English in Southern England is the collective set of different dialects and accents of Modern English spoken in Southern England.

As of the 21st century, a wide class of dialects labelled "Estuary English" is on the rise in southeastern England, including the home counties (the counties bordering London), which was the traditional interface between the London urban region and more local rural accents.

Commentators report widespread homogenisation in southern England in the 20th century (Kerswill & Williams 2000; Britain 2002). This involved a process of levelling between the extremes of working-class Cockney in inner-city London and the careful upper-class standard accent of southern England, Received Pronunciation (RP), popular in the 20th century with upper-middle- and upper-class residents. Now spread throughout the South East region, Estuary English is the resulting mainstream accent that combines features of both Cockney and a more middle-class RP. Less affluent areas have variants of Estuary English that grade into southern rural England outside urban areas.

Outside of South East England, West Country English (of South West England) and East Anglian English survive as traditional broad dialects in Southern England today, though they too are heavily subject to Estuary English influence in recent decades and are consequently weakening.

London and Estuary English

Since the 19th century, accents of London, and since the late 20th century, all accents of the home counties and the greater Thames Estuary are firmly non-rhotic: that is, the consonant sound (phonetically ) occurs only before vowels.

General characteristics of all major London accents include: diphthongal realisation of and , for example beat , boot (this can also be a monophthong: ) diphthongal realisation of in open syllables, for example bore , paw versus a monophthongal realisation in closed syllables, for example board , pause . But the diphthong is retained before inflectional endings, so that board and pause often contrast with bored and paws . lengthening of in words such as man, sad, bag, hand (cf. can, had, lad): split of into two phonemes and . See bad–lad split. an allophone of before "dark L" , namely , for example whole versus holy . But the is retained when the addition of a suffix turns the "dark L" clear, so that wholly can contrast with holy.

Features of working- or middle-class Estuary English, spoken in the counties all around London in the 21st century, include: Not as much h-dropping as Cockney, but still more than RP Increased amount of th-fronting, like Cockney fronting to can take the more RP variant of has a low-back onset, , or the lowered/unrounded from , or or can have an onset lower than RP but higher than Cockney: fronted to fronted lowers and backs, different from both RP and Cockney It retains some aspects of Cockney, such as the vocalisation of (dark L) to , and yod-coalescence in stressed syllables (for example, duty ) and replacement of with (the glottal stop) in weak positions, or occasionally with d). Wells notes traditional aspects of rural South East speech as lengthened in trap wordsJohn C. Wells in Trudgill ed., Language in the British Isles, page 61, Cambridge University Press, 1984 and use of or in mouth words.John C. Wells in Trudgill ed., Language in the British Isles, pages 60–61, Cambridge University Press, 1984

Cockney

Cockney is the traditional accent of the working classes of the areas immediately within and surrounding the City of London itself (most famously the East End). It is characterised by many phonological differences from RP: The dental fricatives are replaced with labiodental , for example think The diphthong is monophthongized to , for example south H-dropping, for example house Replacement of in the middle or end of a word with a glottal stop; for example hit Diphthong shift of to (for example beet ), to (for example bait ), to (for example bite ), and to (for example, boy . Vocalisation of (dark L) to , for example, people

Multicultural London English

Multicultural London English (abbreviated MLE), colloquially called Blockney, is a dialect (and/or sociolect) of English that emerged in the late 20th century. It is spoken mainly by youths in multicultural parts of working-class London.

The speech of Jamaicans, or children of Jamaican parents, in London shows interesting combinations of the Jamaican accent with the London accent. For example, in Jamaican English, is replaced by , for example both . In London, word-final is realised as , as mentioned above. In Jamaican-London speech, glottalization of applies also to from , for example both of them . Hypercorrections like for foot are also heard from Jamaicans.John C. Wells Jamaican pronunciation in London The Philological Society (1973). John C. Wells's dissertation, Jamaican pronunciation in London, was published by the Philological Society in 1973.

West Country English

South West England or "West Country" English is a family of similar strongly rhotic accents, now perceived as rural. It originally extended an even larger region, across much of South East England, including an area south of the "broad A" isogloss, but the modern West Country dialects are now most often classified west of a line roughly from Shropshire via Oxfordshire. Their shared characteristics have been caricatured as Mummerset.

They persist most strongly in areas that remain largely rural with a largely indigenous population, particularly the West Country. In many other areas they are declining because of RP and Estuary accents moving to the area; for instance, strong Isle of Wight accents tend to be more prevalent in older speakers.

