East Anglian English shows some of the general accent features of South East England, including: •
Non-rhoticity; in fact, one of the first English-speaking regions to lose rhoticity; •
G-dropping; • The
trap–bath split, though the quality of may be fronter than RP; • The
foot–strut split, though the quality of , , may be more back and close than that of RP; • Widespread
glottal reinforcement of
stop consonants, so that are pronounced with the glottal closure slightly following the oral closure, so that
upper is pronounced as ,
better as or now commonly , and
thicker as . However, several features also make East Anglian accents unique:
Vowels • Norfolk
smoothing results in a pronunciation of two or three vowel syllables with a single long vowel; for example,
player is rather than . Where the suffix
-ing is preceded by a vowel or diphthong, there is a smoothing effect that results in a single vowel. Thus
go+ing is usually pronounced as a single syllable rather than as a two-syllable word ending in , and
doing is rather than . This phenomenon is the only one in East Anglia that is spreading, in the 21st century, from north to south (the opposite direction from the typical south-to-north influences coming out of London). • The vowel found in // is a very front vowel , unlike RP or London English where it is a back vowel. • Words containing sounds (as in ) can be more fronted or raised compared against most other English dialects: often, or . • Single-syllable words with the vowel spelt such as
roof and
hoof have the vowel to give and respectively. • The
toe–tow merger typical of most
Modern English dialects may continue to be resisted. The vowel ( in RP) generally has a quality that can be represented with a narrow glide like in Norfolk: thus words with the spelling , and such as
boat,
toe,
code sound to outsiders like
boot,
too,
cood respectively. An exception is that of words spelt with , , such as
soul,
know,
told which have a wider glide quite similar to the RP , or even wider . However, the toe-tow merger is indeed well-established in Ipswich (Suffolk) and Colchester (Essex), in the 21st century expanding gradually into Norfolk. • A third phonetic distinction once existed within the set, causing a subset of these words (specifically, certain
closed- and single-syllable words), such as
coat, ''don't
, home
, stone
, and whole
to be pronounced with . Thus, whole
was a homophone with hull'': . This was extremely old-fashioned even by the late 20th century. • The
pane–pain merger typical of most Modern English dialects may continue to be resisted. In the speech of older Norwich residents and in rural East Anglia, the vowel, , is in words spelt with or such as
rain and
day, but or (similar to
air) in words spelt such as
take,
late. This has largely given way throughout most of East Anglia to a merger towards . • The
near-square merger variably occurs, particularly among the working class, so that the and vowels and sound the same in Norwich. Thus
beer and
bear sound the same, the vowel quality being . This may be considered to be a related case to that of
smoothing. • as in is pronounced or : . Since the mid-20th century, this very open realisation has largely disappeared, at least in urban East Anglia. • (as in ) is traditionally , a narrower glide than RP, but since the second half of the 20th century, a backer realisation is favoured, .
Consonants •
Yod-dropping occurs after all consonants. Yod-dropping after alveolar consonants () is found in many English accents, and widely in American pronunciation, so that words like
tune,
due,
sue,
new are pronounced , , , , sounding like
toon,
doo,
soo,
noo. Additionally, in East Anglia, yod-dropping is found after any consonant, and this seems to be a unique regionalism. Therefore, RP is pronounced as Norfolk (where stands for any consonant). For example,
beautiful,
few,
huge,
accuse have pronunciations that sound like
bootiful,
foo,
hooge,
akooz. A parallel case involves the vowel of : in RP the word is pronounced with initial , but Norfolk speakers omit the and smoothing results in so that
cure sounds like
cur. •
H-dropping is rarer than in most other parts of England. (However, H-dropping is indeed typical in urban Norwich.) •
Clear L is possible in all contexts in speakers born before 1920. In contexts where RP pronounces as "dark L" , these older Norfolk speakers have "clear L" so that the sound in
hill and
milk sounds similar to the clear L heard at the beginning of words such as
lip. The process known as
L-vocalization (whereby, for example, the in
hill,
well,
help is pronounced as a back rounded vowel like ) is not as widespread in this accent as elsewhere in Southern England, though it is increasingly prevalent in Suffolk.
Prosody In addition to the above phonological features, East Anglian English also has a distinct rhythm. This is due to the loss of unstressed syllables associated with East Anglian speakers. There appears to be no agreed framework for describing the prosodic characteristics of different dialects (see
Intonation). Writing in 1889, the phonetician
Alexander John Ellis began his section on East Anglian speech with these comments: There does appear to be agreement that the Norfolk accent has a distinctive rhythm due to some stressed vowels being longer than their equivalents in RP and some unstressed vowels being much shorter. Claims that Norfolk speech has intonation with a distinctive "lilt" lack robust empirical evidence.
Norwich accent In addition to above features, one specific accent is associated with urban Norfolk and namely its largest city,
Norwich. • Whereas RP has the rounded vowel in words containing the spellings , , or (such as
often,
off,
cough,
trough and
cloth), Norfolk may have as in the vowel of . This is a manifestation of the
lot-cloth split. • The vowel of is traditionally realised as an unrounded vowel . However, the rounded RP variant is encroaching even in urban Norwich. • In older Norfolk dialect the spelling could be pronounced as and the spelling as ; thus
three sounds the same as
tree and
shriek is pronounced as . • Norfolk smoothing (mentioned above) is particularly advanced. ==Portrayal==