English English: Encyclopedia II - English English - Midlands

English English - Midlands

• As in the North, Midlands accents generally do not use a broad A, so that cast is pronounced [kast] rather than the [kɑːst] pronunciation of most southern accents. The northern limit of the [ɑː] in many words is close to Birmingham.

• The West Midlands accent is often described as having a pronounced nasal quality, the East Midlands accent much less so.

English English - West Midlands

• The best known accents in the West Midlands area are the Birmingham accents (see "Brummie") and the Black Country accent (Yam Yam).

• Dialect verbs are used, for example am for are, ay for is not (related to ain't), bay for are not, bin for am or, emphatically, for are. Hence the following joke dialogue about bay windows: "What sort of windas am them?" "They'm bay windas." "Well if they bay windas wot bin them?". There is also humour to be derived from the shop-owner's sign of Mr. "E. A. Wright" (that is, "He ay [isn't] right," a phrase implying someone is saft [soft] in the jed [head]).

• The Birmingham and Coventry accents are quite distinct, even though the cities are not very far apart and to the untrained ear the accents sound very similar.

• In Staffordshire, vowels can vary unexpectedly to the outsider, for example linen can be pronounced "len-een" and biscuit can be rendered as "bess-keet".

• Herefordshire and parts of Worcestershire and Shropshire have a rhotic accent like the West Country, although maybe with a more sing-song quality.

• In parts of Worcestershire and south Warwickshire, the southern broad A is used, as in last, but the northern short U is used, as in cup.

English English - East Midlands

• East Midlands accents are generally non-rhotic.
• Yod-dropping, as in East Anglia, can be found in some areas, for example new as /nuː/, sounding like "noo".
• As in the North, the short u vowel of words like strut is often [ʊ], with no distinction between putt and put.
• In Northamptonshire, crossed by the North-South isogloss, residents of the north of the county have an accent similar to that of Leicestershire and those in the south an accent similar to rural Oxfordshire.
• The town of Corby in Northamptonshire has an accent with some originally Scottish features, apparently due to immigration of Scottish steelworkers. [1]
• In Leicester, words with short vowels such as up and last have a northern pronunciation, whereas words with long vowels such as down and road sound rather more like a south-eastern accent.
• In Nottingham, ee found in short words is pronounced as two syllables, for example feet being ['fijəʔ], sounding like "fee-yut" (and also in this case ending with a glottal stop).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Midlands", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki