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Welsh English dialect
Port Talbot English
(
PTE
) is a variety of
Welsh English
spoken in
Port Talbot
, generally by the
working class
.
Phonetics and phonology
[
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]
Consonants
[
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]
Consonants
in Port Talbot English generally follow those of
Received Pronunciation
. Some
phonological
characteristics of consonants specific to PTE include:
- Consonants can be
geminated
by any preceding vowel except long non-close vowels, which is most noticeable for
fortis
plosives and when they are in intervocalic positions. For instance, the plosives in these pairs are lengthened:
lob
?
lobby
,
shunt
?
shunting
and
sit
?
city
. In clusters, the first of any fortis elements is selected:
/t/
in
shunting
or
/s/
in
nasty
or simply the first consonant when there is no fortis element, as in
lovely
in which
/v/
is lengthened.
- The
voiceless
stops
/p,
t,
k/
have considerable strong
aspiration
[p??,
t??,
k??]
, often as a weak
affricate
[
p?
,
ts
,
kx
]
. That is especially for the case of
/t/
.
- T-glottalization
is uncommon but may occur word-finally.
- H-dropping
also often occurs.
- /tr,
dr/
are postalveolar affricates
[
t?????
,
d????
]
, as in RP.
- Like many other Welsh accents, Port Talbot English is
non-rhotic
, but when pronounced,
/r/
is more often a tap
[
?
]
than an approximant
[
?
]
.
- /l/
is always clear
[
l
]
.
- Consonants from Welsh such as
[
?
]
and
[
χ
]
are encountered in local Welsh placenames.
Vowels
[
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]
Monophthongs
[
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]
Length
[
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]
- Unstressed long vowels tend to be shortened, as seen in
free wheel
[fri
?wiːl]
.
- Sometimes, under the same environment as geminating consonants, short vowels can be lengthened as in
casserole
[?kaːs?roːl]
.
Quality
[
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]
- The
HAPPY
vowel is tense, but unlike Received Pronunciation, it is long
[iː]
, as in the
FLEECE
vowel (see
Happy tensing
).
- Vowels corresponding to unstressed
/?/
in RP are as follows:
- /?/
in the inflectional suffixes
-ed
and
-es
;
- /?/
in the suffix
-est
;
- /iː/
in prefixes like
anti-
and
poly-
.
- There is no contrastive
NEAR
vowel. Depending on word, it is replaced by either
FLEECE
(in polysyllables), a disyllabic sequence of
FLEECE
and
COMMA
/iː?/
(in monosyllables) and a monosyllabic sequence
/jøː/
when word initial (including
hear
and
here
, where the
/h/
is generally dropped).
- As in many other southern Welsh accents, the
NURSE
vowel is rounded and fronted to
[øː]
. However, a small minority of speakers realise it rhotically as
[??
~
??]
as in many varieties of
North American English
.
- The
horse?hoarse merger
is absent in PTE, hence the words
horse
/?ː/
and
hoarse
/oː/
are kept distinct.
/oː/
is found in
fortress
and
important
, where the
horse
vowel may be found in other dialects that keep the distinction.
- /?/
is open-mid
[
?
]
in stressed positions. When unstressed, it may be slightly raised to mid
[
?
]
.
- The
THOUGHT
vowel is mainly
/?ː/
. Exceptions are before
/l/
and
/st/
, as in
all
or
exhaust
, as well as the word
saucepan
, where it is replaced by the
LOT
vowel
/?/
. However long
/?ː/
does appear before the cluster
/ld/
and the word
palsy
.
- The
trap?bath split
is nearly absent, although the word
bath
along with
path
,
laugh
and its derivatives,
ghastly
and
last(ly)
have a long
PALM
/aː/
, yet just like in
Northern England
, the remainder of
BATH
words are short
/a/
.
- The
TRAP
words
bad
,
bag
and
man
are often found with long
/aː/
.
Diphthongs
[
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]
Diphthongs of PTE are
/??,
e?,
o?,
??,
??,
??/
.
PRICE
words are mostly pronounced with
/??/
, but there also exists a marginal
/a?/
which appears in a small number of words, such as
Dai
and
aye
.
PTE, like Welsh dialects such as
Abercraf English
, has preserved several diphthong?monophthong distinctions that other varieties have not. They include:
- A distinction between
/??/
and
/uː/
, corresponding to the
GOOSE
vowel in other dialects. Thus the pairs
blue
/
blew
and
grue
/
grew
are not homophones.
- When a word is spelt with an
⟨o⟩
, the corresponding vowel is
/uː/
. It also occurs in the words
insurance
and
surety
.
- The spellings
⟨u⟩
,
⟨ue⟩
and
⟨ui⟩
following
⟨r⟩
are typically pronounced
/uː/
.
- /uː/
can also be found in the word
blue
, and the sequence
⟨luC⟩
, such as
flute
,
lunatic
and
Pluto
- /??/
is found otherwise, such as
crew
or
glue
.
- The sequence
in most dialects will be rendered as
/j??/
in word-initial position and after
⟨y⟩
, such as
use
and
youth
.
You
and its derivatives can be pronounced either as
/j??/
or
/??/
.
/??/
is otherwise found for all other positions.
