is because the American English consonant "r" - which can precede a flap - and the letter "n" are both classified as "liquids." We can say these consonants while pronouncing a vowel without modification from other parts of the mouth. In fact, we can't say them without a vowel! If you've ever taken singing lessons, you know that these are the consonants we use when we practice singing because they are so resonant - the vowel sound passes right through them - flowing like a "liquid." (The other liquids in American English are the sounds m, l, and ng). If you are teaching children to spell in English, you've probably noticed that they often omit these consonant letters when the letters are in the middle of the word. It's because kids hear the vowel sound, but they don't think the consonant that the vowel passes through needs a letter of its own. That is a common spelling miscue with liquid consonants.

You may have already realized these things through your teacher preparation coursework or by using professional development for using programs like Words their Way (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnson, 2008), the Orton Gillingham method (Orton 1976), or the Heggerty phonemic awareness and phonics materials (Heggerty, 2005). However, you may not have known the linguistic reasons behind these spelling phenomena - and now you do!
The Flap and Homophones
Another big effect of the American flap, on both reading and spelling, is that it is responsible for a preponderance of homophones. Homophones, of course, are pairs of words that sound alike but have different meanings and spellings. Because so many English words differ only in the spelling of the letters t/tt and d/dd, the flap is responsible for many homophones. Here are just a few:

waited waded fated faded

wetting wedding plotted plodded

latter ladder meddle metal

writing riding traitor trader

raided rated seated seeded

There are even three-way homophones caused by the flap:

sided sighted sited

petal peddle pedal

At this point, you may be saying to yourself, "Well, I don't pronounce them the same way! That is just casual - lazy - speech. I make sure to say them very clearly when I show these words to the children." That's because you are a teacher and you are responding, even if unconsciously, to your knowledge that students may have trouble distinguishing these words. You may not have known, however, that it was because of the flap. In truth, however, when we are conversing in connected speech, rather than saying a word in isolation for a spelling or vocabulary lesson, we do pronounce these homophone pairs the same way. It is context, not different pronunciations, that clears these up for listeners.
The Flap and English Language Learners
There are two main ways in which the flap has an impact on English language learners: spelling and listening comprehension. The first, spelling, is more likely to impact younger learners, whereas listening comprehension is more likely to affect adults. Of course, this is a generality, and it's possible any age group may benefit from practice in both of these areas.
The Flap and Spelling
The American flap affects how English language learners learn to spell words in English as a new language. Around 70% of ELLs in the country speak Spanish as a first language, and the effect of the flap on these students' early spelling development is very significant, as I will explain now.

As we have shown, the flap sound appears in certain contexts and is associated with particular letters in the American dialect: t, tt, d, or dd. Because the same sound can be spelled four different ways in English, native English speakers as well as English language learners often use the wrong spelling to represent the flap sound, such "potado" for "potato" or "lader" for "later." However, there is a common spelling miscue that is particular to native speakers of Spanish because the flap sound maps onto a completely different letter in Spanish: the letter r.

Here are some common Spanish words which contain the letter r after an initial vowel and have the same sound as the American flap: arena, ahora, manera, era, oracion. Because the flap sound is represented by the letter "r" in Spanish, it means that when L1 Spanish speakers are trying to spell words in English, they often use the letter "r" to spell English words that have the flap. They hear the flap sound just fine, but they represent the sound with the Spanish letter "r." That's why you may see words like "siri" for "city," "diren" for "didn't," and "byurifu" for "beautiful." These L1 Spanish ELLs are simply transcribing English words according to the Spanish sound-letter associations they have already made. These miscues do not indicate a hearing impairment, or dyslexia, or a cognitive deficit - in fact, they are a positive sign of emergent biliteracy, because these students have already learned a sound-letter combination in Spanish! Far from raising red flags, such miscues should reassure us that these learners have already gained the understanding that sounds are represented by letters in arbitrary relationships. They simply haven't learned the relationship between the American flap and its English spelling patterns. It takes some time for English language learners to learn this, just as it does for native English speakers, because the flap has so many spelling variations.
The flap and listening comprehension for adult ELLs
For a decade before I began teaching teachers, I taught beginning level ESL to adult immigrants. These new immigrants worked as much as 70 hours per week but still managed to come to class Friday evenings, Saturday mornings, and five hours on Sunday mornings. I always looked forward to the day that I would teach the flap - and perhaps because it was often on Sunday morning, it seemed like a "hallelujah" kind of day! Even if these learners had studied English before coming to the US, very few knew about the American flap. As a result, they encountered tremendous difficulties in listening comprehension. Common, simple words, such as "party" or "city" were incomprehensible; they would hear the words and imagine how they thought the words would be spelled. In their minds, those words were not spelled with the letters used for the flap, but probably with the letter "r." Therefore, they were completely unrecognizable!

Once I introduced the flap sound and provided examples of common words, repeating the words as I wrote them on the board, faces would light up with delight. Students would say, "Oh, so that's the word I kept hearing! I know that word!" or "Now I know what they're saying!" Sometimes we would also repeat the words to practice the pronunciation of the American flap, but I always kept the focus on listening comprehension, not pronunciation.

That is for two reasons: first, adult learners often speak with an accent because the age by which one can speak a new language accent-free had already passed (Bialystok 1997). More importantly, saying an English flap word without the flap does not really make the word unintelligible - after all, the flap is in the middle of the word, and it can usually be figured out from context. It simply indicates that the learner has had limited conversation practice in spoken American English.

When adult learners move into situations in which English is spoken regularly, it is likely they will begin to adapt their pronunciation of flap words - at least the ones used often. However, it is critically important to unlock listening comprehension, explaining the rule and offering numerous examples of it. Once my students learned how a flap might be represented in spoken language, they would often come in with new words they had suddenly been able to understand for the first time. Needless to say, it was heartwarming for me.
Ideas for the classroom
One way to practice recognizing the flap is by using a short prerecorded passage from the news, a podcast, or a song, creating a cloze (fill in the blank) exercise which omits only the words with the flap, and asking the learners to fill in the missing words. That's a great focused way to practice understanding the flap in spoken form.

For younger students who are new learners of English, a combination listening/spelling activity might consist of a spelling mini-lesson in which you show and then practice flap words with the same spelling pattern. For example, you could focus on five flap words that have the "t" spelling. This helps students focus on each kind of spelling pattern before you mix together flap words with different spellings. Below is a chart of 25 common two-syllable words using the flap, each with one of the different spelling patterns, that you might use as a starter.

(t) (d) (tt) (dd) (r+t/d/)

waited reading letter bedded party

meter wider patter kidded dirty

later raided little added sorted

item cider bottle sodded murder

whiter loader sitter madder forty

Even if you don't create a lesson about them, at a minimum, be alert to flap words you have on spelling tests; pull them out for explicit instruction; and don't call in special education if you see flap words spelled with "r"! The flap is a unique, distinctly American feature of English, and as such, we should welcome this authentic "Americana" into our classrooms!

References

Bear, D.R, Invernizzi, N., Templeton, S., & Johnson, F.R. (2008). Words their way: Word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction. Columbus, OH: Merrill/Prentice Hall.

Bialystok, E. (1997). The structure of age: in search of barriers to second language acquisition. Second Language Research 13(2), 116-37

Heggerty, M. (2005). Phonemic Awareness: The skills they need to help them succeed. River Forest, IL: Literacy Resources, Inc.

Lems, K., Miller, L.D., & Soro, T. (2017). Building literacy with English language learners: Insights from linguistics (2nd edition). New York: Guilford.

Orton, J.L. (1976). A Guide to Teaching Phonics. Cambridge, MA: Educators Publishing Service.

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All About the American Flap by Kristin Lems, Ed.D.

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reprinted with permission, Illinois Reading Council Journal 47(4), pp. 72-76.

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I've always been interested in California. Having visited there in 2017-2018, I would like to revisit there many times, when the world will reopen after COVID. At least if I have enough money and vacation time in coming years.

Many Californians consider that the northern and southern part of the state are quite different from each other. Northern California is about San Francisco, Silicon Valley, technology industry, top universities, temperate climate and Napa Valley wines. Southern California is about Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, TV-series and movies, aerospace industry, sunny and warm climate, beaches and surfing culture. The Northern Californian economy has flourished especially in recent years (with the boom at the tech-industry) whereas the Southern Californian economy had especially good times in the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s (even the Great Depression in the early 1930s didn't affect the Southern Californian economy as much as the northern parts of the state let alone the rest of the USA), during the Cold War from the 1940s to the 1980s (with a booming aerospace and defense industry) and for a period between 2001 and 2004.

It's not very clear where is the border of NorCal and SoCal, but generally when talking about the central parts of the state, Fresno and Monterey are considered as part of Northern California, and Bakersfield and San Luis Obispo often are classified as Southern California. In addition, there is "the third California" which is the region north of Sacramento up to the northern border of the state. This part is California is called "Jefferson", "North-North California" or "Extremely North California". That region is rather sparsely populated and includes some small towns (e.g. Eureka and Crescent City). "North-North California" has lots of cultural influences from the Pacific-Northwest region.

These above mentioned differences said, there are also a few common features between the northern and southern parts of the state. Both parts have a really youthful culture, and creativity, following trends and new innovations are valued. In both parts of California many people tend to be really laid-back and extroverted (even by American standards, in comparison to for example the people on the East Coast/Northeast) and talk a lot even to strangers. And politically both NorCal and SoCal tend to favor Democrats and are left-leaning/liberal nowadays.

