Pronunciation
Happy: Does It End in “-ee” or “-ih”?
Most of the English-speaking world now ends happy and city on a long “-ee”. A short “-ih” survives in Manchester, parts of the north of England, southern Wales and traditional Received Pronunciation, and it is one of the quieter markers that separates Manchester from Liverpool.
The question, as everyone in the survey sees it
What is the final vowel in “happy” closest to?
Focus on the final Y: “happ-ee” versus a shorter “happ-ih”.
- The vowel in “fleece” or “see”
- The vowel in “kit” or “bit”
- 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 in “fleece” or “see”
In these profiles, “happy” ends on a long “-ee” — happy-tensing.
- Modern RP
- Bristol
- West Country
- London
- Multicultural London
- Birmingham
- Scouse
- Mancunian
- South Yorkshire
- West Yorkshire
- Geordie
- Central Scottish
- Highland Scottish
- South Wales
- Northern Irish
- Cork
- East Irish
- Southern Appalachian
- New York City
- California
- Texas
- Boston
- Chicago
- Newfoundland
- Jamaican
- Bajan
- Australian
- New Zealand
- Canadian
- South African
- Indian
The vowel in “kit” or “bit”
In these profiles, “happy” ends on a short “-ih”.
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 five people there have answered.
See the full question bank, the accent profiles these answers feed, or how the scoring works.