Chatham, England
The Chatham Accent
Chatham sits inside the London dialect area, which covers London, Essex, Kent and the Thames Estuary, England. The nearest other area is Modern RP, about 22km away.
Take the quiz and see how close your accent is →
What people in Chatham sound like
- Glottal stops replace T between vowels and at the end of words: “water”, “what”.
- TH-fronting — “three” as “free”, “brother” as “bruvver”.
- L-vocalisation — “milk” towards “miwk”.
- Non-rhotic with the broad “bath” vowel.
These are the markers of the London accent as a whole. No survey claims every speaker in Chatham has all of them — the full London profile sets out where the region varies.
Chatham against Modern RP
Chatham is close enough to the Modern RP area that the two get confused. These are the questions where the survey expects a different answer on each side.
| Question | Chatham | Modern RP |
|---|---|---|
| What usually happens to the middle consonant when you say “bottle”? | a catch in the throat instead of the T in “bottle” — “bo’le” | a clear T in the middle of “bottle” |
Dialect areas near Chatham
Is your accent from Chatham?
There is no way to answer that from a description. The test asks 29 questions about the words you use and how you say them, scores your answers against the London / Estuary English profile and every other profile in the survey, and shows you where people who answer the way you do actually live.