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= Milton Keynes accent and dialect =

After being established in 1969, Milton Keynes has become the most successful local economy in the UK. With its success and massive population, Milton Keynes has developed its own accent and dialect. Despite the it coming from dialect levelling (when dialects come together and mix to create one), it still has a distinctive accent. It doesn't have its own name (like Scouse or Geordie) but can be detected by people from surrounding areas.

Paul Kerswill study on Milton Keynes children
In 1996, Professor of Sociolinguistics Paul Kerswill made a study on the Milton Keynes dialect after noticing the dialect levelling within the area. He used 48 children of mixed ages and encouraged them to say certain linguistic forms, prompted them to answer questions naturally, and even spoke to the parents in order to study the accents of the children. He found that while there was much variation between the parents' accents, the children's accents showed much less variation. Every child showed phonological features from areas around the South-East, including London. Kerswill found that the Milton Keynes accent was a mid-way between London Cockney and Estuary English. It's also evident that vowel-fronting is used in the Milton Keynes accent - this means vowels come from the front of the mouth.

Influences from surrounding areas
Since Milton Keynes is very close to Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, the dialect levelling is most likely coming from there. The influence of the London Cockney in the Milton Keynes accent is most likely because many Londoners live there and commute to work in the capital everyday.