# British English pronunciation.



## Mrs.Mustaine

I've been in West Yorkshire just before Christmas and I found out this part of Great Britain has a very peculiar pronunciation, especially of "U" in some words like "drums", "pub", "Huddersfield" and even "mum" the way (some of my friends at least) call "mom". It's pronunced like "drooms", "poob" and so on.

Anyone has a clue of why?


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## Spectre scolaire

Mrs.Mustaine said:
			
		

> I've been *I was* in West Yorkshire just before Christmas and I found out this part of Great Britain has a very peculiar pronunciation, especially of "U" in some words like "drums", "pub"


I’d say that _standard pronunciation_ of *pub* is _secondary_ compared to the one you would hear in West Yorkshire - making the latter an “archaism”, so to say.

Compared to words like *pudding* and *pubic* – just to stick to this initial phonemic sequence – it is unlikely that the standard colour of the vowels in these words developed _after_ the [ə] in *pub*. 
 ​


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## Wynn Mathieson

This is a typical feature of Northern English in general

See, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_English#General_features_2



> Northern English tends not to have /ʌ/ (strut, but, etc.) as a separate vowel. Most words that have this vowel in RP are pronounced with /ʊ/ in Northern accents, so that put and putt are homophonous as /pʊt/. But some words with /ʊ/ in RP can have /uː/ in Northern accents, so that a pair like luck and look may be distinguished as /lʊk/ and /luːk/.


The realization of "look" as /luːk/ is especially characteristic of West Yorkshire and Lancashire.

I agree with Spectre scolaire that the /ʌ/ of RP (Southern) English English in words like "pub" is historically a shift from earlier /ʊ/ (and one that did not occur in the north). 

By the way, Spectre, I think you meant "public" (/'pʌblɪk/, /'pʊblɪk/) and not "pubic" (/'pjuːbɪk/) -- which has a very different vowel sound, and meaning, both north and south! 

Wynn


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## Spectre scolaire

Wynn Mathieson said:
			
		

> By the way, Spectre, I think you meant "public" (/'pʌblɪk/, /'pʊblɪk/) and not "pubic"


 No I didn’t!  My point was to focus on a couple of words which have got (more or less) the _colour_  and not [ə], i.e. the “original” vowel, as it were.
 ​


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## Wynn Mathieson

Spectre scolaire said:


> No I didn’t!  My point was to focus on a couple of words which have got (more or less) the _colour_  and not [ə], i.e. the “original” vowel, as it were.
> ​




Fair enough, squire! 

Would just like to point out, though, that there is no [ə] in *any* of the three words  "pudding" ([ʊ]), "pub" ([ʌ]), or "pubic" ([juː]). 

Wynn


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## Spectre scolaire

I think we keep on misunderstanding each other.  Obviously, my wording at some point must have been somehow unfortunate.

1) _Pub_ is pronounced with a  in West Yorkshire. 2) Standard pronunciation is an open vowel of a quality close to [a]. 3) _Pudding_ and _pubic_ are pronounced, according to standard pronunciation, with a vocalic colour next to  – palatalization being of no interest here. 4) Why is _pub_ in West Yorkshire supposed to represent some sort of “strange pronunciation”?

My contention:

It isn’t strange at all because _pub_ in West Yorkshire probably reflects the very original colour of the vowel. It is _Standard pronunciation_, so-called RP, which is “strange”. (One should never _receive_ such a thing. )

As you say yourself – agreeing with me! – the (Southern) English pronunciation reflects a historical shift from an earler colour to the present schwa-like vowel, a shift that did not occur in the North. Hence, an “archaism”. 

Taking _pudding_ and _pubic_ as examples – I won’t be so licentious next time  – I only wanted to show that whatever is written with a *u* is also _often_ pronounced with a  – ənless some “shift” has taken place. 
 Archaic people up there... ​


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## avok

People keep saying that the speakers of Northern English pronounce "pub" as "poob" with a "u" not with a "ʌ" but all hear is a vowel between "ʌ" and "u". So "luke" and "look" do not rhyme I can tell the difference in a sec.

luck : between "lʌk" and "luk" not  exactly "luk"
look:"luk"


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## Outsider

Maybe, but to my ears the difference is minimal. I find this quite interesting: northern English people do speak "as they write", for a change.


