H-dropping process in British English accents

[markkaminski]

Hello! I'm interested in the following question:
According to Survey of English Dialects (SED) that was in 1950-1960 people who do not pronounce the /h/ sound live in the vast majority of regions of England. The data is also confirmed by information from the book “An Atlas of English Dialects” (2006).
However, information from an app “English Dialect App” in which native speakers independently answer questions about the pronunciation of various words suggests that this phenomenon is characteristic only of accents in a small number of English counties like Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Yorkshire etc.
How do you think the phenomenon in question is represented in modern English? Can we say that h-dropping is only an indicator of social status or does it also have a regional aspect?

Best regards,

Mark Kaminsky
Minsk State Linguistics University
The Republic of Belarus

 

[5jj]

The following passages from the wikipedia aricle H-dropping give an accurate (in my opinion) overview:

H-dropping occurs (variably) in most of the dialects of the English language in England and Welsh English, including Cockney, West Country English, West Midlands English (including Brummie), East Midlands English, most of northern England (including Yorkshire and Lancashire), and Cardiff English. It is not generally found in Scottish English and Irish English. It is also typically absent in certain regions of England and Wales, including Northumberland, East Anglia and parts of North and West Wales.

[...]

H-dropping, in the countries and regions in which it is prevalent, occurs mainly in working-class accents. Studies have shown it to be significantly more frequent in lower than in higher social groups. It is not a feature of RP (the prestige accent of England), or even of "Near-RP", a variant of RP that includes some regional features.[9] This does not always apply, however, to the dropping of /h/ in weak forms of words like his and her.

H-dropping in English is widely stigmatized, being perceived as a sign of poor or uneducated speech, and discouraged by schoolteachers. John Wells writes that it seems to be "the single most powerful pronunciation shibboleth in England."

In my experience, many speakers of RP and near-RP drop the h in casual conversation far more that they realise in such common words as he, him, his, her, have has.

 

[5jj]

I have moved this thread to a more appropriate forum.

 

[BobK]

In my experience, many speakers of RP and near-RP drop the h in casual conversation far more that they realise in such common words as he, him, his, her, have has.

This final sentence is particularly apposite. I suspect the crucial difference between your sources is due to the way they assess what actually happens. People who were told by their teachers that h-dropping is an indicator of class tend to say 'I don't do it'.