Hello friends! Welcome back for another Accent Quickie. I'm your host Kelly Ruttle, an actor and speech coach currently living in New York City. Today's accent... North Country England.
In the Accent Quickie video series what we do is we go over the top three or four phonetic changes that make a dialect distinguishable from others and how you can make those changes happen. People who might find these videos useful are actors who only have a short amount of time to prep for an audition, Someone who's interested in studying the dialect but they want a little taster preview of it first, or in today's case, for someone who's interested in starting the bajillionth Beatles cover band. Whatever brought you here today?
Welcome! Let's get to it. North Country English refers to the dialects associated with Northern England.
These dialects include but are not limited to Lancashire, Yorkshire, Newcastle, Manchester, and of course, Liverpool. The changes you're going to learn in today's video exist in all of these regions, albeit to varying degrees and resonances. So if you're watching today's video for a specific audition or role, you're probably going to have to do just a little bit more research as to where the story is set in order to fine-tune some of those specifics.
But recognizing and learning these changes will give you a great head start. And with that... bit of background out of the way. Important North Country England sound number one. Uh to uh.
The uh sound found in words like up, butt, and sun changes to uh as in should in Northern England. To make this change from uh, you're just going to bring the corners of the mouth in and close the jaw ever so slightly going from uh to uh. That means that up, but, and son become op, bot, son. Let's try a few more. Cop, under, nothing, suddenly, does, love, dog, loves, trouble, bogs, stong, justin.
In the pub. The Duchess has such fun with puzzles. Wonderful!
On to the next sound. Important North Country England sound number two, shortening the A diphthong. The A diphthong, as in late, stay, and tailor, gets a slight modification in Northern England.
For those of you who might not be familiar with the lingo, a diphthong is a vowel sound that has two parts to it. The first part of the A diphthong is E as in let, and the second part is I as in bit. E, I, E, I, E, E, E. What the Northern English do is they eliminate part two of this diphthong and they elongate part one. That's what the colon means.
It's indicative of length. So a becomes a. And that means that late, stay, and tailor become late, stay, tailor.
Let's try a few more. They play, made, parade, behave, namely, Gail was famous. At Cambridge. I hate when my mates stay late. Jane paid Abe his daily wages.
Amazing! Moving on. Important North Country England sound number three, shortening the I diphthong.
These next two changes are also diphthongs that get shortened in Northern England. For this case, I, as in words like by, sky, and combine, starts in standard American with ah, as in the British osk sound, and the second part is i, as in bit. Ah, i.
Ah, i. I. I. I. In Northern England, what they do is they eliminate part two, they get rid of i, and they change R to R as in spa that means that I becomes ah and by Sky and combine become by sky combine. Let's try a few more. Spine, pie, chime, ride, nice, horizon.
Clive's wife likes pineapples. I spy Michael's rhinoceros. I'd like to take a hike in China.
Nice work! Let's do the last one. Important North Country England sound number four, shortening the O diphthong. This last sound is yet another diphthong that gets shortened in Northern England. People might argue that Northern Englanders don't like their phonetics overcomplicated.
I don't want two parts to my vowel sounds. I don't have the time. Who knows? Anyway, the O diphthong, as in coat, hope, and mobile, starts with pure vowel O, and the second part is as in should oh oh oh oh oh oh oh what they do in northern england is they get rid of part two the uh and they simply elongate the pure vowel oh or that means that coat hope and mobile become court hope mobile The last quick thing I'll mention about North Country English is that it is a non-rhotic dialect. What does that mean?
It does not mean that they never pronounce their r's. What it means is that they only pronounce their r's in very specific places, and I go over where those places are in the standard British video, which I'll give you a link to in the description below. So those changes should allow you to make some good headway on North Country English, yeah? There's a chance you may have heard me make some phonetic changes today that we didn't specifically cover, and that's because there are more changes that you can learn. If you are interested in studying the dialect further, or if you had any questions about what we covered in today's video, you can always visit me at speakthespeech.net and reach out via the contact form.
In the meantime, thanks so much for tuning in. Be safe and well, and break a leg.