The regional accents of English speakers show great variation across the areas where English is spoken as a first

language. This article provides an overview of the many identifiable variations in pronunciation, usually deriving from the phoneme inventory of the local dialect, of the local variety of Standard English between various populations of native English speakers Local accents are part of local dialects. Any dialect of English has unique features in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. The term "accent" describes only the first of these, namely, pronunciation. See also: List of dialects of the English language. Non-native speakers of English tend to carry over the intonation and phonemic inventory from their mother tongue into their English speech. For more details see Non-native pronunciations of English. mong native English speakers, many different accents exist. Some regional accents are easily identified by certain characteristics. Further variations are to be found within the regions identified below; for example, towns located less than 10 miles (16 km) from the city of Manchester such as Bolton, Oldham andSalford, each have distinct accents, all of which form the Lancashire accent, yet in extreme cases are different enough to be noticed even by a non-local listener. There is also much room for misunderstanding between people from different regions, as the way one word is pronounced in one accent (for example, petal in American English) will sound like a different word in another accent (for example, pearl in Scottish English).

Great Britain
Accents and dialects vary widely across the United Kingdom; as such, a single "British accent" does not exist, but someone could be said to have an English, Welsh, or Scottish accent although these all have several different sub-types. [edit]England There is considerable variation within the accents of English across England. Two sets of accents are spoken in the West Country, Cornish (primarily in South Cornwall) and West Country (the counties of Devon, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Bristol, Dorset (Not so much in east Dorset), Wiltshire (again, less so in eastern Wiltshire), and also in East Cornwall). The accents of Northern England are also distinctive including a range of variations: Northumberland, County Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne, Sunderland, Cumbria, Lancashire with regional variants in Bolton, Burnley, Blackburn, Manchester,Preston, Blackpool, Merseyside and Wigan, Yorkshire is also distinctive, having variations between the North Riding of Yorkshire, West Riding of Yorkshire and East Riding of Yorkshire. Other accents include a range of accents spoken in the West Midlands (In the major towns and conurbations (The Black Country, Birmingham, Coventry, Stoke-on-Trent and Wolverhampton) and in rural accents (such as in Herefordshire and south Worcestershire)); the accents of the counties comprising the East Midlands (Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Northampton, and Nottingham) and East Anglia (Norfolk,Suffolk, north Essex and Cambridgeshire). Even within these broad categories there are considerable differences in inflection and pronunciation. [citation needed] [edit]Scotland The regional accents of Scottish English generally follow the a similar pattern to that of the dialects of Modern Scots:[1][2]

Insular Scots Orkney and Shetland. Northern Scots north of the Firth of Tay. North Northern Caithness, Easter Ross and the Black Isle. Mid Northern (also called North East[3] and popularly known as the Doric) Moray, Buchan and Aberdeenshire. South Northern east Angus and the Mearns. Central Scots the Central Lowlands and South west Scotland. North East Central north of the Forth, in south east Perthshire and west Angus. South East Central in the Lothians, Peeblesshire and Berwickshire West Central Dunbartonshire, Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Inverclyde, Ayrshire, on the Isle of Bute and to the southern extremity of Kintyre.

South West Central west Dumfriesshire, Kirkcudbrightshire and Wigtownshire. Southern Scots mid and east Dumfriesshire and the Scottish Borders counties Selkirkshire and Roxburghshire, in particular the valleys of the Annan, the Esk, the Liddel Water, the Teviot and theYarrow Water. It is also known as the "border tongue" or "border Scots".

