Estuary English

[5] He views Estuary English as an emerging standard accent of England, while also acknowledging that it is a social construct rather than a technically well-defined linguistic phenomenon.

[14][15] Wells cites David Rosewarne (who originated the term) as locating EE in the middle of "a continuum that has RP and London speech at either end".

As such it takes the form of a perceptual prototype category that does not require discrete boundaries in order to function in the eyes (and ears) of lay observers of language variation and change.

Wells (1994) states that "Estuary English (EE) is like RP, but unlike Cockney, in being associated with standard grammar and usage".

Wells cites the specific case of allophony in GOAT (> [ɒʊ] before dark /l/ or its reflex), leading perhaps to a phonemic split ("wholly" vs. "holy").

[23] According to Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996), the vocalized dark l is sometimes an unoccluded lateral approximant, which differs from the RP [ɫ] only by the lack of the alveolar contact.

Collins et al say "Traditional RP speakers tend to stigmatize this feature, which is nevertheless one of the most striking changes going on in present-day GB English".

[26][27] Wells proposes that in transcribing EE, the glottal stop symbol [ʔ] could be used in contexts where the consonant in question is preceded by a vowel and followed by a consonant or the end of a word: examples are "bit" [bɪʔ], "football" [ˈfʊʔbɔo], "belt" [beoʔ], "Cheltenham" [ˈtʃeoʔnəm], "bent" [benʔ], "Bentley" [ˈbenʔli].

Wells says "glottalling word-internally before a vowel is well-known as a 'rough' pronunciation variant: thus EE water ˈwɔːtə, but Cockney ˈwɔʊʔə".

[16] However, in work published twenty years later, Cruttenden (p 184) remarks that such glottal replacement "was until recently stigmatized as non-GB but all except [ʔl̩] are now acceptable in London RGB" (i.e. EE).

EE is said to exhibit diphthong shift, particularly of the FACE, PRICE, MOUTH and GOAT vowels (informal example: "nime" for "name").

Although at the time when most studies of EE were carried out, yod-coalescence was not common in RP, it has now become so widely accepted that RP-based pronunciation dictionaries include it.