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## avok

Yes. Maybe their pronounciation is more archaic.


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## Wynn Mathieson

avok said:


> People keep saying that the speakers of Northern English pronounce "pub" as "poob" with a "u" not with a "ʌ" but all hear is a vowel between "ʌ" and "u". So "luke" and "look" do not rhyme I can tell the difference in a sec.
> 
> luck : between "lʌk" and "luk" not  exactly "luk"
> look:"luk"



Quite right, *avok*. That vowel you hear between /ʌ/ and /u/ is /*ʊ*/ -- the vowel heard in such (RP) words as "look", "put" and "wood". That _poob_ is not /p*u*b/ but /p*ʊ*b/. In other words, when the people you mention say that "speakers of Northern English pronounce 'pub' as _poob_" what they are really trying to say is that such speakers pronounce RP /p*ʌ*b/ not as /p*u*b/ but as /p*ʊ*b/.

But while "Luke" (/lu:k/)  and "look" (/lʊk/) do not rhyme in RP, they *do* rhyme (as /lu:k/) in (far) West Yorkshire and Lancashire English.

Wynn


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## avok

Wynn Mathieson said:


> But while "Luke" (/lu:k/) and "look" (/lʊk/) do not rhyme in RP, they *do* rhyme (as /lu:k/) in (far) West Yorkshire and Lancashire English.
> 
> Wynn


 
Oops I think I was going to say "So "luck" and "look" do not rhyme instead of "So "luke" and "look" do not rhyme"!

I said in an earlier post: 





> So "luke" and "look" do not rhyme


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## cirrus

Speaking as someone with a northern accent I can confirm that "Look" and "Luke" could rhyme. It all depends on how broad someone speaks. My Dad and older people from my village would render the U in both just the same (the U sound in look and Luke rhyme with puke).  However this isn't universal and is probably on the way out.  

Nevertheless the majority of northern English speakers - certainly in  and around Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield -  produce a uniform U sound in words like pub, look, took, bus, sugar. For speakers from this area, none of these words have a schwa.


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## Wynn Mathieson

cirrus said:


> [..] the majority of northern English speakers - certainly in  and around Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield -  produce a uniform U sound in words like pub, look, took, bus, sugar. For speakers from this area, none of these words have a schwa.



Quite right, cirrus (except that, to be very picky, the second syllable of "sugar" does..).

I hope you won't mind if get this off my chest, though: [ʌ] is not *schwa*; [ə] *is*.

pub, bus, sugar, look 
in RP:
pʌb, bʌs, ʃʊgə, lʊk

pub, bus, sugar , look
in "Northern":
pʊb, bʊs, ʃʊgə(r), lʊk _or _luːk

Wynn


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## Mrs.Mustaine

Thanx for explaining.
I really enjoyed reading all of your posts.

Sorry, but I can't recall the phonetic transcription, that's why I wrote "poob" for "pub" so that you could understand what I meant.

I spent many years trying to learn the correct standard English pronunciation, and still am trying hard.
"Northern English people do speak "as they write", for a change" as Outsider wrote, indeed. That's what I found funny.
I'm Italian, we DO have simple and neverchanging pronunciation rules. One letter one way to pronunce it (only the presence of a few letters one after the other may change it, but those rules never change).
Basically that "poob" pronunciation is what an Italian who doesn't speak English at all would read it like... so I guess the Roman influence was pretty strong and then history and simply time changed that too?


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## cirrus

Wynn Mathieson said:


> Quite right, cirrus (except that, to be very picky, the second syllable of "sugar" does..)


You're right, I was thinking about the U, not the final syllable.


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## miyamoto_musashi

In fact, these non-standard pronunciations of u are older than our more standardized ones in use today. The vowel-shifts in Indo-European languages are well documented, however, and often have to do with substrata and superstrata as well as ease of pronunciation.


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## cirrus

miyamoto_musashi said:


> The vowel-shifts .. have to do with substrata and superstrata as well as ease of pronunciation.


Can you explain a little what you mean about sub and super strata?  I have only come across these in geology.


