Editing Bristol (section)

=== Dialect ===
{{further|Culture in Bristol#Dialect}}
[[File:Cabot Tower (600px).jpg|thumb|upright|alt=An ornate brick tower surrounded by trees. The tower has balconies and is surmounted by a pitched roof with an ornate figure at the apex.|[[Cabot Tower, Bristol|Cabot Tower]], seen from the Brandon Hill park]]
A dialect of English ([[West Country English]]), known as Bristolian, is spoken by longtime residents, who are known as Bristolians.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Famous Bristolians |url=http://www.mintinit.com/famousbristolians.php |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120425091723/http://www.mintinit.com/famousbristolians.php |archive-date=25 April 2012 |access-date=12 November 2011 |publisher=Mintinit.com}}</ref> Bristol natives have a [[rhotic accent]], in which the post-vocalic ''r'' in ''car'' and ''card'' is pronounced (unlike in [[Received Pronunciation]]). The city is regarded as one of the last locations in England, along with [[Blackburn]], to preserve the traditional English rhotic R sound.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Pinkstone |first=Joe |date=2023-12-16 |title=The two remaining places where people have traditional English accents |language=en-GB |work=The Telegraph |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/16/blackburn-bristol-traditional-english-accent/ |access-date=2023-12-19 |issn=0307-1235}}</ref> The unique feature of this accent is the 'Bristol (or terminal) l', in which ''l'' is appended to words ending in ''a'' or ''o''.{{sfn|Hughes|2012|pp=86–88}} Whether this is a broad ''l'' or a ''w'' is a subject of debate,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Staff |date=14 August 2003 |title=Calling All Bristolians |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/sop/brizzle/story.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120120132253/http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/sop/brizzle/story.shtml |archive-date=20 January 2012 |access-date=19 June 2011 |publisher=BBC}}</ref> with ''area'' pronounced 'areal' or 'areaw'. The ending of ''Bristol'' is another example of the Bristol ''l''. Bristolians pronounce ''-a'' and ''-o'' at the end of a word as ''-aw'' (''cinemaw''). To non-natives, the pronunciation suggests an ''l'' after the vowel.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gick |first=Bryan |date=1999 |title=A gesture-based account of intrusive consonants in English |url=http://idiom.ucsd.edu/~bakovic/camba_files/phonoloblog/gick-intrusive-consonants-ph99.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Phonology |volume=16 |pages=29–54 |doi=10.1017/s0952675799003693 |s2cid=61173209 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130412043850/http://idiom.ucsd.edu/~bakovic/camba_files/phonoloblog/gick-intrusive-consonants-ph99.pdf |archive-date=12 April 2013}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Trudgill |first=Peter |title=Dialect Contact, Dialectology and Sociolinguistics |url=http://digitum.um.es/jspui/bitstream/10201/1672/1/112477.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402164426/https://digitum.um.es/jspui/bitstream/10201/1672/1/112477.pdf |archive-date=2 April 2015 |access-date=12 March 2015 |publisher=University of Fribourg}}</ref>

Until recently,{{When|date=September 2022}} Bristolian was characterised by retention of the second-person singular, as in the [[doggerel]] "Cassn't see what bist looking at? Cassn't see as well as couldst, casst? And if couldst, 'ouldn't, 'ouldst?" The West Saxon ''bist'' is used for the English ''art'',{{sfn|Black|1996|p=172}} and children were admonished with "Thee and thou, the Welshman's cow". In Bristolian, as in French and German, the second-person singular was not used when speaking to a superior (except by the egalitarian [[Quakers]]). The pronoun ''thee'' is also used in the subject position ("What bist thee doing?"), and ''I'' or ''he'' in the object position ("Give he to I.").{{sfn|Strohmeyer|2009|p=13}} Linguist [[Stanley Ellis (linguist)|Stanley Ellis]], who found that many dialect words in the Filton area were linked to aerospace work, described Bristolian as "a cranky, crazy, crab-apple tree of language and with the sharpest, juiciest flavour that I've heard for a long time".{{sfn|Elmes|2005|p=39}}