Estuary English - A Controversial Issue?
clearly noticeable than was once the case. (Wells 1997)
- `the sudden emergence of a new type of English' results from irresponsible
disregard for the facts.
3. Commonly cited salient features of Estuary English
· l-vocalization, milk miwk
· glottalling, using a glottal stop
· happY-tensing; happy, coffee, valley
· yod coalescence; Tuesday, tune, attitude, duke, reduce
· diphthong shift, FACE, PRICE and GOAT vowels (wotshor
nime?) (Wells 1997)
perhaps to a phonemic split (wholly holy) (Wells 1994)
The features that Wells excludes from EE's phonetic make-up that are typical of
Cockney are:
· h-dropping, so that Cockney hand on heart becomes ('and on 'eart).
· th-fronting, using labiodental fricatives instead of dental fricatives
This turns I think into /a fink/ and mother into /move/ (Wells 1997)
However, Coggle (1993) claims that TH fronting in word-medial and word-final
annaabi.ee 
