Talk:English language in Southern England/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Essex

Shouldn't that be north-south divide not east-west? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.225.174.195 (talk • contribs)

Agreed. The Essex dialect quite clearly falls under the wider topic of East Anglian dialects, and I cannot see any reason why it has been added to this article, short of shoddy geographical knowledge by an editor. Antonine (talk) 21:37 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Move?

I believe that this page should be renamed (ie moved) to Southern England English. I think that this is a good way to distinguish it against Southern American English and make this a link to the disambigus page UKPhoenix79 04:54, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't Southern English English make more sense though? I mean Southern American English isn't listed as Southern America English. --DWRtalk 16:33, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Update: Moved link to Southern English English, am in the process of updating links. --DWRtalk 16:54, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Finished (a while ago). Redirected Southern English dialects to Southern English --DWRtalk 20:56, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Recent Edits

Recently I added a section entitled "Regional dialect levelling in the south-east of England". My source for all that information was: www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/projects/linguistics/innovators/documents/Oxford_Kerswill_Nov07_000.ppt -. It should be noted, however, that not all of these changes are occuring in London itself. The so-called "levelling" is taking place in the periphery of London, in places like Milton Keynes and Reading. Thegryseone (talk) 07:55, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it's more complicated. I come from Portsmouth and the local dialect of my childhood (I was born in the early 70's) was absolutely derived from the London/Cockney/Estuary English. Except it deviates a lot and has way more standard Southern in it.
e.g. Where a Cockney might pronounce "pound" more like "paand" (long "a"), we would say "paynd" (sounding more like "pained" as in painful.) So, "down" is "dayn", town is "tayn" etc. The "eye" sound ("right", "pie" etc) is "oy", so "right" becomes "roigh'", but "I" is often pronounced "Are" (R, would be a good way to express it) and sometime "oy". (and yes, the "oy" as in "boy" is not the same, it's more like "oo-ey" or "oy-ee")
We use most of the other rules though.
* L becomes W in any position but the initial ("ball" > "baw", "pull" > "puw", "little" > "li'aw")
* H is frequently dropped
* TH becomes F or V ("three" sounds like "free", "then" sounds line "ven")
* T becomes a glottal stop in most positions (see "bottle" above)
* D before I or U becomes J, so Duke sounds like "juke", and the you get contractions of "do yo" that sound like "jya"
* T before I or U becomes CH, "tuesday" sounds like "choose-day" (which a clear "oo" and no hint of "I" or "Y" sound)
* S rarely becomes Z, at least in my head. This could just be me though.
People often say Pompey sounds a bit like you're mumbling and words tend to run in to each other and be less distinct.
All in all, Pompey sounds a lot like a Cockney speaking with a slight West country accent.
I've heard that Pompey comes from displaced dock workers flooding in to the city at the in the late 19th/early 20th century. It's certainly not "mockney" because there are people in their 90's that speak with the accent. If anything, it is on the decline because it tends only to be the poorer side of society that still frequently use it. There are also a bunch of dialect words that go along with it:
* Din, dinny - stupid/foolish (often affectionate)
* Lairy - an individual who antagonises or attempts to take advantage of a situation by acting up.
* Mush / Mushty / Mushdy - a friend or sometimes a stranger
* "ease-up" - commonly used to quell a situation "ease up, ease up mush, stop avin a mare." "calm down friend, don't get angry"
* Cop - always means "get angry" and has never had anything to do with "kissing". Sometime the phrase "cop the needle" is used.
* Cushty / Cushdy - something that is "good" or "going well". "S'aw roigh' ma'e, s'aw cushdy nay" (lit. "it's all right mate, it's all fine now")
* kark it - die
* chav - to steal, or someone who is a thief (and this one is very old and the modern "chav" has sort of displaced it somewhat.)
* eh? - what / pardon / expression of disbelief
* arch - expression of pain (like "ouch")
* scummer - someone that comes from Southampton (football slang)
* Scum - Southampton
* gan - going
* "avina mare" - "a bad time", from "knightmare", but also can be use stand alone to mean "having a pop/go at".
Every thing is in plural tense (or is it third person?): "R loikes wo' you jus' sed ven ma'e" (could also use "oi") "I like what you just said then friend", which to me is very West country.
"My" is usually "me", so "me ma'es" is "my friends".
I could go on. I won't. But "Hampshire" is way too vague. The "Scummers" have a completely different accent and sound like Farmers to us, so I know our accent is pretty unique and *old*. It's not a neologism or modern invention. Memsom (talk) 16:05, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 9 September 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved to English language in southern England and English language in northern England. There's a clear consensus to move and this option has garnered the most support. Jenks24 (talk) 15:18, 28 September 2015 (UTC)


– Both should be

  1. English in southern England & English in northern England
  2. Southern England English & Northern England English
  3. English language in southern England & English language in northern England
  4. Southern English English & Northern English English

I favor the third because it's consistent with English language in England, is not as ambiguous as #1, and the "Southern England English" style of #2 is harder to parse, is grammatically suspect, and conflicts with titles like Southern American English (which is not "Southern America English" or "Southern US English"). That said, the grammatical hair is thin, and we do permit a title like New Zealand English, even if we prefer Australian English, since "New Zealander English" is awkward, and comes off a bit like "Jew English" instead of "Jewish English".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:45, 9 September 2015 (UTC) Updated with additional options commenters have suggested: 17:37, 12 September 2015 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 12:40, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

That's even harder to parse than Southern England English, and looks like typo, but I added it as an option.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:37, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

boot [bʊʉt]

London: boot [bʊʉt]

Shouldn't it be [bʉʊt] instead? --85.187.44.131 00:59, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Gutteral Stops

I@m no linguist so i dont really know what I'm talking about here; but theres no mention of guttural stops in this article which i would consider to be one of the main deviations from RP in the south; pretty much everyone I know does it; changing butter to bu'er, better to be'er, etc etc. Any thoughts? --81.106.115.91 (talk) 13:41, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Those are "glottal stops". I know my childhood dialect (Pompey) uses them all over the place. Memsom (talk) 15:31, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): OlenkaStewart.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:38, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

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