Modern London vowels

European   Mon Mar 22, 2010 7:55 pm GMT
I have 2 questions to native English speakers about some characteristics of London Accents...

1) what is the actual quality of the /aɪ/ vowel in London, the most commonly used pronunciation ?

2) could my low central front onset be appropriate - /äɪ/ - I ask because I'm gonna move to London in the nearest future...
Kendra   Mon Mar 22, 2010 11:26 pm GMT
In London and Australia ''lust'' many times sounds like [läst] which is close to ''lost'' pronounced in Tucson AZ or St. John's NF (famous ''low central merger'' of cot/caught in these cities, according to prof. Labov's Atlas).
tucson   Tue Mar 23, 2010 12:29 am GMT
I don't know about NF, but in Tucson, the vowel is low back not low central, which would really stick out here--if we noticed such things, which we don't. How many people in Tucson did Labov analyze? 2?
Damian in Edinburgh   Tue Mar 23, 2010 9:10 am GMT
I don't think our European friend, like myself, is at all concerned about the vowel sounds voiced in either Tucson AZ or St John's, Newfoundland, or even in Wagga Wagga, Australia....all very far removed from both of us. S/he is talking about a possibly imminent move to London - the real London, the original one, the one in England, the only one that really matters in the wider scheme of things. ;-)

When time permits I will return to this thread and offer some kind of explanatory reply...I am, after all, reasonably well acquainted with the various native accents of London - there are two main variants with some subsidiaries within each of them.
Neo Cockney   Tue Mar 23, 2010 1:05 pm GMT
Neo Cockney is awl bout yoo get me blud and innit
European   Thu Mar 25, 2010 7:18 pm GMT
Thanks guys, but I have to agree with my European mate - Damian... My post was about vowel sounds found in modern London accents, North American dialects are fine for me but I need something different and a bit closer to my pronunciation tendencies....My main problem was /aɪ/ diphthong found in PRICE nad PRIDE(sorry for the capital letters!) lexical sets (as some phoneticians say, like J. Wells) ...I know that my usage of IPA characters may be a little bit confusing, especially with long /a:/...
Reaney   Thu Mar 25, 2010 10:34 pm GMT
<I am, after all, reasonably well acquainted with the various native accents of London - there are two main variants with some subsidiaries within each of them.>

The second part of this statement disproves the first part. If you can only hear "two main variants" in the whole of London, you are not qualified to speak on the subject.
Damian in Edinburgh   Thu Mar 25, 2010 10:49 pm GMT
Of necessity I have to present these YT clips in stages......here is a British Speech and Dialects accent from the British Library discussing the London accents, and as you will hear he mentions the difference between the North and South London accents. Although I am a Scot I have now managed to distinguish some differences between the two myself, having worked (and played) down in London myself on several occasions.

Very quickly, I will say here that the words "price" and "pride", as mentioned by my fellow European European, are somewhat diphthongised in Londonspeak, whether north or south of the River, and come out something like "prohy-ees" and "prohy-eed" - as I say, something like that. A native born Londoner would probably indicate it in print better than I can...I am only an "honorary" Londoner.

Anyway, here is the gentleman from the British Library, an authority on British accents. His own is a wee bit odd in my opinion, but it didn't take me long to discern a Northern English strain in his accent, with its flat "a" for the most part, but what puzzled me is the way he pronounced the word "class" with the Northern English short, flat "a" (CL-ass) at one point and later on with the Southern English long "a" (CL-aahs). Maybe he was born and bred in Northern England but most probably lives in Southern England now.