A number of pronunciation features set Scots apart from neighbouring English dialects. The Scots pronunciation of come [km] contrasts with [km] in Northern English. The Scots realisation [km]reaches as far south as the mouth of the north Esk in north Cumbria, crossing Cumbria and skirting the foot of the Cheviots before reaching the east coast at Bamburgh some 12 miles north of Alnwick. The Scots [x]English []/[f] cognate group (micht-might, eneuchenough, etc.) can be found in a small portion of north Cumbria with the southern limit stretching from Bewcastle to Longtown andGretna. The Scots pronunciation of wh as [] becomes English [w] south of Carlisle but remains in Northumberland, but Northumberland realises r as [], often called the burr, which is not a Scots realisation. Thus the greater part of the valley of the Esk and the whole of Liddesdale can be considered to be northern English dialects rather than Scots ones. From the nineteenth century onwards influence from the South through education and increased mobility have caused Scots features to retreat northwards so that for all practical purposes the political and linguistic boundaries may be considered to coincide. [4] [edit]Wales Main article: Welsh English The accent of English in Wales is strongly influenced by the phonology of the Welsh language, which more than 20% of the population of Wales speak as their first or second language. The North Wales accent is distinct from South Wales and north east Wales is influenced by Scouse and Cheshire accents. South Wales border accents are influenced by West Country accents. The Wenglish of the South Wales Valleys shows a deep cross-fertilisation between the two. The Cardiff dialect and accent is also quite distinctive from that of the South Wales Valleys, primarily:

The substitution of // by [][5][6] here /h/ pronounced [hj] or [j] in broader accents A more open pronunciation of // as in love and other[6] // is widely realised as [], giving a pronunciation of Cardiff / kadf/ as Kahdiff [kdf]

Ireland
Main article: Hiberno-English Ireland has several main groups of accents, including (1) those of Dublin and surrounding areas on the east coast where English has been spoken since the earliest period of colonisation from Britain, (2) the accents of Ulster, with a strong influence from Scotland as well as the underlying Gaelic linguistic stratum which in that province approaches the Gaelic of Scotland, and (3) the various accents of west, midlands and south. [edit]Ulster The Ulster accent has two main sub accents, namely Mid Ulster English and Ulster Scots. The language is spoken throughout the nine counties of Ulster, and in some northern areas of bordering counties such as Louth and Leitrim. It bears many similarities to Scottish English through influence from Ulster Scots, which has many distinct characteristics and is often seen as a variety of Scots. Some characteristics of the Ulster accent include: As in Scotland, the vowels // and /u/ are merged, so that look and Luke are homophonous. The vowel is a high central rounded vowel, []. The diphthong /a/ is pronounced approximately [], but wide variation exists, especially between social classes in Belfast In Belfast, /e/ is a monophthong in open syllables (e.g. day [d]) but a rising diphthong in closed syllables (e.g. daze [dez]). But the monophthong remains when inflectional endings are added, thus daze contrasts with days [dz]. The alveolar stops /t, d/ become dental before /r, r/, e.g. tree and spider /t/ often undergoes flapping to [] before an unstressed syllable, e.g. eighty [ei]

[edit]Connacht,

Leinster, and Munster

The accent of these three provinces fluctuates greatly from the flat tone of the midlands counties of Laois, Kildare, and Offaly, the perceived sing-song of Cork and Kerry, to the soft accents of Mayo and Galway. Historically the Dublin county area, parts of Wicklow and Louth, became under heavy exclusive influence from the first English settlements (known as The Pale). It remained until Independence from Britain as the biggest concentration of English influence in the whole island.

The Corkonian accent has a unique lyrical intonation. Every sentence typically ends in the trademark elongated tail-off on the last word. In Cork heavier emphasis yet is put on the brrr sound to the letter R. Similar to the Cork accent but without the same unmistakable intonation, Kerry puts even heavier emphasis on the brrr sound to the letter R. For example: the word Forty. Throughout the south this word is pronounced whereby the r exhibits the typified Irish brrr. In Kerry however (especially in rural areas) the roll on the r is enforced with vibrations from the tongue (not unlike Scottish here). "Are you?" becomes a co-joined "A-rrou?" single tongue flutter (esp. in rural areas). This extra emphasis on R is also seen in varying measures through parts of West Limerick and West Cork in closer proximity to Kerry. Another feature in the Kerry accent is the S before the consonant. True to its Gaelic origins in a manner similar to parts of Connacht "s" maintains the shh sound as in shop or sheep. The word Start becomes "Shtart." Stop becomes Shtop.

