Age: 22 years old

Gender: Female

Country: Leeds, West Yorkshire, England

(Sources taken from International Dialects of English Archive, https://www.dialectsarchive.com/)

2. iːvn səʊ, ɒn hɜː fɜːst ˈmɔːnɪŋ, ʃiː fɛlt strɛst, ʃiː eɪt ə bəʊl ɒv ˈpɒrɪʤ, ʧɛkt hɜːˈsɛlf ɪn ðə ˈmɪrər ænd wɒʃt hɜː feɪs ɪn ə ˈhʌri.

3. ðɛn, ʃiː pʊt ɒn ə pleɪn ˈjɛləʊ drɛs ænd ə fliːs ˈʤækɪt, pɪk ʌp hɜː kiː ænd ˈhɛdɪd fɔː wɜːk.

As time took its toll, Leeds grew into a busy market town, especially from the 13th century onwards, and developed a strong local speech pattern as people from rural yorkshire moved into the city.

The Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries brought even more growth, and with it, a vibrant working class community that preserved unique features of Northern English. Today, the Leeds accent includes flat vowels, short “a” sounds as in “bath” and local terms like "I'm proper chuffed!" (I'm very excited!) and “I dassn't do it.” (i dare not do it.), thus reflecting the deep linguistic roots and regional identity. 

The Leeds accent, representative of the West Yorkshire English, demonstrates a number of notable vowel shifts that distinguish it from Received Pronunciation (RP). These vowel shifts are systematic and reflect broader trends in Northern English phonology.

“Work” shifts from /wɜːk/ to a more centralized form like “wuhk”.

The word “work” has in it the prominent feature of vowel realisation. RP pronounces this typically as /wɜːk/, with a stressed, long, mid-central vowel. However, in the Leeds variety, this vowel centralises also possibly diphthongises. This results in a pronunciation that is much closer to [wʊək] or even [wəːk]. They often shorten the vowel sound more lax, and they position the tongue centrally. This phonetic realisation does align with the Northern English tendency of avoiding the RP-like /ɜː/, because it substitutes this with variants that do approximate [ʊə], [əː], or even just a monophthongal [ʊ] in more reduced contexts.

“Nurse” changes from /nɜːs/ to a dipthong, resulting in “nuhhse”.

A similar pattern is observable within the word “nurse”, realized in RP as /nɜːs/. Speakers of the Leeds accent often render this with a breathier, more diphthongized, also centralized vowel, such as [nɜə̯s] also [nʊəs]; thus, they produce a perceptually distinct variant like “nuhhse”. This shift reflects the regional dislike toward the RP /ɜː/ vowel again, so it shows a preference for diphthongal realizations; such phonation differences like breathiness or creakiness can accompany it, depending on speaker idiolect also social factors.

“Sarah” /seərə/ becomes “Sair-uh” with a fronted vowel. 

The name "Sarah" that was mentioned also exemplified a distinct vowel shift that marks the Leeds accent. The vowel underwent fronting and potential centralization thus the first vowel resulted in a pronunciation that approximates "Sair-uh." This fronting is the characteristics of many Northern English varieties, where back vowels like /a:/ tend to be realized as fronted counterparts, often due to historical vowel shifts and contacts with Northern dialects.

2. Consonant Features 

A notable characteristic is the non-rhoticity in words like "mirror", the typical /r/ is dropped which resulted in "mirra", aligning with the broader Northern English speech patterns.

Other than that, affrication was also observed, particularly in words like "Duke", where the /d/ becomes palatalized and realized as [dʒ], producing the pronunciation "Juke." This shift is linked to the influence of the high front glide /j/ following alveolar stops.

The weakening and glottalization of the final consonants are prominent. In "stressed", the final /t/ may not be clearly articulated, resulting in a softened form such as "stresse'." Similarly, in the work "picked", the /k/ and /t/ may be reduced or replaced by a glottal stop, creating a shortened pronunciation such as "pickt." These patterns reflect broader processes of lenition and an articulatory simplification, contributing to the distinct rhythm and identity of the Leeds accent.

The Leeds accent uses even, moderate stress across words and phrases. For example: “Superb” is spoken with a balanced stress, avoiding dramatic emphasis often heard in other varieties of English. This results in a measured and neutral tone.

