The way you say these words shows which part of Manchester you’re from, according to university researchers

A major feature of the distinctive ‘Manc’ accent is disappearing rapidly across Manchester, but is still more common in parts of the city.

That’s the conclusion of an expert linguist who has been studying the way people in the city talk to try to establish if there is evidence for the widely-held belief north Mancunians sound different to those in the south. The researcher, from The University of Manchester, discovered that a particular aspect of speech closely associated with sounding like a Manc is still going strong in parts of the city while disappearing from people’s speech elsewhere.

This is quite unusual as it is more common for linguists to find that class is a bigger indicator of how people talk than geography. Researchers say a good indication of whereabouts in the city you are from is the way you pronounce words like ‘four’ or ‘wore’.

What has the latest research about accents in Manchester discovered?

Linguistic expert Dr Maciej Baranowski has been trying to find out if it is true that people in north Manchester, including areas like Crumpsall, Harpurhey, Prestwich and Newton Heath, sound different to those living in the city centre or in areas of south Manchester such as Stretford, Didsbury, Wythenshawe, Northenden and Heaton Moor.

He talked to 122 people who live within the M60 motorway area as well as some living just outside it in places like Wythenshawe and Stockport. It should be noted at this point that this study focused solely on the city of Manchester itself and looked at none of the other towns in Greater Manchester, which often have distinctive and different accents.

His research focused on what in linguistics is called the north-force distinction. This focuses on whether words such as four and wore have a different vowel sound to for and war .

Dr Baranowski found that for middle-class Mancunians, like those in much of the rest of the country today, the word four sounds pretty much identical to for and wore to war.

In north Manchester, which is roughly a more working-class area than the south of the city, speakers are more likely to pronounce four and for differently. And Dr Baranowski found a distinct difference in how working-class people from north and south Manchester pronounced these words. His conclusion is that the north force distinction, a significant part of the Manc accent, is still going strong in the north of the city while disappearing elsewhere.

Why is this significant?

The difference in speech between working class Mancunians from different parts of the city is interesting because in linguistics class is more often an indicator of how people speak than geography is. Dr Baranowski cites the example of the so-called Brooklynese in New York, which was thought to be an accent distinct to that part of the Big Apple but was actually just the way working-class New Yorkers spoke.

Looking at the patterns among speakers of different ages, Dr Baranowski has concluded that the north force distinction started to disappear in middle class parts of Manchester decades ago and there are also some suggestions that even in its north Manchester heartlands it is very gradually becoming less common.

Across the country as a whole there has been a process of ‘dialect levelling’, which means British English is now far more uniform than it once was. Some long-standing aspects of local dialects are vanishing while others are spreading. In the capital city, for instance, the working-class Cockney accent is thought to be becoming less common but Multicultural London English is growing.

What has Dr Baranowski said about his research and the reasons for his findings?

For anyone tempted to fear the Manc accent may soon disappear altogether, Dr Baranowski has reassured them that he believes the distinctive sound of Manchester will be around for a good while yet. While some aspects of traditional dialects are weakening, many are still going strong.

Dr Baranowski said: “Features of the ‘Manc’ accent are still present across Manchester, though they are much stronger in the working classes. Interestingly, north Manchester is actually different from the rest of the city even if we take social class into account - that is, working-class Mancunians from north Manchester sound a little different from working-class Mancunians elsewhere in the city.

“That is something which has rarely been reported in linguistic studies.”

On the subject of why the way Mancunians talk is changing, Dr Baranowski looked at the recent boom in Manchester which has seen major employers including Google, Amazon and Microsoft following the BBC in relocating jobs to the city and tens of thousands of highly-educated workers arriving here from across the UK and from further afield.

Dr Baranowski stressed that his research did not set out to explore the effect these changes might have had on the city’s accent, but suggested they may well have contributed to speeding up alterations in how the city’s residents sound that were already under way.