Phonology
Scouse is notable in some circumstances for a fast, highly accented manner of speech, with a range of rising and falling tones not typical of most of northern England.
Irish influences include the pronunciation of the name of the letter "H" as /heɪtʃ/ and the 2nd Person plural (you) as 'youse/yous/use' /juːz/.
There are variations on the Scouse accent, with the south side of the city adopting a softer, lyrical tone, and the north a rougher, more gritty accent. Those differences, though not universal, can be seen in the pronunciation of the vowels.
Words such as 'book' and 'cook', for example, can be pronounced as 'boo-k' or 'bewk' and 'koo-k'. This is true to other towns from the midlands, northern England and Scotland. Oddly enough words such as 'took' and 'look', unlike some other accents in northern towns, revert to the type and are pronounced 'tuck' and 'luck'. Not all Liverpudlians are brought up to speak with this variation but this does not make it any less Scouse.
The use of a long /uː/ in such words was once used across the whole of Britain, but is now confined to the more traditional accents of Northern England and Scotland.
| RP English | Scouse |
|---|---|
| as in 'book' | |
| as in 'cook' |
The Scouse accent of the early 21st century is markedly different in certain respects from that of earlier decades. The Liverpool accent of the 1950s and before was more a Lancashire-Irish hybrid. But since then, as with most accents and dialects, Scouse has been subject to phonemic evolution and change. Over the last few decades the accent is no longer a melange but has started to develop further. One could compare the way George Harrison and John Lennon spoke in the old Beatles films such as A Hard Day's Night with modern Scouse speakers such as Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher. Harrison pronounced the word 'fair' more like the standard English 'fur' - as Cilla Black does still (it could be argued that Brian Epstein's influence led to his artists adopting a softer Liverpool accent to appeal to a wider audience). This is a pure Lancashire trait but modern Scousers do it the other way round pronouncing 'fur' like 'fair'. Huge changes have taken place in Scouse vowels, which show astonishing length and exaggeration at times in words like 'read' but conversely shorter than standard in a word like 'sleep'. A final 'er' is a sound whilst pronounced 'schwa' in surrounding Lancashire and Cheshire is emphasised strongly as the 'e' in 'pet' /pɛt/. In a strong Scouse accent, the phoneme /k/ in all positions of a word except the beginning can be realised as /x/ or sometimes /kx/.
| RP English | Old Scouse | Modern Scouse |
|---|---|---|
| as in 'fur' | ||
| as in 'square' | ||
| as in 'read' | ||
| as in 'sleep' | ||
| as in 'butter' | ||
| as in 'fork' | ||
| as in 'bath |
Even if Irish accents are rhotic, meaning that they pronounce /r/ at the beginning as well as at the end of a syllable, Scouse is a non-rhotic accent, pronouncing /r/ only at the beginning of a syllable and between vowels, but not at the end of a syllable.
| Rhotic Accent | Scouse |
|---|---|
| as in 'floor' | |
| as in 'word' |
The use of the glottal stop as an allophone of /t/ can occur in various positions, including after a stressed syllable. This is called T-glottalisation and is particularly common amongst the younger speakers of the Scouse accent. /t/ may also be flapped intervocalically. /t/ and /d/ are often pronounced similarly to the fricatives /s/ and /z/.
The loss of dental fricatives, /ð/ and /θ/, was commonly attributed as being present due to Irish English influence. They were realised as /d/ and /t/ respectively. However, in the younger generation in some areas but by no means all, this feature is being outnumbered by those who realise them as labiodental fricatives.
- /θ/ becomes /f/ in all environments. becomes for "think."
- /ð/ becomes /v/ in all environments except word-initially, in which case it becomes /d/. becomes for "dither"; becomes for "though."
The use of me instead of my was also attributed to Irish English influence: for example, "That's me book you got there" for "That's my book you got there". An exception occurs when "my" is emphasised: for example, "That's my book you got there" (and not his).
Other Scouse features include:
- The use of 'giz' instead of 'give us'.
- The use of the term 'made up' to portray the feeling of happiness or joy in something. For example, 'I'm made up I didn't go out last night'.
- The term 'sound' is used in many ways. It is used as a positive adjective such as 'it was sound' meaning it was good. It is used to answer questions of our wellbeing, such as 'I'm sound' in reply to 'How are you?' The term can also be used in negative circumstances to affirm a type of indifference such as 'I'm dumping you'. The reply 'sound' in this case translates to 'yeah fine', 'ok', 'I'm fine about it', 'no problem' etc.
- pronounced as at the ends of some words.
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