As well as rhoticity, here are common features of West Country accents: The diphthong (as in price) realised as or , sounding more like the diphthong in Received Pronunciation choice. The diphthong (as in mouth) realised as , with a starting point close to the vowel in Received Pronunciation dress. The vowel (as in lot) realised as an unrounded vowel , as in many forms of American English. In traditional West Country accents, the voiceless fricatives (as in sat, farm, think, shed respectively) are often voiced to , giving pronunciations like "Zummerzet" for Somerset, "varm" for farm, "zhure" for sure, etc. In the Bristol area a vowel at the end of a word is often followed by an intrusive dark l, . Hence the old joke about the three Bristolian sisters Evil, Idle, and Normal (written Eva, Ida, and Norma). L is pronounced darkly where it is present, too, which means that in Bristolian rendering, 'idea' and 'ideal' are homophones. H-dropping in South Devon and Cornwall, "Berry 'Aid" for Berry Head (in Brixham, South Devon)

In traditional Southern rural accents, the voiceless fricatives always remain voiceless, which is the main difference from West Country accents.

East Anglian English

Features which can be found in East Anglian English (particularly Norfolk) speakers born before the late 20th century include: Yod-dropping after all consonants: beautiful may be pronounced , often represented as "bootiful" or "bewtiful", huge as , and so on.There are more details on , written by Norfolk-born linguist Peter Trudgill Absence of the long mid merger between Early Modern English (as in toe, moan, road, boat) and (as in tow, mown, rowed). The vowel of toe, moan, road, boat may be realised as , so that boat may sound to outsiders like boot. Glottal stop frequent for . The diphthong (as in price) realised as , sounding very much like the diphthong in Received Pronunciation choice. The vowel (as in lot) realised as an unrounded vowel , as in many forms of American English. Merger of the vowels of near and square (RP and ), making chair and cheer homophones. East Anglian accents are generally non-rhotic.

There are differences between and even within areas of East Anglia: the Norwich accent has distinguishing aspects from the Norfolk dialect that surrounds itchiefly in the vowel sounds. The accent of Cambridgeshire is different from the Norfolk accent, whilst Suffolk has greater similarities to that of Norfolk.Some examples of the Norfolk accent (with dialectal words thrown in) at

19th-century Southeastern English In the 19th century, the home counties surrounding London, forming the bulk of southeastern England outside of East Anglia, spoke with what today would be lumped under a southwestern England or "West Country" dialect, with front , front , and high (or even round) vowels predominating, all of which were also shared with rural traditional East Anglian English. Cambridgeshire fits this designation as well.

At the time, Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex, Buckinghamshire, and Kent were rhotic, though this was recessive by the mid-20th century.Wells, 1982, p. 335. Still, parts of West Berkshire were still rhotic or variably rhotic even into the late 20th century.Wells, 1982, p. 341. Sussex and Kentish rhoticity lasted until as recently as the early 21st century in certain small pockets. In country areas and Southampton, the older rhotic accent could still be heard amongst 20th-century speakers, for example in the speech of John Arlott, Lord Denning and Reg Presley. Hertfordshire and Essex, meanwhile, were already less rhotic by the 19th century. The spread of non-rhoticity throughout all these counties is usually associated with the emergence of a non-local 20th-century variety with diffused Cockney elements, Estuary English, mainly in urban areas receiving an influx of East London migrants since World War II. "Estuary-isms" are even found in Portsmouth or "Pompey" English.

In the 18th and early 19th centuries, in Essex, Kent, and east Sussex, plus several other eastern areas including London, Suffolk, and Norfolk, was pronounced as in pre-vocalic position: thus, village sounded like willage and venom like wenom. In the 19th century, across all of Southern England, arter without an f (non-rhotically, ) was a common pronunciation of after.

The pattern of speech in some of Charles Dickens' books pertains to Kentish dialect, as the author lived at Higham, was familiar with the mudflats near Rochester and created a comic character Sam Weller who spoke the local accent, principally Kentish but with strong London influences.

The vowel (as in ) is very occasionally used for the vowel, normally ; it has been reported as a minority variant in Kent and Essex.

Modern Estuary dialect features were also reported in some 19th-century varieties, including L-vocalisation e.g. old as owd, as well as yod-coalescence in Kent.

Essex The East Anglian feature of complete yod-dropping was also common in 19th-century Essex. Th-fronting, a feature now widespread throughout England (three as free), was found even more strongly in Essex than in London in the Survey of English Dialects' study of speakers born in the late 1800s. Many words are unique to 19th-century Essex dialect, some examples including bonx meaning "to beat up batter for pudding" and hodmedod or hodmadod meaning "snail".Charnock, Richard S. (1880). A glossary of the Essex dialect. Trübner & Company. pp. 5, 22. Several nonstandard grammatical features exist, such as irregular plural forms like housen for "houses".Charnock, 1880, p. 23.

Mersea Island (though largely not the rest of Essex) showed some rhoticity in speakers born as late as the early 20th century.A Sociophonological Analysis of Mersea Island English: An investigation of the diphthongs (aʊ), (aɪ) and (ɔɪ), page 44

Surrey