Pronunciation
The Vowel in “Go”: Gliding or Steady?
Like the vowel in day, the vowel in go either glides or stays put. Steady versions mark Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Caribbean, Indian, South African and much of northern English speech; gliding versions mark southern England, North America and Australia.
The question, as everyone in the survey sees it
Say “go” slowly, holding the vowel for a couple of seconds. Does the vowel move while you hold it, or stay in one place?
Listen to the vowel rather than the G. Some accents travel through two vowel positions, others hold a single one.
- The vowel moves while I hold it
- The vowel stays in one place
- It varies
- I cannot tell
Which accents do what
Each accent profile in the survey has an expected answer to this question. Where a profile allows more than one answer, the region genuinely varies.
The vowel moves while I hold it
In these profiles, “go” ends on a slight “oo” — go-oo.
The vowel stays in one place
In these profiles, “go” is one flat sound — gaw.
- Birmingham
- Mancunian
- South Yorkshire
- West Yorkshire
- Geordie
- Central Scottish
- Highland Scottish
- South Wales
- Northern Irish
- Cork
- East Irish
- Southern Appalachian
- Newfoundland
- Jamaican
- Bajan
- South African
- Indian
- Nigerian
- Kenyan
- Pakistani
- Filipino
- Singaporean
- Hong Kong
- Ghanaian
- Trinidadian
- Malaysian
- African American
- South Indian
- Sri Lankan
- Spanish-accented English
- French-accented English
- German-accented English
- Italian-accented English
- Russian-accented English
- Brazilian Portuguese-accented English
- Japanese-accented English
- Mandarin-accented English
Why this question is in the survey
Pronunciation questions carry more weight in the scoring than vocabulary questions do, because they are much harder to change deliberately. People move house and pick up new words; the vowel system learned in childhood tends to stay. Every answer is stored with a coarse map cell for the town you grew up in, and a region is coloured in once at least two people there have answered.
See the full question bank, the accent profiles these answers feed, or how the scoring works.