Estuary English is a name given to the form of English widely spoken in South East England, especially along the river Thames and its estuary. It is a hybrid of Received Pronunciation (RP) and South Eastern accents, particularly from the London, Kent and Essex area - ie, the area around the Thames Estuary. It first came to public prominence in an article by David Rosewarne in the Times Education Supplement in October 1984.[1] Rosewarne argued that it may eventually replace RP as the Standard English pronunciation. The International Phonetic Alphabet. ... Phonetic (pho-NET-ic) is a nationwide voicemail-to-text messaging service available for most digital mobile phones in which a subscriber is provided a custom voice mailbox for the purpose of receiving all incoming voice messages as actual transcribed text for reading via short messaging (also known as SMS... Unicode is an industry standard whose goal is to provide the means by which text of all forms and languages can be encoded for use by computers. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... South East England is one of the official regions of England. ... Several places exist with the name Thames, and the word is also used as part of several brand and company names Most famous is the River Thames in England, on which the city of London stands Other Thames Rivers There is a Thames River in Canada There is a Thames... Received Pronunciation (RP) is a form of pronunciation of the English language, sometimes defined as the educated spoken English of southeastern England. It is a dialect of English English often taught to non-native speakers, and represented in the pronunciation schemes of most British dictionaries. ... Accents mark speakers as a member of a group by their pronunciation of the standard language. ... Part of the London skyline viewed from the South Bank London is the most populous city in the European Union, with an estimated population on 1 January 2005 of 7. ... Kent is a county in England, south-east of London. ... Essex is a county in the East of England. ... The Thames Estuary is a large estuary where the River Thames flows into the North Sea. ...

Some people say (usually in jest) that it's called Estuary English because "It's as clear as mud and flows freely".

Estuary shares the following features with Cockney pronunciation: A Cockney, in the loosest sense of the word, is a working-class inhabitant of the East End of London. ...

• Use of intrusive R.
• Using some glottal stops: that is, "t" is sounded as a glottal occlusion instead of being fully pronounced when it occurs before a consonant or at the end of words, as in "eight" or "McCartney" (but never as a glottal stop between vowels, as in Cockney or in southern dialects, e.g. "water").
• Diphthong-widening; the vowel sounds of words like "I" as [ɑɪ], the diphthong in words like "brown" as [æʊ], and the diphthong in words like "face" as [ʌɪ].
• L-vocalisation, i.e., the use of /o/ where RP uses /l/ in the final positions or in a final consonant cluster.

But the following characteristics of Cockney pronunciation are not present in Estuary: The linking R, also known as the intrusive R, is a phenomenon found in certain dialects of English, such as Estuary English and Eastern New England English, whereby an R sound is inserted to separate two words which would otherwise run together, rather than make use of a glottal stop. ... The glottal stop or voiceless glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages. ... Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-07-20, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds) is a vowel combination in a single syllable involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ... Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-07-18, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... L-vocalization (also called l-dropping) is a process that occurs in many dialects of English English that causes a /l/ sound occurring at the end of a word or before a consonant to be replaced with /o/ and /U/, resulting in the following pronounciations: gulf - /gVUf/ milk - /mIUk/ Categories...

• Replacement of [θ, ð] with [f, v] (e.g. [fɪŋk] for think)
• Dropping [h] in stressed words (e.g. [æʔ] for hat)

Estuary English is widely encountered throughout the south and south-east of the UK, particularly among the young. Many consider it to be a working-class accent, though it is by no means limited to the working class. Some people adopt the accent as a means of "blending in", appearing to be more working class, or in an attempt to appear to be "a common man" — sometimes this affectation of the accent is derisively referred to as "Mockney". For example, Tony Blair, the British prime minister, has been heard to adopt the accent at times in TV interviews, etc. Diana, Princess of Wales (born 1961) was sometimes said to use elements of Estuary English, though they were quite mild in her case. By contrast the Queen's granddaughter Zara Phillips (born 1981) speaks with a pronounced Estuary English accent. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... The Right Honourable Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service. ... Sir Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister A prime minister may be either: chief or leading member of the cabinet of the top-level government in a country having a parliamentary system of government; or the official, in countries with a semi-presidential system of government, appointed to manage the... Diana, Princess of Wales (Diana Frances Mountbatten-Windsor, née Spencer) (1 July 1961–31 August 1997) was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales. ... Zara Phillips Zara Anne Elizabeth Phillips (born May 15, 1981) is the daughter of Anne, the Princess Royal and her first husband, Captain Mark Phillips. ...

Estuary English uses words from American English and Australian English, and respects the standard grammar used by RP speakers. American English (AmE) is the dialect of the English language used mostly in the United States of America. ... Australian English (AuE) is the form of the English language used in Australia. ...

See also

• Regional accents of English speakers
• List of dialects of the English language

The regional accents of English speakers show great variation across the areas where English is spoken as a first language. ... This is a list of varieties of the English language. ...

External link

• Estuary English