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## sound shift

I expect miyamoto will reply (night time in Canada at the moment) but I'd just like to say that "substrata" in a  linguistic context refers, as far as I am aware, to the influence of another language. I don't think there were any substrata in this sense in the South of England at the time of the vowel shift. As to ease of pronunciation - I can't see that any particular pronunciation of the vowel "U" is any more or less easy than the others.


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## miyamoto_musashi

Yes, substrata are "weaker" influences related to second languages in a community which are seen as undesirable (for example the traces of a conquered language people feel ashamed to speak) whereas superstrata are linguistic influences of a "stronger" nature based on second languages people openly try to learn and emulate (the conqueror's language). This is the traditional view, though I don't agree with them any more. English and French regularly borrow from each other in both ways... both communities admire and "worship" each other within certain contexts, and look down upon the other in another context. In Yorkshire, Danish and Scandinavian languages were more present than in southern England, for example, and in Wales, you have a Celtic substratum.


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## Mrs.Mustaine

Very interesting.
So a Danish native speaker who doesnt speak English (hard to believe, but let's pretend) would read "pub" the Yorkshire way?

Standard British English pronunciation should be like? Oxford's? London's?
In school they said it's Oxford's.


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## Outsider

Mrs.Mustaine said:


> Very interesting.
> So a Danish native speaker who doesnt speak English (hard to believe, but let's pretend) would read "pub" the Yorkshire way?


More or less the Yorkshire way. More precisely, the English vowel is near-back, and not as close as a  (the upside down omega, in the International Phonetic Alphabet). I think most speakers of any language written with the Latin alphabet, besides English speakers, would pronounce "pub" as [pub] by default. (French is another exception, with [pyb].)

English pronunciation has diverged considerably from that of the other European languages, because of the Great Vowel Shift.


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## don_giovanni

In Swedish, the word 'pub' does exist (at least informally), taken directly from the English, and pronounced in a Swedish fashion, which indeed is very similar to the Yorkshire accent.


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## Spectre scolaire

don_giovanni said:


> In Swedish, the word 'pub' does exist (at least informally), taken directly from the English, and pronounced in a Swedish fashion, which indeed is very similar to the Yorkshire accent *colour of this vowel in Yorkshire*.


 A pure coincidence, of course – but you are probably right.

There are two /u/ phonemes in Swedish: A very narrow [u] as in [mus] (often slightly diphthongized), “mouse”, and the one described by _Outsider_: [kΩŋ], “king”. I imagine you refer to the latter. (*!*The Ω should be upside down in IPA*!*).
 ​


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## Nanon

Outsider said:


> I think most speakers of any language written with the Latin alphabet, besides English speakers, would pronounce "pub" as [pub] by default. (French is another exception, with [pyb].)



Ahem... almost, Outsider . French has pub (masculine) pronounced as [pœb] for... a pub, and pub (feminine, [pyb]) for an advert (short for "publicité"). Donc s'il y a la télé au pub [pœb], tu verras des pubs [pyb]...


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## Wynn Mathieson

Mrs.Mustaine said:


> Standard British English pronunciation should be like? Oxford's? London's?
> In school they said it's Oxford's.



Don't be led astray, Mrs M., by this talk of "Oxford" English as a standard -- especially not if you plan to visit Oxford and talk to the indigenous inhabitants of that city!

In terms of pronunciation "Standard" English (more usually called Received Pronunciation) is a *social-class based*, not a regional, accent.

The English spoken by the majority of the inhabitants of Oxford (and of London) is a regional variety, characteristic of each city and distinct from "Standard"/RP English.

The fact that most of those who have attended the University of Oxford have emerged speaking an English usually labelled as "standard/RP" has less to do with the geographical location of Oxford than with the fact that the university has traditionally recruited the majority of its undergraduates from the wealthy classes who have sent their offspring to be privately educated in (so called) "public schools": the true source of Received Pronuciation.

W.


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## berndf

Mrs.Mustaine said:


> Very interesting.
> So a Danish native speaker who doesnt speak English (hard to believe, but let's pretend) would read "pub" the Yorkshire way?
> 
> Standard British English pronunciation should be like? Oxford's? London's?
> In school they said it's Oxford's.


 
Standard English, if I may take “received pronunciation English” as the definition of “Standard”, is more a question of education and social background than of regional differentiation.

“Oxford English” is the English of Oxford scholars as fixed by the OED; it has nothing to do with the city of Oxford or its local dialect.

