Consonants /h/

Pronunciation of initial is socially stratified in most areas of the North, as in most of England. Petyt’s study of West Yorkshire (1985: 106) shows that h-dropping is near-categorical for working-class males in casual speech style (93% in class V), but that class I males in the same speech style only have 12% h-dropping. The one area of the North in which initial <h> is retained, at least in stressed syllables, is the North-East. Trudgill (1999: 29) shows the isogloss for  (hill) just north of the Tees, but Beal (2000a) demonstrates that h-dropping is perceived as a salient feature of Sunderland speech within Tyne and Wear. In fact, close examination of the SED material shows a set of very loosely bundled isoglosses for individual words, with that for home as far north as mid-Northumberland, and those for house, hear and hair following the Tees. Recent studies indicate that the h-dropping isogloss is moving further north, with even younger speakers as far north as Newcastle providing some evidence of this. Given that h-dropping is the most stigmatized feature of non-standard speech in England, this is a surprising development, but in the context of the spread of other pan-northern features such as the monophthongal pronunciation of GOAT and FACE, it is perhaps more understandable. Young north-easterners are converging with their northern peers rather than with RP speakers.