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English language in Northern England

This article is about current English language usage in the northern part of England. This article focuses on 'accents' and 'dialects' in the British regional area generally considered to be 'Northern England'. For Regional accents of English, see Northern England. For Regional accents of English, see English language.

A map of England, with isoglosses showing how different regions pronounce "sun"
The vowel sound in sun across England. Northern English dialects have not undergone the FOOT–STRUT split, distinguishing them from both Southern England and Scottish dialects.[1]
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

The spoken English language in Northern England has been shaped by the region's history of settlement and migration, and today encompasses a group of related accents and dialects known as Northern England English (or, simply, Northern (English) in the United Kingdom).[2][3]

The strongest influence on the modern varieties of the English language spoken in Northern England has been the Northumbrian dialect of Middle English, in addition to contact with Old Norse during the Viking Age, as well as Irish English following the Great Famine, particularly in Lancashire and the south of Yorkshire, and Midlands dialects since the Industrial Revolution, all of which having produced new and distinctive styles of speech.[4][5]

There are traditional dialects associated with many of the historic counties, including the Cumbrian dialect, Lancashire dialect, Northumbrian dialect and Yorkshire dialect, but new, distinctive dialects have arisen in cities following urbanisation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.[6]

Northern England's urban areas have numerous distinctive accents with unique expressions and terms that are very local.[7] Northern English accents are often stigmatized, and native speakers commonly attempt to modify their Northern speech characteristics in corporate and professional environments.[8][9][10]

In the vernacular the terms 'accent' and 'dialect' are used without a great deal of distinction, and there are clear examples of unique words or expressions that might have at one point been part of a unique dialect, in modern English speaking Britain, spoken English is broadly intelligible across the whole of the British Isle, all British English speakers can understand each other.[11]

There is some debate as to how modern spoken English has impacted modern written English in the north, though it is clearly hard to represent a spoken accent in a written language.[12] The existence of the works of well known 'Lancashire Dialect' poets emphasizes the historical shift from a true northern dialect in the 1700s to northern accents in the modern north.[13]

Many people from northern England traditionally have taken 'lessons in elocution' in order to adopt a more standard use of the English language. This has been viewed as archaic, but recent studies demonstrate attempts by professionals to 'soften their northern accents' is currently on the rise.[14][15]

  1. ^ Upton, Clive; Widdowson, John David Allison (2006). An Atlas of English Dialects. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-869274-4.
  2. ^ "British Library". www.bl.uk. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
  3. ^ Filppula, Markku; Klemola, Juhani (27 August 2020), "External Influences in the History of English", Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics, doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.284, ISBN 978-0-19-938465-5, retrieved 11 November 2023
  4. ^ "British Library". www.bl.uk. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
  5. ^ "Northern English dialects in the Old English period". knowledge.allbest.ru. Retrieved 12 November 2023.
  6. ^ "'General northern English' accent has formed among the urban middle class". The Independent. 17 July 2020. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
  7. ^ Bobbin, Tim; Cruikshank, George (1828). Tim Bobbin's Lancashire dialect and poems. The Library of Congress. London : Hurst, Chance.
  8. ^ "New research reveals prejudice against people with Northern English accents". www.northumbria.ac.uk. 18 October 2023. Archived from the original on 12 November 2023. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
  9. ^ Strycharczuk, Patrycja; López-Ibáñez, Manuel; Brown, Georgina; Leemann, Adrian (15 July 2020). "General Northern English. Exploring Regional Variation in the North of England With Machine Learning". Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence. 3: 48. doi:10.3389/frai.2020.00048. ISSN 2624-8212. PMC 7861339. PMID 33733165.
  10. ^ "Accents in Britain". Accent Bias Britain. 9 May 2019. Archived from the original on 9 November 2023. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
  11. ^ "Why are there so many regional accents in the UK, in comparison to other English-speaking countries? | Notes and Queries | guardian.co.uk". www.theguardian.com. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
  12. ^ "Dialect Writing and the North of England". Edinburgh University Press Books. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
  13. ^ "Tim Bobbin's Lancashire dialect and poems". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
  14. ^ Lavelle, Daniel (20 March 2019). "The rise of 'accent softening': why more and more people are changing their voices". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
  15. ^ "Broad regional accents are a barrier to social mobility, research finds". Broad regional accents are a barrier to social mobility, research finds. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
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