Estuary English

Can someone tell me - What are the characteristics of Estuary English?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estuary_English

Thanks MMcM. I know one can find the facts on wikipedia, and elsewhere on the net, but I enjoy the personal interaction here on LT - a bit of opinion, a soupcon of discussion (someone might even tell me how to put a cedilla under the "c" in "soupcon") and the merriment of occasional disagreement.

Recently I watched a television documentary about Captain Cook. The presenter always pronounced "Cook" with the vowel sounding like that in the word "Luke". Otherwise her accent sounded pretty much what I used to think of as standard southern English.

Here in Australia we are accustomed to hearing the good Captain's name pronounced with a vowel sounding like that in "could" or "Puss" (the cat).

I'm wondering whether this (the "Luke" "Cook") is typical of Estuary English.

Good grief... this gets a bit confusing, doesn't it?

#4: for writing a ç in soupçon, try with ç in place of "c".

The vowel sound in cook (and book) sounding like that in Luke is a feature of some northern accents. Geordie in particular. However Geordie is pretty far removed from standard southern English.

Here is a BBC page which has a sound sample of three speakers all of which have that accent to some degree or other. Janet Street-Porter is probably closer to what most people consider to be the typical. Unfortunately none of them say cook.

(someone might even tell me how to put a cedilla under the "c" in "soupcon")

If you're using Firefox, get the abcTajpu extension. It's amazing! Then you'd just have to type c,+Insert and there it is: ç.

Thanks to you all for your responses. Very kind.

I'm quite possibly wrong about that TV presenter's accent sounding like what I vaguely remember as standard southern English: It was a while ago that I saw the programme. I'll research further as suggested by you, andyl.

Re the cedilla. I use a Mac and have just now discovered that all I have to do to put the cedilla in, e.g., soupçon is to hold down the option key and type the c.... ç - Voila!

When I say the three samples have that accent I was talking about estuary.

This site has about 30 hours of samples of various English accents and dialects - unfortunately it seems to be mostly older people so I don't think there is an example of Estuary.

Thanks andyl. My post wasn't clear; I did realise you meant estuary. My mind just wandered off down the standard southern English/Geordie side-track. 30 hours of samples of English! I think I'll need a good sleep before I venture over to that site. But I shall.

There is even someone from the very small town in which I lived all my childhood, Crowland, although I went to school in a town about 10 miles away.

Most people from Crowland have a much less pronounced accent now - I guess greater mobility and TV have diluted it some. However when I went away to university loads of people remarked I sounded like a carrot-cruncher.

This site has some more samples including a good Estuary example

Wow! I've just listened to the Estuary example in the last site mentioned above. Fascinating. I detected similarities with the accent my London-born-and-bred step-daughter (who lived her entire life in north London) cultivated in her teenage years during the 1970s.

While listening to it I began by thinking "This is difficult to understand" to "I'm actually enjoying this".

You have to love the gorgeous tapestry of the English language, don't you?

I don't think the speaker referred to in my #5 post above was speaking Estuary English after all.

Thanks again Andyl. I've book-marked those interesting sites for future entertainment. Crowland and its "carrot-crunchers" next up!

Here is an interesting page about accents of / feigned by characters on TV. I'm not sure I agree with everything, but I could see an exaggerated England 69 from #12's list played by Catherine Tate.

# 4 & #6

If you happen to have a Mac, the way you can write a c with a cedilla is by hitting the option key, hold, press the c: çedilla. Doing a shift-option-c, you get the capital version: Ç.

ç is produced on my PC by pressing down ALT and typing 135. I only remember that because I keep thinking that é should be produced that way, but actually é is ALT + 130.

The easiest way to do accents (if you are doing more than a couple) is to use the US International keyboard (or UK Extended keyboard) setting on Windows. See about.com on doing this.

>5 Thrin:

With apologies for tardiness, perhaps I could mention that Captain Cook hailed from North Yorkshire (in the days when there were three 'ridings' - North, East and West). The name would have been pronounced there, as it still is, with a pronounced 'oo' sound. The words 'cook', 'cooking' and 'cookery' receive similar treatment, often to the amusement of those from other parts of the country. As andyl pointed out, this practice stretches north from Yorkshire throughout the North-East, up to the Borders region.

The phrase 'cooking the books' is a surefire indicator of local residency.

Nothing 'estuarine' about Yorkshire folk!