Royal stereotypes

And Paul Foulkes, a linguistics expert at York University, UK, says that although younger members of the Royal Family, such as Prince William, have been heard to use glottal stops, this does not extend to the Queen.

He told BBC News Online: "If you look at the way Spitting Image and other professional mimics might stereotype the Queen's speech with words like House pronounced as 'Hice', that is something she would be likely to change to reduce the distance between herself and other people.

"But she is not likely to start dropping her aitches or using glottal stops."

So for the time being at least, the House of Windsor is unlikely to become the 'Ouse of Windsor'.

English English

English English refers to the English language as spoken in England, part of the United Kingdom. Other terms used are Anglo-English, English in England and England English.

In this usage, the term British English has a wider meaning and is usually (but not always) reserved to describe the features common to English English, Welsh English Scottish English and sometimes Hiberno-English.

General features

The British Isles are one of the most linguistically diverse areas in the English-speaking world. Significant changes in dialect (pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary) may occur within one region. The four major divisions are normally classified as Southern English dialects, Midlands English dialects, Northern English dialects and Scottish English, and the closely related dialects of Scots and Ulster Scots (varieties of Scots spoken in Ulster). There is also Hiberno-English (English as spoken in Ireland) and the form of English used in Wales. The various English dialects differ in the words they have borrowed from other languages. The Scottish and Northern dialects include many words originally borrowed from Old Norse; the Scottish dialects include words borrowed from Scots and Scottish Gaelic. Hiberno-English includes words derived from Irish.

An important feature of English regional accents is the bundle of isoglosses, which separate different pronunciations in different areas.

Accents throughout Britain are influenced by the phoneme inventory of regional dialects, and native English speakers can often tell quite precisely where a person comes from, frequently down to a few miles.

In addition, speakers may modify their pronunciation and vocabulary towards Standard English, especially in public circumstances. In consequence, the accent best known to many people outside the United Kingdom as English English, is that of Received Pronunciation (RP).

Until recently, RP English was widely believed to be more educated than other accents and was referred to as the King's (or Queen's) English, or even "BBC English" (due to the fact that in the early years of broadcasting it was very rare to hear any other dialects on the BBC). However, for several decades, regional accents have been more widely accepted and are frequently heard. Thus the relatively recent spread of Estuary English is influencing accents throughout the south east.