Regional Accents/Dialects

[WestCoast]

I had to respond to this point in a different thread...

Personally I don't think I have an accent although I do occasionally blurt out words with what I call a 'farmers' accent, which is effectively the traditional dialect of Worcestershire and Wiltshire (where I was born). Northernmost Worcestershire does have a slight brummie accent. It would be interesting to find out whether I do have an accent from someone elses point of view.

There is no such thing as "no accent", I hear that all the time! Everyone has an accent, what your saying is you believe you speak a form of Standard English (or essentially Received Pronunciation). RP is defined in the Concise Oxford Dictionary as "the standard accent of English as spoken in the south of England"

 

[Butts]

I had to respond to this point in a different thread...



There is no such thing as "no accent", I hear that all the time! Everyone has an accent, what your saying is you believe you speak a form of Standard English (or essentially Received Pronunciation). RP is defined in the Concise Oxford Dictionary as "the standard accent of English as spoken in the south of England"

The biggest laugh with regard to regional accents is when you get a foreigner taught RP trying to decipher a Geordie, Glaswegian, Aberdonian, Cockney etc accent.

Priceless

 

[WestCoast]

The biggest laugh with regard to regional accents is when you get a foreigner taught RP trying to decipher a Geordie, Glaswegian, Aberdonian, Cockney etc accent.

Priceless

You only understand how hard that is when you learn another language and try and understand certain dialects! I know how it feels...

Yes, the variety of the accents in the British Isles is amazing.

So, to liven up this thread, in your opinion, what accent do you (think you) have? I have a touch of 'West Lancashire' tone, which is much softer than other similar dialects in the area. I can 'switch it off' on the telephone or when speaking to certain people.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Why is it called "Received" Pronunciation? Receive is from the Anglo-Norman French receivre.

The dictionary definition that I have, gives the following seven uses:-
1. To be given, presented with or paid.
2. Suffer, experiance or be subject to.
3. Form an impression from an experiance.
4. Greet or welcome formally.
5. Detect or pick up broadcast signals.
6. Serve as a receptacle for.
7. In tennis, to be the player to whom the server serves the ball.

With regard to my accent, although born in North Manchester, people comment that my accent is from North-East Lancashire.

 

[Eagle]

I have a southern accent which is hard to classify. It's far from Received Pronunciation, it's not Westcountry and it's certainly not Estuary. But it's definitely southern.

Thing is, everyone in south central England speaks like me.

 

[SouthEastern-465]

As I said in another thread I've got a South London accent, its quite noticeable at times if I'm honest. I've been compared to as Rodney from 'Only Fools and Horses' and always get people I know start a conversation on MSN with "oright Guvna..."

 

[Butts]

As I said in another thread I've got a South London accent, its quite noticeable at times if I'm honest. I've been compared to as Rodney from 'Only Fools and Horses' and always get people I know start a conversation on MSN with "oright Guvna..."

I find that people with a "Southern Accent" that is not posh or yokel are automatically assumed to come from London

At least thats the case up here.

 

[richw]

I have a cornish accent, born and bred, and I've been told its a very strong accent as well!

 

[Donny Dave]

Nowt wrong with a Yorkshire accent! Everything else is heresy!

I can remember being stood at the bar at some pub in Ayr talking to a Cockney (complete with rhyming(sp?) slang!) and a Southener, with about 25 Scottish people hanging on to our every word trying to decipher what we're saying! It was great revenge from about 10 minutes previous when they were all speaking in drunken Scottish accents which sounded gibberish to my ears!

 

[snail]

RP is defined in the Concise Oxford Dictionary as "the standard accent of English as spoken in the south of England"

Hmmm. The full OED is slightly different and (not surprisingly) more accurate:

"The most commonly accepted or standard form of pronunciation; spec. the standard, most regionally neutral form of spoken British English, traditionally based on educated speech in southern England"

Why is it called "Received" Pronunciation? Receive is from the Anglo-Norman French receivre.

The dictionary definition that I have, gives the following seven uses:-

The OED has 21, with several more sub-categories! The first is "To accept (something) as an authority, rule, or practice". Put another way, received = widely understood.

 

[AlterEgo]

I speak with a Home Counties accent, refined in a grammar school. It's not far off RP.

 

[Intermodal]

Not sure I agree with that AlterEgo.....

 

[chris89]

I've got a strange accent. Most people can tell im from the south, but not sure where. It's a mix of Westcountry (no where strong enough sometimes say a few sommersetish things) and a London sort of what i got from my parents, which i've also picked up their fast talking.

My brother on the other had did at one point have a broad somerset accent.

My friends sometimes give me a strange look for some of the things i say like 'where be that to', i also get very strange looks sometimes from my girlfriends parents up in Scotland.

But sometimes the things they say really do confuse me.

Chris

 

[185]

Oh dear. One is a plastic scouser.

Unlike those from across the river, our shellsuits are infact made of tweed

 

[Minilad]

Brummie accent and damn proud of it. And before anyone starts that's a Brummie accent not a Black Country accent which is often portrayed on TV as a Brummie Accent

 

[newbie babs]

I wish I had a true Lancastrian accent, but having left at 17 and travelled around the country and Europe I have picked allsorts up and I hate to say it even some Yorkshire accent (yuk)

I still have the lancashire twang for stairs, hair, there all those ending in "er" .

According to my students who mostly speak Chinese they think we speak to fast.....to fast blimy what do they think they speak SLOW I cant keep up with them and thats just mandarian chinese.

 

[gg1]

Brummie accent and damn proud of it. And before anyone starts that's a Brummie accent not a Black Country accent which is often portrayed on TV as a Brummie Accent

Most Brummie / Black Country accents on TV are false, exaggerated versions of the real thing spoken by actors from outside the area, Tim Spall is the best example. To a proud yamyam such as myself they sound about as accurate as Dick Van Dyke's cockney accent in Mary Poppins.

