Cortana will have British accent on UK Windows Phones, preview lands next month

Microsoft is slowly rolling out Windows Phone 8.1 and of course the Cortana virtual assistant to handsets, but Brits in the UK who are familiar with the Halo game series won't get the Cortana they've known and loved for years.

Although Cortana is limited to the US at the moment, Marcus Ash, a group program manager for Cortana on the Windows Phone team, recently confirmed the UK developer preview will launch in "less than two weeks". But it will arrive in either end of July or early August without the sounds of Jen Taylor, the original actress who voiced Cortana in the 13-year-old Halo video game.

Microsoft unveiled Cortana in April, and the company previously stated that it would com to UK handsets in the second half of this year. In the current US build the voice assistant has the American accent of Taylor, though PhoneArena has now reported that Cortana will have a British accent (aka no Taylor) when she launches in the UK.

READ: Cortana coming to UK Windows Phone 8.1 handsets ‘soon'

There's no word on which British dialect the new Cortana will boast, and Microsoft hasn't even said why it decided to change accents. We imagine it has something to do with making Brits feel more comfortable listening to and communicating with Cortana.

It's not an unusual switch either. After all, Apple changes Siri's accent to match regions.