Cardiff English

The Cardiff accent, also known as Cardiff English, is the regional accent of English, and a variety of Welsh English, as spoken in and around the city of Cardiff, and is somewhat distinctive in Wales, compared with other Welsh accents. Its pitch is described as somewhat lower than that of Received Pronunciation, whereas its intonation is closer to dialects of England rather than Wales.

It is estimated that around 500,000 people speak Cardiff English. The accent is generally limited to inside the city's northern boundary, rather than extending to the nearby South Wales Valleys where the spoken variety of English is different. However, the accent area spreads east and west of the city's political borders, covering much of the former counties of South Glamorgan and south-west Gwent, including Newport and coastal Monmouthshire.

The dialect developed distinctively as the city grew in the nineteenth century, with an influx of migrants from different parts of Britain and further afield. The Cardiff accent and vocabulary has been influenced in particular by those who moved there from the English Midlands, the West Country, other parts of Wales, and Ireland. The Survey of English Dialects did not cover Cardiff but it did survey nearby Newport and six small villages in Monmouthshire.

Influence

The formation of the modern Cardiff accent has been cited as having an Irish influence, similar to the influence of Liverpool's Scouse accent, given both cities' status as major world ports. According to a 2005 BBC study, the Cardiff accent, as well as that of Liverpool and East London, is in the process of changing due to the modern influence of immigration on youth, primarily of Arabic and Hindustani influence.

Social variation

Research has shown that there is a great sociolinguistic variation on the Cardiff accent, that is to say, a difference in the way people speak from different social backgrounds in Cardiff. Unsurprisingly, those from a more affluent background generally speak with a less broad accent, closer to that of standard English, compared with people from a working-class background. Thus, the city itself has different dialects, with people from the less affluent eastern and western districts of the city having a stronger and broader accent than those living in the more affluent north Cardiff.

Phonetics and phonology

Cardiff English shares many phonetic traits with the English spoken in the Severnside area of England, but differs in being non-rhotic. A notable characteristic in the accent is the lack of rounding lips when pronouncing consonants and vowels. While in Received Pronunciation, lip-rounding is a common feature to distinguish vowels, in Cardiff English this is not often observed.

The tongue also holds a slightly different shape with people speaking in Cardiff English. The front is rigid and close to the alveolar ridge, while the back is relaxed, creating a large pharyngeal cavity. In continuous speech, the soft palate is also lowered, providing a slight nasal quality. Creaky voice is mainly absent and can only be found in prestigious middle-class varieties as in RP. The vocal folds are tenser than in Received Pronunciation, giving a husky, breathy sound to articulation, with the overall effect of greater resonance, tension and hoarseness makes the accent often thought of as being "harsh" or "unpleasant".

Place names in Cardiff, such as Crwys and Llanedeyrn, may be pronounced in a way which reflects rules of neither Welsh nor English.

Consonants

Consonants in CE share general similarities to that of Received Pronunciation. Unique characteristics of consonants of this accent include:

* Strong aspiration or affrication of voiceless stops as or respectively, which occurs in initial position in predominantly stressed syllables. Sometimes, the stops may be realised as a pure fricative, such as realised as intervocallically. When not in initial position, these stops can also be glottalised in the manner of RP, although this becomes weaker in broader forms of the accent.
** glottalisation of before , also in the sequence (as in ''Canton'') which is always pronounced with an alveolar plosive in RP. Furthermore, the final syllable of ''little'' is commonly pronounced as .
* Flapping of generally occurs between voiced phonemes. It can even be an approximant .
* Like RP, consistent yod-coalescence of .
* Fricative allophones for voiced stops in medial position, especially with turning to . Furthermore, they are noticeably devoiced in final position.
* The fricatives may have slightly sharper friction, especially before front vowels; on the other hand may lack labialisation found in other accents. Like the voiced stops, can be devoiced to .
* Realisation of more often as an approximant rather than a fricative, and undergoes elision as mentioned below.
* G-dropping is common. Despite carrying out mild stigma, it can still carry prestige as it is heard in middle-class varieties of the accent.
** More common in younger working-class varieties, ''-thing'' is sometimes pronounced .
* H-dropping often occurs as the is only a marginal consonant in the dialect, being commonly dropped in the so-called 'weak forms'; pronouns and the modal auxiliaries ''had'', ''has'', ''have''. Intervocallically, there is a voiced allophone such as ''ahead''. Studies in the travel agency have been recorded that 'weak forms' are variably dropped, with these same group of people constantly dropping words like ''hotel'' (which are in turn preceded by ''an''), emphasising its French origins. It undergoes the same stigma as in .
** In the broadest forms of the accent, is , commonly represented in the words ''huge'' and ''human''. This is also found to a degree in Ireland and American cities influenced by these accents such as Philadelphia and New York City. However, higher-class speakers may pronounce similar to RP, as , although the articulation is more front and the narrowing is closer, making Cardiff's sound markedly prominent to RP.
* The broadest accents may realise particularly as a tap intervocalically and after the consonants . It can also sometimes be tapped word-initially. Otherwise, it is generally a postalveolar approximant . Cardiff's taps involve a much larger portion of the tongue and is less rapid than in RP, almost as long as . This can cause some homophones between tapped/approximant and , including ''butter''/''borough'', ''hotter''/''horror'' and ''starting''/''starring''.
* Like several northern English dialects, some words' final consonants may be devoiced, in words such as ''second'' or ''wardrobe''. The conjunction ''and'', when stressed and before a break, is also notably pronounced .
* Slight palatal friction of ; often elided before .
* Unlike other South Wales varieties, has the same clear/dark allophones as RP, namely with clear before vowels and , and (which can be heavily velar) before other consonants and pauses.
** is frequently a syllabic . Alternatively an can be added before the consonant, otherwise the consonant may be vocalised as a close back vowel.
* is unrounded , especially before .
* Two loan consonants from Welsh, and are included in the dialect, but are only found in Welsh names.
** is often debated as to whether it even should be considered as a phoneme in Cardiff English, as it is exclusively found in people of Welsh-speaking backgrounds or people who have patriotic sentiments to the Welsh language. Many speakers who do not pronounce a convincing find it difficult or even possible anyway, so they would substitute it with either , in names such as '' Llewelyn'', ''Llandaff''.
** (Usually realised as under Welsh influence), on the other hand, is more manifested as many speakers of the accent pronounce it in such as '' Castell Coch'', ''Mynachdy'', '' Pantbach'', although that is not to say substitutions such as exist. can also be found in a few interjections of disgust, such as ''ugh'' or /.

Vowels

The accent is non-rhotic, in other words the is only pronounced before a vowel. Much like RP, linking and intrusive R is present in Cardiff English, such as in ''drawing'' or ''draw attention'' .

Unlike the consonants, CE's vowels are significantly different from Received Pronunciation. Many vowels in this accent have a more centralised articulation, as well as the starting points of most diphthongs, as seen below. Like mentioned above, at least the broad varieties seem to lack labialisation. However, if they are labialised, they are articulated with tight lips.