Northern and Southern Californians also tend to have some differences between their ways of talking. Usually linguists talk about one "California English", but surprisingly little research has been done about the regional differences inside California. Of course, there are many articles about the differences at vocabularies and slang, but differences at pronunciation are researched and explored surprisingly lightly. Anyway, there seems to be differences as well at pronunciation patterns as at vocabulary. In general, NorCal pronunciation sounds rather "strong", clear, fast-paced and staccato; SoCal accent sounds softer, slower-paced and many people there tend to stretch out their vowels. Letter T between vowels is usually pronounced as clear D in Northern California. S is pronounced quite often as almost Z in NorCal. And Californian accents are mostly rhotic (which means that R-letters before consonants are pronounced heavily). So-called vocal fry seems to be more a SoCal thing; Southern Californians tend to use more filler words (e.g. like, uhm etc) and sometimes pronounce the word but like "bet" and cut like "ket". For sure is pronounced almost like "fer sure" in Southern California. Dude (which is now used everywhere in English-speaking world, but is originally a Southern Californian word) is pronounced like "diyyd" in Southern California. Perhaps one thing that had an effect on Southern California accent was the Dustbowl Migration in the 1930s depression; 80-90 years ago many people from Southern U.S. moved to Southern California (especially to Los Angeles, San Diego and Bakersfield) because of severe drought on farms in Southern states like Oklahoma and Arkansas and local economic recessions, and therefore Southern Californian accent has more features from Southern U.S. dialects than Northern Californian accent. Some regional words in NorCal: hella means "very lot" and is originally a NorCal regional word, but has spread also to Southern California and even to the rest of the U.S. Yadadamean means "You know what I mean." in Northern California. Southern California words: stoked (means excited or joyful), Looky-Lou (means a person that has stopped in a traffic to watch an accident or other exceptional event and causes a traffic jam because of that, in Northern California the word for that is rubberneck ). Southern Californians add the before the name of freeway more often than Northern Californians ("take the 110 to Long Beach" etc). Small crabs are called crawdads in Northern California and crawfish in Southern California (and crayfish in the eastern parts of the USA).

In general, Californian English is internationally maybe the best-known version of American English; it's considered rather neutral and clear and also modern, and when non-American people speak American English, they seem to use more often Californian/Western words than Eastern, Midwestern or Southern words. Many have claimed that this is because of TV, movies and other popular culture from California, but surprisingly many non-Americans' speech sounds more like NorCal/Bay Area way of speaking (whereas many TV-series and movies are located in Southern California). One reason why many people outside the U.S. tend to speak American English in a Northern Californian way is business life - the success of Northern Californian IT-companies and the absorption of Silicon Valley business culture has had an effect on ways of speaking even outside California. Steve Jobs (1955-2011) had a really strong Northern California accent. Another example of Northern Californian accent is Erlich Bachman (a fictional character on Silicon Valley TV-series). Also when you listen to some local bands from Northern California (for example Cake, which is a rock band from Sacramento and was especially active in the 90s and 00s, sings in NorCal accent) you can hear the local pronunciation. On the other hand, when I watched a lot of The O.C. TV-series on television in the 2000s and again on Netflix in the 2010s, there was a strong SoCal accent in the series. Also when you listen to the 1960s band Beach Boys, it is a clear example of SoCal accent.

My next post about American English will be about English spoken in the eastern (northeastern) parts of the U.S.

Sources: Joshua Katz regional American English maps at the Business Insider article from 2013, Wikipedia, Lonely Planet USA Phrasebook, my own observations etc.

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Observations About American English, Part 1: Northern California and Southern California Tend to Have Different Accents

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I've always been interested in California. Having visited there in 2017-2018, I would like to revisit there many times, when the world will reopen after COVID.

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Great Vowel Shift | Definition, Examples, Middle English, Early Modern English, & Facts

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Great Vowel Shift, in historical linguistics, a series of significant and parallel changes in the articulation of English long vowels (i.e., vowels whose articulations are stressed and relatively longer than those of other vowels), extending from approximately the 15th to the 18th century and

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The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

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The Great Vowel Shift and the History of Britain.

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Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom

Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom

Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom

Center for the Study of Language and Society, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

In this paper, we present a novel computational approach to the analysis of accent variation. The case study is dialect leveling in the North of England, manifested as reduction of accent variation across the North and emergence of General Northern English (GNE), a pan-regional standard accent associated with middle-class speakers. We investigated this instance of dialect leveling using random forest classification, with audio data from a crowd-sourced corpus of 105 urban, mostly highly-educated speakers from five northern UK cities: Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, and Sheffield. We trained random forest models to identify individual northern cities from a sample of other northern accents, based on first two formant measurements of full vowel systems. We tested the models using unseen data. We relied on undersampling, bagging (bootstrap aggregation) and leave-one-out cross-validation to address some challenges associated with the data set, such as unbalanced data and relatively small sample size. The accuracy of classification provides us with a measure of relative similarity between different pairs of cities, while calculating conditional feature importance allows us to identify which input features (which vowels and which formants) have the largest influence in the prediction. We do find a considerable degree of leveling, especially between Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield, although some differences persist. The features that contribute to these differences most systematically are typically not the ones discussed in previous dialect descriptions. We propose that the most systematic regional features are also not salient, and as such, they serve as sociolinguistic regional indicators. We supplement the random forest results with a more traditional variationist description of by-city vowel systems, and we use both sources of evidence to inform a description of the vowels of General Northern English.

1. Introduction

Dialect leveling is of central interest to sociolinguistics and dialectology. It is linked to dialect contact, and social mobility, and it is thought to arise through "avoidance or attrition of marked variants" ( Trudgill, 1986). Such avoidance may lead to variation and change, in which regional variants are replaced with either standard or pan-regional ones. As such changes occur, regional variation is reduced. In the context of British English, there is robust evidence for leveling-type changes ( Kerswill, 2003), and we may therefore ask how much regional variation still remains. Conceptually, this is a straightforward question, but empirically, it is not. In this work, we consider difficulties in quantifying the extent of regional variation in speech, and we propose some new methodological and computational solutions in this respect that rely on crowd-sourcing speech data, and quantifying variation with machine learning.

Our focus is on Northern British English, one of the main dialect groups in the UK. Northern British English can be defined in opposition to Southern British English, i.e., through the presence of linguistic features that are found in the North, but not in the South. These features may be syntactic (e.g., the use of the form "give it me" in Northern English), lexical (e.g., "spelk" as a regional variant for "splinter" in Newcastle), phonological or phonetic. We study phonological and phonetic features, understood as accent-specific realizations of specific vowels. Two features that provide a good demarcation between the North and the South in this respect is the presence of the TRAP- BATH split and the FOOT- STRUT split in the South, but not in the North. Consequently, the BATH vowel is shorter and relatively more front in the North, compared to the South, whereas the STRUT vowel is higher in the North compared to the South. This approach can lead us to consider Northern English to be a cluster of distinct but related varieties, which share a specific realization of BATH and STRUT. However, some linguists use the term "General Northern English" (GNE) or "Standard Northern English" emerging as a more coherent variety spoken by certain speakers across the North, as a result of dialect leveling ( Whiteside, 1992; Watt, 2002; Honeybone, 2007; Cardoso et al., 2019). GNE speakers can be expected to display typically northern features, like the northern BATH and STRUT, but not other more narrowly defined northern features. For instance, Watt (2002) notes that traditional Tyneside realization of FACE and GOAT as centering diphthongs are avoided by middle-class Tyneside speakers. These speakers are generally shifting toward a pan-northern monophthongal variant, while Southern-standard-like closed diphthongal realizations are also present. Watt argues that many strongly localized accent features are eroding in Tyneside, under the influence of dialect contact. This, however, interacts with a development of a northern (or more narrowly in this case, north-eastern) identity that constrains dialect leveling such that the developing accents, although leveled, still sound distinctively northern. Tension between avoidance of certain regional features, and willing to signal one's northern identity is also noted by Wells (1982b), who says:

There are many educated northerners who would not be caught dead doing something so vulgar as to pronounce STRUT words with [ʊ], but who would feel it to be a denial of their identity as northerners to say BATH words with anything other than short [a]. ( Wells, 1982b, p.354)

To date, the following types of arguments have been proposed as evidence for General Northern English. One type of evidence is attitudinal, and it is expressed by speakers explicitly classifying their own accent as "northern," as opposed to, for instance, "Geordie" (Newcastle) ( Watt, 2002). Another type of evidence is gradual disappearance of certain regional features in favor of pan-regional forms, such as the avoidance of centring diphthongs for FACE and GOAT in Tyneside ( Watt, 2002), and diphthongisation of the same vowels in York ( Haddican et al., 2013). Thirdly, it has been observed that many northern accents participate in the same sound changes, which makes them more similar to one another. A striking example is GOOSE-fronting, which is affecting multiple varieties of English world-wide, including Northern English accents, such as Bradford ( Watt and Tillotson, 2001), York ( Haddican et al., 2013), Manchester ( Baranowski, 2017) and Carlisle ( Jansen, 2019). While all this evidence points toward a degree of linguistic homogenization across the North, we may ask whether General Northern English can be considered a coherent variety, or whether it is still an umbrella term for a group of similar, but distinct accents.

We can phrase the same question in terms of classification: is it empirically justified to use labels such as "General Northern English" to describe the speech of some individuals, as opposed to more specific ones, like "middle-class Manchester English?" If geographically diverse northern speakers sound similar, and are thus difficult to localize within the North, we would take that as evidence for GNE. Implicit in this is the assumption that GNE is a middle-class accent. The issue of class is addressed in Cardoso et al. (2019), who investigate attitudes to accents in employment context, stratifying the sample for region and social class. They draw a distinction between GNE (standard, pan-regional and middle-class) vs. Leeds English (non-standard, regional and working-class). The same distinction can apply to Southern British English varieties, where Standard Southern British English is a non-localized standard, whereas Estuary English is an example of more localized, non-standard, working-class speech. The notion that relatively more standard accents are less regionally diverse is well-established in the dialectology of British English ( Wells, 1982a). It is also supported by a long line of variationist work that consistently points to fewer regional features in middle-class speakers, compared to working-class speakers [relevant examples from the North of England, include Baranowski and Turton (2015) on Manchester English and Haddican et al. (2013) on York].

