Talk:Manchester dialect

Who wrote this crap?
Manchester born and bred and I have to say this article is 100% bullshit. Seriously who came up with these words? In 23 years in Manchester I haven't heard half of them and the other half ain't Manc. 92.5.2.81 (talk) 23:28, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Dialect?
Is Mancunian really a dialect? I'd say that it's just an accent. What is normally called "Mancunian" is a very modern way of talking whereas "dialect" tends to refer to old-fashioned manners of speech. Also, dialects involve grammar and lexicon as well as pronunciation: Mancunian seems to be just a handful of alternative pronunciations rather than a comprehensive variety of the English language. Epa101 (talk) 19:34, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Don't overanalyze. :-) "Dialect" has more than one meaning, and Manc fits at least one of them. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 03:46, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
 * ive only seen it as an 'accent', even by natives. for a "dialect" page, it sure is empty of even accent feature descriptions... the california english page is filled out more. though i think both stretch the meaning of 'dialect' a bit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.104.9.227 (talk) 19:23, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Voicing of normally voiceless consonants
The article says that Mancunian often does the opposite ("Bratford" for "Bradford"). I (an American, with no deep British-English experience outside of Oxforshire, where I lived as a child) had long thought that it was the Mancunian accent that voiced many voiceless consonants ("uzz" for "us", "Manjesdah" for "Manchester", etc.) So, if it's not Mancunian, which accent/dialect/whatever is it? —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 03:46, 29 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Pronouncing "us" as /UZ/ is common across Northern England, and I do this myself. Pronouncing "bus" as /BUZ/ is much rarer, and seems concentrated in Lancashire.  It wouldn't surprise me if Mancunians do this.  I don't think that it's a general voicing of devoiced consonants though: it only seems to occur in a few words.  Epa101 (talk) 18:15, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "Pronouncing "bus" as /BUZ/ " used to be common in Mancunian speech but has become rarer.--Johnsoniensis (talk) 12:52, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Dialect? (part two)
I'd really like to reapproach the choice of the term 'dialect' in this article. Contrary to the above assertion by [User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish], dialect doesn't have "more than one" meaning and is not interchangeable with 'accent'. Even based on Wikipedia's own definitions of both concepts (at the time of writing), whilst 'accent' specifically concerns the manner of pronunciation, 'dialect' concerns the variety of a spoken language, with particular focus on deviations of grammar, vocabulary- and possibly even lexis- from the standard form of a language.

There is very little focus on dialectal features of Mancunian in the article, and a wider focus on pronunciation. This has little to do with dialect at all.

Why not retitle the page as simply 'Mancunian' and focus on the term being primarily used as a demonym for people from Manchester then further afield, and then focus on the accent and then supposed features of a dialect. I would say though that it would be a fruitless exercise trying to list a set of vocabulary as defining Mancunian speech. That, naturally would be subject to constant change.

Is there anyone who can give this article the focus that it needs? Tong22 (talk) 01:11, 25 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I think that the article is lacking information. Not much serious information has been published on the Mancunian accent, but I suspect that this is because it's not very distinctive and thus cannot be considered a dialect.  I must say that I've never lived in Manchester, but the celebrities mentioned in the article seem to speak Standard English with certain pronunciations different from RP.  I have dug out my copy of John Wells's article "Local Accents in England and Wales".  Here are all mentions to Manchester:
 * p.240 it's non-rhotic (whereas much of Lancashire is rhotic)
 * p.243 it sounds very similar to Leeds, but Mancunians do not use pronunciations such as Bradford, froksporn, etc. as it already says in the article.
 * p.247 glottal reinforcement of k, p, t.
 * p.250 "Narrow dipthongs".  Not sure what that means.  Mancunians say square, hair, care, etc. as in RP /E:/ (contrast with places like Wigan, which use the NURSE /@:/ vowel here).  The final -y on happY is a short /I/.
 * He has an article in his bibliography called "The Stockport Dialect": Maitre Phonetique (1966), 126: 26-30. If anyone has the access, that might be worth a look.  Epa101 (talk) 18:06, 26 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I've found this document recently. You can see from it that the Manchester accent does not differ much from RP.  It's quite striking when you consider that is surrounded by accents that are very different from RP (Scouse, Wigan, Yorkshire).  Epa101 (talk) 23:50, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That linked document is indeed interesting. This still needs more attention though. By the by, the grouping of Mancunian and Liverpudlian accents in the Lancashire dialect article is quite cumbersome. Has anyone any other research links to language around Manchester Tong22 (talk) 15:28, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Joy Division distinct Manc??
For all I know, Ian Curtis sang so-called 'mid-Atlantic'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8A0:F02B:F900:9DB2:AA7:992D:E3AC (talk) 14:34, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Long oo pronunciation
How does Manchester dialect pronounce the long oo sound of goose? The article on Northern dialects says it is like German ü, like in Scouse. 2A00:23C7:5882:8201:2D41:1C3F:3463:B38D (talk) 15:04, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Goat pronunciation
How does Manchester dialect pronounce the oa sound of goat? 2A00:23C7:5882:8201:2D41:1C3F:3463:B38D (talk) 15:05, 28 March 2022 (UTC)