Monophthongs

* The vowel is markedly closer and more front, generally having no glide, when compared to RP .
** Word-final is generally short and often more open than (), although few broader speakers use a short close vowel .
* is a somewhat more open , compared to typical RP, causing non-Cardiffians to interpret it as the vowel. However, more modern RP speakers have a similar realisation as Cardiff.
* The weak vowel merger is variable, so that words such as ''anniversary'' and ''elephant'' often feature , rather than : . In broader speech, this can be replaced with : . However, the ending is usually , rather than . The situation is thus as in contemporary RP, with some words and morphemes being commonly pronounced with an unstressed and others with .
* Like , is also closer, somewhat advanced and generally has no glide found in RP and several other British dialects.
* The vowel in is a steady monophthong , significantly raised well above open-mid, which is the common realisation the in-glide of the Received Pronunciation equivalent.
* is a more open and slightly retracted when compared to RP. Like in the diagram above, some may have their vowel at the same height as this vowel, only differentiated by vowel length.
* A closer and fronter vowel is used for , when compared to RP. It is usually realised with strong rounding, even the broadest accents have at least a slight rounding. Accents in the general register have a close-mid tongue height.
* and can be considered to belong to one phoneme , although some sources claim contrast otherwise, which is problematic as there are no minimal pairs between these two vowels. When stressed, it covers a wide allophonic variation as shown in the chart. It is typically open-mid or above, and much closer than RP.
* The vowel is phonetically central . A similar vowel is used by younger speakers of RP instead of the traditional .
* Broad forms of Cardiff English use a centralised, unrounded and open-mid , with higher-class accents having a closer vowel with strong rounding that is typical of RP. The horse–hoarse merger is present with younger speakers, although a preservation with some older speakers does exist.
* is one of the most characteristic vowels of the accents, generally being an open front vowel and notably longer than Received Pronunciation. Broader accents typically exhibit raising, most commonly as , with being heard from the broadest accents of working-class males. Within the United Kingdom, there is no other dialect that has a vowel more raised than , although some American dialects may have these realisations. Regardless if neighbouring any nasal consonants, it is frequently nasalised itself (); this has been linked to Merseyside velarised speech. The raising of this vowel has been stigmatised with local Cardiff culture, especially its city name ''Cardiff'' , as well as ''Cardiff Arms Park'' and ''a pint of dark'', referring to the local brew '' Brains Dark''.
* is typically open varying from front to central, similar to more modern forms of RP, with broader accents having a closer realisation as or even , resembling that of more typical RP. However, the broad pronunciation is stigmatised in the same manner as . A small set of words including ''bad'', ''bag'', ''mad'' and ''man'' can be lengthened though the vowel quality is still that of , which is always slightly lower than .
** The trap-bath split is variable among status, being the most used in higher-class forms of the accent due to social pressure of the influence of RP. It is however, apparently confusing for speakers of broad and general accents, as is preferred before nasals and before fricatives. However, certain words like ''ask'', ''bath'', ''grant'', ''laugh'', ''master'', ''rather'' and the suffix ''-graph'' are strongly likely to be pronounced with . On the other hand, ''answer'', ''castle'', ''chance'', ''dance'' and ''nasty'' are always pronounced with . Even so, the vowels may be conflated thus both variations can be produced even in succeeding sentences.
* The vowel is unrounded and noticeably fronter than RP ().

Diphthongs

According to , the diphthongs in CE are , corresponding to , , , and respectively. transcribes with . Speakers also exhibit both the pane–pain and toe–tow merger, which contrasts with some other southern Welsh varieties. Centring diphthongs such as and do not exist and often correspond to disyllabic sequences and (see below for details).

* is a clear diphthong and has a more closer, centralised in-glide and a closer end point as opposed to RP. Very few older speakers may conservatively have very narrow glides (i.e. ), making it only as a potential diphthong.
* The most common realisation of is a central–back glide , although a non-standard variant is slightly backed to . Like , also has a closer end point than RP. The traditional pronunciation was more of a slight back diphthong .
* A noticeably closer in-glide to RP can be seen in .
* Similar to , has a somewhat closer starting point than RP.
* 's in-glide is unrounded and more centralised compared to RP.

The sequence , when not coalesced in words like ''nude'' or ''you'' is like many other Welsh accents. However, CE has lost the distinction in environments where cannot proceed certain consonants in RP that can in other Welsh accents as , such as ''juice'' or ''crew''.

Centring diphthongs do not exist. RP is mostly a disyllabic sequence . In a handful of words (''near'', ''mere'', ''year'', ''ear'', ''here'' and ''hear'') and their derivatives, the pronunciation may be either or . It is not unusual to hear the last four words all pronounced as . Before and , the pronunciation is monophthongal , where RP would actually have .

RP vowel is either a disyllabic sequence or merges with the vowel . almost always replaces the word ''sure''; when after consonant + (such as ''cure'' or ''pure''), the use of increases by class status. However, when without (such as ''insure'' or ''tour''), the upper middle class would use the vowel less compared to other classes.

Furthermore, Cardiff English does not have smoothing, unlike RP, which is like other Welsh accents. Examples include ''buying'' and ''tower'' as and . However, a notable exception exists with ''our'' being pronounced as .

Intonation

The intonation of Cardiff English is generally closer to English accents rather than Welsh, but with a wider pitch range than in Received Pronunciation. Nevertheless, the average pitch is lower than other South Wales accents and RP. High rising terminal is also what characterises the dialect from RP, as well as consistency in intonation with strong expression; such as annoyance, excitement and emphasis.

Assimilation and elision

Like RP and a lot of other English dialects, Cardiff English is prone to constant assimilation and elision. It is the consistency and use of assimilation, even when speaking slowly, distinguishes CE from other English accents. It should also be noted that patterns found in other South Wales dialects are not found in Cardiff and instead is influenced by British accents.

