English language in Southern England

English in Southern England is the collective set of different dialects and accents of Modern English spoken in Southern England.

As of the 21st century, a wide class of dialects labelled "Estuary English" is on the rise in southeastern England, including the home counties (the counties bordering London), which was the traditional interface between the London urban region and more local rural accents.

Commentators report widespread homogenisation in southern England in the 20th century (Kerswill & Williams 2000; Britain 2002). This involved a process of levelling between the extremes of working-class Cockney in inner-city London and the careful upper-class standard accent of southern England, Received Pronunciation (RP), popular in the 20th century with upper-middle- and upper-class residents. Now spread throughout the South East region, Estuary English is the resulting mainstream accent that combines features of both Cockney and a more middle-class RP. Less affluent areas have variants of Estuary English that grade into southern rural England outside urban areas.

Outside of South East England, West Country English (of South West England) and East Anglian English survive as traditional broad dialects in Southern England today, though they too are heavily subject to Estuary English influence in recent decades and are consequently weakening.

London and Estuary English

Since the 19th century, accents of London, and since the late 20th century, all accents of the home counties and the greater Thames Estuary are firmly non-rhotic: that is, the consonant sound (phonetically [ɹ]) occurs only before vowels.

General characteristics of all major London accents include:

diphthongal realisation of /iː/ and /uː/, for example beat [ˈbɪiʔ], boot [ˈbʊʉʔ] (this can also be a monophthong: [bʉːʔ])

diphthongal realisation of /ɔː/ in open syllables, for example bore [ˈbɔə], paw [ˈpɔə] versus a monophthongal realisation in closed syllables, for example board [ˈboːd], pause [ˈpoːz]. But the diphthong is retained before inflectional endings, so that board and pause often contrast with bored [ˈbɔəd] and paws [ˈpɔəz].

lengthening of /æ/ in words such as man, sad, bag, hand (cf.