{"id":61128,"date":"2023-11-03T15:49:23","date_gmt":"2023-11-03T20:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=61128"},"modified":"2023-11-03T15:53:36","modified_gmt":"2023-11-03T20:53:36","slug":"the-changing-accents-of-british-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=61128","title":{"rendered":"The changing accents of British English"},"content":{"rendered":"

King\u2019s English and Cockney replaced by three new accents, study finds<\/a><\/p>\n

Britons depart from overtly class-based post-war speech epitomised by either clipped vowels or working-class dialects<\/p>\n

<\/header>\n
By\u00a0Charles Hymas,\u00a0The Telegraph<\/em>,\u00a0Home Affairs Editor\u00a0
<\/header>\n

I vaguely recall an earlier study from about ten years ago that came to similar conclusions (including the emergence of a \"multicultural\" accent).\u00a0 It's not surprising that differences would gradually diminish, especially under the influence of enhanced, pervasive mass communications and increased population mobility.<\/p>\n

What we see, though, is that, as the older, established accents wither away, new ones arise among various shifting cultural, ethnic, and social regroupings.<\/p>\n

Remember the Valley Girl accent, which people used to talk about a lot ten or twenty years ago?\u00a0 Where is it now?<\/p>\n

The\u00a0King\u2019s English<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Cockney<\/a>\u00a0have all but disappeared among young people as three new accents have emerged, research has found.<\/p>\n

Voice analysis found the two accents had been overtaken by standard southern British English (SSBE), as articulated by\u00a0Ellie Goulding<\/a>; estuary English, as spoken by\u00a0Adele<\/a>; and multicultural London English, as voiced by\u00a0Stormzy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The research, using computer algorithms to analyse voices of adults aged 18 to 33, shows how far Britons have departed from the overtly class-based post-war accents epitomised by the clipped vowels in the King\u2019s English of BBC presenters and the working-class cockney of film stars such as\u00a0Michael Caine<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Barbara Windsor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The voices of nearly 200 people from across south-east England and London were recorded, then analysed by a specially designed algorithm that listened to how they spoke and grouped them by how similarly they pronounced vowels in different words.<\/p>\n

Around 26 per cent of those surveyed by the researchers at Essex University spoke estuary English, which has similarities with Cockney, but is more muted and closer to received pronunciation, euphemistically known as the King\u2019s or Queen\u2019s English.<\/p>\n

Estuary English<\/a>\u00a0speakers pronounce words such as \u201chouse\u201d more like \u201chahs\u201d, but not as extreme as found in Cockney.<\/p>\n

The accent, so named because it has extended out along the Thames estuary, is spoken across the South East, but particularly in parts of Essex, and is similar to how Stacey Dooley, Olly Murs, Adele or Jay Blades speak.<\/p>\n

SSBE, which is typically perceived as a prestigious, \u201cstandard\u201d- or \u201cneutral\u201d-sounding accent, is a modern, updated version of received pronunciation.<\/p>\n

SSBE speakers comprised 49 per cent of the sample analysed by the researchers, led by Dr Amanda Cole, a lecturer in language and linguistics at Essex University.<\/p>\n

Such speakers tend to say words like \u201cgoose\u201d with the tongue further forward in the mouth \u2013 sounding a bit more like \u201cgeese\u201d \u2013 than what would be expected in received pronunciation, according to Dr Cole.<\/p>\n

This drift away from received pronunciation was evident in the changing accent of Queen Elizabeth II over her lifetime, spanning the changing diction of the nation from post-war Britain to the birth of the 21st century.<\/p>\n

I find it particularly fascinating that the changing fashions of British accents could be traced in the person of Queen Elizabeth II over the course of her long life and rule.<\/p>\n

A feature of SSBE and estuary English is the glottal stop. In estuary English, it replaces the \u2018t\u2019 in wa\u2019er (water), be\u2019er (better) and ci\u2019y (city). But in SSBE, it only replaces the \u2018t\u2019 at the end of the word, such as wha\u2019 (what), or bu\u2019 (but).<\/p>\n

Speakers include Ellie Goulding, Josh Widdicombe and potentially even Prince Harry.<\/p>\n

Around 25 per cent of the young people used the third accent, multicultural London English.<\/p>\n

That's a lot!\u00a0 It says something highly significant about the diversifying demography of England.<\/p>\n

They pronounced the vowels in words like bate and boat with the tongue starting at a point higher up in the mouth compared to standard southern British English, so that they might sound a little bit more like \u201cbeht\u201d and \u201cboht\u201d.<\/p>\n

They tended to be Asian British or black British and many were from London, but there were also people from across the South East who spoke with elements of a multicultural London English accent.<\/p>\n

England footballer Bukayo Saka, and rappers Little Simz and Stormzy are examples of people with these features in their speech.<\/p>\n

However, gone from among those surveyed was any measurable evidence of the King\u2019s English or Cockney. \u201cCockney, the working-class London accent of Barbara Windsor or Michael Caine, and received pronunciation, which some call Queen\u2019s English (or perhaps now King\u2019s English), did not appear in our analysis,\u201d said Dr Cole.<\/p>\n

Truly amazing that they are gone, since they were the two quintessential types of British English we knew for the past century or so.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not to say that there aren\u2019t any young people in our sample who might have spoken these accents but, if so, they were too few and far between for the algorithm to identify.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Cole said the shift in accents was a result of increased movement of people, resulting in greater contact between dialects, the growth of universal education and literacy and people buying into the idea that there is a \u201ccorrect\u201d or \u201cstandard\u201d way of speaking.<\/p>\n

\u201cStandard southern British English and estuary English are not as different from each other as Cockney and received pronunciation. This could be evidence of what\u2019s known as dialect levelling \u2013 where young people from different parts of the region now speak more similarly to each other than their parents or grandparents did,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Speakers of standard southern British English and estuary English generally tended to be white British, and women were more likely than men to speak the former, which is closer to the King\u2019s English.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not surprising to find that women speak in a more socially prestigious way, as much previous research suggests women are often more chastised for speaking with regional accents than men,\u201d said Dr Cole.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

\u201cAttempting to prevent accents from changing is like sweeping back an incoming tide with a broom \u2013 fruitless and defying nature. Instead, we should embrace linguistic diversity, work to combat accentism (discrimination based on a person\u2019s accent), and accept that accents will always continue to change,\u201d said Dr Cole.<\/p>\n

From the time I was a wee lad, I was always enchanted by English accents.\u00a0\u00a0 I could recognize them immediately as coming from the British Isles, although it was sometimes difficult to distinguish them from Australian and New Zealand accents.\u00a0 It would be sad if they slowly disappeared, perhaps partly under the onslaught of our bland American accent.<\/p>\n

Selected readings<\/b><\/p>\n