* is commonly elided at the beginning of a word, e.g. ''that'', ''there'' . may also assimilate and be pronounced the same to these alveolar consonants when preceding . Although a similar phenomenon exists in RP, it is much more common and may even carry out to stressed syllables, e.g. ''all that'' , ''although'' and ''in these'' .
* The contractions ''doesn't'', ''isn't'', ''wasn't'' is often realised with the as a stop under the influence of the following nasal, realised as , which can be found Southern American English, although to a broader extent. Cardiff English can further reduce this to .
** Also, the phrase ''isn't it'' pronounced as (and often spelt ''innit'') is a common characteristic of the dialect. However, there is no justification to be classified as an elided form of the full pronunciation, as there is no evidence of speakers analysing it as a clausal form with the pronoun ''it''.
* Final before another consonant is often elided, as in ''about four'' , ''but we'' , ''pocket money'' , ''started collecting'' and ''United States'' . In high-frequency words, including ''at'', ''bit'', ''but'', ''get'', ''got'', ''let'', ''it'', ''lot'', ''out'', ''quite'', ''said'' and ''that'', may also be elided before a vowel or a pause, as in ''but I'' and ''that's right'' . Moreover, final may be simplified to not only before consonants like in RP, but also before vowels, as in ''don't drive'' or ''can't handle'' .
** A final is sometimes fricatised to , as in ''about Secret Seven'', ''gets some'', ''it's dead'' .
* Intervocalically is occasionally elided and lengthen the previous vowel, as in ''America'' or ''very'' .
* Unstressed are mainly elided for vowels, as in ''except police'' .

Grammar

Many of the grammatical features below are influenced from south-western dialects of England, particularly sharing with the dialect of Reading. Non-standard forms when associated with Cardiff often have a negative reaction since most dialects in Wales are influenced by Welsh.
* The Northern Subject Rule is a common feature of the colloquial Cardiff accent, which is the tendency to use a third-person singular verb conjugation for all pronouns in the present tense. Examples include ''I lives in Cardiff'', ''we likes it'', ''they squeaks when you walks''. This can also extend to the irregular ''be'' and ''do'', such as ''they's awful'' or ''we does it often'', and sometimes with ''have'' (''they never has homework'').
** When ''have'' is used as an auxiliary, e.g. ''they have been'', it is more likely to be elided as in ''they been'', like many other colloquial or non-standard accents. Likewise, ''do'' as an auxiliary is used, as in ''they does try''. In Reading, the third-person singular forms are used to a lesser extent, with ''have'' never being the case but ''do'' occasionally. On the other hand, the form ''dos'' does exist in Reading but is not attested in Cardiff except for the phrase ''fair dos'' 'give her/him due credit', which is analysed as a plural morpheme rather than an inflectional one.
* Conversely, an irregular verb conjugated with third-person singular pronoun can take a first-person singular verb conjugation, specifically with ''have'', but also with ''do''. Examples include ''she've gone'', ''he do his work'', ''it don't swim''. Negative third-person forms of ''have'' are difficult to analyse as their forms can be heavily elided; forms such as ''hasn't'', ''haven't'' or even ''ain't'' can be homophonous.
* The first and third singular past-tense forms of ''be'', ''was'' can once again be found in all pronouns ''you was'', ''we was'', ''they was''. However unlike Reading, ''were'' replacing standard ''was'' cannot be done except occasionally in negative forms (i.e. ''she weren't''). Sometimes, this may be extended to other irregular verbs when that verb's past participle is the same or very similar as the infinitive form, as in ''he give a book'', ''she come over here''.
* Double negatives are also present as in some other urban accents of English, e.g. ''I haven't had nothin, ''there isn't no-one in''. Similarly ''never'' can also be used to negate the past tense in the same manner, as in ''I never did nothin''.
* ''Them'' to mean 'those', as in ''He likes them cats'', similar to other non-standard dialects.
* Lack of plurals on nouns of measurement, similar to other colloquial British accents, e.g. ''forty pound'', ''seven foot long'' (also consider standard ''six foot five'').
* Using adjectival forms for adverbs, such as ''shop local'' (found in many Cardiffian cornerstores), ''she drives lovely''.
* Removal of prepositional particles when following adverbs, ''out'' for 'out of', ''over'' for 'over to/in', ''up'' for 'up at/in' etc.
** Nevertheless, non-standard particle compounds indicating position and direction are present, represented in ''where to''. It mainly acts as a postposition as in ''where's that to?'', however it can also be a preposition (''where's to the keys?''), although this can be non-standard (e.g. ''where to are you going?'' vs. ''where are you going to?'').
* The positional and directional adjuncts ''here'' and ''there'' can be prefixed with ''by'': ''by here'' and ''by there''.
* Like other various urban accents, reflexive pronouns all use the possessive form as their base rather than the accusative, i.e. ''hisself'' for ''himself'' or ''theirselves'' for ''themselves''. An alternative construction ''his/her mitt'' etc. is also used when referring to people, literally meaning 'his/her hand'.
* The discourse tag ''isn't it?''/''innit?'', although stereotyped in Welsh English in especially rural areas, is commonly heard in Cardiff. It may simply be a function word, similar to ''isn't that so?'' (french: n'est-ce pas ?) or Northern Welsh ''yes?'' and can also interchange with standard ''don't/didn't they'' regardless of social class.
* Not found in other Welsh accents is predicate fronting, where the predicate is moved to the beginning of the sentence, i.e. ''hurt he was'' or ''awful I thought it sounded'', which is influenced by Welsh. In standard English, this also occurs, although this is referred to as ' thematic fronting'.
* Juxtaposition with particles of different meaning in a sentence, e.g. ''I'll be over there now, in a minute''.

