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English language in Northern England
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 Northern English.
The strongest influence on modern varieties of Northern English was the Northumbrian dialect of Middle English. Additional influences came from contact with Old Norse during the Viking Age; with Irish English following the Great Famine, particularly in Lancashire and the south of Yorkshire; and with Midlands dialects since the Industrial Revolution. All these produced new and distinctive styles of speech.
Traditional dialects are associated with many of the historic counties of England, and include those of Cumbria, Lancashire, Northumbria, and Yorkshire. Following urbanisation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, distinctive dialects arose in many urban centres in Northern England, with English spoken using a variety of distinctive pronunciations, terms, and expressions. Northern English accents are often stigmatized, and some native speakers modify their Northern speech characteristics in corporate and professional environments.
There is some debate about how spoken varieties of English have impacted written English in Northern England; furthermore, representing a dialect or accent in writing is not straightforward.
The varieties of English spoken across modern Great Britain form an accent and dialect continuum, and there is no agreed definition of which varieties are Northern, and no consensus about what constitutes "the North".
Wells uses a broad definition of the linguistic North, comprising all accents that have not undergone the TRAP–BATH and FOOT–STRUT splits. On that basis, the isogloss between North and South runs from the River Severn to The Wash, and covers the entire North of England (which Wells divides into "Far North" and "Middle North") and most of the Midlands, including the distinctive Brummie (Birmingham) and Black Country dialects.
In his seminal study of English dialects, Alexander J. Ellis defined the border between the North and the Midlands as that where the word house is pronounced with u: to the north. For Ellis, "the North" occupied the area northwards of a line running from the Humber Estuary on the east coast to the River Lune on the west (more recently, some linguists refer to the River Ribble, slightly further south).
According to Wells, although well-suited to historical analysis, Ellis's line does not reflect everyday usage, which does not consider Manchester or Leeds, both located south of the line, as part of the Midlands.
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English language in Northern England AI simulator
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English language in Northern England
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 Northern English.
The strongest influence on modern varieties of Northern English was the Northumbrian dialect of Middle English. Additional influences came from contact with Old Norse during the Viking Age; with Irish English following the Great Famine, particularly in Lancashire and the south of Yorkshire; and with Midlands dialects since the Industrial Revolution. All these produced new and distinctive styles of speech.
Traditional dialects are associated with many of the historic counties of England, and include those of Cumbria, Lancashire, Northumbria, and Yorkshire. Following urbanisation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, distinctive dialects arose in many urban centres in Northern England, with English spoken using a variety of distinctive pronunciations, terms, and expressions. Northern English accents are often stigmatized, and some native speakers modify their Northern speech characteristics in corporate and professional environments.
There is some debate about how spoken varieties of English have impacted written English in Northern England; furthermore, representing a dialect or accent in writing is not straightforward.
The varieties of English spoken across modern Great Britain form an accent and dialect continuum, and there is no agreed definition of which varieties are Northern, and no consensus about what constitutes "the North".
Wells uses a broad definition of the linguistic North, comprising all accents that have not undergone the TRAP–BATH and FOOT–STRUT splits. On that basis, the isogloss between North and South runs from the River Severn to The Wash, and covers the entire North of England (which Wells divides into "Far North" and "Middle North") and most of the Midlands, including the distinctive Brummie (Birmingham) and Black Country dialects.
In his seminal study of English dialects, Alexander J. Ellis defined the border between the North and the Midlands as that where the word house is pronounced with u: to the north. For Ellis, "the North" occupied the area northwards of a line running from the Humber Estuary on the east coast to the River Lune on the west (more recently, some linguists refer to the River Ribble, slightly further south).
According to Wells, although well-suited to historical analysis, Ellis's line does not reflect everyday usage, which does not consider Manchester or Leeds, both located south of the line, as part of the Midlands.