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Information about Distinguishing accents in English

Even among native English speakers, as seen below, many different accents
exist. Some of the regional accents are easily identified with certain
characteristics.

Non-native speakers of the English language tend to carry the intonation,
accent or pronunciation from their mother tongue into their English speech.
For more details see Non-native pronunciations of English. This page now
looks only at variations in the speech of native English speakers.

Origins (in alphabetical order)

Australi

Australians have a distinct accent, which varies between social classes and
is sometimes claimed to vary from state to state, though this is disputed.
Accents tend to be strongest in the more remote areas. (Note that Australian
accents are very different from New Zealand ones. See below.) The following
are some Australian characteristics:

   * Vowels are changed in pronunciation as follows:

 Australian Vowel Pronunciation in SAMPA
 Australian    RP                 Examples
     VI        eI     day
     AI        aI     my
     @I        i:     see
     VU        @U     no
     {U        aU     now
     @U        u:     soon,through

   * The /l/ sound in "Australia" is smashed; it becomes "Austray-yah".
   * Australians have a unique vocabulary. For example, not many people
     outside of Australia come into contact with Vegemite on a daily basis.
     "Good day" becomes "G'day".

Reference: Listen to various Australian singers and native speakers; the
singer of the Australian band Midnight Oil has a notably thick accent. Steve
Irwin, a wiry herpetologist known in the U.S. as the "Crocodile Hunter", has
a much-parodied speaking style.

Canada:

Canadian accents vary widely across the country, and the accent of a
particular region is often closer to neighbouring parts of the United
States. Nevertheless, there are some charateristics that exsist across the
country, in varying degrees, such as Canadian raising.

Regional variations include:

Canada (British Columbia):

   * /aI/ diphthong pronounced /^I/

Canada (Cape Breton Island):

   * Cape Breton Island has a distinct dialect due to settlement by speakers
     of Acadian French and Scottish Gaelic

Canada (Maritimes):

   * loss of non-prevocalic r
   * faster speech tempo
   * use of "Eh?" interrogative

Canada (Newfoundland):

   * Newfoundland English is a distinct dialect of the language with its own
     pronunciation and vocabulary. Please reference that article for more
     information.

Canada (Ontario and Quebec):

   * subtle Canadian raising
   * in southwestern Ontario (especially rural areas), some speakers also
     have aspects of the Midwestern US accent, e.g., "not" sounds like
     "naht" (/nOt/ --> [nat]), combined with Canadian raising (see USA
     below).

Canada (Prairies):

   * strong Canadian raising, "about" becomes "a boat"
   * "sing-songy" intonation
   * use of "Eh?" interrogative

Ireland:

   * Pronounces "r" whenever it occurs in a word.
   * "l" is clear wherever it occurs in a word, as in French
   * 'Pure' vowels: "boat" is pronounced (in SAMPA) "bo:t", and cane is
     pronunced "ke:n"
   * (in Republic of Ireland) The "th" sound is replaced with a dental stop
     (Irish "three" and Spanish "tres" start with same consonant cluster)
   * (in Ulster) The "oo" sound is brought forward, so "boot" is pronounced
     (in SAMPA) "b}t"

South African: South Africa has 11 official languages, one of which is
English. Afrikaners, descendants of mainly Dutch settlers, tend to pronounce
English phonemes with a strong Afrikaans inflection, which is very similar
to a Dutch accent. Native English speakers in South Africa have an accent
that generally resembles a middle to upper class British accent modified
with varying degrees of Germanic inflection, due to the Afrikaner influence.
Native South African English speakers also insert a number of Afrikaans
loanwords into their speech. Please add information about the English
accents of native speakers of African languages.

United Kingdom

English accents and dialects vary more widely within the U.K. itself than
they do in other parts of the world owing to the longer history of the
language within the countries of the U.K. Here are some of the distinctions
to be found:

     Southern English:

        * Generally use a rounded a, so "cast" is pronounced kAst
          rather than the k{st pronunciation of most northern accents.
          There are other peculiarities in specific Southern Regions.

     Home Counties:

               More information required from a native user of this
               accent.