London is now such an immense hotchpotch of accents when the English Language is being spoken simply because it is such a cosmopolitan city and home to many cultures, but even among native born English speakers resident in Greater London the accent and manner of speaking English can vary a great deal. Social background plays a big part in this. I mean, the way they speak London English in some of the inner city suburbs such as Hackney or Lewisham or Tottenham can vary quite a lot to what you will hear in the leafier, more prosperous outer suburbs such as Surbiton or Beckenham or Ruislip or wherever, where, for instance, Brixton or Camberwell or Peckham "ghetto" style Londonspeak is never heard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HDmKvz4Lfw
Damian in Edinburgh   Thu Mar 25, 2010 11:20 pm GMT
Being in London and trying to find native born Londoners speaking London style English is about as easy as it is to find a needle in a giant haystack......here we are touring Central London assisting English Language learners in their quest to hear a genuine London accent....the interviewer came across an Englishman who was obviously not a Londoner and who didn't think much of the city anyway; three lasses from Hull, which is on the east coast of Northern England, and who had only arrived in London the day before and who thought that the weather in London was great, if a wee bit hot, and that the tube (subway/underground) was "crammed (with people) and hot" - when is it ever not!; and then a delightful elderly American couple standing outside the gates of Buckingham Palace who "loved London and the people - and wanted to take a photograph of that "golden statue behind the camera" and wanted to know the name of it - the interviewer was quite unable to identify the statue so he was obviously not from London himself!

I can tell you that they were all referring to the Queen Victoria Memorial, all resplendent on its massive plinth and surrounds in the centre of the esplanade in front of Buckingham Palace, or Buck House as Londoners call it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvh6ra1gbjc&feature=related
Damian in Edinburgh   Thu Mar 25, 2010 11:33 pm GMT
Further to the remarks from those two lovely Americans and their reference to British Airways.......oops! If they had been interviewed at the present time I doubt very much indeed that they would have been so effusive in their praise due to the current situation.....my fellow Brits will know what I'm taking about.

And their sweet reference to Piccadilly "Square"........oops! again.......maybe they were confusing it with nearby Leicester "Circus"......aw! bless them! ;-)

Guid nicht!
Pete from Peru   Fri Mar 26, 2010 5:45 am GMT
Damian help me here, please!

It's about the last two ladies in this video you're talking about (which is quite interesting by the way, thank you). The lass from Blackburn has a feature in her accent. It's the way she pronounces her t's and d's.

I recall hearing that pronunciation in people coming from different parts of England, but only in ladies now that I think about it. It's sort of tense, I don't know. It's something I find annoying because it's something I haven't been able to replicate myself. But I have to admit that I sorta like it.

What can you tell me about it?
Is it common?
Is it exclusive to women?
Is it something people frown upon?

I hope it's not something viewed as negative as the R's pronounced by this chap Jonathan Woss. ;)

Kind regards.
Damian in Edinburgh   Fri Mar 26, 2010 10:50 pm GMT
I'm here to help, Pete - or to to use my best Estuary Londonspeak - "Oim 'ere to 'elp, Pete, mite!"

Those two lasses at the end.....I'm not to sure what you mean about the pronunciation of the "ts" and "ds". I listened very intently, but could not detect anything really untoward in the speech of either lady....one said she came from Blackpool, actually - not Blackburn...both of those places are in Lancashire (Jasper - please note!)....Blackpool a large holiday centre on the Irish Sea coast and Blackburn some 20 miles or so inland - a town with a very large immigrant population, mostly of Asian origin.

The Blackpool lass did not have a semblance of a Lancashire accent at all, not a smidgeon of Lancastrian there - in fact she didn't even sound Northern English - either she has lost it through living in London for two weeks, as she said she had done....which would be plainly ridiculous....nobody loses their native accent in such a short space of time, and I don't believe that anyone loses it entirely anyway, no matter where they went to live or for how long. If I was swept up by a massive whirlwind tomorrow and then dumped in the middle of Kansas, USA (minus my dog which is not called Toto and meeting Dorothy* half way) and spent the next 40 years or so there (heaven forbid!) I would make sure that I would still speak in my native Edinburgh accent at the grand old age of 68 (almost - my birthday is in eleven days time).

*They are currently auditioning for the part of Dorothy in the new stage production of TWOOz in London's West End later this year.

I believe that Blackpool lass originated from the South of England somewhere, as did the other lass with her who said that she came from Reading (Kate Winslet's home town - and Jeremy Kyle's for that matter, but the people of Reading do their best to play that down big time and who can blame them?) - 40 miles west of London, so not too far from home living in London. Now her accent was distinctly Home Counties Southern English - Reading is only 35 minutes or so by train from Paddington train station in London, whereas Blackpool is about four and a half hours journey from Euston train station in London, changing on route I think - probably in Preston, also in Lancashire.

