Estuary English in the 21st Century

Posted on June 4, 2011 by Ben

The Thames RiverI’ve used the term  Estuary English quite a bit on this site.  For the dialect novices out there, I’d like to explain what this phrase means, and my personal take on it.

Estuary English is a hard concept to define.  Sometimes it’s referred to as a contemporary “standard British accent;” other times as something more regional.  So before I go further, let’s look at the original definition of Estuary English, proposed by linguist David Rosewarne in 1984:

“Estuary English” is a variety of modified regional speech. It is a mixture of non-regional and local south-eastern English pronunciation and intonation. If one imagines a continuum with RP and London speech at either end, “Estuary English” speakers are to be found grouped in the middle ground.

The heartland of this variety lies by the banks of the Thames and its estuary, but it seems to be the most influential accent in the south-east of England.

As Rosewarne and other linguists suggest, Estuary is a type of accent found in Southeast England. Notably, it is found in parts of the region beyond London itself: Essex, Sussex, Kent, Berkshire, and such.

For an example of Estuary, I often use comedian Ricky Gervais, whom I would consider an Estuary speaker, from Reading:

It is hard to pinpoint what Estuary is, but linguists tend to mark it by a number of features:

–T-Glottaling:  The ‘t’ in a phrase like “lot of” becomes a glottal stop [ʔ] (“lo’ of”); this may occur in words like “butter” as well (although this point has been debated a good deal).

–L-vocalization:  The ‘l’ in words like “bell” becomes a vowel sound (“bew”).

–The London Vowel Shift:  Estuary participates in a vowel shift typical of London, whereby the vowel in FACE moves toward the vowel in PRICE (hence “lace” moves toward “lice”); the vowel in PRICE moves toward the vowel in CHOICE (so “buy” moves toward “boy”); not to mention several other shifts too numerous to mention here.  (You can see a more detailed description of Estuary’s phonetics in this John C. Wells article.)

A valid objection to the concept of “Estuary” is that many of these features existed throughout Southeast England long before contemporary times.  In other words, these were never exclusively “London” features, and many of the areas where “Estuary” has been observed have had similar accents for at least a century.

But that’s not the point of the Estuary distinction.  At least not in my opinion.  What makes the accent interesting is that people who in previous generations would have spoken Received Pronunciation or perhaps near-RP (standard British English) have instead opted for this more “regional sounding” accent.  Estuary isn’t radical because of its spread; it’s radical because of the type of people who speak it:  middle-class young people, celebrities, and white collar professionals.

Estuary is also perceived, by some, as a phenomenon moving throughout the UK (not just the Southeast).  This is  a problematic notion, since many features of London English coincide with those of other accents:  a similar vowel shift to London’s can be found in the Midlands, and t-glottalling is a traditional feature of accents as disparate as those in Manchester, Scotland and Dublin.

One feature that is almost inarguably spreading, however, is l-vocalization.*   However,  given that this feature has become fairly standard in genteel accents (I often use Tony Blair as an example), is this indicative of the spread of Estuary? (Whatever that means). Or is l-vocalization becoming something of a prestige feature?

As Estuary English is a very abstract concept, I have a hard time answering these questions.  I think there are features spreading rapidly throughout the UK that indeed seem to gravitate from Greater London. Given that the region now accounts for a good 20% of the UK’s population, this is not very surprising. But can these trends specifically be attributed to “Estuary?”

NOTE: I removed a video clip from this post in a later revision (although it’s referenced in the comments). It’s authenticity was debatable, and as it didn’t really add anything to the discussion, I took it out completely.

Share

Posted in British English | Tagged , , | 28 Comments

Is the Welsh Accent “Foreign?”

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Ben
Map of Welsh Language Fluency

Welsh Language Fluency in the UK (Keith Edkins / Wikimedia)

The Welsh accent is a mystery on American shores.  Numerous Welsh celebrities have made the US their home: your Hopkinses, Burtonses, Zeta-Joneses, and just plain Joneses.  Yet Americans have few of the preconceptions about Welsh English that we do for Received Pronunciation, Cockney, or Irish English.

To hear a Welsh accent as an American, then, is to hear it with virgin ears.  And one’s first impression is often one of “foreignness.”  There is something about Welsh English, in all its beauty, that can strike an outsider as exotic, as not quite of the English-speaking world.  And given that Welsh (the language) is spoken by a solid percentage of the country’s populace, can the Welsh accent itself be described as foreign?