If you look at a larger time span I think it is fair to say that the centre of English has moved south. In the middle ages, York was maybe the most important intellectual centre of English speaking England (remember, most of the nobility spoke Norman French and not English). So, it is not exactly surprising that Yorkshire pronunciation it generally speaking closer to the way English is spelled than modern Standard English which has incorporated more influences from southern accents.



(sorry for repeating info which was already given. When answering I realized too late that there where more posts to come.)


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## Mrs.Mustaine

Ok I got it, thank you all so much.

So I basically have to accept the fact that I'll have to get used to different BE pronunciations depending on where I am in UK and who I am talking to. Right?

Italian has a standard pronunciation that's the one theatre actors and real actors in general have to study. But Italian we speak today is a young language and kinda built up, because it's been spread through national television from the second half of the 50s on.
Is there any national insitution in Great Britain or whole UK (and in other countries too) that somehow tries/d to unify the national language and keeps up with the times changes?
We have it and it's called Accademia della Crusca.


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## cirrus

Mrs.Mustaine said:


> So I basically have to accept the fact that I'll have to get used to different BE pronunciations depending on where I am in UK and who I am talking to. Right?


In a word, yes: you've got it in one.



Mrs.Mustaine said:


> Is there any national insitution in Great Britain or whole UK (and in other countries too) that somehow tries/d to unify the national language and keeps up with the times changes?
> We have it and it's called Accademia della Crusca.



Nothing has really set itself up with that role formally and I am struggling to think it would be recognised even if such thing a thing were to be set up.  

Unlike say French or Spanish, with English the tendency is to notice and catologue changes as they happen.  If you look at the dictionaries which have most respect, they tend to describe and wouldn't attempt to prescribe or proscribe usage. Some of this is to do with the fact that English has a foot in pretty much every part of the world. It doesn't belong to anyone.


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## sokol

cirrus said:


> Nothing has really set itself up with that role formally and I am struggling to think it would be recognised even if such thing a thing were to be set up.
> 
> Unlike say French or Spanish, with English the tendency is to notice and catologue changes as they happen.  If you look at the dictionaries which have most respect, they tend to describe and wouldn't attempt to prescribe or proscribe usage.


Yes, this is the English attitude - it's descriptivism, as opposed to prescriptivism for many other languages, French and German included too. There is no English institution which 'guides' the borderlines of the language and the standard norm.

But there are of course prestigious English schools and universities (Eaton; Oxford, Cambridge; Ivy League in US, and so on) and the spoken norm of the upper and middle classes which 'guide' the norm in a way.

Pronunciation rules are not random, neither in England nor in any of the other English speaking countries. But they aren't prescribed by law, but rather enforced by use.
As for British English standard pronunciation it is really interesting to watch sport reporters: just compare the accents of reporters on snooker games to the ones commenting football. You may notice some difference.


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## Sepia

Mrs.Mustaine said:


> Ok I got it, thank you all so much.
> 
> So I basically have to accept the fact that I'll have to get used to different BE pronunciations depending on where I am in UK and who I am talking to. Right?
> 
> Italian has a standard pronunciation that's the one theatre actors and real actors in general have to study. But Italian we speak today is a young language and kinda built up, because it's been spread through national television from the second half of the 50s on.
> Is there any national insitution in Great Britain or whole UK (and in other countries too) that somehow tries/d to unify the national language and keeps up with the times changes?
> We have it and it's called Accademia della Crusca.


 
It is always lot easier to standardize a language that was imposed on a big population as the official language and thus only needed a few centuries to be spread all over a big area, and where written sources were an important means of introducing it to a big population. English and former versions of what we call English has been on its way on the British Isles for a long time before people began writing and reading it. 

Just like it is easier to define "Standard German" - in Germany there are also a lot of regional languages. Then somebody printed the Bible ... and that regional language gradually became the official language. There are still a lot of people around whose first language is one of the regional ones and High German the second one. That is a totally different situation, comparing it with England. Most grow up speaking their particular regional or social variation of the language and somebody tries to standardize the same language by inventing "Oxford English". Nobody needs to speak that. They can go from Manchester to London and speak the same kind of English and still be understood (more or less). I can't go to Flensburg to Berlin, speak Danish or Plattdeutsch and still expect to be understood. I have more or less to speak standard German. 