The man being interviewed in the beginning was not actually an Englishman - he sounded very much like an Aussie, which he most probably was....apart from London's architecture and its history he didn't think too highly about London, or the UK generally it seemed, so he was obviously your traditional "Whingeing Aussie" - or "Whingeing Ocker" - probably some kind of reprisal for all the alleged "Whingeing Poms" who have moved to Australia only to find nothing to their liking there either....talk of tit for tat games!

London is full of Aussies - half the population of the Earl's Court area of the city is from Down Under, and so are most of the barmen (and barmaids) - bartenders - in that part of London, and it's amazing how so many of them get nabbed for staying longer in the UK than their visas permit - overstayers, so called - so that particular old geezer must be very much out of kilter with his fellow countrymen over here.

The Aussies (and Kiwis - from NZ) particularly get quite peeved when they realise that they now have lower status and far fewer and no automatic rights in the UK than do proven nationals of Lithuania, Poland, Sweden, Hungary, Finland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Czech Republic, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Malta.......you know what - I'm not sure about Cyprus, come to think of it.......I will have to check out its EU connection. Whatever its status it the haunt of many pissed up Brits on Club 18-30 "cheap deal" holiday breaks....as well as nearby Crete, which looks ever so appealing from 33k feet up in the air.

Pete: The less said about Jonathan Woss the better.......he weally pisses me off as does that other geezer who conspired with him - both of them are absolute wotten wascals.
Damian in Edinburgh   Fri Mar 26, 2010 11:05 pm GMT
At long last our London School of English hero found a local guy - with a real London accent - a true touch of the Estuaryspeak......notice how his "things" mostly came out as "fings" - now that is REAL Londonspeak.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBBQAljhFEM&feature=related
Damian in Edinburgh   Fri Mar 26, 2010 11:23 pm GMT
For all the millions of people there are in London it can also be one of the loneliest cities on earth, especially if you find it difficult to make friends or establish relationships and you really have to meet people half way. I can't imagine anything worse than feeling isolated in a huge throng of people, but unfortunately some people find themselves in such a situation in such a huge city as London for one reason or another.

I met a very nice guy in London who is a volunteer with the Samaritans organisation based in South Kensington. He talks to people who call in to the Samaritans and who are in various degrees of distress for one reason or another, some actuallly contemplating suicide, and one of the most common reasons is loneliness and feelings of isolation. People all around, in a constantly hectic and busy city full of activity, yet this is such a common problem behind it all and I think that is so sad.

It can be a problem here in Edinburgh too, but nothing on the scale of London.
Pete from Peru   Sat Mar 27, 2010 3:27 am GMT
<<Those two lasses at the end.....I'm not to sure what you mean about the pronunciation of the "ts" and "ds". I listened very intently, but could not detect anything really untoward in the speech of either lady....>>

Oh God, I can't describe it really. her Ts are a sort of a more voiced sound, like more intense, I don't know, I just seem to lack the vocabulary to describe this lovely girl's accent. It looks like I'll never solve this mistery...

<<one said she came from Blackpool, actually - not Blackburn...both of those places are in Lancashire (Jasper - please note!)>>

Oh silly me... I didn't know this place Blackpool, :( The closest thing I knew was blackburn so I thought it was that town said in an accent I'm not very well acquainted with. Evident fail on my part there LOL. Still, it's funny that they're both cities in the same area.

<<At long last our London School of English hero found a local guy - with a real London accent - a true touch of the Estuaryspeak......notice how his "things" mostly came out as "fings" - now that is REAL Londonspeak.>>

Cool. This is really useful. European, this is the sort of thing you need. But beware of videos like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGTPWbLvrz8

That's a good example of how you should NOT speak if you want to adopt "the British dialect". This woman hasn't got a slightest idea of the way real English people speak.

Thanks a lot, Damian.

Regards