BIRMINGHAM

BIRMINGHAM. A large industrial city in the West MIDLANDS of ENGLAND, often referred to as Brum, an abbreviation of the METATHESIS Brummagem. The city's inhabitants are Brummies, and their speech is known as Brummie, Birmingham, and Brummagem. Accents vary according to such factors as age, education, locality, region of origin, and social aspirations.

Pronunciation

Middle-class speech in the city is RP or near-RP. The following points apply mainly to working-class speech: (1) It is non-rhotic and generally aitchless. (2) The vowel /a/ tends to be used in both bat and bath. The pronunciation of Edgbaston (the name of a better-off part of the city) is a class SHIBBOLETH: the a is short among the working class, who stress the first syllable (‘EDGE-biston’), and long in ‘posh’ usage, with stress on the second syllable (‘Edge-BAHston’). (3) There is a tendency towards /ʊ/ in both but and boot, although the /ʌ/ pronunciation in words such as but, cut, and shut is spreading. (4) Words such as course and force are sometimes realized with a triphthong /ʌʊə/, especially among older speakers. (5) The monophthong /ɪ/ is close, so that it often sounds like eat and did like deed. (6) The -y ending of words such as happy is often pronounced /əi/ or /ʌi/. (7) The diphthongs in gate and goat tend to vary as between /aɪ∼ʌɪ/ and /aʊ∼ʌʊ/ rather than the /eɪ/ and /əʊ/ of RP. (8) The diphthong of house and mouth is /æʊ/. (9) The diphthongs in tie and toy have merged in /Dɪ/, producing homophones and uncertainty in such sentences as Where's your tie/toy? (10) Words and syllables ending in -ng tend to close with a voiced velar plosive: for example, /sɪŋgɪgŋg/ for singing and /kɪŋglʊɪ/ for kingly. This feature has been criticized so often that many Birmingham speakers tend to overcompensate in the attempt to avoid it, using /ŋ/ where /ŋg/ is standard, as in /fɪŋə/for finger.

Grammar and vocabulary

Especially among older speakers, the following grammatical features occur: up instead of to, as in He went up the pub half an hour ago and We'll go up town tomorrow; use of her instead of she, as in What's 'er doing then?; use of as as a relative pronoun, as in It wasn't 'im as went; use of /dai/ for did not, especially with know, as in They dai know where they was. Most people use the standard vocabulary, but older speakers may continue to use such words as brewins an outhouse, closet a toilet, miskin BrE dustbin, AmE trashcan, and suff a drain.