Scouse

Scouse (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell), more formally known as Liverpool English or Merseyside English,Template:Sfn is an accent and dialect of English associated with the city of Liverpool and the surrounding Merseyside. The Scouse accent is highly distinctive, as it was heavily influenced by Irish and Welsh immigrants who arrived via the Liverpool docks, as well as Scandinavian sailors who also used the docks. People from Liverpool are known as Liverpudlians, but also called Scousers; the name comes from scouse, a stew originating from Scandinavian lobscouse eaten by sailors and locals.

Liverpool's development since the 1950s has spread the accent into nearby areas such as the towns of Runcorn and Skelmersdale. Variations of Scouse have been noted: the accent of Liverpool's city centre and northern neighbourhoods is usually described as fast, harsh, and nasal, while the "Beatles-like" accent found in Liverpool's southern suburbs is typically described as slow, soft, and dark. Popular colloquialisms have shown a growing deviation from the historical Lancashire dialect previously found in Liverpool, as well as a growth in the influence of the accent in the wider area. Scouse is often considered by other Britons one of the country's least popular accents due to its difficulty, but it also performs very well in polls of British accents that people perceive as happy and friendly.

Etymology

The word Template:Wikt-lang is a shortened form of lobscouse, the origin of which is uncertain. It is related to the Norwegian lapskaus, Swedish lapskojs, Danish labskovs (skipperlabskovs), and the Low German labskaus, and refers to a stew of the same name commonly eaten by sailors. In the 19th century, some people in Liverpool, Bootle and ate scouse as it was a cheap dish familiar to the families of seafarers. Media sources call these people "scousers". In The Lancashire Dictionary of Dialect, Tradition and Folklore, Alan Crosby suggests that the word became known nationwide only with the popularity of the BBC sitcom Till Death Us Do Part (1965Template:Ndash1975), which featured a Liverpudlian socialist and a Cockney conservative in a regular argument.

Origins

After the 1700s, Liverpool developed into a major international trading and industrial centre. The city consequently became a melting pot of several accents and dialects as sailors and migrants from different areas (such as Wales and especially Ireland) established themselves in the area. Until the mid-19th century, the dominant local accent was similar to that of neighbouring areas of Lancashire. For instance, the comedian and actor Robb Wilton (1881–1957), despite coming from the Everton district of Liverpool, spoke with a dry Lancashire accent rather than a Scouse accent.Template:Better source needed

The influence of immigrants from Ireland (especially Dublin) and Northern Wales, as well as visiting Scandinavian sailors, contributed to a distinctive local Liverpool accent. The first reference to a distinctive Liverpool accent was in 1890. Linguist Gerald Knowles suggested that the accent's nasal quality may have derived from poor public health in the 19th century, by which the prevalence of colds among many people over a long time resulted in a nasal accent coming to be regarded as the norm and copied by newer incomers learning the dialect of the local area.

Academic research

The Victorian phonetician Alexander John Ellis said that Liverpool and Birkenhead "had no dialect proper", as he conceived of dialects as speech that had been passed down through generations from the earliest English speakers. Ellis did research some locations on the Wirral, but these respondents spoke in the traditional Cheshire dialect at the time and not in Scouse. The 1950s Survey of English Dialects recorded traditional Lancastrian dialect from the town of Halewood, finding no trace of Scouse influence. The phonetician John C. Wells wrote that "the Scouse accent might as well not exist" in The Linguistic Atlas of England, which was the Survey's principal output.

An academic study of Scouse was undertaken by Gerald Knowles at the University of Leeds in 1973. He identified a key problem: that traditional dialect research had focused on developments from a single proto-language, but Scouse (and many other urban dialects) had resulted from interactions between an unknown number of languages.

Phonology

Template:IPA notice The phonemic notation used in this article is based on the set of symbols used by Template:Harvcoltxt.

