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Scouse, also known as Liverpool English or Merseyside English, is an accent and dialect of English linked to Liverpool and the surrounding Liverpool City Region.

Since the 1940s, Liverpool's growth has extended the accent into neighboring areas such as Runcorn and Skelmersdale. Variations within Scouse are recognized: the city centre and northern neighborhoods' accent is often described as fast, harsh, and nasal, while the southern suburbs have a "Beatles-like" accent that is typically slow, soft, and dark. There has been a growing deviation from the historical Lancashire dialect traditionally found in Liverpool, coupled with an increased influence of the accent in the wider area.

The Scouse accent is incredibly unique due to heavy influences by Irish and Welsh immigrants who came via the Liverpool docks, as well as Scandinavian sailors. Thus, it shares little in common with accents found throughout the rest of England. Liverpudlians, the official term for Liverpool natives (and sometimes residents from other areas), are often called Scousers, a name derived from scouse, a stew originating from Scandinavian lobscouse consumed by sailors and locals.
Although other Britons often consider Scouse one of the country's least popular accents due to its complexity, it consistently rates high in polls of British accents perceived as happy and friendly.

Vowels of Scouse:

In Scouse, the square-nurse merger makes minimal pairs like fair-fur, stare-stir, and pair-purr homophonous as /feː/, /steː/, and /peː/. The exact pronunciation varies, but the mainstream pronunciation closely resembles [eː], as depicted on the vowel chart. Other allophones include [ɛː], [ɪː], [ɘː], [əː], [ɜː], and the rounded [œː] and [ɵː], with all but [ɪː] being more conservative than [eː]. Diphthongal variants [ɛə] and [əɛ] also exist. Some middle-class speakers differentiate SQUARE from NURSE by using the front [ɛː] for the former (rendering fair, stare, and pair as [fɛː, stɛː, pɛː]) and the central [ɜː] for the latter (rendering fur, stir, and purr as [fɜː, stɜː, pɜː]), similar to Received Pronunciation (RP).

Like other Northern English dialects, Scouse does not have the foot–strut split. Therefore, words like cut, luck, and up share the same /ʊ/ phoneme as bull, foot, and put. Those trying to distinguish between the two usually use a stressed /ə/ for the first set, resulting in a Welsh English-like strut–schwa merger. This often leads to hypercorrection, causing phrases like good luck to be pronounced [ˌɡəd ˈɫʊk].

Words such as book, cook, and look are generally pronounced with the GOOSE vowel, not the FOOT vowel. This is common in other parts of Northern England and the Midlands. It results in minimal pairs like book and buck, cook and cuck, and look and luck. The long /ʉː/ in these words is often used in working-class accents. However, this feature is becoming less common, especially among younger people.

The weak vowel merger is evolving, causing some instances of unstressed /ɪ/ to merge with /ə/. Thus, words like eleven and orange are pronounced [əˈɫɛvən] and [ˈɒɾəndʒ]. The typical g-dropped variant of ing is [ən], which can form a syllabic consonant, as in disputing [dɪsˈpjʉːʔn̩]. Similar to the Geordie accent, [ɪ] may replace standard [ə], as in maggot [ˈmaɡɪθ̠].

Consonants of Scouse:

H-dropping is common, as in many other Northern England English varieties. This makes "hear", "high", and "hold" variably homophonous with "ear", "eye", and "old".

NG-coalescence is absent, unlike other Northern English accents, for instance, "along" is pronounced as [əˈlɒŋɡ].

Like many other accents worldwide, G-dropping also occurs with [ən] being the most common realization of the sequence.

The pronunciation of /t/ varies depending on the environment:

• Between vowels (including at word boundaries), it is typically pronounced as [ɹ] or [ɾ], found in several other Northern English varieties.

• Before a pause, it may be pronounced as [h], with older speakers doing this in function words with short vowels: "it", "lot", "not", "that", "what" pronounced as [ɪh, lɒh, nɒh, d̪ah, wɒh] respectively. Younger speakers may further pronounce in polysyllabic words in unstressed syllables, hence "aggregate" as [ˈaɡɾɪɡɪh]. This is not differentiated from [θ̠] in this article.

• T-glottalisation is less common than in the rest of England, with [ʔ] occurring before /l/ and syllabic consonants.

• /t/ can be pronounced as an affricate [ts] at the start of words and softened to [θ̠] between vowels and at the end of words. The latter type does not lead to a loss of contrast with /s/ as the articulation is different; also, /s/ is longer. For female speakers, the fricative pronunciation of /t/ is not necessarily [θ̠] but a complex sequence [hsh], so "out" is pronounced as [aʊhsh], rather than [aʊθ̠].

The difference is not transcribed and ⟨θ̠⟩ is used for the latter two pronunciations. /k/ can turn into an affricate or a fricative, determined mostly by the quality of the preceding vowel. If it's a fricative, a palatal, velar or uvular articulation ([ç, x, χ] respectively) is realised. This is seen distinctly with words like "book" and "clock".

/p/ can be fricatised to [ɸ].

As with other English varieties, the voiceless plosives /p, t, k/ are aspirated at the start of words, except when /s/ precedes in the same syllable. It can also occur at the end of words and utterances, with potential preaspirated pronunciations [ʰp, ʰt, ʰk] (which are often perceived as glottal noise or as oral friction produced in the same environment as the stop) for utterance-final environments, primarily found in female speakers.

The voiced plosives /b, d, ɡ/ are also fricatised, with /d/ particularly being softened to the same extent as /t/, although the fricative pronunciation is frequently devoiced.

Under Irish influence, the dental stops [t̪, d̪] are often used instead of the standard dental fricatives [θ, ð], leading to a phonemic distinction between dental and alveolar stops. The fricative forms are also found, whereas th-fronting is not as common.

The accent is non-rhotic, meaning /r/ is not pronounced unless followed by a vowel. When it is pronounced, it is typically realised as a tap [ɾ] between vowels (as in "mirror" [ˈmɪɾə]) and sometimes in initial clusters as well (as in "breath" [bɾɛt̪]) and as an approximant [ɹ] otherwise, a variant sometimes also used in lieu of the tap.

Some common stereotypes about Scouse accent:

It's often stereotyped as being harsh or grating on the ears, due to its unique tonal qualities.

Some people associate the Scouse accent with a lack of education or lower social status, a stereotype often propagated in TV and film.

There's a stereotype that Scousers, or people with the Scouse accent, are more likely to engage in criminal behavior. This is largely due to media representation and is not based in fact.

Список литературы

1. Beal Joan "English dialects in the North of England: phonology" - De Gruyter Mouton 2004 – 144p.

2. [Электронный ресурс]. URL:
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scouse (дата обращения 21.01.24)

3. [Электронный ресурс]. URL:
   https://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/localhistory/journey/scouse/talk/scouse.shtml (дата обращения 21.01.24)