When people say they love British accent, most would probably be thinking about Received Pronunciation (also known as the "Queen's English"), or BBC English. It's the typical southern accent that most people hear through media. However, there are many accents in Britain. Here are three examples of other British accents.
Cockney accent is commonly found in London, notably East End, hence the show "Eastenders". Cockney accent has a few interesting features:
T-glottalisation: For words that have /t/ or /k/ in the middle of the word, people make a glottal stop [ʔ] instead of enunciating [t] or [k]. For example, better /'bɛtə/ becomes /bɛʔə/.
Th-fronting: /θ/ becomes [f] in all environments. For example, "three" /θrɪː/ becomes /frɪː/. /ð/ becomes [v] in all environments as well, such as "brother" /ˈbrɒðə/ becomes /ˈbrɒvə/.
Vocalisation of dark L: The /l/ is realised to [u], [ʊ], [o] or [ɤ]. For example, the word "milk" /mɪlk/ becomes /mɪʊk/
Birmingham is one of the largest cities in Britain, only second to London. It is also described to be an accent that is very hard to mimc. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29307916
Here are some features of Birmingham accent:
Absence of Foot-Strut Split: Both the word "foot" and "strut" have the same vowel pronunciation, which is [ʊ]. This is the same as with Northern England, though Birmingham considered to be Midlands.
Price-Choice Merge: Both the word "price" and "choice" have their vowel sound merged into [ɒɪ].
Letter ng: While most parts of England pronounce words such as "singer" with /ŋ/, without a distinct [g]. Birmingham speakers pronounce [g] so it becomes /ŋɡ/.
Scouse Accent, or sometimes called Liverpool English, is usually found in Liverpool and it is very distinct and different from the rest of England.
Here are some features of the accent:
Absence of Trap-Bath Split: Both "trap" and "bath" are pronounced with the same vowel sound [a] .
Square-Nurse merge: The word "square", instead of having the vowel pronunciation [eə], the vowel [ɛː] is used, just like in the word "nurse". This is different from most British accents.
G-dropping: For words that ends with "ing", like "saying" or "singing", the [ɪŋ] is replaced by [ən].
Some British people believe that northerners are friendlier than southerners. In Montgomery’s study (2007), speech sample produced by Carlisle, Crewe and Hull-based informants. It was found out that the Carlisle speech sample was considered to be the most correct, pleasant, trustworthy and friendly while Hull speech sample was considered to be the least correct, pleasant, trustworthy and friendly.
Here is another website supporting the theory, with Londoners being the least friendly, even though accents in London are more similar to that of Received Pronunciation than the northern accents.
https://greatbritishmag.co.uk/ask-a-brit/northerners-versus-southerners/
Sometimes when an accent is too strong, it can be difficult for people to understand. Without the subtitles in the video, how much do you understand?
Click and watch the video to learn more!
Montgomery, C. (2007). Northern English Dialects: A perceptual approach. Sheffield: University of Sheffield.