If you want to practice understanding the English people really speak, get hold of the two Guy Richie films, "Lock Stock and two Smoking Barrels" and "Snatch". Don't worry if you don't understand all at once. The American actors in "Snatch" didn't either.


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## MarX

Hello!

I've been following some series from the UK and it's interesting indeed to listen to how they speak so differently from each other.


I've got some related questions:

1. Am I right in assuming that the people from Southeastern England read more or less the same as the way they talk?
Do the people who pronounce 'pub' as  'pʊb', or 'last' as 'last' (instead of 'lahst'), or 'face' as 'fehs', etc. maintain their native pronunciation when they're reading a text?

2. What is the approximate percentage of Englanders who have this pronunciation? Around half or less?
In the series I've been watching most had this pronunciation, but not all of them. I suppose this is because the actors stem from different parts of the UK.


Thank you!


MarX


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## cirrus

Speaking as someone with a northern accent, I would stick to my pronunciation of U or A regardless of whether I am reading or speaking. If I changed my pronunciation when I was reading aloud, people would think I was making a joke. 

As for approximate amounts of people who use short A, it is pretty much universal north of a line which goes from (for the sake of argument) Birmingham to the Wash.  As for the U in a Yorkshire pub that sound is heard in much of North Wales, west of the Pennines from Stoke to Cumbria and east of the Pennines from Derby to North Yorkshire.  

The media doesn't generally reflect how people speak - there is a systematic over representation of people with accents which are viewed as having more status.


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## MarX

Thank you, cirrus.



cirrus said:


> Speaking as someone with a northern accent, I would stick to my pronunciation of U or A regardless of whether I am reading or speaking. If I changed my pronunciation when I was reading aloud, people would think I was making a joke.
> 
> As for approximate amounts of people who use short A, it is pretty much universal north of a line which goes from (for the sake of argument) Birmingham to the Wash.  As for the U in a Yorkshire pub that sound is heard in much of North Wales, west of the Pennines from Stoke to Cumbria and east of the Pennines from Derby to North Yorkshire.


I found an interesting site with sound samples of the words with A.
There are supposed to be three types of pronunciation: short A, long AA, and broad AH.
I listened to the samples, and to be honest, I couldn't really discern those three. 

The different U sounds are more obvious and much easier to distinguish, in my opinion.



cirrus said:


> The media doesn't generally reflect how people speak - there is a systematic over representation of people with accents which are viewed as having more status.


I thought the  'pʌb' was viewed as having more status? Yet in the series I watched, 'pʊb' predominated.




Another related question I forgot to ask:
Are the words _puzzle_ and _muffin_ pronounced with an ʊ in Northern England and in Ireland?


Thank you very much in advance.
A very interesting thread this is.


Salam,


MarX


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## Scalloper

Their are somne changes people may make in their pronunciation while reading a text. Somebody from Newcastle, for instance, would be unlikely to read out /glA:s/ instead of /glas/ but, even if usually a speaker of "broad" geordie, would probably read /"fA:.D6/ rather than the local /"fa.D6/. Even though this is parallel, I think it's a distinction between accent and dialect.


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## Imants

Mrs.Mustaine said:


> I've been in West Yorkshire just before Christmas and I found out this part of Great Britain has a very peculiar pronunciation, especially of "U" in some words like "drums", "pub", "Huddersfield" and even "mum" the way (some of my friends at least) call "mom". It's pronunced like "drooms", "poob" and so on.
> 
> Anyone has a clue of why?


I j_oo_st wrote a post in another thread about this.
Northeners rhyme words like _drums, pub_ with _put_ because they didn't participate in the so called "foot-strut split".
J_oo_st do a search like in Google and you're going to find m_oo_ch more information.
By the way, the title of the other thread is "Northern England Accent". Here in the forums.


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## Mrs.Mustaine

I payed attention to my own language and definitely there're difference between a northern and a southern person, but they are not that much of a difference... indeed Italian has very simple ponunciation rules, that's probably why you'd only hear very open vowels in the North and very closed ones in the south. Only when it turns to dialect you can hear BIG differences.

What really changes is rhythm (=cadenza) in speech.


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