     Cockney:

        * Initial h sounds are dropped; i.e. "house" becomes "ouse";
          "help" becomes "elp"
        * T sounds in the middle of words are replaced with a glottal
          stop; i.e. "water" becomes "wa>
   * People who live in the northern USA may perceive the dialect as having
     a distinct "Southern" quality to it, because of a tendency to
     monophthongize /ay/ as [a:] (see "USA (Southern)" below).
   * African American dialects are not only non-rhotic, but in some cases
     may also delete /r/ between vowels. Thus, "Carol never made drop rate
     art" may be pronounced "Ca'ol nevah made drop rate aht" [k}.ol nE.v@
     med drOp ret a:t]. "Store" is pronounced "stow".

USA (Boston, Massachusetts):

   * loss of non-prevocalic . "Park the car in Harvard Yard" becomes
     "Pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd."
   * "I had no idea" becomes "I had no eye-dee-err"

USA (Brooklyn, New York):

   * loss of non-prevocalic .
   * faster speech tempo
   * /OI/ pronounced /3r/ and /3r/ pronounced /OI/. When asked if the
     apartment had heat in the winter the landlord replied "Shua. We got a
     brand new url boyna." ("Sure. We got [purchased] a brand new oil
     burner.")

USA (Midwest (Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Lower Peninsula of Michigan)):

   * /O/ merged with /a/. "not" sounds like "naht" (/nOt/ --> [nat]),
     "opportunity" like "ahppertunity" (NOTE: This is standard in
     Connecticut, an eastern state.)
   * preservation of non-prevocalic 

USA (Minnesota (esp. rural), Upper Peninsula of Michigan, North Dakota:

   * /O/ merged with /a/. ("Father" rhymes with "bother".)
   * Preservation of non-prevocalic 
   * Canadian raising: see section on Canada.
   * "roof", "book", and "root" all use the same vowel (SAMPA [U]).
   * Use of German/Scandinavian "ja" as an affirmative filler or emphatic;
     Standard US English "yes" is used to answer questions and to start an
     explanation.
   * Tendency towards a "sing-songy" intonation (the area's earliest
     European settlers were primarily Scandinavian, and this has influenced
     the local dialect). More recently, this has been reinforced by an
     influx of Asians, most of whom speak tonal languages.
   * Known as "Yooper" in Upper Pensinsula of Michigan [UP = Yoo-Pee]
   * For a stereotypical (if somewhat overdone) example of Minnesotan, refer
     to the movie Fargo. For a more normative example, Garrison Keillor
     speaks with a typical urban Minnesota accent.

USA (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania): Pittsburgh accents have a number of
distinctive features. Please reference that article for more information.

USA (South (Coastal Virginia, North Carolina through Louisiana)):

   * monopthongization of /ay/ as [a:], eg. most dialects' "I" --> "Ah" in
     the South.
   * (also some East Coast:) loss of non-prevocalic r.
   * slower speech tempo
   * putting two modals together as if the second were an infinitive: "I
     might could do that."
   * Coastal Southern speech is non-rhotic.

USA (South Midlands (Appalachia, Tennessee through Texas)

   * monopthongization of /ay/ as [a:], eg. most dialects' "I" --> "Ah" in
     the South.
   * raising of initial vowal of /au/ to /¾u/ (/{u/); the initial vowel is
     often lengthened and prolonged, yielding /¾:w/.
   * nasalization of vowels, esp. diphthongs, before /n/.
   * raising of /¾/ to /e/; can't --> cain't, &c.
   * South Midlands speech is rhotic. This is diagnostic for Yankees to whom
     it all sounds "Southern."

USA (New England and East Coast):

   * (also South:) loss of non-prevocalic r in some dialects.
   * faster speech tempo

USA (Maine and Downeast):

   * Older native Maine (USA) residents pronounce "yes" or "yeah" as "ayuh",
     with the stress on the the second syllable.

USA (St. Louis and vicinity):

   * Older St. Louisans (probably born earlier than 1960) tend to merge the
     /Or/ sound as in for with the /Ar/ sound of far. This accent is
     otherwise a typical Midwestern General American-like accent.
   * Many younger speakers are picking up the Northern Cities Vowel Shift
     heard in Chicago, eastern Wisconsin, and much of Michigan. This vowel
     shift causes words like cat /k&t/ to become more like /kEt/ and talent
     /'t&l,nt/ to be more like /'tj&l,nt/ or /'tEl,nt/. Younger generations
     also tend to pronounce not more like /nAt/ (naht), as do older
     generations in this area. This does not necessarily mean a complete
     merger between /A/ and /O/, however.

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