West Country English

West Country English
Native to	England
Region	West Country
Ethnicity	English
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Ingvaeonic Anglo-Frisian Anglic English British English West Country English
Early forms	Old English Middle English Early Modern English
Dialects	West Country dialects
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
The official region of South West England, approximately co-extensive with the areas where "West Country" varieties are spoken.
Coordinates: 50°43′N 3°43′W / 50.717°N 3.717°W / 50.717; -3.717
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Speech example

An example of a female with a mostly rhotic accent with a background in Bristol and Wiltshire (Sophie Anderson).

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Speech example

An example of a working-class female with a rhotic accent from Bristol (Julie Burchill).

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Speech example

An example of a male with a partially rhotic accent from Devon (Martin Turner).

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West Country English is a group of English language varieties and accents used by much of the native population of the West Country, an area found in the southwest of England.^[1]

The West Country is often defined as encompassing the official region of South West England: Cornwall, and the counties of, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire, Bristol and Gloucestershire. However, the exact northern and eastern boundaries of the area are hard to define. In the adjacent counties of Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Hampshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire, it is possible to encounter similar accents and, indeed, much the same distinct dialect, albeit with some similarities to others in neighbouring regions. Although natives of all these locations, especially in rural parts, often still have West Country influences in their speech, their increased mobility and urbanisation has meant that in the more populous of these counties the dialect itself, as opposed to the people's various local accents, is becoming increasingly rare.

Academically the regional variations are considered to be dialectal forms. The Survey of English Dialects captured manners of speech across the South West region that were just as different from Standard English as any from the far North of England. There is some influence from the Welsh and Cornish languages depending on the specific location.