‘Happy vowel’ is a key indicator of social class in Manchester accents, study finds

Pronunciation of the “happy vowel” is one of the key indicators of social class in Mancunian accents, researchers have found. A sociolinguistic study, led by Lancaster University, found that the final vowel in words such as happy, baby, chilly and city – known to linguists as “the happy vowel” – varies clearly by social class across Manchester . The research, published in the journal Language Variation and Change , found that while the middle classes said “happee”, working-class people were more likely to say “happeh”, with the higher social classes using a tenser vowel overall. Researchers have said that while Manchester has changed dramatically over the past few decades – socially, economically and culturally – some features of the city’s accent have remained remarkably stable, particularly in working-class speech. However, they found there was some variation across different ethnicities, with working-class south Asians more likely to say “happ-ee”, whereas black and white Mancunians would more typically say “happ-eh” if they were from that social class. Danielle Turton, a senior lecturer in sociolinguistics at Lancaster University, said: “ I think it’s important because it shows that local working-class speech is not just being washed away by social change or redevelopment” in Manchester, “a city changing at a rapid speed ”. Turton said that “looking at how accents are distributed tells us a lot about society ”. …