While there are indications of increasing homogeneity of middle class speech across the North of England, systematic evidence to support this intuition is limited. In this work, we investigate putative accent convergence in the North systematically, using an audio corpus of Northern English speech, and by using an explicit computational procedure. Traditional dialectology relies on the notion of accent features, and a comparison can be drawn between different accents by way of establishing that particular features are observed in accent A, as opposed to accent B. The more features are shared between two accents, the greater the similarity. This is a somewhat informal approach that essentially relies on expert intuitions about the relevant features for comparison. Such intuitions are eschewed in neighboring fields of computational linguistics and forensic linguistics, where more holistic approaches have been employed to automated accent recognition. Brown and Wormald (2017) propose a method for classifying accents out of a pre-specified pool, using acoustic information from all phones present in a speech sample. The method is based on a distance measure, computed using mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs), and supplied to either a simple correlation calculation or a Support Vector Machine (as demonstrated in Brown, 2016). The models that are used within this process can also be supplied to a hierarchical cluster analysis to reveal the relative degrees of similarity that exists among a set of speakers' accents. Alternatively, we can apply a feature analysis to the speaker-specific accent models to estimate which phonemes are contributing most to distinguishing between different accent varieties. However, the method is only able to identify the relevant phones, but it does not provide an insight into how the specific phones differ between different accents.

In this work, we combine aspects of variationist and computational approaches to studying accent variation. We propose a new method for quantifying similarities between accents, based on random-forests based classification. Similarly to Brown and Wormald (2017), this approach allows to identify the features that are most reliable for distinguishing accents, and it provides a methodological solution for identifying key accent features in an explicit way. Unlike Brown and Wormald (2017), we rely on more traditional acoustic measurements, the first two vowel formants. Our approach has the advantage of being linguistically interpretable: we can not only find the vowel phonemes that distinguish different accents, but we can also describe the difference in linguistically meaningful terms, facilitating comparison with earlier descriptive work (e.g., vowel X is lowered in accent A, compared to accent B). This would not be possible if we used MFCCs, although the trade-off is including fewer phonemes (only vowels), and using less comprehensive acoustic information. The specific research questions for the analysis are:

1. To what extent can individual northern cities be systematically distinguished from the rest, based on vowel formant values?

2. Which vowels are the best predictors for each city?

In addition, we provide an up-to-date description of vowel systems in five cities: Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sheffield, as represented in our speaker sample. The data from 105 speakers reading the same passage. In doing so, we follow the more traditional paradigm of plotting vowel spaces in a two dimensional acoustic space, defined by the first two vowel formants.

1.1. Selected Urban Varieties

The accents we examine represent five urban localities in the North of England: Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sheffield. Their relative location in the UK is presented in Figure 1. We chose to focus on urban varieties, because our approach relies on a categorical classification, and the different cities provide a robust way of grouping individual speakers geographically. Another motivation is that urban accents are likely to undergo leveling, due to increased speaker mobility and dialect contact. We selected the specific cities based on their shared characteristics: they are all relatively large urban centers in the North of England. An additional consideration was the availability of a sufficient number of speakers in the corpus we used (see section 2.1 for a description of the corpus). In our analysis, we focus on vowels only. This is because we can rely on a well-established method of quantifying differences between vowels, using formant measurements. For consonants, we would have to develop various types of phoneme-specific measurements, and it is less certain that these measurements would capture relevant variation equally well. Additional theoretical motivation for focusing on vowels comes from previous literature which posits that dialect leveling in British English tends to affect vowels more than consonants ( Kerswill, 2003).

Below, we provide an overview of previous research on the vowels of the five selected cities. In the description, we use the parameters of variation in describing vowels of English, as developed by Wells (1982c). These are operationalized as lexical sets, selected based on phonemic distinctions in different varieties of English, and abbreviated as keywords. Wells's own description of regional accents are based on auditory transcription within the vowel quadrilateral framework that goes back to Jones (1917). Later works on varieties of English are often supported by acoustic measurements of the first two vowel formants. Recently, comparative dialect studies have been expanded to include articulatory information. We include data from such sources, although we are selective in our literature review, prioritizing sources that include comprehensive vowel descriptions and/or novel observations about specific vowel features. We include some of our own observations about the recordings acquired by the Dynamic Dialect project, where available. The Dynamic Dialects project provides ultrasound and lip video recordings of vowel keywords by speakers of 18 broadly defined accent areas ( Lawson et al., 2018). This is a very useful point of reference for readers less familiar with northern accents, as the recordings are recent and freely available online at https://www.dynamicdialects.ac.uk/.

1.1.1. Leeds

Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, and its accent is described by Wells (1982b) as a prototypically northern. There is no FOOT- STRUT split, or TRAP- BATH split. In addition, according to Wells, Leeds shows some traditional Yorkshire features, such as monophthongisation of FACE, GOAT and PRICE. The realization of SQUARE in Leeds is transcribed as monophthongal by Wells, who also mentions the phonetic quality of NORTH/ THOUGHT as being very open. In addition, the happ Y vowel has a relatively lax quality.

1.1.2. Sheffield

Sheffield is situated in South Yorkshire, and it shares a number of characteristics with Leeds. Among distinct characteristics of the Sheffield dialect, Wells (1982b) mentions a fronted onglide for MOUTH. Additional features of Sheffield English noted by Stoddart et al. (2014) include variable diphthongisation of FLEECE and GOAT, as well as variable fronting of onglide in GOAT. According to Stoddart et al., MOUTH can be monophthongal, and happ Y is lax.

A more recent description of the Sheffield accent is provided by Williams and Escudero (2014), who compare it to a Southern English system. Their averaged data for Sheffield speakers show diphthongal realization of FACE, GOAT and PRICE, and there is no onglide fronting in MOUTH. These realizations are more similar to Southern English than to the traditional Yorkshire realizations, which is consistent with effects of dialect-leveling. However, statistical comparisons still show differences in the quality of these vowels between Sheffield and the southern accent. The general northern features, absence of [ʌ] and front lax realization of BATH, are apparent in the data. In terms of more recent vowel changes, the 2014 Sheffield English data indicate the presence of GOOSE-fronting, which is, however, less advanced than in the South.

Dynamic Dialects provides ultrasound recordings of two Sheffield speakers. These two speakers vary clearly in their production of FACE and GOAT. One of the speakers produces them as closing diphthongs, whereas the other speaker has more monophthongal variants. The PRICE vowel is diphthongal for both. For both of them, the GOOSE vowel appears somewhat fronted, in line with the data in Williams and Escudero (2014).

1.1.3. Manchester

According to Wells (1982b), Manchester is very similar to Leeds in terms of vowels. However, in an updated description, Baranowski and Turton (2015) stress that FACE and GOAT are closing diphthongs in Manchester, and they do not have a monophthongal quality (this is in contrast to some Lancashire accents). Like other present-day varieties of English, Manchester shows fronting of GOOSE, and to a lesser extent, GOAT. There is no GOAT-fronting before /l/. For GOOSE-fronting, Baranowski and Turton also note an allophonic rule, which is furthermore sensitive to social variation. The GOOSE vowel can be front before /l/ for working-class speakers, but not for middle-class speakers. Similarly, the realization of the STRUT vowel is socially stratified: middle-class speakers show relative lowering of STRUT. SQUARE and NURSE are distinct. Baranowski and Turton (2015) also comments on the realization of happ Y and lett ER vowels. The happ Y vowel is relatively retracted and lowered, whereas lett ER is somewhat retracted. The lett ER vowel is reported in some sources to be lowered in Manchester ( Beal, 2008). This aspect of Manchester speech is often stereotyped. It is not uncommon to see "Manchester" spelled as "Manchestaaa," e.g., on social media, as a reference to the quality of the vowel. However, Turton and Ramsammy (2012) observe retraction rather than lowering in lett ER.

Data from a single speaker of Manchester English are available through Dynamic Dialects. Interestingly, this speaker has a lowered vowel in STRUT, which is distinct from FOOT, as observed for some Manchester speakers by Turton and Baranowski (2020). This speaker also has diphthongal FACE and GOAT (the onglide of GOAT is also fronted). Her happ Y vowel is relatively tense. In contrast, she shows the typically northern fronted production of BATH.

1.1.4. Liverpool

Compared to other northern accents, Liverpool is quite distinct, which is attributed to high migration levels into the city from a range of groups ( Knowles, 1978). In terms of specific vowel features, Wells (1982b) mentions the merger between SQUARE and NURSE, both of which are realized as a centralized vowel, rounded or unrounded. FACE and GOAT are diphthongal, and there is also a slight diphthongisation of FLEECE and GOOSE. The vowel in happ Y is tense, unlike in Manchester and Yorkshire. In their study of Liverpool vowels, Ferragne and Pellegrino (2010) confirm this description, and they also note the phonetic proximity of hod and hard ( LOT and START), and between hid and heard ( KIT and NURSE). According to Watson (2007), the PRICE vowel can be monophthongal. Watson also notes optional GOAT-fronting. Furthermore, Cardoso (2015) observes a pattern of phonological variation in PRICE and MOUTH in Liverpool, affecting the trajectories as a function of manner of articulation of the following consonant, and its voicing.

1.1.5. Newcastle Upon Tyne

Traditional Newcastle English shows obvious differences from other northern accents. It is generally reported to display the northern STRUT and FOOT. Wells (1982b) notes that some BATH and TRAP words can have a long [a:], unlike in most other Northern accents. He describes the Newcastle FACE and GOAT vowels as varying between monophthongs and centring diphthongs. FLEECE is said to be "strikingly diphthongal" in final position. The MOUTH vowel is variable, including some traditional [u:] realizations. Among the unstressed vowels, happ Y is relatively tense, whereas lett ER is said to have a particularly open quality.