2. Intonation 

The intonations used are usually flat or gently rising or falling at the end of clauses, thus it creates a calm and controlled tone when speaking. For example, in the sentence “... headed for work,” there is a slight rise and fall, which is the typical regional speech.  

3. Rhythm

The Leeds rhythm speech tends to be smooth and evenly paced. Native speakers usually avoid abrupt pauses or rapid tempo changes, contributing to a controlled and calm delivery. This steady rhythm reinforces the impression of a balanced and restrained regional accent.

Nowt /naʊt/

Meaning: the word "Nothing"

Usage: "I've got nowt to do today. I'm bored."

Butty

Meaning: a sandwich

Usage: "I've been craving for a chip butty mate!"

Proper chuffed!

Meaning: an expression of excitement, "very excited"

Usage: "Me and my friends are going to a concern tonight. We are proper chuffed!"

Ee by gum

Meaning: an expression of shock, "Oh my god".

Usage: "Ee by gum! he really jumped into the pool!"

Bogeyed

Meaning: an expression of tired or half asleep

Usage: "I didn't have a good sleep last night, I'm bogeyed."

Watch this video to know more on Yorkshire vocabulary and sayings!

It is essential that these varieties be respected and valued, rather than judged against native-speakers norms. By doing so it does not only state the English speakers from different backgrounds but also encourages a more positive approach to language teaching and communication. It is hoped that people of all ages and backgrounds will continue to engage with the English language, not only as a tool for global communication, but as a means to understand one another more deeply across cultural boundaries.

The history of English in Dublin started in the twelfth century when English was first brought into the country when the first English-speaking settlers known as the Old English arrived (Hickey, 2010 as cited in Vara, 2021). It has been there for more than 800 hundred years, that Dublin has been one of the oldest English colonies apart from Britain. Hence, English has been evolved as one of the communication tools in Dublin until the current time.

Dublin has also played an important role as the political and cultural center of Ireland during the development of Irish English. This is because Dublin has been under English military and political control since the twelfth century onwards. Therefore, the starting point of the English language's evolution in Ireland was in Dublin. As a result, there were many varieties of Dublin English. For instance, 'Local Dublin English' which is the most popular variety used in the city that shows the cultural identity of traditional life in Dublin.

For this assessment, we have divided the tasks between us to effectively complete this E-Portfolio. We have done our research and analysis to provide our best for this assessment. We hope whoever read this padlet finds our content informative and gain information about speakers from Leeds, West Yorkshire and Dublin, Ireland.

Age: 57 years old (at the time of recording)

Gender: Male

Country: Dublin, Ireland (North side)

Additional Information:

• The speaker lived in Greenwich, London for a year (in 2014).

• However, he has lived his entire life on the North side of Dublin.

(Source taken from Ireland 19, International Dialects of English Archive, https://www.dialectsarchive.com/ireland-19)

In the field of linguistics, a phoneme is defined as the smallest segmental unit of sound that serves to distinguish meaning words or morphemes (Britanicca, 2025).

According to Hulatt (2023), prosodic focuses on how speech sounds to the ear therefore people would describe it as the musical aspect of speech. 

Lexical variation, also known as word choice, refers to how people use words that may have different meanings for others, or how the same meaning can be expressed with different words. These differences are influenced by factors such as where someone lives, their age, gender, or social background (Akeng'o & Nandelenga, 2020).

2. Consonant features

   In Standard English the words that and then use the voiced dental fricative /ð/ for the 'th' sound. However, in Dublin English, the consonant /ð/ is changed to /d/, so the sound is more hardened into stop sounds. In the recording, the speaker pronounces the words that /ðɛt/ and then /ðɛn/ as /dɛt/ and /dɛn/. This change happened because the 'th' sound is rare and hard to pronounce especially for children (Prace, 2013).

Wee

Meaning: little or small

Usage: to describe naps, children, bags, etc.

Example: I'll have a wee cup of tea.

Craic

Meaning: fun, entertainment, good times

Usage: to describe enjoyable situations

Example: The birthday party was great craic last night!

Grand

Meaning: fine, okay, good

Usage: to express feelings or something is going well

Example: I hope it will be grand out today.

Class

Meaning: brilliant, very good

Usage: to praise something or someone

Example: She has a class face expression.

You're a geg

Meaning: hilarious, super funny (usually used in Northern Ireland)

Example: He's some geg, that lad. (That guy is really funny.)