ABSTRACT
The accent of British English which has been most fully described, and which is usually taught to foreign learners, is the accent known as RP. This chapter gives a brief outline of the main regional differences to be found in accents of British English other than RP, and then compares them with RP. It focuses on urban and other regional accents of the sort most widely heard around Britain and Ireland, and which are most likely to be encountered by visitors from overseas. Intonation is also dealt with briefly in cases where it deviates markedly from the general RP-like pattern. Many northern English speakers, perhaps under the influence of RP, have a vowel which is between /Ʊ/ and /Λ / in quality in words such as but (and sometimes in words such as put as well). A very well-known feature which distinguishes northern from southern English accents concerns the vowels /a/ and /ɑ:/.
