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Pronouncing [i] like "eyi" has always been in my life, but I don't know who from I heard it so much. I finally found a person who actually speaks like this. It's Matthew Murphy, the vocalist of The Wombats. We can hear him saying "lyrically", "melancholy" and "musically" in 1:33 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN85VXvsn0Y

Actually, I think there are accents where it's even more emphasised. But I think it can be heard only at the ends of words, words like "really", "creepy", "we".

What is Murphy's accent and what other accents have got this feature?

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    Matthew Murphy has a Liverpool regional accent. In some dialects, creepy is pronounced more like creepay.
    – Weather Vane
    Jan 5, 2021 at 14:46
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    What do you mean by 'eyi'? Is it the vowel in mate, say, rate?
    – Void
    Jan 5, 2021 at 15:08
  • @Void I'm sorry, I'm not sure. I suppose it's not exactly the same as in these words, but it's very similar.
    – musialmi
    Jan 5, 2021 at 15:13

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Matthew pronounces it something closer to [iː] which is one of the main features of many northern accents such as Geordie, Scouse, Merseyside and Teesside.

Most of the northern accents have a tense vowel for the ending -y in words like happy, creepy, cheeky etc.

In SSBE, the vowel at the end of the word happy is /i/, but in those accents, it's tense and is closer to [iː] (or perhaps [ɪi]).

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Matthew Murphy is from Liverpool. There is a range of accents from this city and the surrounding areas of Merseyside and the Wirral etc. These accents may be referred to as 'Liverpudlian', or colloquially as 'scouse'. People from Liverpool, or who speak with a scouse accent are sometimes referred to as 'scousers'. Other famous musicians from Liverpool include, of course, The Beatles.

'Scouse' is actually a Liverpudlian name for a stew. Quite a lot of British English nicknames for groups of people are based on their regional cuisine, and while some are considered pejorative, Liverpudlians seem to cheerfully accept 'scousers' and use the term themselves.

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