[1] Manchester accents are prominent in popular media via television shows such as Coronation Street and members of rock bands such as Happy Mondays, New Order, Oasis, The Fall, The Stone Roses, and Take That.

[3] The history of Manchester shows that, from the Industrial Revolution onwards, the city was settled by migrants from many countries, notably from Ireland and other areas of the United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, Italy and Germany.

[citation needed] The urban dialect itself is more distinctive than many people realise, and it is quite noticeably different from the accent spoken in adjacent towns such as Bolton, Oldham, Rochdale and Wigan despite them being within Greater Manchester.

[10][11][12] H-dropping, i.e. the omission of the sound /h/ (e.g. pronouncing head as [ɛd] rather than [hɛd]), is common in speakers of Manchester English, especially among the working class population.

[20][21] Word-final ng clusters likewise often retain the plosive (or are otherwise reduced simply to [n] or sometimes [ŋ]), especially before a pause, where ejective [kʼ] is not an uncommon allophone.

[20][21] A further trait of Manchester English, especially among younger residents, is the pronunciation of /s/ before /tɹ, tj, tʃ/ as [ʃ] in words such as street, district, stupid, moisture and mischief.

Spoken word performer and poet Argh Kid (David Scott) breaks down Mancunian vocabulary in his piece "Nanna Calls Me Cock".

[29] However, other popular media outlets have variously described social labels for the dialect, including "twangy",[30] "euphonic",[31] or even one of the "friendliest" accents in the UK.

[34] A 2021 article in The Guardian expressed some of the variation within county, stating "Greater Manchester is only about 30 miles from east to west but it has long been famed for its linguistic diversity: the rich rolling Rs and extra long 'oos' of the northern mill towns where people looook in coook booooks are a world away from the nasal Mancunian drawl where your brother is 'ahh kid' and words which end in a 'Y' finish instead with an 'eh'.

"[35] Particularly strong examples of the accent can be heard spoken by Davy Jones of the Monkees who was born in Openshaw, Mark E. Smith (Salford-born, Prestwich-raised singer with the Fall), the actor John Henshaw (from Ancoats) and Liam and Noel Gallagher from Burnage band Oasis.

The character Jack Regan in the 1970s police drama The Sweeney (played by Longsight-born actor John Thaw) is a Mancunian with an accent heavily modified by years of living in London.

Manchester's most famous soap opera Coronation Street has, despite being based in the city (a fictionalised version of Salford), less pronounced Mancunian accents than other TV shows set in the area.

They include Michelle Keegan (Tina McIntyre), Helen Flanagan (Rosie Webster) and Simon Gregson (Steve McDonald).

The West Sussex-raised British actress, Jane Leeves, portrayed the character of Daphne Moon, a Manchester emigrant to Seattle with a supposed Mancunian accent which was actually closer to a broad Lancashire dialect, in the American sitcom Frasier.