MANCHESTER — A sociolinguistic study led by Lancaster University, published in the journal Language Variation and Change, indicates that the final vowel in words such as happy, baby, chilly, and city varies by social class in Manchester accents. Linguists refer to this as the "happy vowel."

The study found that middle-class speakers in Manchester were more likely to use a tenser vowel, pronouncing the final sound in "happy" as "happee," while working-class speakers generally pronounced the final sound as "happeh." Further distinctions were observed within working-class groups: Working-class South Asians in Manchester tended to pronounce the final sound as "happ-ee," while Black and white working-class Mancunians were more likely to pronounce it as "happ-eh."

Danielle Turton, a senior lecturer in sociolinguistics at Lancaster University, stated: "Looking at how accents are distributed tells us a lot about society." Turton also stated that local working-class speech is not being eliminated by social change or redevelopment, saying: "I think it's important because it shows that local working-class speech is not just being washed away by social change or redevelopment." She explained: "When we look at something like this we see quite clearly the different socioeconomic brackets speak differently in different ways."

Turton stated that people can and do change their accents when they move between social classes. She added: "Some people might not feel any pressure to change. Some people retain their accent throughout life, or feel really strongly attached to it." Turton noted that for many people from northern England, the words "strut" and "foot" rhyme, while for people from the south of England, they do not. Regarding such patterns, she said: "That's really bloody hard to change if you don't grow up with it." Turton stated: "The prestige form of the English language was still being based on those people with the money and the power." She concluded: "I think when we don't pre-judge, because we don't have assumptions about how certain people should sound, then we actually love it."