Vocabulary

Cardiff generally shares its vocabulary with south-west Wales, although a lot of its naturalised vocabulary as well as Welsh loanwords from the area are lost and unrecognisable in Cardiff, specifically farming terms, which use is sparse in the city.

Nevertheless, these terms are still present to some degree in Cardiff:

* ''to clam (for)'' — to yearn, to die for (colloquial)
* ''dap'' — plimsole
** ''to dap'' — to bounce, or rarer to hit
** ''dap(per)'' — describes a person's height, usually of a small size (''dap of a lad'' 'small boy') but can also refer to taller people (i.e. ''she's that dap'') when specifying non-verbally
** ''dapping'' — only bouncing once and then catching it, by more specific sources
* ''half'' — an emphatic particle, e.g. ''s/he's half tidy'', general approval expression; ''he don't half kid herself'', 'he is pretentious/grandiose'.
* ''hopper'' — known by some as a tipping-grain container and not exactly a seed basket
* ''lush'', ''cracking'' — great, fabulous, attractive
* ''off'' — unfriendly, hostile
* ''pine-end'' — used by a small amount to refer to the end of a gable
* ''pluddle'' — to puddle, occasionally used as in ''to puddle through a pool'' 'to walk through water'
* ''tidy'' — a general term of approval. It covers a variety of meanings including ''tidy looking'' 'nice-looking', ''tidy sort'' 'decent', ''tidy job'' 'job well done' etc. although some claim it has no direct equivalent in standard English

Notable speakers

The accent can be heard in varying degrees in the voices of Frank Hennessy, Charlotte Church, Colin Jackson, Craig Bellamy and Stan Stennett.

Opinions

A common first reaction to the accent is often that it is scarcely different from what is considered a "proper Welsh accent", which is usually seen by most outside Wales as being the variety spoken in the South Wales Valleys. The accent is also sufficiently distinct from standard English that researchers from the University of Birmingham have carried out research on the accent in an effort to improve speech recognition software.

The former Assembly First Minister Rhodri Morgan pointed out in a pamphlet of Cardiff that having a strong Cardiff accent has long been an issue of class, recalling how teachers at a Cardiff high school prepared pupils for the middle class professions by reciting: ''"Hark, hark the lark In Cardiff Arms Park!"''

In a survey, carried out by the BBC, Welsh accents are among the least popular accents in the UK. However, the Cardiff accent was rated higher than that of nearby Swansea.

In the 1960s, Gwyn Thomas, a Valleys man, described the speech of Cardiffians in the following way:

References

Bibliography

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Further reading

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External links

BBC Voices

Cardiff accent: Edith talks about community spirit in the old Tiger Bay area of Cardiff

{{English dialects by continent

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