English in southern England

English in southern England (also, rarely, Southern English English, or in the UK, simply, Southern English) is the collective set of different dialects and accents of the English spoken in southern England.

South East England and the Home Counties (the counties bordering London) tend to reflect the interface between the London region and other regional accents. Affluent districts are associated with a modified Received Pronunciation (RP) accent, reflecting their traditional popularity with upper middle and upper-class residents which has spread throughout more social classes broadly in rural areas with commuting access to London. Less affluent areas have traditionally mainstream London accents (that is, variants of the Estuary English accent) that grade into southern rural outside urban areas.

Commentators report widespread homogenisation in the south-east (Kerswill & Williams 2000; Britain 2002). The features present a levelling between the extremes of Estuarine pronunciation and careful Received Pronunciation and except where an intuitive neutral parity position exists, they include:

Wells notes traditional aspects of rural south-eastern speech as lengthened [æ:] in trap words and use of [eɪ] or [ɛʊ] in mouth words.

Accents are nonrhotic, that is, /r/ (phonetically [ɹ]) occurs only before vowels.

General characteristics of all major London accents include:

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