Irish Travellers
Irish Travellers have a very distinct accent closely related to a rural Hiberno-English, particularly the English spoken in Connaught from where they originate. Many Irish Travellers who were born in parts of Dublin or Britain have the accent in spite of it being strikingly different to the local accents in those regions . They also have their own language which strongly links in with their dialect/accent of English, see Shelta.

North America
Main article: North American English regional phonology Main article: North American English North American English is a collective term for the dialects of the United States and Canada; it does not include the varieties of Caribbean English spoken in the West Indies. Rhoticity and mergers before /r/. Most North American English accents differ from Received Pronunciation and some other British dialects by being rhotic; the phoneme /r/ is pronounced before consonants and at the end of syllables, and the "r-colored vowel" [] is used as a syllable nucleus. For example, while the words hard and singer would be pronounced [hd] and [s] in Received Pronunciation, they would be pronounced [hd] and [s] in General American. (Exceptions are certain traditional accents found in eastern New England, New York City, and the Southern United States.) Rcoloring has ultimately led to some phonemic mergers before historic /r/ that are unknown in most other native dialects: in many North American accents, Mary, merry and marry sound the same, despite having different vowels in RP ( [], [], [] respectively); likewise, hairy rhymes with ferry, and nearer rhymes with mirror.[dubious discuss] Mergers of the low back vowels. Other North American mergers that are absent in Received Pronunciation are the merger of the vowels of caught and cot ([kt] and [kt] in RP) in many accents, and the merger of father (RP [f]) and bother (RP [b]) in almost all.

Flat A. Most North American accents lack the so-called trapbath split found in Southern England: Words like ask, answer, grass, bath, staff, dance are pronounced with the shorta // of trap, not with the broad A // of father heard in Southern England as well as in most of the Southern hemisphere. (In North America, the vowel of father has merged with that of lot and bother, see above.) Flapping of /t/ and /d/. Another feature distinguishing North American English dialects in general from British Received Pronunciation is the voicing or flapping of /t/ before an unstressed vowel, causing the word better to sound like "bedder" [bd] or [b].

The United States does not have a concrete 'standard' accent in the same way that Britain has Received Pronunciation. Nonetheless, a form of speech known to linguists as General American is perceived by most Americans to be "accent-less", meaning a person who speaks in such a manner does not appear to be from anywhere. The region of the United States that most resembles this is the central Midwest, specifically eastern Nebraska (including Omaha and Lincoln), southern and central Iowa (including Des Moines), and western Illinois (including Peoria and the Quad Cities, but not the Chicago area). [edit]Canada Main article: Canadian English Three major dialect areas can be found in Canada: Western/Central Canada, the Maritimes, and Newfoundland. The phonology of West/Central Canadian English, also called General Canadian, is broadly identical to that of the Western US, except for the following features: The diphthongs /a/ and /a/ are raised to approximately [] and [][7] before voiceless consonants; thus, for example, the vowel sound of out [t] is different from that of loud [lad]. This feature is known as Canadian raising. There is no contrast between the vowels of caught and cot (cotcaught merger, as above); in addition, the short a of bat is more open than almost everywhere else in North America [ ~ a]. The other front lax vowels // and //, too, can be lowered and/or retracted. This phenomenon has been labelled the Canadian Shift.

With respect to phonemic incidence, the pronunciation of certain words has American and/or British influence. For instance, shone is /n/; been is often /bin/; process can be /pross/; etc. Words like drama, pyjamas, pasta tend to have // rather than //~//. Words like sorrow, Florida, orange have /or/ rather than /r/; therefore, sorry rhymes with story rather than with starry.

