Selected Languages and Accents of British Isles

British English (BrE) is a term used to distinguish the form of the English language used in the British Isles from forms used elsewhere. It includes all the varieties of English used within the Isles, including those found in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.

As with many other aspects of culture within the British Isles, the English language as spoken in the United Kingdom and Ireland is governed by convention rather than formal code: there is significant variation in grammar, usage, spelling, and vocabulary within English as used in the UK and Ireland.

While there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in formal written English in the UK and Ireland, the forms of spoken English used vary considerably more than in most other areas of the world where English is spoken. Dialects and accents vary not only between the nations of the British Isles, for example in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, but also within these countries themselves. The written form of the language, as taught in schools, is the same as in the rest of the English-speaking world (except North America), with a slight emphasis on words whose usage varies amongst the different regions of the UK.

For historical reasons dating back to the rise of London in the 9th century, the form of language spoken in London and the East Midlands became standard English within the Court, and thus the form generally accepted for use in the law, government, literature and education within the British Isles. To a great extent, modern British spelling was standardized in Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), although previous writers had also played a significant role in this and much has changed since 1755.

The most common form of English used by the British ruling class is that of south-east England (the area around the capital, London, and the ancient English university towns of Oxford and Cambridge). This form of the language is associated with Received Pronunciation (RP), which is still regarded by many people outside the UK (especially in the United States) as "the British accent". However, even RP has evolved quite markedly over the last 40 years.

Scottish English

Scottish English is usually taken to mean the standard form of the English language used in Scotland, often termed Scottish Standard English. It is the language normally used in formal, non-fictional written texts in Scotland.

Scottish English is the result of language contact between Scots and English after the 17th century. The resulting shift to English by Scots-speakers resulted in many phonological compromises and lexical transfers, often mistaken for mergers by linguists unfamiliar with the history of Scottish English. The standard spelling, grammar, and punctuation of Scottish English tend to follow the style of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). However, there are some unique characteristics, mainly in the phonological and phonetic systems. Highland English is slightly different from the variety spoken in the lowlands in that it is more phonologically, grammatically, and lexically influenced by a Gaelic substratum.

Lexis

General items are : pinkie for little finger; doubt meaning to think or suspect; and wee, the Scots word for small. Culturally specific items like caber, haggis. In some areas there is a substantial non-standard lexis apparently acquired from the Romany language and from Eastern European languages; examples include gadge (lad, chap) and peeve (alcoholic drink). There is a wide range of legal and administrative vocabulary inherited from Scots.

Pronunciation features vary among speakers, and there are social and regional differences:

• It is a rhotic accent, with r still pronounced before consonants or silence. It may be [r] (an alveolar trill), though more commonly a alveolar tap .The differentiation between "w" in witch and "wh" in which, [w] and [ʍ] respectively survives.

• L is usually dark, though in areas where Gaelic was recently spoken—including Dumfries and Galloway—a clear l may be found.

• The following may occur in colloquial speech, usually among the young, especially males. They are not usually regarded as part of SSE, their origin being in Scots:

o The use of glottal stops for [t] between vowels or word final after a vowel, for example butter /ˈbʌʔəɹ/ and cat /ˈkaʔ/.

o The realisation of the nasal velar in the suffix "-ing" as a nasal alveolar "in'" for example talking /ˈtɔːkɪn/.

• Vowel length is usually regarded as non-phonemic, but is a crucial aspect of the accent (Scobbie et al. 1999). It most clearly affects /i/, /u/ and /ae/. Predictable short vowel duration gives many Scottish accents a distinctive "clipped" pronunciation before two classes of consonants, namely nasals, for example spoon [spun] and voiced stops, especially /d/, e.g. brood /brud/. This is generally the same as in the Scots language, but the latter includes minimal pairs for /ae/ e.g. gey, "very" vs. /aːe/ e.g. guy

• SSE usually distinguishes between [ɛ]-[ɪ]-[ʌ] before [r] in herd-bird-curd, in Received Pronunciation these have merged into [ɜː].

• Many varieties contrast /o/ and /ɔ/ before [r] as in hoarse and horse.

 SSE contrasts [oːr] and [uːr], as in shore and pour vs. sure and poor. .

Syntax

Syntactical differences are few though in colloquial speech shall and ought are wanting, must is marginal for obligation and may is rare:

• Can I come too? or Can I come as well?' for "May I come too?"

• Have you got any? for "Do you have any?"

• I've got one of those already. for "I have one of those already."

• It's your shot. for "It's your turn."

• My hair is needing washed. or My hair needs washed for "My hair needs washing."

• Amn't I invited? for "Am I not invited?"

• How no? for "Why not?"

The use of "How?" meaning "Why?" is unique to Scottish and Northern Irish English.

Note that in Scottish English, the first person declarative I amn't invited. and interrogative "Amn't I invited?" are both possible.

Other examples are distinctively Scots:

• Dae ye ken Ken kens Ken? for "Do you know Ken knows Ken?"

• Am I no invited? for "Am I not invited?"

Welsh English, Anglo-Welsh, or Wenglish

refer to the dialects of English spoken in Wales by Welsh people. The dialects are significantly modified by Welsh grammar and nouns, and contain a number of unique words. In addition to the distinctive words and grammar, there are a variety of accents found across Wales.

Pronunciation and Peculiarities

• Distinctive pitch differences giving a "sing-song" effect.

• Lengthening of all vowels is common in strong valleys accents.

• A tendency towards using an alveolar trill /r/ (the 'rolled r') in place of an approximant /ɹ/ (the 'normal English r').

• Yod-dropping does not occur after any consonant, so rude and rood, threw and through, chews and choose, chute and shoot etc. are distinct.

• Sometimes adding the word "like" or "indeed" to the end of a sentence for emphasis, or using them as stop-gaps.

Grammar

As well as straightforward borrowings of words from the Welsh language (cwtsh, picking to rain), grammar from the language has crept into English spoken in Wales. Placing something at the start of a sentence emphasises it: "furious, she was". Periphrasis and auxiliary verbs are used in spoken Welsh, resulting in the English: "He do go there", "I do do it", particularly in the so-called Wenglish accent.

There is also evidence of the misappropriation into English sentence forms of Welsh verbs. The common Wenglish form, "He learned me to drive," is in place of the correct English usage, "He taught me to drive,".

There is a very wide range of regional accents within Wales.

The sing-song Welsh accent familiar to many English people is generally associated with South Wales. Accents from South Wales can be heard from the actors Richard Burton and (to a lesser extent) Anthony Hopkins, or on recordings of Dylan Thomas. Swansea accents are prominent in the film Twin Town. The popular Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones also has a Swansea accent. The singers Shirley Bassey and Charlotte Church, meanwhile, are from Cardiff.

The accents of North Wales are markedly different. In North West Wales the accent is less sing-song, with a more consistently high-pitched voice and the vowels pressed to the back of the throat. The "R" sound is rolled extensively and the dark L is used at the beginning or middle of words, for example in "lose", "bloke", and "valley". The sound /z/ is often pronounced unvoiced (the sound does not exist in Welsh), so "lose" is pronounced the same as "loose".

In North East Wales, the accent can sound like that of Cheshire or Staffordshire. Around Wrexham, accents are similar to Scouse and younger people in particular have begun to use more Scouse-like vocabulary, such as "la" and "kid."

The accents of West-Wales are gentler in nature than either the "valleys" or the Northern Welsh accents and are one of the more beautiful British accents to listen to.