Maybe.  Although it’s less common these days, there are certainly first-language Welsh speakers who learned English later in their childhood (musician John Cale is a good example of this).  Yet regardless of a speaker’s English acquisition, there remains something slightly different in the speech of many Welsh people.  For example, famous baritone Bryn Terfel:

Terfel’s Welsh accent is quite mild. But the rhythm of his speech is markedly different than most accents of English: like the Welsh language itself, this accent has more “evenly weighed” syllables.

For example, in most contemporary accents of English the second syllable in “language” can be expected to be reduced to an extremely short vowel, almost disappearing completely for some speakers. In some types of Welsh accents, however, each syllable in “language” is clearly pronounced, so that the word becomes something like “lang-wedge” (IPA laŋgwɛʤ)*. This is  quite different from the majority of native Englishes.

But this isn’t the only feature that marks Welsh English as a different animal. As a commenter mentioned a few posts back, the accent is remarkable for how very different it is from its neighbors. The Welsh accent is largely derived from non-rhotic Southern English dialects. Yet the nearest region of England to Wales is the West Country, an area with a brogue arguably more akin to Irish English.

Welsh English, then, most likely began as a “school-learned” accent. In this sense, its origins are similar to Indian, Singaporean or Afrikaaner English. “Foreign?” Maybe not. But I do think it’s origins as a foreign accent are more recent than most other English varieties**.

Perhaps a moot point, though: Despite the country’s promotion of its native language, the Welsh accent’s distinctiveness may be waning. With that in mind, I’ll leave you with a clip of a much younger Welsh person, courtesy of a PSA by the Welsh government. Hear any London in her speech?

*Example not my own. This is mentioned in this study of the Rhondda Valleys accent of South Wales (by Rod Walters, of the University of Glamorgan).

**Again, citing the study above, Welsh fluency in the region studied was at 61% at the turn of the 20th Century, dropping to a paltry 8% by the turn of the 21st. These figures (along with features of Welsh English like the TRAP-BATH split and non-rhoticity), and the history of Welsh industrialization, would strongly suggest 19th-Century origins.

Share

Posted in British English | Tagged , , | 25 Comments

Does Climate Affect Accent?

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Ben

US Weather Map

I have one last point to make about the accents in Fargo.

After that film was released, I remember its dialect coach being interviewed on a glib entertainment news show (a la Access Hollywood). As I recall, she mentioned instructing the actors to “tighten their jaws.” In her mind, Minnesota’s bitterly cold winter impacts the physiology of how people speak there.

Now, as a New Englander, I can relate to the feeling of facial tightness that accompanies sub-zero temperatures. But I think people make dubious correlations in terms of accents and climate. To take a contrasting example, many people suggest that American Southern accents are “slower” because of how hot it is in that region. And while I understand this line of thinking, I feel it’s ignorant of more obvious causes.

For example, the Southern states’ late industrialization when compared with the North might be to blame for the region’s “langurous” speech (it is posited that urban accents are faster than rural ones). Assuming, of course, that Southern accents could be proven “slower” in the first place.

And in terms of Minnesotan accents being “tight jawed,” I think that’s indicative of another fallacy: just because you live somewhere cold, doesn’t mean you’re going to be more exposed to the cold. I’m more affected by freezing temps in New York City than the technically harsher climate that I grew up in.  I don’t have the luxury of avoiding the elements.  Why would you be less susceptible to the “tight jaw” effect in NYC than in a small Minnesota town, where your means of transit is a well-heated car?

There is also the little problem of precedence. It is hard to find similar cold-hot, fast-slow, “tight”-“loose” correlations within dialects of languages beyond English. For example, Puerto Rico is about as sweltering as it gets in North America, yet the Puerto Rican dialect doesn’t strike me as slower than the Spanish of Northern Spain. Quite the opposite, in fact. If heat makes you slow down your speech, wouldn’t we find more evidence of this outside English?

If climate impacts accent in any way, then, I feel it would be a result of weather-influenced behavior rather than the weather itself. For example, people in very cold climates might be expected to spend more time indoors than those who live in, say, San Diego. The amount of time spent indoors vs. out could definitely impact one’s idiolect.

I haven’t read much about this in scholarly work, outside of an impressionistic remark here or there.  Anyone know of research done on this kind of thing? (Doesn’t have to be strictly English-centric).

Share

Posted in American English | 18 Comments

The “Fargo” Accent: A Joke that Never Dies

Posted on May 29, 2011 by Ben

Minnesota in winterIt’s been fifteen years since Fargo was released in American theaters.  Set in rural Minnesota, the film turned an obscure American regional dialect into a national punchline, albeit a loving one.  Mention “Minnesota dialect” to an American, and they’ll give you an imitation replete with oh yahs and you betchas and dontchaknows.