Watt (1998) confirms that FLEECE and GOOSE can be diphthongal in open syllables in Newcastle, whereas closed syllables invariably involve a monophthongal variant. Watt also documents extensively the variation in NURSE, which includes a front rounded variant, as well as a strongly retracted one, and one that is close to Southern British English.

Ferragne and Pellegrino (2010) confirm aspects of this description, adding observations concerning front and close realization of NURSE in Newcastle. They also comment on the variation in FACE and GOAT, including the monophthongal variants and centring diphthongs. Watt (2002) also includes a closing diphthong as a possible variant for FACE and GOAT, and he notes that such realizations are on the rise.

The Dynamic Dialects Newcastle speaker shows a monophthongal GOAT, and a centring diphthong for FACE, with a relatively lowered onglide. This speaker also shows fronting of the onglide in PRICE. His happ Y is tense. Lowering in lett ER is not evident. NURSE is relatively front, and the lip protrusion is evident in the video data. FLEECE is clearly monophthongal (that is in a closed syllable context).

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Corpus

The data we use were extracted from the English Dialects App Corpus (EDAC, Leemann et al., 2018). The data are crowdsourced recordings of the passage "The Boy who Cried Wolf," collected via a mobile phone app. At the time this paper was written, the corpus contained recordings from 3,500 speakers in the British Isles (including Republic of Ireland). Apart from donating the recording, the speakers identified their own accent by placing a pin on a map. This is an important aspect of the method: we do not use any additional criteria for defining an accent as belonging to a specific city, such as mobility, or family history. The speakers also provided demographic information, including age, gender, ethnicity, and level of education. A detailed description of the corpus is in Leemann et al. (2018).

An advantage of the EDAC corpus is that it uses controlled speech materials, which considerably reduces noise in comparing vowel realizations across different speakers and different groups of speakers. This enables us to work with a relatively smaller sample of speakers, compared to what we would have required if he used spontaneous speech. It also considerably reduces data processing time, obviating the need for manual orthographic transcription.

2.2. Speaker Sample Demographics

We selected 105 speakers from the corpus, representing the five cities: Leeds ( N =27), Liverpool ( N =17), Manchester ( N =23), Newcastle upon Tyne ( N =19), and Sheffield ( N =19). We chose recordings of sufficient quality, excluding those that were incomplete, had excessive background noise, multiple talkers present, etc. The mean speaker age was 31 years ( SD =14). Figure 2 shows the distribution of speaker age by city. The individual cities are comparable in terms of age, although we note that the Leeds and Sheffield speakers were particularly young.

Fifty-nine percent of our speakers were female. As shown in Table 1, the balance of gender was similar across the different cities. In terms of ethnicity, the speakers were predominantly white (87.6%). 4.77% of speakers were Asian, 4.77% were mixed-race. The sample included one black speaker (from Sheffield), and five who did not identify with any of the ethnicity categories. The proportion of white speakers was roughly equal across the cities. The remaining ethnicities were not well-balanced. The by-city ethnicity data are summarized in Table 2.

As far as education is concerned, most speakers in a our sample (66.66%) had a higher education degree (BA or professional/vocational equivalent). 14.2% had been educated up to A-level, whereas 9.5% names GSCE as their highest level of education (this was specified as minimum five GSCEs grade A*-C). 9.5% of speakers had a lower qualification than that, including those that were under 16. The detailed by-city education data are summarized in Table 3. The individual cities are comparable in terms of speaker education, in that ca. 80% in each city had A-levels or a higher degree as their level of education. Education is the best proxy we have for social class, although we know that occupation may be a more reliable predictor ( Baranowski and Turton, 2018). Based on the education data alone, we cannot conclude that all the speakers in our corpus are middle-class (in fact, that is almost certainly not the case), but we can expect that the corpus contains a substantial proportion of middle-class speakers.

Summing up the demographic data, a typical speaker in our sample is an urban white woman in her 30s with a university degree. This speaker profile differs noticeably from the Non-Mobile Old Rural Male archetype traditionally associated with the dialectological paradigm. However, for the purpose of researching GNE, the sample is well-suited, especially in its education characteristics, as we can expect speakers with higher levels of education to display more standard features and fewer regional ones.

2.3. Materials

As previously mentioned in section 2.1, the speakers read the story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." This is a very short text (216 words), which nonetheless contains all English vowels (based on standard descriptions), and so it is appropriate material for investigating English vowels, according to Deterding (1997). We selected one word representing each keyword, as listed in Table 4. In selecting the words, we tried to choose monosyllabic words, but it was not always possible. We could not find consistent selection criteria in terms of segmental and prosodic context, so the set is not well-controlled for in that regard. We keep those limitations in mind when analyzing the results. We acknowledge that we could potentially observe more regional variation related to allophonic alternations if we could vary the segmental and prosodic context systematically. All the keywords, bar one, are based on Wells (1982c). As an additional keyword, we included FOOL. This keyword was chosen to capture the fact that for most younger speakers across many varieties of English, a back [u:] vowel can only occur before a coda /l/ (as in fool), whereas in other contexts, the GOOSE vowel is fronted to [ʉ:] or [y] ( Strycharczuk and Scobbie, 2017a). Furthermore, this allophonic variation is sensitive to regional and social variation, such that /u:/-fronting before an /l/ is attested for some speakers in Manchester ( Baranowski and Turton, 2015) and Liverpool ( Hughes et al., 2012).

2.4. Data Processing

The selected recordings were forced-aligned using an HTK-based forced aligner developed in house. The vowel boundaries were then manually checked by two Undergraduate Research Assistants for all the selected items, listed in Table 4. We measured the first two formants automatically, using Praat. For monophthongs, we measured the formants at midpoint. For diphthongs, we used the onglide and offglide as selected time points, defined as 20 and 80% of the vowel duration respectively. The monophthong-diphthong distinction can differ across different accents. We considered all Standard Southern British English (SSBE) diphthongs as potential diphthongs, and measured them at two points, i.e., CHOICE, FACE, GOAT, MOUTH, NEAR, PRICE, and SQUARE. This is based purely on convention, and it should not be taken as a statement about the dynamic characteristic of any vowel. The convention is not perfect. For instance, SQUARE is often monophthongal, whereas FLEECE and GOOSE can be diphthongized. However, making principled decisions about the classification of each vowel in dynamic terms would require a separate in-depth analysis, and as such, it is beyond the scope of our investigation. Our primary interest is in comparing vowels across different accents, and we assume that measuring vowels at consistent time points for different accents should be sufficient to pick out the relevant cross-accent differences in vowel quality.

We used the Linear Predictive Coding algorithm in Praat to extract the measurements, based on 5 formants, 25 ms Gaussian window and 50 Hz pre-emphasis. For male speakers, the maximum formant was set at 5 kHz, whereas for females speakers, it was 5.5 kHz. All the measurements were checked by PS, and hand-corrected wherever tracking errors were spotted. Although manual corrections affect the reproducibility of our measurements, they were deemed necessary, because we rely on one vowel measurement per keyword per speaker, which makes the analysis sensitive to outliers. Ca. 10% of the measurements were hand-corrected.

2.5. Analysis

The formant data were z-scored within speaker (a modification of Lobanov, 1971). We used the normalized vowel formant measurements as the input to the random-forest based classification. The purpose of the analysis was to establish how individual urban accents differ from the ones representing other cities. This allows us to assess the distinctness of each accent, and to identify the specific vowel features that set individual northern cities apart. Accuracy of the models was evaluated using leave-one-out cross-validation. We illustrate the procedure using Manchester as an example. For each speaker, we constructed a training dataset by removing this speaker from the data. We then created a bootstrapped sample, with equal number of Manchester and non-Manchester speakers, using the remaining data. We under-sampled the majority class to create a balanced sample. We trained a random forest model on this dataset and tested its accuracy by predicting whether the left-out speaker was from Manchester or not. This procedure was repeated 100 times per speaker, resampling the bootstrapped sample each time, and averaging the predictions, a procedure known as bootstrapped aggregation (bagging, Breiman, 1996). We used the default settings of the current version (1.3-3) of the party package, which are the settings suggested for the construction of unbiased conditional random forests by Strobl et al. (2007). In particular, we used mtry=5, where mtry is defined as the "number of input variables randomly sampled as candidates at each node" ( Hothorn et al., 2020), and minicriterion=0, where minicriterion is a parameter that controls the depth of the trees (minicriterion=0 grows trees of maximal depth). We further tested different settings for mtry, checking for potential improvements in accuracy, depending on the settings. We find no overall improvement in accuracy for higher values of mtry beyond 5.

From each model, we extracted conditional variable importance ( Strobl et al., 2008), and ranked the features, according to their relative contribution. We then analyzed the distribution of feature ranking visually, in order to determine which vowels are most consistently used to identify Manchester. The distributions of top ten highest ranking features for Manchester are visualized in Figure 3. As we can see, the F1 of NEAR, measured at onglide ranks the highest, followed by onglide F2 for the same vowel. Note that "F1" and "F2" refer to vowel formants here and throughout the paper.

The methodological decisions in setting up the analysis were made to address some of the challenges introduced by the nature of our data. The use of random forests was motivated by the possibility of calculating conditional feature importance, which allows us to identify which input features have the largest influence in the prediction, i.e., which acoustic properties of which vowels set individual cities apart. With the same aim in mind, we set the dependent variable as binary, i.e. Manchester vs. other northern urban accents, Liverpool vs. other northern urban accents, etc. This, however, creates an unbalanced sample, as in each case, the negative category (data from other cities) is about four times bigger than the data from the target city. In order to address this and create balanced data, we used under-sampling. Since under-sampling excludes useful data from the resulting data sample, we used bagging to consider many possible balanced data samples. Given that the data set is relatively small, we were not in a position to split the data into a training test and test set based on a 25-75% split, as is common in random forest modeling. We used leave-one-out cross-validation instead, so we could evaluate accuracy on unseen data, while maximizing the amount of training data.