Vowels

File:Scouse monophthongs chart.svg

Monophthongs of Scouse (from Template:Harvcoltxt). and show considerable allophonic variation.Template:Sfnp

File:Scouse diphthongs chart - part 1.svg

Diphthongs of Scouse (part 1, from Template:Harvcoltxt)

File:Scouse diphthongs chart - part 2.svg

Diphthongs of Scouse (part 2, from Template:Harvcoltxt). shows considerable allophonic variation.Template:Sfnp

Vowels of ScouseTemplate:Sfnp

	Front		Central		Back
	Short	Long	Short	Long	Short	Long
Close	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Mid	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link			Template:IPA link
Open	Template:IPA link				Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Diphthongs

• The square–nurse merger in Scouse renders minimal pairs such as fair-fur, stare-stir and pair-purr homophonous as , and . The actual realization is variable, but the current mainstream pronunciation is close to Template:IPAblink, as shown on the vowel chart. Other allophones include Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink as well as the rounded Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink, with all but Template:IPAblink being more conservative than Template:IPAblink. In addition to those, there also exist the diphthongal variants and . Middle class speakers may differentiate Template:Sc2 from Template:Sc2 by using the front Template:IPAblink for the former (so that fair, stare and pair are rendered ) and the central Template:IPAblink for the latter (so that fur, stir and purr are rendered ), much like in RP.Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
• As other Northern English varieties, Scouse lacks the foot–strut split, so that words like cut , luck and up have the same phoneme as bull , foot and put . Speakers attempting to distinguish between the two typically use a stressed for the former set: , resulting in a Welsh English-like strut–schwa merger. However, this often leads to hypercorrection, so that good luck may be pronounced .Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
• Words such as grass, path and sample have a short , rather than the long due to the lack of the trap–bath split: . As with the foot–strut split, an attempt to use in an RP-like way may lead to hypercorrections such as (RP ).Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
• The words book, cook and look are typically pronounced with the vowel of Template:Sc2 rather than that of Template:Sc2, which is true within other parts of Northern England and the Midlands. This causes minimal pairs such as book and buck, cook and cuck, and look and luck. The use of a long in such words is more often used in working-class accents; recently, however, this feature has been becoming more recessive, being found less often among younger people.Template:Sfnp
• The weak vowel merger is in transition, making some instances of unstressed merge with , so that eleven and orange are pronounced and .Template:Sfnp The typical g-dropped variant of ing is , which is subject to syllabic consonant formation (as in disputing ). As in Geordie, Template:IPAblink for standard Template:IPAblink may also occur, as in maggot .Template:Sfnp
• In final position, tend to be fronting/backing diphthongs with central onsets . Sometimes this also happens before in words such as school .Template:Sfnp
• The Template:Sc2 vowel is tense Template:IPAblink and is best analysed as belonging to the phoneme.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
• There is not a full agreement on the phonetic realisation of :
  • According to Template:Harvcoltxt, it is back Template:IPAblink, with front Template:IPAblink being a common realisation for some speakers.Template:Sfnp
  • According to Template:Harvcoltxt and Template:Harvcoltxt, it is typically front Template:IPAblink.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
• The Template:Sc2 vowel is typically central Template:IPAblink, and it may be even fronted to Template:IPAblink so that it becomes the rounded counterpart of .Template:Sfnp
• The Template:Sc2 vowel typically has a front second element Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfnp
• The Template:Sc2 vowel is typically diphthongal , rather than being a monophthong Template:IPAblink that is commonly found in other Northern English accents.Template:Sfnp
• The Template:Sc2 vowel has a considerable allophonic variation. Its starting point can be open-mid front Template:IPAblink, close-mid front Template:IPAblink or mid central Template:IPAblink (similarly to the Template:Sc2 vowel), whereas its ending point varies between fairly close central Template:IPAblink and a more back Template:IPAblink. The most typical realisation is , but and an RP-like are also possible.Template:Sfnp John Wells also lists and , which are more common in Midland English and younger Northern English. To him, variants with central or front onsets sound 'incongruously "poshTemplate:" ' in combination with other broad Scouse vowels.Template:Sfnp
• The Template:Sc2 vowel can be monophthongised to Template:IPAblink in certain environments.Template:Sfnp According to Template:Harvcoltxt and Template:Harvcoltxt, the diphthongal realisation is quite close to the conservative RP norm (),Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp but according to Template:Harvcoltxt it has a rather back starting point ().Template:Sfnp
• The Template:Sc2 vowel is , close to the RP norm.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

