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The North English accent of Great Britain is a regional group of English accents spoken in Northern England. They include a group of accents of North-East England (Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, Durham and North Yorkshire), accents of Derbyshire, Manchester, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumbrian accent (Westmore variety in South Lakeland and a special variety in Barrow-in-Furness), as well as accents such as Scouse and Geordie.

The North English accent is one of the largest accent groups in England. Speaking of the other groups, they include East Anglian accents, West and East Midlands accents, West Country accents (Somerset, Devon, Cornwall), as well as Southern English accents.

Accent History

Many Northern accents strongly reflect the influence of Old Norse compared to other variants of English spoken in England.

In addition to previous contacts with the Vikings, in the 9th and 10th centuries most of northern and eastern England was part of either the Danelaw or the Danish-controlled Kingdom of Northumbria (with the exception of most of modern Cumbria, which was part of the Kingdom of Strathclyde). Consequently, the Yorkshire accent, in particular, are believed to have been strongly influenced by Old West Norwegian and Old East Norwegian (the ancestral language of modern Norwegian, Swedish and Danish). However, Northumbrian Anglo-Saxon and Old West Norwegian (from which modern Norwegian originated) may have had a greater influence over a longer period.

In the middle and late 19th century, there was a large-scale migration from Ireland, which affected the speech of some parts of Northern England. This is most evident in West Coast dialects such as Liverpool, Birkenhead, Barrow-in-Furness and Whitehaven. The city of Middlesbrough on the east coast also has a significant Irish influence on its accent, as it grew during the period of mass migration. There has also been some impact on speech in Manchester, but relatively little impact on Yorkshire outside Middlesbrough.

Distinctive features of vowels

Although each accent of Northern England has its own unique features, there are several linguistic features that coincide in all dialects of Northern England.

1) There is no foot-strut split in the Northern English accent, which is why, for example, the words cut and put rhyme and are pronounced with the same sound [ʊ].

Example:

Brother from another mother - /ˈbrʊðə frəm əˈnʊðə ˈmʊðə/

This led to the fact that some residents of southern England began to call northern England "Oop North" (/ʊp nɔːθ/). The reason lies in the fact that the southern inhabitants of England completely do not understand the pronunciation of the word up and the like by the northerners.

2) In many cases, where it is customary to pronounce the sound [ʊ] in Received Pronunciation, residents of Northern England pronounce [uː]. So, a word book with a Northern English accent sounds like /bu:k/, and some particularly conservative speakers may even pronounce word look as /luːk/.

Example:

I looked at the book - /aɪ ˈlu:kt æt ðæt ˈbu:k/

3) In Northern English accentthere is no trap-bath split. That means that the sound [ɑː] is almost not used. For example, the word cast is pronounced as /kæst/, unlike traditional Southern English /kɑːst/.

Example:

The last example in class - /ðə ˈlæst ɪgˈzæmpəl ɪn ˈklæs/

4) In Northern English accent the [æ] vowel is normally pronounced [ʌ] rather than the [æ]. This is due to the fact that in many regions of Northern England there is no strut-trap split.

Example:

a hard hat - /əˈhɑ:d ˈhʌt/

5) In many regions of Northern England, there is no such phenomenon as "happy vowel". This term means a vowel in spoken English that falls between [iː] and [ɪ] and may be represented by [i]. In most regions, the letter y at the end of words (for example, happy, city) is pronounced as [ɪ], instead of [i].

Example:

a happy baby - /ə ˈhæpɪ ˈbebɪ/

Previously, this pronunciation was the norm for RP, until it was replaced in the late 1990s by "happy vowel". The sound [ɪ], however, is still used in the far north of England and in Merseyside.

6) The Northern English accent is prone to monophthongization. This term means the process of turning a diphthong into a monophthong. In this regard, the diphthong [eɪ] becomes the monophthong [e:] (this sound sounds slightly longer than the sound [e]). Similarly, this process works with the diphthongs /aɪ/ -> (ɑ:) and /ɔɪ/ -> (ɔ:).

Example:

I may go home - /ɑ: ˈme: gɔ: ˈhɔ:m/

Distinctive features of consonants

1) The Northern English accent is characterized by H-dropping from the beginning of words. H-dropping (aitch-dropping) means the deletion of the voiceless glottal fricative or "H-sound", [h]. The phenomenon is common in many accents of English, and is also found in certain other languages, either as a purely historical development or as a contemporary difference between accents. Although common in most regions of England and in some other English-speaking countries, and linguistically speaking a neutral evolution in languages, H-dropping is often stigmatized as a sign of careless or uneducated speech.

2) Quite often in the Northern English accent a sound [ð] is omitted, glottalized (glottalization is the act or process of constricting or closing the glottis during the production of a speech sound that normally does not involve such constriction) or replaced with [t] in the definite article the.

3) In the Northern English accent, the sounds [t] [p] and [k] at the beginning of the word are weakly aspirated.The term aspiration in phonetics means a burst of air that follows the release of some consonants.

Example:

He's talking in the kitchen - /i:z ˈtɔ:kɪŋ ɪn ˈkɪʧən/

Conclusion

Thus, the North English accent includes a huge group of different regions of Northern England, each of which has its own phonetic features.

Despite the fact that some linguistic features of this accent are stigmatized from the point of view of RP and other parts of England, it should be noted that this accent is one of the largest groups of accents of the English language, and it is used by an impressive number of UK residents.

Literature:

N. Timanovskaya Spotlight on English-Speaking Countries, Fourth Edition, Tula: Autograf, 2000, pp 26-37

S.P. Khoroshilova Theoretical phonetics of the English language: Segment level, Novosibirsk: NSPU, 2019, pp 70-77, 91-96

British English Pronunciation - Northern Accent (Lancashire, Yorkshire), url:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDm0Ls15FiE&t=139s

Learn British accents and dialects – Cockney, RP, Northern, and more, url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDdRHWHzwR4

Useful English: Vowels Glossary of Terms, url: https://usefulenglish.ru/phonetics/vowels-glossary-of-terms

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