In order to get more insight into the effect of individual predictors, we used the same bagging process as above (fitting random forest models on a bootstrapped balanced sample that under-samples the majority class), but using only the two features that consistently ranked as most important. We did this without the leave-one-out procedure, and used 1,000 bootstrapped samples per city. We then computed forest predictions for the whole range of values of these features. The output is a heatmap, as visualized in Figure 4. The left panel shows the mean, over the 1,000 random forest models, of the probability of predicting Manchester. This is visualized using color scale, where highest certainty of identifying Manchester is associated with relatively darker shade of red. As we can see, the likelihood of an accent being classified as Manchester increases for higher F1 and lower F2 values of the NEAR onglide. Based on established correlations between formant values and tongue height and tongue position, we can interpret this result as follows: Manchester accents are associated with a lowered and centralized onglide for NEAR. The right panel of Figure 4 shows the standard deviations for the conditional class probabilities.

Figure 4. Certainty of the random forests predicting Manchester based on F1 and F2 of NEAR measured at onglide.

We also used the formant measurements to generate by-city vowel plots, and we use those for qualitative data analysis. The vowel plots are in section 3.2, and they show by-vowel median formant values for each city. In order to improve the legibility of the plots, we plot tense monophthongs, lax monophthongs and diphthongs separately. We consider BATH to be lax, based on previous descriptions in northern varieties (see section 1.1). Otherwise, the grouping is based on the same convention as discussed in section 2.4 above.

The data were analyzed in R ( R Development Core Team, 2016). The random forests were fitted using the party package 1.3-3 ( Hothorn et al., 2006). The vowel plots were generated using modified code originally written by M. Winn ( http://www.mattwinn.com/tools.html).

3. Results

3.1. Random-Forest Results

3.1.1. Accuracy

We measure accuracy as the number of correct classifications, using the leave-one-out approach (see section 2.5), as a percentage of the number of trials. Table 5 provides the accuracy values for each city, along with sensitivity (true positives), and specificity (true negatives) values. Overall, the frequency of correct classification was relatively high for Liverpool (82%) and Newcastle (71%). For the remaining cities, it was lower with 67% for Leeds and 63% for Manchester. For Sheffield, the classification was close to random with 55% accuracy.

If different northern English dialects are becoming more alike, this is predicted to lower the prediction accuracy for the classification models. The overall accuracy results suggest a certain degree of dialect leveling, especially affecting Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds. This is further supported by the accuracy figures broken down for pairs of cities. Table 6 shows the accuracy figures for each set of forests (forests trained on Leeds as positive category, Manchester as positive category, etc.), in classifying speakers from each remaining city. In this case, correct classification is always negative. This summary confirms that Liverpool and Newcastle are generally well-discriminated from the remaining cities. In contrast, Leeds and Sheffield are highly confusable. Forests trained on Leeds data are more likely than not to classify Sheffield speakers as coming from Leeds. The same situation occurs for models trained on Sheffield: they tend to classify Leeds speakers as coming from Sheffield. There is also a degree of confusability between Leeds and Manchester: classification is close to 50% for this pair of cities, although it is marginally better than random.

3.1.2. Distinguishing Features

The features with the highest median ranking of feature importance for each forest are listed in Table 8. The table also provides the direction of prediction for each city, which is based on the heatmaps. We focus on two features for each city, based on the observation that there was typically a large difference in median ranking between the two top features and the rest. This suggests that most forests tend to rely most heavily on the same features. We confirmed this by refitting the forests based on top two features for each city only, and analyzing the resulting accuracy. As can be seen in Table 7, the accuracy only degrades slightly. We find the biggest drop in accuracy for Liverpool, but the accuracy is nonetheless still high at 73%. For Sheffield, we find an improvement in accuracy, which suggests that having more features leads to overfitting. These results should not be taken to mean that other features do not contribute to the prediction. Since some vowel formants are generally correlated with each other (e.g., THOUGHT and NORTH, diphthongs offglides), we expect that a reasonable degree of accuracy could also be achieved based on different feature combinations, and this is confirmed by exploratory further modeling we have done. Dealing with highly correlated features is one of the strengths of conditional random forests ( Strobl et al., 2007), and the known existence of correlations was precisely one of the reasons for choosing this method.

According to forest prediction, the KIT vowel is raised in Leeds, while NORTH is lowered. For Sheffield, the top ranking features are a particularly retracted realization of FOOL and raised onglide of NEAR. The onglide of NEAR is also the most prominent feature for classifying Manchester: in Manchester, the onglide is relatively lowered and centralized.

Based on the random forests, the most systematic features of Liverpool accent are a lowered lett ER vowel and a fronted FOOL. Newcastle has a considerably lowered STRUT vowel. The second high-ranking feature for Newcastle is the offglide of PRICE, which is fronted, compared to other cities.

3.2. By-City Vowel Systems

In this section, we present qualitative comparisons of median by-city vowel systems, focusing on the features previously discussed in the literature, summarized in section 1.1. The reader is reminded that the vowel plots are based on one word per vowel, and the segmental context was not controlled for between vowels, but it was consistent between cities (see Table 4 for the items we used). Therefore, distances between any two vowels within a city might be skewed, but vowels are comparable between cities. Our description is based on medians, and we do not take variance into account at this stage. Therefore, any observed differences should be taken with caution.

We begin with tense monophthongs, illustrated in Figure 5. For tense monophthongs, the results seem broadly consistent with previous descriptions. GOOSE is not a back vowel for any of the accents. However, the degree of GOOSE-fronting varies between cities. It is most advanced in Leeds and Manchester, followed by Liverpool, Sheffield and Newcastle. Furthermore, GOOSE is somewhat higher in Leeds, compared to other cities. Furthermore, all cities show considerably more fronting in GOOSE than FOOL. However, there are regional differences in the degree of FOOL-fronting. In Sheffield and Leeds, FOOL is back. The similarity between Sheffield and Leeds in this respect may be one of the factors contributing to the confusability between the two cities, seeing how FOOL retraction is one of the main features of Sheffield. In Liverpool, there is a considerable degree of FOOL-fronting, consistent with what is identified by the random forest analysis. Manchester and Newcastle show in-between median degrees of FOOL-fronting, but the vowel can still be considered back. Another vowel showing some variation is NURSE. It is considerably lowered in Liverpool, compared to other cities. In Newcastle, the median NURSE realization is mid and front-centralized. It resembles most other cities (and SSBE), as opposed to fronted and retracted variants noted in Tyneside (see section 1.1.5). The THOUGHT vowel is somewhat lowered in Leeds. Although the difference is subtle, THOUGHT-lowering is picked out by the random forest analysis as a distinguishing feature for Leeds. This is also consistent with Wells's 1982b description of the open quality of THOUGHT in Leeds.

The by-city lax vowel systems are illustrated in Figure 6. Once again, these are median values without measures of dispersion. Regional differences can be noted in the F1 of happ Y. The vowel is higher in Liverpool and Newcastle, compared to Leeds, Sheffield, and Manchester. This is consistent with previous descriptions about the regional distribution of happ Y-tensing, as present consistently in Liverpool and Newcastle, but not in Manchester or Yorkshire. Nevertheless, happ Y is higher than KIT for all cities, except Leeds, which is however, due to KIT being exceptionally raised in Leeds (same as in Table 8). There does not seem to much evidence for FOOT-fronting in any of the cities, unlike in SSBE ( Hawkins and Midgley, 2005; Strycharczuk and Scobbie, 2017b). Note that, in the present data, FOOT tends to have similar degree of acoustic backness to LOT. There seems to be some slight FOOT-fronting in Newcastle, whereas in Liverpool, the FOOT vowel is the most retracted. The STRUT vowel is lower than FOOT for all cities, and it is especially low in Newcastle, where STRUT is clearly distinct from FOOT. The TRAP and BATH vowels show some regional variation in height, but generally BATH is as front as TRAP for all cities. The DRESS vowel is somewhat lowered in Liverpool, compared to other locations. The lett ER vowel is very similar in Leeds, Sheffield, and Manchester, but relatively more open in Liverpool and Newcastle.

In comparison to previous descriptions, our results largely confirm that the reports about the regional distribution of happ Y tensing. They also confirm that, across the North of England, the BATH vowel patterns with TRAP. The lowering of lett ER in Newcastle is consistent with the description by Wells (1982b). However, we also find lett ER lowering in Liverpool, where it had not been noted. Conversely, the Manchester lett ER vowel is not lowered, contra the stereotype. The DRESS vowel also seems lowered, as well as centered in Liverpool. Perhaps most strikingly, for all cities, and especially in Newcastle, we find some STRUT lowering, relative to FOOT.