- Another distinction for the
FACE
and
GOAT
lexical sets, thus the minimal pairs
pain
/
pane
and
toe
/
tow
(see
Long mid mergers
). They are generally diphthongised as
/e?/
and
/o?/
when the spelling contains
⟨i⟩
/
⟨y⟩
and
⟨u⟩
/
⟨w⟩
respectively and monophthongised as
/eː/
and
/oː/
elsewhere. However, these are subject to several exceptions:
- The
FACE
vowel is always diphthong word-finally or preceding a vowel. It is further seen in the suffix sequence
⟨-atiV⟩
, thus
cafe
,
mosaic
and
patience
are always
/e?/
. It is usually a diphthong before a nasal (
strange
and
came
), however proper names do have a monophthong (
Cambridge
and
James
).
- The
FACE
is a monophthong in
bait
,
gait
,
gaiter
,
Jamaica
,
raisin
,
traipse
and
waist
.
- Before a single
⟨l⟩
, the
GOAT
is always diphthongal, such as
coal
or
gold
. The spelling
⟨oll⟩
is diphthongal in
roll
,
stroll
and its derivatives, yet monophthongal elsewhere.
- GOAT
is monophthongal in
(al)though
, and morpheme-final
-ow
(
elbow
and
window
).
- Own
as a possessive adjective (such as
your own
) is monophthongal.
Elision and assimilation
[
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]
- /t,
d/
, at the end of a morpheme or word, are very commonly elided:
not good
and
handbag
/?hamba?/
, the latter with the assimilation of the nasal with the
b
.
- The indefinite article
an
(before a vowel) may be reduced to
a
, as in
a apple
/?
?ap?l/
.
- The schwa
/?/
is often elided although but it is also very common to retain it.
- The sequence
co(-)op
, like in the rest of South Wales, is characteristically pronounced like
cop
/k?p/
.
- Elisions in the phrases
isn't it?
/??n
?t/
,
never mind
/?n?ː
?m??n/
and
there you are
/?d?ː
?waː/
are very common.
- Why
+ negative
do
, such as
why don't
,
why doesn't
or
why didn't
is also very commonly elided to
/?w??n/
.
Phonemic incidence
[
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]
- Like in most of Northern England and the Midlands,
tooth
is pronounced with the
FOOT
vowel, as in
/t?θ/
.
- Mauve
is pronounced with.
/?ː/
, instead of
/oː/
or
/o?/
.
- Motor
is pronounced
/?moːtoː/
, and the strong form of
their
is pronounced
/?ðe??/
.
- In an address,
girl
and
man
are pronounced with the
STRUT
vowel
/?/
.
The following features apply for only some speakers:
- Daunt
and
jaunt
may be pronounced with
/a/
.
- Hose
and
whole
may be pronounced with
/uː/
and
area
with
/eː/
.
- Want
may be pronounced with
/?/
, instead of
/?/
.
Prosody
[
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]
- Intonation in PTE is similar to Abercraf English. One prominent pattern is that the main pitch movement is not necessarily confined to the stressed syllable but can be spread further, to the end of the word.
- Like in other Welsh accents, PTE tends to avoid having double stress patterns, making words such as
Bridgend
or
icecream
lose their secondary stress.
Grammar
[
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]
- Ain't
commonly used as a negation.
- The
Northern Subject Rule
is used in present-tense verb forms and extends to personal pronouns:
I goes to work
,
the birds sings
and
you says
.
- Certain words have grammatical meaning unique to PTE, including
after
meaning 'later' and
never
as 'didn't'.
- Double negatives
occur, much like in other vernacular English dialects.
- The prepositions
on
,
by
and
for
are used idiomatically, as is characteristic for South Wales accent:
by here/there
. Phrasal examples include
what is on this?
(what's the matter with this),
there's times on him/her
(he/she is in a temper),
what's the time by you
(what's a good time for you),
you can't go by him/her
(you can't depend on him/her) and
there's gratitude for you
(you're appreciated).
Vocabulary
[
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]
- ashman
? bin man, dustman
- cam
? a stride
- crachach
? used everywhere in Wales; a derogatory term used to refer to members of
the Establishment
in the country.
[13]
[14]
It can simply refer to 'posh people'.
- lose
? to miss (e.g. a bus)
- poin
? to pester, to nag (from Welsh
poeni
)
- troughing
? guttering
- venter
? to bet (from Welsh
fentro
, a
mutated
form of
mentro
)
Idioms
[
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]
Examples of commonly-used idiomatic phrases in PTE:
- burnt to glory
? burnt to the point of ashes
- gone home
? said when a piece of clothing has worn out
- possible if
? in PTE it specifically means 'surely it's not that case that...'
- sure to be
? a phrase that represents 'certainly' or 'without a doubt'
References
[
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]
Bibliography
[
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]
- Connolly, John H. (1990), "Port Talbot English", in Coupland, Nikolas; Thomas, Alan Richard (eds.),
English in Wales: Diversity, Conflict, and Change
, Multilingual Matters Ltd., pp. 121?129,
ISBN
1-85359-032-0
- Wells, John C.
(1982),
Accents of English
, Vol. 2: The British Isles (pp. i?xx, 279?466), Cambridge University Press,
doi
:
10.1017/CBO9780511611759
,
ISBN
0-52128540-2
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