Estuary English

Estuary English is a dialect of English widely spoken in South East England, especially along the River Thames and its estuary. Phonetician John C. Wells defines Estuary English as "Standard English spoken with the accent of the southeast of England". The name comes from the area around the Thames, particularly London, Kent, north Surrey and south Essex.

The variety first came to public prominence in an article by David Rosewarne in the Times Educational Supplement in October 1984. Rosewarne argued that it may eventually replace RP (Received Pronunciation) in the south-east. Studies have indicated that Estuary English is not a single coherent form of English; rather, the reality behind the construct consists of some (but not all) phonetic features of working-class London speech spreading at various rates socially into middle-class speech and geographically into other accents of south-eastern England.

Features

Estuary English is characterised by the following features:

• Non-rhoticity.
• Use of intrusive R: pronouncing an "r" sound when no r is present to prevent consecutive vowel sounds
• A broad A (ɑː) in words such as bath, grass, laugh, etc.
• T glottalization: realising non-initial, most commonly final, /t/ as a glottal stop instead of an alveolar stop, e.g. water (pronounced /wɔːʔə/).
• Yod coalescence, i.e., the use of the affricates [dʒ] and [tʃ] instead of the clusters [dj] and [tj] in words like dune and Tuesday. Thus, these words sound like June and choose day, respectively.
• L vocalization, i.e., the use of [o], [ʊ], or [ɯ] where RP uses [ɫ] in the final positions or in a final consonant cluster.
• The wholly–holy split.
• Use of confrontational question tags. For example, "It is absurd. Isn't it?" "I said that, didn't I?"

Despite the similarity between the two dialects, the following characteristics of Cockney pronunciation are generally not considered to be present in Estuary English:

• H dropping, i.e., Dropping [h] in stressed words (e.g. [æʔ] for hat)
• Double negation. However, Estuary English may use never in cases where not would be standard. For example, "he did not" [in reference to a single occasion] might become "he never did".
• Replacement of [ɹ] with [ʋ] is not found in Estuary, and is also very much in decline amongst Cockney speakers.

However, the boundary between Estuary English and Cockney is far from clear-cut, hence even these features of Cockney might occur occasionally in Estuary English.

In particular, it has been suggested that th fronting is "currently making its way" into Estuary English, for example those from Isle of Thanet often refer to Thanet as "Plannit Fannit" (Planet Thanet).

Use

Estuary English is widely encountered throughout the south and south-east of England, particularly among the young. Many consider it to be a working-class accent, though it is by no means limited to the working class. In the debate that surrounded a 1993 article about Estuary English, a London businessman claimed that Received Pronunciation was perceived as unfriendly, so Estuary English was now preferred for commercial purposes.

Some people{{who} adopt the accent as a means of "blending in", appearing to be more working class, or in an attempt to appear to be "a common man" – sometimes this affectation of the accent is derisively referred to as "Mockney". A move away from traditional RP accents is almost universal among middle class young people.

Conversely, Estuary English and the stronger London Accent are also seen} in negative terms as unfriendly and portraying an unsympathetic urban manner.^{[citation needed]} Many people in rural areas associate those accents with London and consider Londoners as the ultimate "townies" and as people sometimes with arrogant and inconsiderate attitudes and urban values, such as driving too fast in the country, being inconsiderate and impatient of slow moving traffic such as tractors, elderly drivers, cyclists and horse-riders in country lanes.^{[citation needed]} As a result, there is a tendency for people who would often speak with a London or Londonised accent to moderate or drop their urban accent to approximate with RP or rural accents in order to blend in with the "rural man" or the "respectable man" and even with the "posh man".^{[citation needed]}

The perception of appropriateness of "blending in" from RP: General/BBC or posh English or rural accents to London accents, or conversely, from London accents to rural or RP: General/BBC or posh accents is based on geography, location and the company they keep. Amongst their young friends, many young folk will speak in Estuary English and then with older colleagues and managers or in a posh neighbourhood or with "aunty", they will speak in RP or rural accents.^{[citation needed]}

The term "Estuary English" is sometimes used with pejorative connotations: Sally Gunnell, a former Olympic athlete who became a television presenter for Channel 4 and the BBC, quit the BBC, announcing she felt "very undermined" by the network's lack of support after she was widely criticised for her "uninspiring interview style" and "awful estuary English".

London accent

The term "Estuary English" can also be considered a milder (closer to R.P.) variety of the "'London Accent". The spread of the London Accent extends many miles outside London and all of the neighbouring home counties surrounding London have residents who moved from London and took their London Accent with them. The London Accent or its Londonised milder variant, called “Estuary English”, can be heard in all of the New Towns, coastal resorts, and larger regional cities within 50 to 100 miles (80 to 160 km) of London in southern England.

See also

• Kentish dialect
• List of dialects of the English language
• Regional accents of English speakers
• Sussex dialect

Further reading

• Przedlacka, Joanna (2001), "Estuary English and RP: Some Recent Findings", Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 36: 35–50, http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/~joanna/sap36_jp.pdf 

External links

• Sounds Familiar? – Listen to regional dialects of the UK.
• Estuary English from University College London