Figure 7 illustrates the diphthongs systems for the individual cities. Impressionistically, the diphthongs appear to show more regional variation than monophthongs. FACE is a closing diphthong for all cities. The median values do not include monophthongal varieties, as reported for Yorkshire, or centring diphthongs, as reported for Newcastle. In Manchester and Liverpool, FACE seems to be more diphthongal, compared to other cities. A similar generalization can be made for GOAT: it is a closing diphthong overall, and it is relatively wider in Manchester and Liverpool. Furthermore, there is regional variation with respect to the onglide of GOAT. In Liverpool, there is quite clear GOAT-fronting. The offglide of GOAT is also more front in Leeds and Sheffield, compared to Manchester and Newcastle. The PRICE vowel has a relatively back and low onglide for all cities. The offglide, however, differs by city. In Liverpool, PRICE is relatively monophthongal, which, however, is likely due to the segmental context, since was followed by a nasal ( time), and PRICE monophthongisation before nasal is noted for Liverpool by Knowles (1978). In Newcastle, PRICE is a very wide diphthong. The remaining cities have an in-between, but clearly diphthongal variant. The MOUTH vowel is relatively stable across the cities. The NEAR vowel is a centring diphthong in Leeds, Sheffield, and Newcastle. In Liverpool and especially Manchester, it is considerably more monophthongal. In Liverpool, it still seems to have a centring, if a short, trajectory. In Manchester, the offglide is somewhat higher than the onglide, but there is very little movement overall. The SQUARE vowel is quite clearly diphthongal in Newcastle, with a surprisingly low offglide. In comparison, other cities have a more monophthongal variant. In Liverpool, the SQUARE vowel is relatively raised, overlapping in the formant range with NURSE, consistent with previous reports of a NURSE- SQUARE merger.

4. Discussion

The main hypothesis underlying this research is that a large group of speakers in the North of England are converging to a pan-regional standard, and therefore, they cannot be localized further within the North, based on their vowel system. We investigated this by quantifying the success of random forest models trained to differentiate selected Northern English urban accents from a mixed pool of other Northern English accents. Overall, we find that two northern urban accents, Liverpool and Newcastle, remain quite distinct, and therefore they pose few challenges to classification, whereas we do observe a degree of classification uncertainty between Manchester and Leeds accents, and even more so between Leeds and Sheffield accents. From previous descriptions, we would expect that Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield accents are more similar to one another than Newcastle or Leeds. However, our current results allow us to quantify this observation with more precision: while some speakers from these cities can be reliably classified in terms of their accents, in about half of the cases, Leeds and Sheffield speakers in our data are mutually misclassified. Similarly, the classification accuracy for the Manchester-Leeds pair approaches random.

Similarities between the vowel systems of Leeds, Sheffield, and Manchester are further confirmed by the median vowel measurements for each city, as shown in Figures 5- 7. For example, for all three cities, the typical happ Y realization is tense, GOOSE is fronted, whereas FOOL is retracted, and FACE, PRICE, and CHOICE are all closing diphthongs. All these features are, broadly, also observed in Southern British English, and their robust presence in our data can be taken as a sign of dialect leveling in the North toward a more general British Standard. However, some general northern features prevail, including fronted realization of BATH (consistent with no BATH- TRAP split) and a raised STRUT vowel. The three accents also share a monophthongised realization of SQUARE, which is considered a general northern feature by Honeybone (2007).

The realization of STRUT warrants further comment: while the vowel is relatively raised for all cities (less so for Newcastle), it is not identical to FOOT. This is different from SSBE, but also different from traditional descriptions of Northern English that report no distinction between FOOT and STRUT as one of the identifying features of Northern British English. We must be careful in the phonological interpretation of the phonetic difference we observe. The measurements are not based on a minimal pair, so we cannot be certain that the observed difference in medians is due to a phonemic split between STRUT and FOOT. However, it seems unlikely that a difference of this magnitude would be due to phonetic coarticulation alone. The test items we used were duck and foot, and there is no reason to expect a strong F1 raising effect in the case of duck. We had examined the realization of FOOT and STRUT more systematically in Strycharczuk et al. (2019), using the same corpus, but including more tokens. We found that about 25% of speakers in the corpus have a phonemic split between FOOT and STRUT, while many more have a small but systematic phonetic distinction in the same direction. Thus, the most accurate characterization of the STRUT vowel in the North of England, according to our data, is that the vowel is considerably raised compared to Southern British English [ʌ], but the quality is not necessarily identical to FOOT. A similar observation is made by Turton and Baranowski (2020), based on socially stratified sample of speakers from Manchester. Turton and Baranowski show that the degree of STRUT systematically correlates with social class, with more lowering present in middle-class speakers, compared to working class.

We would argue that the vowel systems for Leeds, Sheffield, and Manchester, as presented in our paper, are all representative of pan-regional General Northern English. At the same time, however, this variety is not a monolith. Some systematic differences between these cities are present in our data. One striking example is the NEAR vowel in Manchester, which has a distinct realization, with a lowered and centralized onglide. Further analysis of sample distribution of F1 and F2 in the onglide of NEAR reveals the presence of even more extremely centralized variants, and these are confined to Manchester. For Leeds, KIT raising is very distinct, and in this case, we see relatively little overlap in F1 values for KIT between Leeds and other cities.

A key outcome of our study is that the features we find to be of most systematic importance in distinguishing individual northern accents are typically not traditional accent features. Among the features listed in Table 8 only one, NORTH lowering in Leeds is mentioned in a previous description, Wells (1982b), as characteristic of that city. In a way, this is in line with the prediction that dialect-leveling targets salient regional features ( Trudgill, 1986; Kerswill, 2003). It is then also expected that less salient regional features may be resistant to leveling. We also believe there is an additional reason why some lesser described features emerge as most important for the classification. To understand this, we need to consider that the success of machine-based classification is facilitated by features that show high-across city and low within-city variation. If the sample from any particular city mostly contains fairly standard speakers, and these speakers make up the most of the training data, the model might not be successful in classifying a speaker who has some very distinct regional features, but who is thereby also very different from the other speakers in the same sample. In contrast, the machine learner performs better with features that are highly consistent, even if the requisite phonetic differences are small. It may also ignore some features that are not consistent within the sample. This is different from a human listener, who is more likely to pay attention to features that are striking, even if such features are less systematic. Translating this distinction into the Labovian paradigm of indicators, markers and stereotypes ( Labov, 1972), machine learners will be highly sensitive to indicators, features that systematically distinguish dialects, but that are not the subject of sociolinguistic awareness. It is the absence of sociolinguistic awareness that makes such features systematic within a dialect. Human listeners, on the other hand, are more likely to pick up on markers and stereotypes, by the very definition of markers and stereotypes. This also has consequences in production: speakers are more likely to avoid (some) markers or stereotypes when trying to sound standard.

This point is illustrated by two speakers, each of whom scored 100% accuracy across 100 simulations set up to identify Manchester. This means that 100 models based on different samples, all of which excluded the speaker in question, correctly classified that speaker as coming from Manchester. Figure 8 shows the formant values for selected vowels, as pronounced by the two speakers. To a linguist, two differences between these two speakers immediately stand out. Speaker 6398 shows has FOOL-fronting, a feature we find in Liverpool English, and which has also been reported in Manchester working class speech. In contrast, speaker 7589 has a retracted FOOL vowel. The two speakers also differ with respect to the FOOT- STRUT contrast: speaker 7589 has a very clear contrast, and the magnitude of the distance seems consistent with a phonological split. Speaker 6398 does not seem to have a difference between FOOT and STRUT, or if there is a difference, it is phonetically marginal. Based on these features, speaker 7589 seems more standard, and in fact, closer to the southern standard, given her pronunciation of STRUT. Speaker 6398, on the other hand, shows clear northern features, including some non-standard ones. However, they both have a lowered and centralized onglide for NEAR. The fact that speaker 7589 incorporates this vowel into an otherwise very standard system corroborates our proposal that lowered and centralized NEAR is an indicator of Manchester speech. This vowel is pronounced differently in Sheffield and Leeds, where the onglide is very close to the offglide of FACE (see Figure 7).

The differences between the two speakers in Figure 8 and the ways they differ from the Manchester median in Figures 5- 7 also bring up an important point about individual variation. We may ask whether these two speakers speak GNE. Are they examples of individual variation within GNE, or do they represent a degree of variation from the standard? If we define GNE as a set of vowel target realizations, then we might be inclined to say the two Manchester speakers are not representative of this variety, or even the Manchester version of it. However, under such a narrow definition, we might find that very few individuals do, in fact, speak GNE. Alternatively, we can also define GNE not by the kind of features we find in the majority of middle-class Northern English speakers, but also by the kind of features we do not find. What we do not find is certain marked regional variants, which we can suspect, are perceived by speakers as markers of social class, or lower social prestige. Examples of these include traditional Yorkshire features, such as monophthongised FACE, or a lowered lett ER in Manchester. As another possibility, we can define GNE in terms of ranges of possible variation that are set differently for different vowels. For example, there may be a degree of variation possible for the STRUT vowel, such that raised realization as well as some degree of lowering can both be considered GNE. Some regional indicators, as we find in the study, would probably also fit within the permitted range. For instance, the NEAR vowel might be considered standard in both its Manchester and Sheffield variant, even though the two variants clearly differ. Some other vowels, on the other hand, may not vary in the same way. For instance, a speaker with a retracted BATH vowel may be considered standard, but no longer Northern, whereas a speaker with a monopthongised FACE may be seen as northern, but no longer standard.

Liverpool and Newcastle systematically depart from any possible description of GNE. Liverpool accent shows robust local features, including systematic fronting of FOOL, and lowering of lett ER. Note that both these features may not be entirely localized to Liverpool, based on previous literature. Sources report FOOL-fronting in working class Manchester speech ( Baranowski and Turton, 2015), whereas an open quality of the lett ER vowel is, in fact, one of the most stereotyped features of Manchester speech. The fact that, in our data we find these two features to be markers of Liverpool, rather than Manchester, might suggest that the two features carry different social meaning in the two cities. Among other possibilities, they may be more stigmatized in Manchester than in Liverpool, such that more standard Manchester speakers avoid them. Note that Manchester speakers in our sample avoid lett ER lowering. If anything, they have a raised lett ER vowel compared to other cities. More generally, Liverpool speakers are also likely to differ from other Northern speakers in their attitude toward local features. Although we are not aware of systematic across-city comparisons in this respect, Juskan (2018) presents qualitative data on the attitudes of Liverpool speakers toward their own accent. Some of them explicitly mention the distinctness of Liverpool speech within the UK, and comment on local identity and local pride. A strong sense of local identity is likely to make an accent more resistant to leveling, such that many speakers hold on to at least some regional features. This possibility is consistent with our results. Not only is Liverpool clearly distinct from other cities, but it also shows features that are potentially stigmatized elsewhere in the North ( FOOL-fronting). We also find evidence of Liverpool accent preserving its own unique dialect features. For instance, the median vowel formant measurements for NURSE and SQUARE in our data are consistent with there being a NURSE- SQUARE merger in Liverpool, as previously described for this city. Previous research also shows that this feature has relatively low local social prestige ( Watson and Clark, 2013), but it resists leveling nonetheless.

