English accents: links to additional materials

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General resources

• International Dialects of English Archive. Here you will find recordings representing the English language accents/dialects spoken all ove the world.
• Audio Segment of "Arthur the Rat", a merged version of the passage, combining several speakers, each reading a short segment of the passage.  Information on each speaker precedes the section read.
• English around the world, by Easton Language Education.
• WWW Links to dialects of English, by Bert Vaux.
• English dialects links by Rick Schellen.
• PLINX202 English Accents, a course offered by Prof. J.C.Wells (University College London), with downloadable handouts.
• Routes of English: Accents and Dialects at BBC Online. “How are our local dialects surviving the pervasive influence of estuary English?”
• UC Berkeley Lectures and Events (including materials from the UCB Language Center Speech Archives) features Online Audio Recordings of James Baldwin, Malcom X, Noam Chomsky, and many others.
• NCH World Voices offers samples of voice over artists for a wide range of English dialects.
• Find an online radio station for any regional variety of English on The MIT List of Radio Stations on the Internet or Web Radio 2000.
• English sound bites, including accents from may English-speaking countries in the same test passage, from the University of Aarhus.
• BBC Voices, a great website with recordings from all over Britain, accessible via clicks on a map. There is also a map that shows you in colour how various concepts are realised as different words all over the country.
• The dialect archive of the British Library.

Specific accents

·         Received Pronunciation (RP)

·         Cockney (London)

·         Scottish

·         Yorkshire and Lancashire (Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield)

·         Southern Irish (Dublin)

·         Northern Irish (Belfast)

·         Scouse (Liverpool)

·         Brummie (Birmingham)

·         Welsh (Cardiff)

·         West Country (Bristol)

·         Other British accents

·         General American (GA)

·         Canadian

·         New York City

·         Northeastern (New England)

·         Southern white

·         Southern black

·         Australian

·         New Zealand

·         South-African

·         West Indies (Jamaican)

·         Other world accents

Received Pronunciation (RP)

• The English Pronunciation Tip of the Day, by John Maidment, University College London, Department of Phonetics and Linguistics. Links to 120 excellent online phonetics exercises, many of which with .wav audio clips.
• Vowels of British English (with .wav clips), by George Dillon, University of Washington. Notes: (i) scroll to the bottom of this page, (ii) transcription is not in standard IPA.

Cockney (London)

• A .wav clip from Only Fools and Horses.
• Remember when... Classic episodes from Eastenders on BBC Online. (Real player required.)
• Listen to BBC London live. (Many different voices here, so no guarantee that every speaker is a Cockney!)
• A new variant of Cockney: Estuary English. Is it taking over from RP? Compare the Dutch equivalent: Poldernederlands.

Scottish

• Scottish accent clips from The Power of English, BBC: Routes of English. (Real player required.)
• Listen to news audio clips from the Audio/Video Section of BBC Scotland. (Real player required.)
• A .wav sample of speech of Nik Miles, available from NCH World Voices.
• TVScots: video clips about Scotland. Very slow downloads.
• Is the Glasgow accent moving to Edinburgh? Video by Fiona Walker.

Yorkshire and Lancashire

• A .wav clip Ee By Gum Lord! "a lively version of the Gospels retold in Yorkshire dialect" by Arnold Kellett.
• Steve McCaffery performs his Yorkshire dialect translation of The Communist Manifesto in RealAudio format. (Real player required.)
• "Hear the latest news and sport bulletin from BBC Greater Manchester Radio." (Many different voices, Manchester accent not guaranteed!)
• Yorkshire Dialect Society. Membership will cost you 13 pounds. The less official site Yorkshire Dialect is much more informative and even contains some audio, including a rhotic accent from the East Riding.
• Listen to Yorkshire poetry. The first five poets on the list are only there in print, but the rest can be listened to.