United States
Main article: American English [edit]West Indies and Bermuda For discussion, see:

Bahamian English Bajan Creole Bermudian English Caribbean English Jamaican English Trinidadian English

[edit]Southern [edit]Australia

hemisphere

Main article: Australian English Australian English is relatively homogenous when compared to British and American English. There is however some regional variation between the states, particularly in regards to South Australia,Victoria and Western Australia. Three main varieties of Australian English are spoken according to linguists: Broad Australian, General Australian and Cultivated Australian.[8] They are part of a continuum, reflecting variations in accent. They can, but do not always reflect the social class, education and urban or rural background of the speaker.[9] Australian Aboriginal English refers to the various varieties of the English language used by Indigenous Australians. These varieties, which developed differently in different parts of Australia, vary along a continuum, from forms close to General Australian to more nonstandard forms. There are distinctive features of accent, grammar, words and meanings, as well as language use. The furthest extent of the Aboriginal dialect is Australian Kriol language, which is not mutually intelligible with General Australian English. On the Torres Strait Islands, a distinctive dialect known as Torres Strait English is spoken. In Australian English, pronunciations vary regionally according to the type of vowel that occurs before the sounds nd, ns, nt, nce, nch, and mple, and the pronunciation of the suffix "mand". In words like "chance", "plant", "branch", "sample" and "demand", the vast majority of Australians use the short // vowel from the word "cat". In South Australian English however there is a high proportion of people who use the broad /a / vowel from the word "cart" in these words. Centring diphthongs, which are the vowels that occur in words like ear, beard and air, sheer. In Western Australian English there is a tendency for centring diphthongs to be pronounced as full diphthongs. Those in the eastern states will tend to pronounce "fear" and "sheer" without any jaw movement, while the westerners would pronounce them like "fia" and "shia", respectively.[10] In Victoria, many speakers pronounce the "a" and "e" vowels in a way that is distinct from speakers in other states. The first vowel in "celery" and "salary" are the same, so that both words sound like "salary". These speakers will also tend to say "halicopter" instead of "helicopter". For many older Victorian speakers, the words "celery" and "salary" also sound

the same but instead both sound like "celery". These speakers will also pronounce words such as "alps" as "elps".[citation needed]

New Zealand
The New Zealand accent is distinguished from the Australian one by the presence of "clipped" vowels, slightly resembling South African English. Phonetically, these are raised or centralised versions of the short "i" and "e" vowels, which in New Zealand are close to [] and [] respectively rather than [] and []. New Zealand pronunciations are often popularly represented outside New Zealand by writing "fish and chips" as "fush and chups", "yes" as "yiss", "sixty-six" as "suxty-sux." Scottish English influence is most evident in the southern regions of New Zealand, notably Dunedin. Geographical variations appear slight, and mainly confined to individual special local words. One group of speakers, however, hold a recognised place as "talking differently": the South of the South Island (Murihiku) harbours a "Celtic fringe" of people speaking with a "Southland burr" in which a back-trilled 'r' appears prominently. The area formed a traditional repository of immigration from Scotland. The trilled 'r' is also used by some Mori, who may also pronounce 't' and 'k' sounds without aspiration, striking other English speakers as similar to 'd' and 'g'. This is also encountered in South African English, especially among Afrikaans speakers.

Falkland Islands
Main article: Falkland Islands English The Falkland Islands have a large non-native born population, mainly from Britain, but also from Saint Helena. In rural areas, the Falkland accent tends to be stronger. The accent has resemblances to both Australia-NZ English, and that of Norfolk in England, and contains a number of Spanish loanwords. [edit]Saint Helena "Saints", as Saint Helenan islanders are called, have a variety of different influences on their accent. To outsiders, the accent has resemblances to the accents of South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Television is a reasonably recent arrival there, and is only just beginning to have an effect. [edit]Southern

Africa

[edit]South Africa Main article: South African English South Africa has 11 official languages, one of which is English. Accents vary significantly between ethnic and language groups.[11] Native English speakers (white, Indian and Coloured or Cape Coloured) in South Africa have an accent that generally resembles British Received Pronunciation (modified with varying degrees of Germanic inflection due to Afrikaans).