Newcastle speech, as represented in our sample, is also distinct, but not because local variants featuring heavily. On the contrary, the Newcastle speakers seem closer to the Southern British standard than the Northern one. One of the salient parameters of variation, in this respect, is that many of the Newcastle speakers had a robust, phonemic-like FOOT- STRUT distinction (this is true for half of the Newcastle speakers in this corpus, as analyzed in Strycharczuk et al., 2019). This finding is similar to the results from Halfacre and Khattab (2019), who report a FOOT- STRUT split in privately educated speakers from Newcastle. The second most prominent feature of Newcastle speech, a fronted offglide of PRICE, is also a feature of standard speech. We also note from Figure 7 that Newcastle is the only city in our sample with a diphthongal pronunciation of SQUARE, which is also typical of SSBE. Meanwhile, the representative vowel charts do not contain any traditional Newcastle vowel features, such as centring diphthongs in FACE and GOAT. It is not obvious why standard Newcastle speech should be, in a sense, "less northern," than the standard speech of Manchester or Leeds speakers. We can speculate that the social status of the local accent in Newcastle is different than in Manchester or Leeds, such that more standard speakers may avoid blending local features into their speech. Negative attitudes toward traditional accent in Newcastle are mentioned in the context of dialect leveling in this city, as observed by Watt (2002). A related hypothesis is that a raised STRUT vowel is evaluated differently in Newcastle than in other northern UK cities, hence it is not incorporated into the standard. It is also relevant to consider the proximity of Newcastle to the Scottish border. Since Scottish English does not have a FOOT- STRUT split, dialect contact might serve to reinforce the split in neighboring varieties.

Throughout the discussion, we have made references to social meaning in our proposed interpretation of the data. We have set out hypotheses about how specific vowel features may be evaluated, and how such evaluations might differ across the North. Perceptual research is necessary to provide a systematic description of General Northern English. Ultimately, standard speech is defined by what listeners perceive as standard, although it is instructive to see how individuals may deviate from that in production, whether or not consciously. In this context, our research not so much settles all the questions surrounding General Northern English, as it tells us where to look further. Our key contribution is identifying the features that are the loci of systematic regional variation, and features that are not. Further research can determine the relationship between this observed variation and the social perception of standard speech in the North.

In order to identify the features that contribute to differentiate regional accents, we have proposed a novel method, based on random forest classification. This method can be extended to comparing any types of groups that may be of sociolinguistic interest. It can also be extended to include additional features, such as consonantal features, and potentially also to categorical variables. An explicit method for feature selection could be a valuable tool in sociolinguistics, informing researchers' choices of what to study. Currently, the feature choices on the part of sociolinguists are not always overtly motivated. Oftentimes, they are simply the features that researchers notice. However, just like any human listeners, linguists can be biased in their perception, paying special attention to features they know about from previous literature, to features that are marked, and to phonetic differences that are big. One unfortunate outcome of this situation is that instances of small but systematic variation can be systematically missed. The tool we have developed is particularly good at identifying such variation, and as such, it can inform research decisions. Due to its success with identifying regional indicators, the method may have also applications in forensic contexts, such as accent profiling.

We developed the method specifically to maximize the returns from using a relatively small speaker sample. From a computational perspective, our sample ( N = 105) is indeed small. However, it is a fairly standard number of speakers for a study in speech variation. The practicalities of working with speech seriously limit the amount of data we can presently collect and process. The long-term goal for speech variation studies is to scale up the amount of speech data from different varieties, potentially by pooling different corpora. Such work is already under way (e.g., Stuart-Smith et al., 2020), although we are still some way away from having rich large-scale spoken English corpora with good geographical coverage. In the meantime, trying to mitigate against the limitations of existing resources allows us to continue documenting speech variation, improving the methods as we go along.

5. Conclusion

In this study, we used random-forest based classification to quantify the mutual levels of similarity of vowel systems in different accents. Our interest was in evaluating the hypothesis that dialect leveling in middle-class Northern English speakers has led to convergence toward a pan-regional General Northern English. We do find some evidence of such convergence, although some accents cluster in this respect (Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield), whereas others remain more distinct (Liverpool, Newcastle). Our proposed interpretation of this geographical variation relies on regional variance in language attitude, and differences in the perception of local dialect prestige and local pride. Furthermore, while some traditional accent features may be recessive, most speakers in our sample can still be reliably localized to their particular city. This is often cued by less described, but nevertheless systematic vowel features. This finding is consistent with the prediction that dialect-leveling predominantly targets marked regional features. However, it also highlights that we need to re-evaluate the relevant parameters for variation when updating dialect descriptions. Our study contributes a method for doing that, which combines the benefits of computational approaches (an explicit computational procedure) with being phonetically interpretable, which in turn, bridges our findings with more traditional variationist work.

Data Availability Statement

The data and code used in this study are available at https://osf.io/vtp79/.

Author Contributions

This study was initiated by PS. The data were extracted and prepared by GB and AL, using bespoke tools designed by GB for forced alignment. PS and ML-I collaborated on the conception of the analysis. The analysis was designed and executed by ML-I. PS wrote the manuscript, which was read, revised and approved by all authors.

Funding

We received support from Manchester Q-Step, who funded two Undergraduate Researcher Assistant positions. The open access publications fees are covered by the University of Manchester Library.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We thank the Undergraduates Research Assistants, Enhui Cheng and Chloe Gornall, for help with processing data. The Research Assistants were funded through Manchester Q-Step.

Footnote

References

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random forest (bagging) and machine learning

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General Northern English. Exploring Regional Variation in the North of England With Machine Learning

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In this paper, we present a novel computational approach to the analysis of accent variation. The case study is dialect leveling in the North of England, manifested as reduction of accent variation across the North and emergence of General Northern English (GNE), a pan-regional standard accent associated with middle-class speakers.

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Have you ever tried to put on a British accent? The chances are the accent you're trying to copy is 'Received Pronunciation', or standard English - also known as the Queen's English. Received Pronunciation, or RP, is what most non-Brits are used to hearing as a British accent, often when you switch on the BBC or World Service.

But it's called the Queen's English for a reason - hardly anyone in the UK apart from the Queen speaks this way. Here's a little taster from Her Majesty.

The truth is, although it may be called Standard English, it is anything but standard. The British Isles is made up many, many different accents and dialects - more than 37 dialects at the last count. A dialect is a variety of a language that differs from the standard language, in this case RP. Dialects can vary regionally - depending on where in the country a person is from, as well as socially.

Here's a guide to just a few of these British dialects, which you're sure to encounter on any trip to the UK. London especially, drawing people from all over the UK to live and work, is a melting pot of all of these different dialects.

Improve your English grammar, vocabulary and more with EF English Live. Get started for free

The British Library has a fantastic online resource for anyone interest in Britain's uniquely diverse range of accents and dialects. You can search by county, or by map, to find out how people speak all over the country.

Don't be afraid to try out different dialects yourself. By copying them yourself you'll get better at understanding them when you hear them - and with a little practice you'll be able to guess where a person is from in the UK just from their accent. It's actually a lot of fun, as these dialects vary so much. Good luck!

Types of British Accents

Cockney

This is one of the UK's most famous dialects, and it goes hand in hand with London. It came about as the dialect of the London working classes, especially in the poorer East End of the city. The Cockney dialect also gave us Rhyming Slang, and you can still hear plenty of market traders round the East End shouting out in Cockney from their stalls. With the Cockney accent there are lots of 'glottal stops', and the 'th' sound frequently changes to an 'f' sound. There have also been some famously terrible attempts at the Cockney dialect - here's Dick Van Dyke to show you how not to do it!

Estuary English

Here's another dialect that is London-based. The 'Estuary' in question is the Thames Estuary, and this dialect is spoken by people who live along its stretch. It's now becoming one of the most widely spoken accents down south. It's not as posh as RP, but it's not as 'common' as Cockney. Here's a little video guide to teach you more!

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a big county in England, and lots of people speak with a variation of the Yorkshire dialect as a result. Known as 'God's Own County', Yorkshire has a delicious dialect. One of the biggest difference between this dialect and RP is that words ending in an 'ee' sound, like 'nasty', are pronounced with an 'eh' sound, like 'nasteh'.

Northern Irish

The Northern Irish accent is quite a beautiful one, and a strong one too. The first thing you'll probably notice about Northern Irish is how many letters seem to be missing from words when people speak it. For example, 'Northern Irish' would be pronounced more like 'Nor'n Ir'sh'! Here are some great tips.

Scottish

The Scottish dialect varies hugely from city to city, town to town, and becomes increasingly like the Irish accent in the Western Isles, and increasingly like Nordic languages in the islands to the far north. The more remote the area, the stronger the accent seems to become, so people from the Shetland Islands can be hard to understand at first. And Glaswegian can be tricky too - even for Scots themselves!

Brummie

If you come from Birmingham, you'll speak the Brummie dialect - like Ozzy Osbourne. He may have been living in LA for years, but he hasn't lost his accent - which goes to show just how strong this dialect is. It's quite soft, and elastic, and lumpy sounding!