Minnesotans can be touchy about this subject, since many of them (particularly around Minneapolis) speak General American English.  This classic scene from Fargo will give you a good idea of the dialect used in the film that gets some Minnesotans hot under the collar.

Watching this clip, I am struck by three things:

1.) The dialect here is more exaggerated than the accent. More objectionable might be the (over)use of dialect words such as yah (a very Germanic “yes” that harks back to the Upper Midwest’s roots in Germany and Scandinavia), and you betcha.

2.) It’s the cultural stereotypes in the film that are arguably more problematic.  Fargo portrays Minnesotans as a group of people with an unwavering friendly reserve that remains unshaken even in the face of violence.  As with many fictional works satirizing rural people, the film straddles the line between using loving humor and painting its characters as backwater oddballs.  The accent has become emblematic of these stereotypes.

3.) To be fair, I also see some dialect obliviousness going on here.  Like many Americans, Minnesotans occasionally seem unaware of their own accents.  A case in point is this video, created by a young Minnesotan trying to dispell myths about the accent of his home state:

Let’s face it:  there’s some unintentional humor here.  For all of this guy’s protestations about his accent being misrepresented, his speech is very clearly regional.  Just because you don’t say “youbetcha” doesn’t mean you don’t have a Minnesota accent!

I was a huge fan of Fargo, although I can see how the film’s signature dialect is a bit of a fiction.  Any Minnesotans out there with thoughts?

Share

Posted in American English | Tagged , | 37 Comments

Pub vs. Bar: The Eternal Quandary

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Ben

A PintIt’s Friday afternoon, a time of drinking and merriment throughout the world. As such, today’s post will focus on two words related to imbibing: pub and bar. Although similar in meaning, these terms seem to have different meanings depending on dialect.

Let me state this for the record: Americans do, in fact, use the word “pub.” Set foot in most small American towns, and you’ll read signs for Brian’s Pub, TJ’s Pub, Slider’s Pub and Restaurant, or similar variations. This is not a word foreign to American soil.

Given, bar is more common here when referring to establishments of this type. Yet “pub” seems to have its own niche in American English that I can’t put my finger on. What exactly is a “pub” to an American?

One possible answer is indicated above: it’s more the provenance of business titles than everday speech. You could argue that “pub” in America is similar to the word mart: you might see signs for the Food Mart or Value Mart, but you’re unlikely to say, “I’m going down to the mart to pick up some eggs.”

And yet I’ve used “pub” in everyday discourse.  I doubt I’m the only American to do so. But there are some restrictions on this usage. For example, if I were to ask a friend …

“Do you want to go to a pub tonight?”

…my friend will certainly understand what I mean. But the question will sound strange and affected coming from my American lips. On the other hand, I could also ask…

“Do you want to go to that nice little pub down the street?”

…and this feels more natural. In my idiolect, then, I use “pub” to refer to a specific establishment, rather than a general type of establishment. There are qualitative shades of meaning to this word for me as well: a “pub” is somewhere homey, quieter, relaxed; a “bar” the kind of raucous place you tried to sneak into as a teenager.

In this thread about this topic in wordreference.com’s language forum, you’ll see that many people make the same association. Pub = homey, darts, food; bar = loud, no food, seedy.

Is it possible then, that the different frequencies of “pub” and “bar” on each side of the Atlantic are a matter of what kind of businesses are typical of each? You can find amazing pubs in any U.S. city, but they are probably outnumbered by dark, loud, alchohol-centric places. Likewise, Britain and Ireland have their share of sleazy “bars.” But for both countries, the kind of place where a working-man can enjoy a quiet pint in the afternoon still dominates.

Regardless of whether you go to pubs or bars (or just stay home), happy friday.

Share

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

The “Trubbow” with L-Vocalization

Posted on May 26, 2011 by Ben

Listen to a three-year-old say “doll,” and it will probably sound like “dow.”  Along the same lines, a young child’s “trouble” becomes “trubbow,” “fall” becomes “foe,” “bell” becomes “bew.”  Or so it sounds to the average listener.  This  is what is called L-vocalization, the tendency to turn the letter l at the end of words into some type of “w” or “oo” sound.

Of course, this quirk isn’t confined to children.  Many adult accents of English use l-vocalization, perhaps the most famous being Cockney.  Case in point is this clip of famous East Londoner Ray Winstone (listen to the words “whole,” “film,” “nostalgia” and “girl):

But to refer to l-vocalization as a Cockney feature would be  inaccurate.  It’s become widespread in the UK, even making headway into speakers of Received Pronunciation (Standard British): Tony Blair is a famous l-vocalizer, for example.

