Consonants NG

As noted above, the NG variable provides one major distinguishing factor as regards the WM dialect. As Hughes and Trudgill (1996: 63) explain, most varieties do not, in informal speech, have [ŋ] in <-ing>, but rather [n]. However, in a West-Central area of England (including Birmingham, Coventry, Stoke, Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield, as well as rural counties including Staffordshire and parts of Warwickshire) there is a form [ŋg] for cases showing <ng> in the spelling. Thus, as Wells (1982: 365–366) notes, while most accents of English have a three term system of nasals, the West Midlands and parts of the (southern) North-West have a two-term system whereby [ŋ] is merely an allophone of /n/. Wells calls this phenomenon velar nasal plus. Most accents (including RP) have [ŋ] in words like song, hang, wrong; but some Northern accents are non-NG-coalescing and so disallow final [ŋ] (at least after stressed vowels).

Chinn and Thorne (2001: 22) go so far as to suggest that while [ŋg] frequently occurs in the speech of younger Birmingham speakers, this pattern may actually be a recent development, as it is “not altogether true” of older speakers. Wells notes that [ŋg] occurs well up the social scale; Heath (1980) found it in all social classes in Cannock, while in the BC [ŋ] has been reported as occurring in unstressed word-final syllables (thus [^Imo:niŋ] vs.  ). Indeed, although NG is stereotypically realized as [ŋg] in the WM dialect, analysis of the BCDP data makes it clear that there is variation (particularly among younger speakers) between [ŋg] and [n] and [ŋ].

Similarly, for Sandwell, Mathisen (1999: 111) notes word-final [ŋg ~ ŋ]  and [ŋg] before a word-initial suffix, but comments that it is subject to considerable stylistic variation, with [ŋg] favored by teenage women and for monitored speech.

The potential alternation between [n] and [ŋg] in BC is noted also by Biddulph (1986: 12).