Consonants

• H-dropping, as in many other varieties of Northern England English. This renders hear , high and hold variably homophonous with ear , eye and old .Template:Sfnp
• NG-coalescence is not present as with other Northern English accents, for instance realising along as .Template:Sfnp
• Like many other accents around the world, G-dropping also occurs, with being the most common realization of the sequence.Template:Sfnp
• has several allophones depending on environment:
  • Intervocalically (including at word boundaries), it is typically pronounced Template:IPAblink or Template:IPAblink, which is found in several other Northern English varieties.Template:Sfnp
  • Pre-pausally, it may be debuccalised to Template:IPAblink, with older speakers only doing this in function words with short vowels: it, lot, not, that, what pronounced respectively. On the other hand, younger speakers may further debuccalise in polysyllabic words in unstressed syllables, hence aggregate .Template:Sfnp This is not differentiated from Template:IPAblink in this article.
  • T-glottalisation is rarer than in the rest of England, with Template:IPAblink occurring before and syllabic consonants.Template:Sfnp
  • Affrication of as Template:IPAblink word-initially and lenition to Template:IPAblink intervocalically and word-finally. The latter type of allophony does not lead to a loss of contrast with as the articulation is different; in addition, is also longer. For female speakers, the fricative allophone of is not necessarily Template:IPAblink but rather a complex sequence , so that out is pronounced , rather than .Template:Sfnp In this article, the difference is not transcribed and Template:Angbr IPA is used for the latter two allophones.
• can turn into an affricate or a fricative, determined mostly by the quality of the preceding vowel.Template:Sfnp If fricative, a palatal, velar or uvular articulation ( respectively) is realised. This is seen distinctively with words like book and clock.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
• can be fricatised to Template:IPAblink, albeit rarely.Template:Sfnp
• As with other varieties of English, the voiceless plosives are aspirated word-initially, except when precedes in the same syllable. It can also occur word- and utterance-finally, with potential preaspirated pronunciations (which is often perceived as glottal noise or as oral friction produced in the same environment as the stop) for utterance-final environments, primarily found in female speakers.Template:Sfnp
• The voiced plosives are also fricatised, with particularly being lenited to the same extent as , although the fricative allophone is frequently devoiced.Template:Sfnp
• Under Irish influence, the dental stops are often used instead of the standard dental fricatives , leading to a phonemic distinction between dental and alveolar stops. The fricative forms are also found, whereas th-fronting is not as common.Template:Sfnp
• The accent is non-rhotic, meaning is not pronounced unless followed by a vowel. When it is pronounced, it is typically realised as a tap Template:IPAblink between vowels (as in mirror ) and sometimes in initial clusters as well (as in breath ) and as an approximant Template:IPAblink otherwise, a variant sometimes also used in lieu of the tap.Template:Sfnp

International recognition

Template:Category see also/Category pair check Scouse is highly distinguishable from other English dialects. Because of this international recognition, Keith Szlamp made a request to IANA on 16 September 1996 to make it a recognised Internet dialect. After citing a number of references, the application was accepted on 25 May 2000 and now allows Internet documents that use the dialect to be categorised as Scouse by using the language tag "en-Scouse".

Scouse has also become well-known globally as the accent of the Beatles. While the members of the band are famously from Liverpool, their accents have more in common with the older Lancashire-like Liverpool dialect found in the southern suburbs; the accent has evolved into Scouse since the 1960s.

The four Gospels of the New Testament have been published as The Gospels in Scouse. This was translated by Dick Williams and Frank Shaw.

See also

Other northern English dialects include:

• Cumbrian (Cumbria)
• Geordie (Newcastle)
• Lanky (Lancashire)
• Mackem (Sunderland)
• Mancunian (Manchester)
• Pitmatic (Durham and Northumberland)
• Tyke (Yorkshire)

Bibliography

• Template:Accents of English

External links

• Sounds Familiar: Birkenhead (Scouse) — Listen to examples of Scouse and other regional accents and dialects of the UK on the British Library's 'Sounds Familiar' website
• 'Hover & Hear' Scouse pronunciations Template:Webarchive, and compare with other accents from the UK and around the world
• Sound map – Accents & dialects in Accents & Dialects, British Library.
• BBC – Liverpool Local History – Learn to speak Scouse!
• A. B. Z. of Scouse (Lern Yerself Scouse) (Template:ISBN)
• IANA registration form for the en-scouse tag
• IETF RFC 4646 — Tags for Identifying Languages (2006)
• Visit Liverpool — The official tourist board website for Liverpool
• A Scouser in California — A syndicated on-air segment that airs on Bolton FM Radio during Kev Gurney's show (7Template:Nbsppm to 10Template:Nbsppm – Saturdays) and Magic 999 during Roy Basnett's Breakfast (6Template:Nbspam to 10Template:Nbspam – Monday to Friday)
• Clean Air Cleaning Up Old Beatles Accent, ABC News