There are  some l-vocalized accents less commented on, but just as notable:

1.)  The mid-Atlantic United States.  This feature is common in the Philadelphia-Baltimore corridor in the US (hence the notorious local pronunciation of the latter as “Bawdimore”).  This feature extends westward as well, into much of the southern half of Pennsylvania.

2.)  African-American Vernacular English. L-vocalization has long been a feature of the speech of African Americans.

3.)  Glasgow English. L-vocalization has become typical of younger people in Glasgow.  It is sometimes suggested this is an effect of the spread of Estuary or London English, but I’m not sure about that.

And there are many more accents of this type I’m not mentioning.

L-vocalization occurs in English because of something called the dark L.  In many accents, the “l” in light and the “l” in bell are in not fact the same.  The l that appears after vowels is velarized, meaning the tongue very slightly lifts toward the velum (the rear part of the roof of your mouth).  Impressionistically speaking, this gives the dark L a “heavy” sound.

In accents with l-vocalization, what happens is that the actual “l” itself disappears, leaving only the sound created by the lifting of the tongue toward the velum.  Depending on how rounded the lips are, this creates sounds such as w, oo, oh or any number of other variations.

But why do some accents do this while others don’t?  This question stumps me.  The simplest answer would be that it’s related to “r-dropping:” accents such as Cockney, African American Vernacular English and younger Glasgow English are noted for having various degrees of non-rhoticity (r-dropping).  In these accents, the rule seems to be that after vowels, liquids (the type of consonant that including English l and r ) are dropped or weakened.

But then, how would you explain Pittsburgh, a city renowned for its l-vocalization that is also strongly rhotic (r-ful)?  Not to mention that there are numerous non-rhotic accents without l-vocalization, such as Eastern New England* and most Northern English accents. There seems to be a kind of common denominator here, I just can’t figure out what it is.

As usual, I’m sure some of you have read something about this feature and its origins.  Any credible theories?

*This being said, I’m not 100% sure there aren’t some Eastern New Englanders who do this.  This feature is so variable, it’s incredibly hard to say which accents have it and which don’t.

Share

Posted in English Phonetics | Tagged , , , | 83 Comments

Arrr, Matey! The Origins of the Pirate Accent

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Ben
Blackbeard

Cover of "Blackbeard, Buccaneer" (1922)

Ask people to imitate a pirate, and they instinctually adopt the “pirate accent” immortalized in film and television. This unique brogue is renowned for it’s strong “r” sound, as in “yarrr” and “arrrrr.”

Pirate imitators may wonder, “What accent am I doing? Some kinda Irish?”

The classic “pirate dialect,” in fact, is not Irish, but rather a crude imitation of the slightly similar West Country English (the dialects of Southwest England)*. Why do fictional pirates always speak in this accent? Here’s the standard explanation: During the Golden Age of Piracy, in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, many English pirates came from this region. Look up famous seadogs from the era, and you’ll find birthplaces in Bristol, Devon, and Cornwall. Mystery solved, right?

Not so fast. The golden age of piracy ended by the mid-eighteenth century. How can we collectively remember how these men spoke? And how can everyday people approximate the accent of 18th-century English pirates with such surprising verisimilitude?

I can only think of one explanation. At some point in time, some actor must have needed to play one of these pirates. Upon discovering that his pirate character was from the West Country, he decided to use the appropriate accent. And somehow this convention must have spread.

But where, and when, did this convention originate? My experience suggests the pirate brogue emerged as a dramatic staple in the 20th-Century. As a child, I was a huge fan of early pirate flicks like Treasure Island (1934) and Errol Flynn’s Captain Blood, and I don’t recall any West Country accents in those films. So perhaps it was a later phenomenon.

With this in mind, I decided to do some research on the matter. I think I may have stumbled upon a possible culprit for the Pirate accent, thanks to the website of Bonaventure, a British maritime re-enactment group:

Long John Silver lived in Bristol, England, supposedly the birthplace of Edward Teach, Blackbeard. In the early 1950s Disney produced films of “Treasure Island” (1950) and “Blackbeard the Pirate”(1952), and the same actor was used to play Silver and Teach – Robert Newton. Newton then reprised his role of Long John Silver for “Long John Silver” (1954) and the TV series “The adventures of Long John Silver (1955). Robert Newton was born and raised in Dorset, not far from Bristol, so he knew the West Country accent which Silver and Teach would have spoken in very well, and used it in those films.

