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Manchester dialect
Manchester dialect or Manchester English, known informally as Mancunian (/mænˈkjuːniən/ man-KEW-nee-ən) or Manc, is the English accent and dialect variations native to Manchester and some of the Greater Manchester area of England. Sharing features with both West Midlands and Northern English, it is closely related to its neighbours like the Lancashire dialect and the West Riding dialect of Yorkshire.
Manchester accents are prominent in popular media via television shows such as Coronation Street and members of rock bands such as Happy Mondays, New Order, Oasis, The Fall, The Stone Roses, and Take That.
Manchester was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and at the start of the 18th century had a population of around 10,000 but by the start of the 20th century had a population of around 700,000. The history of Manchester shows that, from the Industrial Revolution onwards, the city was settled by migrants from many countries, notably from Ireland and other areas of the United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, Italy and Germany. In modern times, greater numbers have arrived from the Indian subcontinent and the West Indies. It is argued that Manchester today is the second most polyglot city after London, creating a melting pot of languages, accents and dialects.[citation needed] An evolving and cosmopolitan city with many different immigrant groups, Manchester has some features that stand out from the wider Lancashire dialect, though distinctions between the Northern English accents exist along a dialect continuum and are also influenced by demographic factors such as age, economic status, gender, etc. Manchester shares features with its neighbouring twin city of Salford, which was home to Manchester docks and could further explain the creation and emergence of an accent different from other nearby towns.
Throughout the 19th century and for most of the 20th century, speech in Manchester was considered part of the Lancashire dialect, with many of the 19th-century Lancashire dialect poets coming from Manchester and the surrounding area. In the early 20th century, the Manchester Ballads featured Lancashire dialect extensively. In the 1880s, the early dialectologist Alexander John Ellis included the city in his survey of English speech and placed most of Greater Manchester (excluding the Bolton and Wigan areas) in a dialect district that included north-west Derbyshire.
The 1982 textbook Accents of English by John C. Wells (himself a native of Wigan) includes the Manchester dialect, which he describes as "extremely similar" to the dialect of the West Riding of Yorkshire. His proposed criteria for distinguishing the two are that Mancunians avoid NG-coalescence, so singer /ˈsɪŋɡə/ rhymes with finger /ˈfɪŋɡə/ and king, ring, sing etc. all end with a plosive /ɡ/ sound (/ˈkɪŋɡ, ˈrɪŋɡ, ˈsɪŋɡ/), whereas West Riding residents employ "Yorkshire assimilation", by which voiced consonants change into voiceless consonants in words such as Bradford /ˈbratfəd/, subcommittee /ˈsʊpkəmɪtɪ/ and frogspawn /ˈfrɒkspɔːn/.
In Peter Trudgill's book The Dialects of England, it was classified as part of the "Northwest Midlands" dialect region.
Between 2019 and 2022, a team at Manchester Metropolitan University under linguist Rob Drummond collected data investigating dialect features, dialect perceptions, and linguistic identities across Greater Manchester, with an "Accent Van" travelling around the area to interview residents.
The Manchester accent is usually found in Greater Manchester including the cities of Salford and Manchester and also in the immediately adjacent parts of the boroughs of Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside and Trafford. It is also prominent in "overspill" towns and estates such as Hattersley, Gamesley, Handforth and Birchwood. What is known locally as the Manc twang is heard in areas of Central Manchester and neighbouring Salford whilst northern areas of Greater Manchester associate more with traditional Lancashire. The derogatory term 'Yonner' was originally used to describe people from Oldham and Rochdale who spoke with a thick Lancashire accent. It is now often used to describe anyone from the northern boroughs of Greater Manchester who speak with a Lancashire accent.[citation needed]
Hub AI
Manchester dialect AI simulator
(@Manchester dialect_simulator)
Manchester dialect
Manchester dialect or Manchester English, known informally as Mancunian (/mænˈkjuːniən/ man-KEW-nee-ən) or Manc, is the English accent and dialect variations native to Manchester and some of the Greater Manchester area of England. Sharing features with both West Midlands and Northern English, it is closely related to its neighbours like the Lancashire dialect and the West Riding dialect of Yorkshire.
Manchester accents are prominent in popular media via television shows such as Coronation Street and members of rock bands such as Happy Mondays, New Order, Oasis, The Fall, The Stone Roses, and Take That.
Manchester was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and at the start of the 18th century had a population of around 10,000 but by the start of the 20th century had a population of around 700,000. The history of Manchester shows that, from the Industrial Revolution onwards, the city was settled by migrants from many countries, notably from Ireland and other areas of the United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, Italy and Germany. In modern times, greater numbers have arrived from the Indian subcontinent and the West Indies. It is argued that Manchester today is the second most polyglot city after London, creating a melting pot of languages, accents and dialects.[citation needed] An evolving and cosmopolitan city with many different immigrant groups, Manchester has some features that stand out from the wider Lancashire dialect, though distinctions between the Northern English accents exist along a dialect continuum and are also influenced by demographic factors such as age, economic status, gender, etc. Manchester shares features with its neighbouring twin city of Salford, which was home to Manchester docks and could further explain the creation and emergence of an accent different from other nearby towns.
Throughout the 19th century and for most of the 20th century, speech in Manchester was considered part of the Lancashire dialect, with many of the 19th-century Lancashire dialect poets coming from Manchester and the surrounding area. In the early 20th century, the Manchester Ballads featured Lancashire dialect extensively. In the 1880s, the early dialectologist Alexander John Ellis included the city in his survey of English speech and placed most of Greater Manchester (excluding the Bolton and Wigan areas) in a dialect district that included north-west Derbyshire.
The 1982 textbook Accents of English by John C. Wells (himself a native of Wigan) includes the Manchester dialect, which he describes as "extremely similar" to the dialect of the West Riding of Yorkshire. His proposed criteria for distinguishing the two are that Mancunians avoid NG-coalescence, so singer /ˈsɪŋɡə/ rhymes with finger /ˈfɪŋɡə/ and king, ring, sing etc. all end with a plosive /ɡ/ sound (/ˈkɪŋɡ, ˈrɪŋɡ, ˈsɪŋɡ/), whereas West Riding residents employ "Yorkshire assimilation", by which voiced consonants change into voiceless consonants in words such as Bradford /ˈbratfəd/, subcommittee /ˈsʊpkəmɪtɪ/ and frogspawn /ˈfrɒkspɔːn/.
In Peter Trudgill's book The Dialects of England, it was classified as part of the "Northwest Midlands" dialect region.
Between 2019 and 2022, a team at Manchester Metropolitan University under linguist Rob Drummond collected data investigating dialect features, dialect perceptions, and linguistic identities across Greater Manchester, with an "Accent Van" travelling around the area to interview residents.
The Manchester accent is usually found in Greater Manchester including the cities of Salford and Manchester and also in the immediately adjacent parts of the boroughs of Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside and Trafford. It is also prominent in "overspill" towns and estates such as Hattersley, Gamesley, Handforth and Birchwood. What is known locally as the Manc twang is heard in areas of Central Manchester and neighbouring Salford whilst northern areas of Greater Manchester associate more with traditional Lancashire. The derogatory term 'Yonner' was originally used to describe people from Oldham and Rochdale who spoke with a thick Lancashire accent. It is now often used to describe anyone from the northern boroughs of Greater Manchester who speak with a Lancashire accent.[citation needed]