The North: General Review

From the linguistic point of view, England, as is already known, is divided into south,
midlands and north. Sometimes, the north is associated with the combination of the north
and the midlands. This is not surprising, since the midlands and the north share a number
of linguistic features, such as the absence of FOOT-STRUT split, TRAP vowel with [a],
and BATH broadening.
The north itself can be subdivided into the middle north and the far north. The
middle north includes the densely populated industrial cities such as Manchester,
Bradford, Leeds, and Sheffield. The local accents within this area – the modern counties
of Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire – show considerable
resemblances to each other. They are often regarded as «typical» northern accents. The
modern counties of Merseyside and Lancashire differ in certain respects.
The far north means Tyneside and Tees-side. The accent of Tyneside differs from
typical northern accents a lot more than that of Tees-side. Tyneside is Newcastle-upon-
Tyne, the county of Northumberland, the home of the dialect commonly referred to as
«Geordie». Tees-side includes Middlesborough and Cleveland. Between them is
Durham.
It is in the north of England that the traditional dialect survives most strongly. It is
also true to fact that local differences in dialect and accent as one moves from village to
village are sharper in the north than in any other part of England.
Like in Midlands, the most important characteristic northern feature is the absence of
FOOT-STRUT Split, that is, the lack of a phonemic opposition between the vowels of
FOOT and STRUT type of words. Another characteristic feature of the north is the short
[a] in BATH types of words. However, the pronunciation of this type of words also
depends on the social class of the speaker. Thus, low-class speakers usually pronounce
BATH type of words with short [a], whereas high-class speakers pronounce it with long
[a:]. Also, the pronunciation of words with broad [a] may differ from region to region.
Thus, for example, the word half is usually pronounced in the north with long [a:], but in
Northumberland it is pronounced with short [a].
Liverpool Dialect (Scouse)

The dialect of the city of Liverpool and its immediate surroundings (the county of
Merseyside) is referred to as Scouse. This dialect is rather clearly distinct from that of the
neighboring areas. It is believed to have been strongly influenced by the large number of
Irish immigrants, as well as Welsh immigrants who settled in the north of England in the
nineteenth century.

As in the other parts of the north, important linguistic variables include the FOOT
type of words and the BATH type of words. But in the continuum ranging from broadest
Scouse to RP there are several other variables of much more restricted range. Some of
them should be attributed to Irish influence. Thus, some speakers use dental or alveolar
stops instead of [∂] and [θ]. Thus, the book would be pronounced [de büx], three books

- [tri büxs], month – [munt], that – [dat].

Another influence of Irish English on scouse is manifested in the sound [u], which
becomes umlaut: [u] → [ü]: book [büx], cook [küx].

Scouse is known to be a glottal dialect. Thus, under the influence of North Welsh, the
word-final [k] gets pronounced [x]: neck [nex], klock [klox], like [laix], chicken [tʃixən],

coke [kox], back [bax] .

Unlike other dialects in England, Scouse is a rhotic one, with approximant (strong) [ɹ].
Liverpool speakers use strong [ɹ] in all positions of a word: car [kar], bread [bred], hurry
[hari].

Another pronunciation feature that stands out Scouse is affrication of the final
voiceless stop [t], which sounds like affricate [ts]: right [raits], want [wonts], write
[raits], night [naits], moment [moments].

Like in some other English dialects, as in Cockney or Manchester dialect, in Scouse

too we observe initial [h] dropping: he [i], hard [ard], house [aus].
 The prosodic feature that stands out most clearly in Scouse is the rising intonation in
declarative statements. Thus, a sentence like “He is my son Julian” would be pronounced
like a question.

Manchester Dialect (Mancunian dialect)

Manchester is geographically close to Liverpool, but the accents are markedly

different from each other. Manchester English has been much less influenced by Irish
English than has Liverpool English. The accent of Manchester has much more similarity
to those spoken in Lancashire and in southern Yorkshire than does Liverpool speech.

Being a northern dialect, Manchester dialect is characterized by the absence of FOOT-

STRUT opposition, that is, the lack of the sound [ʌ] in the words like strut or putt,
instead containing the sound [u]. The sound [a] is found in BATH type of words, like
dance and draft, rather than the sound [a:] as in RP and southern dialects.
Another characteristic feature of Manchester dialect is the dropping of the initial [h].

That often happens in spontaneous speech, like horrible [ɔrəbl], hanging [ænging],

house [aus].
Manchester dialect is fully de-rhotisized, unlike other varieties spoken in Lancashire
which are rhotic. The sound [r] may be tapped (i.e. pronounced softly) inter-vocalically
and also in word-initial consonant clusters, like in story, encourage, throw. In the final
position [r] is vocalized: car [ka:], far [fa:].
In CAUGHT type of words, which lack a historical [r], the vowels may be as open and

unrounded as [a], instead of [ɔ], for example: Paul [pal], caught [kat], paw [pa]. Thus,
for example, paws and pause are homophones as [pa:z].
Another characteristic feature of Manchester accent is retracted and lowered quality of
er, which is pronounced [a] instead of [ə] in the word-final position: water [wota], butter
[buta].
Finally, among the idiosyncracies of Manchester accent is the unconventional
pronunciation of [v] instead of [θ]: bothered [ bɔvəd].