The Coloured community are generally bilingual, however English accents are strongly influenced by primary mother-tongue (Afrikaans or English). A range of accents can be seen, with the majority of Coloureds showing a strong Afrikaans inflection. Similarly, Afrikaners (and Cape Coloureds), both descendant of mainly Dutch settlers, tend to pronounce English phonemes with a strong Afrikaans inflection. The English accents of both related groups are significantly different and easily distinguishable (primarily because of prevalent code-switching amongst the majority of Coloured English speakers, particularly in the Western Cape of South Africa). The range of accents found amongst English-speaking Coloureds (from the distinctive "Cape Flats or Coloured English"[12] to the standard "colloquial" South African English accent) are of special interest. Geography and education levels play major roles therein. Black Africans generally speak English as a second language, and accent is strongly influenced by mother-tongue (particularly Bantu languages). However, urban middle-class black Africans have developed an English accent, with similar inflection as native English speakers. Black, Indian and Coloured students educated in former Model C schools or at formerly white tertiary institutions will generally adopt a similar accent to their white classmates. [13] Code-switching and the "Cape Flats" accent are becoming popular amongst white learners in public schools within Cape Town.[citation needed] South African accents also vary between major cities (particularly Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg) and provinces (regions).[14] Accent variation are also observed within respective cities, for instance, Johannesburg, where the northern suburbs (Parkview, Parkwood, Parktown North, Saxonwold, etc.) tend to be less strongly influenced by Afrikaans. These suburbs are more affluent and populated by individuals with tertiary education and higher incomes. The accents of native English speakers from the southern suburbs (Rosettenville, Turffontein, etc.) tend to be more strongly influenced by Afrikaans. These suburbs are populated by tradesmen and factory workers, with lower incomes. The extent of Afrikaans influence is explained by the fact that Afrikaans urbanisation would historically have been from failed marginal farms or failing economies in rural towns, into the southern and western suburbs of Johannesburg. The western suburbs of Johannesburg (Newlands, Triomf, which has now reverted to its old name Sophiatown, Westdene, etc.) are predominantly Afrikaans speaking. In a similar fashion, people from predominantly or traditionally Jewish areas in the Johannesburg area (such as Sandton, Linksfield or Victory Park) may have accents influenced by Yiddish or Hebrew ancestry. Examples of South African accents (obtained from http://accent.gmu.edu) Native English: Male (Cape Town, South Africa) Native English: Female (Cape Town, South Africa) Native English: Male (Port Elizabeth, South Africa) Native English: Male (Nigel, South Africa) Afrikaans (Primary): Female (Pretoria, South Africa) Afrikaans (Primary): Male (Pretoria, South Africa) Afrikaans (Primary): Male (Pretoria, South Africa) Northern Sotho (Primary): Female (Polokwane, South Africa)

Additional samples of South African accents and dialects can be found at http://web.ku.edu/~idea/africa/southafrica/southafrica.htm Regardless of regional and ethnic differences (in accents), the "colloquial" South African English accent is often confused with Australian (or New Zealand) English by British and American English speakers.[15][16]

Zimbabwe
In Zimbabwe, native English speakers (mainly the white and Coloured minority) have a similar speech pattern to that of South Africa. Hence those with high degrees of Germanic inflection would pronounce 'Zimbabwe' as zim-bah-bwi, as opposed to the African pronunciation zeembah-bweh. Zimbwabwean accents also vastly vary, with some Black Africans sounding British while others will have a much stronger accent influenced by their mother tongues, usually this distinction is brought about by where speakers grew up and the school attended. For example most people that grew up in and around Harare have a British sounding accent while those in the rural areas have a more "pigeon-english" sort of accent Example of a Zimbabwean English accent (obtained from http://accent.gmu.edu)