Southern Irish (Dublin)

• An interview with the Dublin actress Marion O'Dwyer, who plays the character of Oonagh Dooleyin in the BBC television series Ballykissangel. (Real player required.)
• An interview with the Irish actor Niall Toibin, who plays the character of Father Mac in the BBC television series Ballykissangel. (Real player required.)
• Various video clips of episodes of the BBC television series Ballykissangel. (Real player required.)
• A trainspotting narrative, read by Peter Caffrey at PFD. (Real player required.)

Northern Irish (Ulster)

• Two clips from a Donegal speaker. Listen to Arthur the Rat, and The North Wind and the Sun.
• Listen to BBC Radio Ulster News on demand.

Scouse (Liverpool and Merseyside)

• Melvyn Bragg visits Liverpool, home of Scouse, an Irish-based variant of northern English made famous by the Beatles and countless comedians. From BBC: Routes of English. (Real player required.)

Brummie (Birmingham and West Midlands including Coventry)

• Brummie is beautiful: video clip.

Welsh (Cardiff)

• BBC Online offers Catchphrase, a course in the Welsh language, with tutors from different parts of Wales.
• Audio and video from BBC Wales.

West Country (Bristol)

• "Listen to the latest BBC Bristol Online news bulletin." (Different voices, West Country accent not guaranteed!)

Other accents of the British isles

• Cumbria From BBC Routes of English. (Real player required.)
• The Norfolk Dialect, by Keith Skipper. (Includes .wav sound clip.)
• Estuary English, a website developed by the UCL Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, dedicated to "the form of English widely spoken in and around London and, more generally, in the southeast of England -- along the river Thames and its estuary."

General American (GA)

• Phones and Phonemes of English (with .au sound clips), by George Dillon, University of Washington.

Canadian

• Various samples (.mp3 format) of speakers from New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan, from The Dialects and Accents of North America.
• Samples (.wav) of various Canadian voice over artists, available from NCH World Voices.
• Various .au clips of Canadian raising and other oddities, by Taylor Roberts, York University, Ontario.

New York City

• Nine samples (.mp3 format) from The Dialects and Accents of North America.
• A sample of a female speaker from Brooklyn, and another female speaker, from the Speech Accent Archive, developed at George Mason University.
• Four .wav clips of standup comedian Bobby Collins: Doggy style, Downhill, On the inside, and The shot, all available from Chattanooga Net.
• The New York section of The MIT List of Radio Stations on the Internet.

Northeastern (New England)

• Various samples (.mp3 format) of speakers from Massachusetts and New Hampshire, from The Dialects and Accents of North America.
• Various .wav clips of Boston English from Watayou, retahdid?, a "Multimedia Introduction to the Boston Accent".

Southern white

• Various samples (.mp3 format) of speakers from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia, from The Dialects and Accents of North America
• A sample of a male speaker from Virginia, another of a male speaker from Mississippi, another of a female speaker from Texas, and four samples of speakers from Southern Virginia (female, male, male, female), all from the Speech Accent Archive, developed at George Mason University.

Southern black

• In American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology, the University of Virginia presents materials related to the history of slavery. Here's a series of .wav clips featuring Fountain Hughes, a former slave from Charlottesville, Virginia, born 1848, interviewed by Hermond Norwood, Baltimore, Maryland, June 11, 1949.

Australian

• A sample of an Australian speaker, and another speaker, from the Speech Accent Archive, developed at George Mason University.
• Samples (in .wav format) of various Australian voice over artists, available from NCH World Voices.

New Zealand

• A .wav sample of speech of Chris Diack, available from NCH World Voices.
• Audio links to Radio New Zealand International.

South-African

• Plenty of .wav samples of English South-African voice over artists, available from NCH World Voices.
• Audio links to Channel Africa.

West Indies (Jamaican)

• A sample of a Jamaican speaker, from the Speech Accent Archive, developed at George Mason University.
• Patois, the Jamaican Creole, contains many elements of English, as can be heard on Jamaican patois sound clips..