Welsh English?

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Welsh English refers to the dialects of English spoken in Wales by Welsh people. The dialects are significantly modified by Welsh grammar and nouns, and contain a number of unique words. In addition to the distinctive words and grammar, there are a variety of accents found across Wales.

John Edwards has written and spoken entertainingly about a specific form of Welsh English—that found in the south-east area of Wales—as Wenglish. Some people, generally outside Wales, use the same word to refer to any form of English spoken in Wales.

Pronunciation

Some of the features of Welsh English are

• Use of /χ/ (the voiceless uvular fricative) in loch, Bach, etc.
• Dropping of h in some varieties, making house sound like ouse. See h-dropping.
• Distinction of and /ʍ/ in wine and whine. See H-cluster_reductions.
• Distinction of /yː/ and /ɪʊ// in muse and mews, dew and due, blue and blew etc.
• Use of the Welsh ll sound /ɬ/ (a voiceless fricative 'l') in Llwyd, llaw etc.
• Distinction of /iː/ and /ɪə/ in meet and meat, see and sea etc.
• yod-dropping is not present after any consonant, thus threw/through, chews/choose, and yew/you are distinct. The first pairs have the diphthong /ɪu/.
• Distinctive pitch differences giving a "sing-song" effect.
• The distinction between horse and hoarse is preserved.
• Overpronunciation of vowels is common in strong valleys accents.
• Distinction of /oː/ and /oə/ in rode and road, cole and coal.
• Light rolling of r's
• Distinction of /e/, /æɪ/ and /eɪ/ in vane, vain and vein.
• Distinction of /oː/ and /oʊ/ in toe and tow, sole and soul etc.

Influence of the Welsh language

As well as straightforward borrowings of words from the Welsh language (cwtsh, picking to rain), grammar from the language has crept into English spoken in Wales. Placing something at the start of a sentence emphasizes it: "furious, she was". Periphrasis and auxiliary verbs are used in spoken Welsh, resulting in the English: "He do go there", "I do do it", particularly in the so-called Wenglish accent.

Regional accents within Wales

There is a very wide range of regional accents within Wales.

South Walian accents can be heard from the actors Richard Burton and (to a lesser extent) Anthony Hopkins, or on recordings of Dylan Thomas. Swansea accents are prominent in the film Twin Town. The singers Shirley Bassey and Charlotte Church, meanwhile, are from Cardiff.

The accents of North Wales are markedly different with "Scouse"-like Liverpool accents in Queensferry and Flint to the very distinctive accent of North West Wales. Around Wrexham, North Wales, accents are similar to "Scouse" and younger people in particular have begun to use more "Scouse"-like vocabulary, such as "la" and "kid." To the ears of an Englishman a Wrexham accent can sound "Scouse" or just generally Northern. In North West Wales, the R is rolled extensively and the vowels are pressed to the back of the throat, especially the letter U which is pronounced as a guttural ee. The accents of some individuals from some of the more rural communities have been likened to German accents by visitors from England.

The accents of mid-Wales, especially North Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion, are gentler in nature than either the "valleys" or the Northern welsh accents and are, by repute, one of the more beautiful British accents to listen to.

An online survey for the BBC (1) reported in January 2005 placed the Swansea accent in the bottom ten accents likely to help a career, although "Cardiff folk ranked only a few places higher".

External links

• Talk Tidy:John Edwards, the inventor/populariser of the term "Wenglish" and his books and CDs on the matter.
• Some thoughts and notes on the English of south Wales : D Parry-Jones, National Library of Wales journal 1974 Winter, volume XVIII/4

References

"Welsh proud of 'unpopular' accent." Accessed June 30, 2005.

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