ABSTRACT
Strong differences in regional dialect between discrete, long-settled communities may – in Britain – be gradually becoming a thing of the past. And, although regional accent differences (Scouse, for instance, or Glaswegian) may to a greater or lesser extent endure, they only occasionally prove an obstacle to mutual intelligibility between speakers. It might be argued, then, that the picture is one of gradually increasing linguistic uniformity and homogeneity. However, some very marked kinds of linguistic diversity remain even in a highly centralized society such as Britain with its broadly encompassing state institutions – a diversity which may well be tightly concentrated within particular localities. Many of Britain’s major cities – Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and particularly London – have over the last half-century experi enced significant inward migration especially from South Asia (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh), the Caribbean (Jamaica and the West Indies), and Central and West Africa, where peoples have longestablished ties with Britain through the historical bonds of empire and trade. More recently, migrations within the European Union have also brought members of the new accession countries such as Poland or Lithuania to Britain.