If Disney had perhaps not cast Newton, is it possible the pirate accent would have never entered the popular consciousness?

As usual, I welcome alternate theories.

*An old post at Language Log explores a different explanation rooted in Ireland.

Share

Posted in British English | Tagged , , | 45 Comments

Was that a question? Belfast Upspeak

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Ben
Albert Tower

Albert Tower, Belfast (Wikimedia)

“Belfast upspeak” describes the upward inflection you find in Belfast English (and perhaps Northern Irish accents generally). In a nutshell, upspeak is the tendency to go up at the end of sentences? So everything sounds a bit like a question? At least to American ears?

Upspeak obviously isn’t confined to Belfast or Northern Ireland. It also seems common in Northern English and Scottish accents (Liverpool perhaps being the most famous example of this). And it has made headway in the US, as in the classic Valley Girl accent (“I was driving to the mall? To buy a bikini?”)*

But it’s in Ulster where upspeak strikes me as the frequent and systematic. In a study of the intonation of different accents, for example, the researchers found an upward inflection in Belfast of over 83% of declarative statements. In London, this percentage was exactly 0%!

To give you a sense of Belfast upspeak, check out this video**. It’s a long clip, so I’d recommend hopping around a bit to find various interviews (which start about a minute in):

The challenge for upspeak is comprehensibility. Belfast is already a notoriously tricky accent to parse thanks to its unusual system of allophones (the word “man” in popular Belfast nearly rhymes with General American “lawn;” the word “bag,” on the other hand, almost rhymes with GenAm “beg”). Upspeak no doubt furthers the potential for confusion.

What’s interesting is that, as per the study I linked to above, Belfast English relies on intonation very little to create meaning. Why, then, do some accents require different types of intonation to communicate? And why do others (e.g. Belfast) not require this?


*Important note: “upspeak” or “uptalk” is often used to refer to different types of intonational patterns. California uptalk is probably a very different animal than Belfast uptalk. I haven’t read anything about California uptalk, however, so I can’t offer specifics.
**I’m sorry to include a clip here that is all about the Troubles (there’s obviously more to Belfast than its recent history). However, this video provides one of the better collections of accent samples from the city you can find online.

Share

Posted in Irish English | Tagged | 23 Comments

A Quick Break

Posted on May 20, 2011 by Ben

I’m going to be computerless for the next two days, so I’m taking a short break from this site. I won’t be a presence in the comments section, but feel free to share!

In parting, I’d like to share one of my favorite old accent recordings, an interview with the late, great Dublin writer Brendan Behan:

Happy listening.

Share

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 1 Comment

Learn an Accent in 3 Minutes! (A Rant)

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Ben
Eliza Doolittle

19th C. Drawing of Eliza Doolittle (Library of Congress)

A while back I posted something about “accent savants” on Youtube. These are people with a knack for dialects who post videos of themselves imitating Cockneys, Americans, Irishmen or some other nationality. I find these videos harmless fun, even as I have qualms with their accuracy.

The actor in me, however, fears a more harmful phenomenon, the “How to do an accent” videos now littering the web.

Anyone who cares about dialect work, and knows first-hand how easy it is to go astray, should take issue with things like this person, who attempts to teach you Cockney (sorry, the embed function is disabled here).

Before we all jump down this guy’s throat, I’ll say that this tutorial isn’t entirely off-base. But that’s not really the point. These kinds of videos perpetuate the bizarre myth that you can learn an accent instantly, as if you can throw on a few simple “sound changes” and people will think you’re a Hackney shopkeeper. “Learn an accent in three minutes” makes as much sense as “learn how to repair your car’s suspension system in three minutes.” Both excellent ways to end up in a ditch.

Acting, I learned in school, is about specificity. And videos like this are geared toward non-specificity: the most general and obvious features of an accent explained in the most general and obvious way. Good accent work is not about getting the big stuff right. It’s about nailing the little distinctions: the difference in pronunciation of GOAL and GOAT in London, the difference between CAT and CAN in California, between RIGHT and RIDE in Philadelphia. It’s about consonants, not just vowels. Intonation, not just phonetics.

Okay. Rant delivered; choir preached to.

Look.  I don’t want to be too harsh on the people who make videos like these. I understand their passion, and I understand the need to share (otherwise I wouldn’t write this blog!) But I would ask people who want to talk about accent and dialects on YouTube to talk about these topics rather than pretending to teach something instantly which can take years to learn. Let’s not mislead people.

Share

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | 11 Comments