Namibia
Namibian English tends to be strongly influenced by South African English. [edit]Asia [edit]Philippines Main article: Philippine English Philippine English employs a rhotic accent that originated from the time when it was first introduced by the Americans during the colonization period to replace Spanish as the dominant language used in politics. In reality, there is no single Philippine English Accent, many indigenous languages affect the English that is spoken throughout the Islands. For example, those from the Visayas may generally interchange the /e/ and /i/ also the /o/ and /u/ as their distinction is not very pronounced in the Visayan languages. Those coming from the North may pronounce the /r/ with a strong trill instead of the flap as it is one of the features of the Ilocano language. Some Ilocanos also pronounce the // better as there is a sound in their language that is close to this. [edit]Hong

Kong

Main article: Hong Kong English The accent of English spoken in Hong Kong follows mainly British, with rather strong influence from Cantonese on the pronunciations of a few consonants and vowels, and sentence grammar and structure. [edit]South

Asia

See also: Sri Lankan English, Pakistani English, and Indian English

A number of distinct dialects of English are spoken in South Asia. There are many languages spoken in South Asia like Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi, Pashto, Marathi, Assamese, Bengali,Maithili, Gujarati, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Tamil, Rajasthani and many more, creating a variety of accents of English. Accents originating in this part of the world tend to display several distinctive features, including: syllable-timing, in which a roughly equal time is allocated to each syllable. Akin to the English of Singapore and Malaysia. (Elsewhere, English speech timing is based predominantly on stress); "sing-song" pitch (somewhat reminiscent of those of Welsh English).

[edit]Malaysia Main article: Malaysian English Malay is the lingua franca of Malaysia, a former British colony. English is a foreign language with no official status, but it is commonly learnt as a second or third language. The Malaysian accent appears to be a melding of British, Chinese, and Malay influences. Many Malaysians adopt different accents and usages depending on the situation; for example, an office worker may speak with less colloquialism and with a more British accent on the job than with friends or while out shopping. syllable-timing, where speech is timed according to syllable, akin to the English of the Indian Subcontinent. (Elsewhere, speech is usually timed to stress.) A quick, staccato style, with "puncturing" syllables and well-defined, drawn out tones. Non-rhoticity, like most varieties of English language in England. Hence caught and court are homophonous as /kt/ (in actuality, /k/ or /ko/, see "Simplification" below); can't rhymes witharen't, etc. The "ay" and "ow" sounds in raid and road (/e/ and /o/ respectively) are pronounced as monophthongs, i.e. with no "glide": [red] and [rod]. // is pronounced as [t] and // as [d]; hence, thin is [tn] and then is [dn]. Depending on how colloquial the situation is: many discourse particles, or words inserted at the end of sentences that indicate the role of the sentence in discourse and the mood it conveys, like "lah", "leh", "mah", "hor", etc.

See also: Manglish [edit]Singapore Main article: Singapore English Singapore is effectively a multi-lingual nation. The Singapore government recognises four official languages: English, Malay, Chinese (Mandarin), and Tamil. Students in Primary and Secondary schools learning English as the language of instruction also learn a second language called their "Mother Tongue" by the Ministry of Education, where they are either taught Mandarin Chinese, Malay or Tamil. A main point to note is while "Mother

Tongue" generally refers to the first language (L1) overseas, in Singapore, it is used by the Ministry of Education to denote the second language (L2). There are two main types of English spoken in Singapore - Standard Singapore English and Singlish. A 2005 census showed that around 30% of Singaporeans speak English as their main language at home.[17] There is a large number of foreigners working in Singapore. 36% of the population in Singapore are foreigners and foreigners make up 50% of the service sector. [18] Therefore, it is very common to encounter service staff who are not fluent in English. Most of these staff speak Mandarin Chinese. Those who do not speak Mandarin Chinese tend to speak either broken English or Singlish, which they have learnt from the locals.