Northern English is the speech of those born and brought up in the region between Birmingham and the border of Scotland.
This type of pronunciation is not to be sharply separated from the South English type since it contains some features of the latter, modified by the local speech habits. But it has certain distinctive feature, such as the use of vowels other than in RP in the same words.
The most marked differences in the distribution of vowels are as follows:
[a] for RP [æ] in words like bad [bad], man [man];
[æ] for [ɑ:] in the words like glass [glæs], ask [æsk], dance [dæns], i.e. in which the letter a is followed by a word-final consonant or by two consonants other than r. The word father is pronounced as an exception, with [ɑ:];
[u] for [ʌ] in words like cup [kup], love [lʌv], much [mutʃ];
[e] or [ɜ:] for [ei] in words like may [me, mɜ:], take [tek, tɜ:k].
Northern English as a whole represents the earlier type of London English that was the standard speech in the sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. This early type was carried to America. That is why there are many features in common between American and Northern English accent.
Standard English of Scotland is considerably modified by Southern British, but some of its features go back independently to the Northumbrian dialect of the Anglo-Saxon tongue. The Scottish variant of English differs from RP both in the inventory of phonemes and in the distribution of the phonemes common to both types. The most important differences are as follows:
Rolled, or thrilled [r] (of the Russian type is used instead of the constrictive RP [r] in all positions (i.e. also after a vowel before silence and between a vowel and consonant, as in more [mor], born [born]).
Dark [l] is used in all positions as in look [luk].
The non-existent in RP back-lingual (velar) fricative phoneme similar to the Russian [x] is used in words like loch [lɒx] – озеро, caught [kɒxt].
The medio-lingual (palatal) [ç] (Germ. "Ich-Laut") is used in words like light [liçt].
The cluster [hw] is used in words with the initial digraph wh, as in which [hwitj].
[a] is used instead of [æ] in words like bad [bat], man [man].
[æ] is used instead of [ɑ:] in words like glass [glæs], ask [æsk], dance [dæns], after [æftə], path [pæθ].
Monophthongs followed by [r] are pronounced instead of the central *diphthongs, e.g. here [hir], beard [bird], there, their [ðɜ:r], bear, bare [bɜ:r], pure [pjur], sure [ʃu:r], poor [pu:r].
Scottish intonation also differs considerably from RP intonation, but it has been investigated very little.
+Of all the three types of standard English pronunciation in the British Isles, RP is the least regional in character and is used by educated people more than any other single type.
In the United States there may be distinguished (as has been mentioned) three main types of cultivated speech: 1) the Eastern type, 2) the Southern type, 3) the General American type (Western).
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