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Scouse

If you come from Liverpool, like John, Paul, Ringo and George, then you'll speak Scouse. The Liverpudlian accent is one of the most famous British regional accents thanks to the Beatles, and it's a very nasal dialect that can be hard to copy at first!

Geordie

People from Newcastle speak the Geordie dialect, and they're called Geordies too. One of the biggest differences between Geordie and RP is that the 'r's at the end of words aren't pronounced, and tend to be pronounced as 'ah' instead. So a word like 'sugar' becomes 'sug-ah'. And a word like, say, 'Space Centre' becomes 'Space Cent-ah'!

What British dialects have you encountered so far? What are your favourites and which do you find the hardest to follow? Let us know in the comments!
Similar article: English Around Britain

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British Accents and Dialects: A Rough Guide | EF English Live

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Have you ever tried to put on a British accent? The chances are the accent you're trying to copy is 'Received Pronunciation', or standard English - also known as the

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Above are British English transcriptions from Cambridge (blue) and Oxford (orange) dictionaries.

The words are the same, the accent is the same, but the transcriptions are different. In this article we are going to explore 2 questions about this strange contrast:

1) Why are there 2 versions of the same word?

2) Are the pronunciations different?
Watch the video (7 minutes), or scroll down for a written summary of all the key points. At the bottom of this page there is an IPA variation quiz.
In order to understand what's going on, we need to look at the vowel grid from the International Phonetic Alphabet:

The shape represents the mouth. The horizontal lines are the tongue, and the vertical lines represent are jaw.

At the top, the jaw is nearly closed:

at the bottom it's open:

at the left of the grid, the tongue is at the front of the mouth:

and if we go to the right, the tongue is towards the back which normally causes lip rounding in English:

Vowel Grid Symbols

Each symbol represents a mouth position, and where you can see 2 symbols in one place, the one on the right side is made with rounded lips. So [i] is not rounded but [y] is rounded because it is on the right side of 2 symbols.

Languages don't replicate the positions of these symbols exactly, as we tend to stay more in the central areas as we speak:

This means that the symbol on the IPA chart is not exactly the same sound as the one found in a dictionary transcription of a language. So the /iː/ in English SHEEP is not exactly the same as the [i] on the vowel grid.

Phonemic Charts

In a phonemic chart, there is one symbol for one sound. English has about 12 single vowel sound positions (monophthongs) so we need a symbol from the vowel grid for each one.

We also need combinations of symbols for the 6 to 8 diphthongs, the vowel sounds that move from one position to another in the same sound. So in total we need roughly 20 phonemes for English vowel sounds.

Some of the choices seem fairly straight-forward, if we say the vowel sounds in SHEEP and SHIP, they are somewhere around these positions:

So publishers can use these symbols to show these two different sounds. Additionally as /i/ is generally a bit longer, most publishers choose to show this using the symbols for length /ː/ further helping to distinguish the sounds:

This choice was fairly clear and in this case, we haven't had to use any unusual symbols, the SHEEP phoneme is small /i/ and SHIP is a little capital /ɪ/.

Symbols with Variations

Not all choices are as clear as the SHIP/SHEEP vowels.

For example, look at two different pronunciations of British English speakers for the vowel sound in PEN:

The blue pronunciation is closest to /e/, and the orange is closest to /ɛ/. So either symbol could be used.

This occurs in other vowel sounds (the vowel grid shows the pronunciation of the vowel in each word):

Since both the orange and the blue pronunciations are considered 'standard', you could choose the closest symbol to either of them. This explains why dictionaries have ended up with these different transcriptions for the words:

https://media.pronunciationstudio.com/2023/04/3SOUNDS1.mp3

https://media.pronunciationstudio.com/2023/04/3SOUNDS2.mp3

The king's symbols represent a more old-fashioned 'Received Pronunciation' accent, and the singer's symbols fit a more modern GB English accent.

/əː/ or /ɜː/?

2 symbols that don't represent a big difference in position are those found in TURN. The choice around these two symbols is focussed on whether /ɜː/ is a long version of the schwa /ə/.

The Phonemic Principle

Although it is true that the different symbols can to some extent represent a more modern or a more old-fashioned pronunciation, there isn't actually much difference between them.

The phonemic principle of ONE SOUND = ONE SYMBOL (allowing for the occasional combination of symbols), means that it doesn't make any practical difference if the symbol used is /e/ or /ɛ/ as they represent the same sound. Any learner or teacher will need to interpret the symbol to the accent model they are using.

For this reason, it's perfectly possible to have different symbols in different dictionaries pronounced in exactly the same way. And this is why there is really no practical difference for learners of English between the two sets.

Which are most popular?

In March '23 we polled our users on Instagram to ask which set of symbols they prefer:

So for now it seems the more old-fashioned symbols are still preferred, at least by Pronunciation Studio's audience (visit us on Insta @pronunciation.studio and head to the IPA section to add your vote).

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British English IPA Variations Above are British English transcriptions from Cambridge (blue) and Oxford (orange) dictionaries. The words are the same, the accent is the same, but the transcriptions are different. In this article we are going to explore 2 questions about this strange contrast:

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The United Kingdom is perhaps the most dialect-obsessed country in the world. With near-countless regional Englishes shaped by millennia of history, few nations boast as many varieties of language in such a compact geography.
(NOTE: This page uses the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For information about this notation, please visit my page of IPA Resources.)
The below lists several important types of British English. While not a complete account by any means, this page provides an overview of the accents and dialects most often discussed on this site and elsewhere.

Received Pronunciation

Received Pronunciation (a term by 19th Century linguist A.J. Ellis) is the probably the closest the United Kingdom has ever had to a "standard accent." Although originally related to the upper-classes in London and other areas of Southeast England, it is largely non-regional. You've likely heard the accent countless times in Jane Austen adaptations, Merchant Ivory films, and Oscar Wilde plays. It emerged from the 18th- and 19th-Century upper classes, and has remained the "gold standard" ever since.

Non-rhoticity, meaning the r at the ends of words isn't prounounced (mother sounds like "muhthuh").

Trap-bath split, meaning that certain a words, like bath, can't, and dance are pronounced with the broad-a in father. (This differs from most American accents, in which these words are pronounced with the short-a in cat.

The vowels tend to be a bit more conservative than other accents in Southern England, which have undergone significant vowel shifting over the past century.

Speech Samples:
Cockney

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

Raised vowel in words like trap and cat so these sounds like "trep" and "cet."

Non-rhoticity: see explanation above under Received Pronunciation, above.

Trap-bath split: see explanation above under Received Pronunciation.

London vowel shift: The vowel sounds are shifted around 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 the back 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 often becomes a vowel sound Hence pal can seem to sound like "pow." (I've seen this rendered in IPA as /w/, /o,/ and /ɰ/.)

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

Speech Samples:
Estuary English (Southeast British)

Estuary is an accent derived from London English which has achieved a status slightly similar to "General American" in the US. Features of the accent can be heard around Southeast England, East Anglia, and perhaps further afield. It is arguably creeping into the Midlands and North.

Similar to Cockney, but in general Estuary speakers do not front th words or raise the vowel in trap. There are few hard-and-fast rules, however.

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

Speech Samples:
West Country (Southwest British)

West Country refers to a large swath of accents heard in the South of England, starting about fifty miles West of London and extending to the Welsh border.

Rhoticity, meaning that the letter r is pronounced after vowels. So, for example, whereas somebody from London would pronounce mother as "muthah," somebody from Bristol would say "mutherrr". (i.e. the way people pronounce the word in America or Ireland).

Otherwise, this is a huge dialect area, so there's tons of variation.

Speech Samples:
Midlands English

Midlands English is one of the more stigmatized of Englishes. Technically, this can be divided into East Midlands and West Midlands, but I won't get into the differences between the two just now. The most famous of these dialects is Brummie (Birmingham English).

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

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

A variety of unusual vocabulary: some East Midlands dialects still feature a variant of the word "thou!"

Speech samples:
Northern England English

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

The foot-stut merger: (see the Midlands description above).

Non-rhoticity, except in some rural areas.

The dipthong in words like kite and ride is lengthened so 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 mean mother, similar to Irish English.

Speech Samples:

Geordie

Geordie usually refers to both the people and dialect of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, in Northeast England. The word may also refer to accents and dialects in Northeast England in general. I would classify this as a separate region from the rest of Northern England because it's so radically different from the language spoken in nearby cities.

The foot-stut merger(see the Midlands description above).

Non-rhoticity (in the cities at least)

The /ai/ dipthong in kite is raised to IPA ɛɪ, so it sounds a bit more like American or Standard British "kate."

The /au/ dipthong in "about" is pronounced IPA u: (that is, "oo") in strong dialects. Hence bout can sound like "boot."

Speech Samples:

Welsh English

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

Usually non-rhotic.

English is generally modelled after Received Pronunciation or related accents, but with many holdovers from the Welsh language.

Syllables tend to be very evenly stressed, and the prosody of the accent is often very "musical".

The letter r is often trilled or tapped.

Some dialect words imported from the Welsh language.

Speech Samples:
Scottish English

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

Rhotic, with trilled or tapped r's.

Glottal stopping of the letter t when in between vowels (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.

Speech Samples:
Conclusion

This list is woefully incomplete. I can't count the smaller dialect areas that aren't covered here (East Anglia, Urban Cardiff, Cornish English, Northumberland, etc.) However, I've attempted to list the accents and dialects you'll see referenced the most on this blog and elsewhere.
1. Case Studies: Received Pronunciation. The British Library.↩

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The United Kingdom is perhaps the most dialect-obsessed country in the world. With near-countless regional Englishes shaped by millennia of history, few nations boast as many varieties of language in such a compact geography. (NOTE: This page uses the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For information about this notation, please visit my page of IPA Resources.)

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Speaker from California, United States

Speaker from England, United Kingdom

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