I'm sure a lot of you remember the Halifax adverts with Howard thingy who spoke with genuine Brummie accent. It really annoyed me that when they replaced him with a cartoon representation, rather than use his voice the used the usual fake 'thick Brummie' accent we're used to hearing on TV.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Why is it called "Received" Pronunciation?

The manner of speech which will be (or was) received by The Crown. The Right of Audience was granted to those who were appointed or inherited the right, and those Dukes, Clergy etc would then conform to a variety of protocols including the forms of speech in which the ordinary person from a provincial, rural background would be uneducated. The phrase 'Received Pronounciation' is comparitively recent and used more widely (interchangeably with 'BBC English') but I understand that the origin of the phrase was intended to refer back to the Courts of the Monarchs. I'm not aware that there was a term for the style of speech that was deemed acceptable acceptable.

It would be a mistake, though, to assume that RP has always sounded as it does now, and equally, to assume that there was consistency across English regions. It is highly probable that there were an astonishingly wide range of accents in the 15th & 16th Centuries, even among the land-owning aristocracy and their representatives in the Monarch's Court, but evidence is limited to written records where the pronunciation is undefined. There also appears to have been a wide ranging shift in the sound of English in that period, and the subject of pronounciation was in the consciousness of those educated or travelled enough to be exposed to the changes.

It would be interesting to learn how wide those variations were and what difficulties existed in discussing affairs of State among a group of regional representatives with little in common.

 

[Seacook]

Brummie accent and damn proud of it. And before anyone starts that's a Brummie accent not a Black Country accent which is often portrayed on TV as a Brummie Accent

I have a Black Country accent, definitely not a Brummagem one. Like many people it tends to vary depending where I am and with whom I am speaking - it's a lot thicker at home (or at 'um) than when I'm out and about.

Of course what is portrayed on TV is usually neither Brummie nor Black Country, but I dare say that's true for anywhere in the country - accents are always going to be exaggerated caricatures.

 

[Crossover]

Definitely Yorkshire accent here...and proud of it

Despite living away while at uni for four years, I have been told I have barely lost my accent at all and it can be quite funny, outside of Yorkshire, for some people to understand me. Even asking for a Coke whilst down in the West Midlands proved to be quite funny as I had to ask a couple of times!

There is an annoying trend that people associate the Yorkshire accent with the one that Michael McIntyre did which is way over emphasised, but none the less, a few people not from Yorkshire have started speaking that way to me when I say (or they can tell!) I'm a Yorkshireman.

In spite of the accent, it is true what he said about the words being left behind further south on the M1 and I do often (even sometimes in writing on here ) say owt, nowt and miss out "the". To someone who has seen the comedy sketch, it can be quite tricky to try and describe that the "t" sound is a lot softer than he made it out to be.

I wish I had a true Lancastrian accent, but having left at 17 and travelled around the country and Europe I have picked allsorts up and I hate to say it even some Yorkshire accent (yuk)

I still have the lancashire twang for stairs, hair, there all those ending in "er" .

According to my students who mostly speak Chinese they think we speak to fast.....to fast blimy what do they think they speak SLOW I cant keep up with them and thats just mandarian chinese.

Have to say, I didn't think there was much mistaking that you were a Lancastrian...which probably says you do still have the accent :P

 

[Greenback]

There are seperate accent sin Swansea - a native can tell which area of the city someone comes from!

The Llanelli accent is quite different from the Swansea way of talking too!

 

[Oswyntail]

Having moved about a bit, I tend to be a bit of a mongrel, especially having spent my teenage years desperately trying not to pick up a Glamorgan accent. I pronounce "us" as "uz" and "one"as "wonn". When I started at University, though, the medical secretary was amazing: "It says here you're from S. Wales, but your accent is from the west side of Preston, probably Cottam". Spot on for my life from 4 to 12!

 

[142094]

Geordie. The best accent you could have

 

[321446]

Tell ya wot, Geeeza. Say it wunce, Sun, say i' laad, 'm Esix an' PRAAAD.

 

[Minilad]

Most Brummie / Black Country accents on TV are false, exaggerated versions of the real thing spoken by actors from outside the area, Tim Spall is the best example. To a proud yamyam such as myself they sound about as accurate as Dick Van Dyke's cockney accent in Mary Poppins.

I'm sure a lot of you remember the Halifax adverts with Howard thingy who spoke with genuine Brummie accent. It really annoyed me that when they replaced him with a cartoon representation, rather than use his voice the used the usual fake 'thick Brummie' accent we're used to hearing on TV.

This, absolutely

 

[ChrisCooper]

A lot of people say I have a Yorkshire accent, which is not true as I've never lived in Yorkshire and not even had family up there. My parents were from Derbyshire though, which has a lot in common with Yorkshire, infact the general East Midlands accent is closer to Yorkshire than anywhere else, and Derbyshire (especially north Derbyshire) is the most Yorkshire of the lot. The town where I live is one of those strange ones as it's at the convergance of 3 similar but different accents, so has elements of all.

I think it's the problem in general that you can hear the subtle variations of accents similar to yours, but the more different they are the more they sound similar. I recently had the embarassing one of moaning about this company I'd had to keep ringing, and how annoying it was speaking to "bloody scots" (particularly as one of the problems I'd had was that someone has spelt my name wrong!) only to realise that they were based in Durham.

A funny thing with accents is how they can change depending on circumstances. I remember one teacher I had who you would never have guessed where she came from until she had to tell someone off, at which point she became a geordie. A friend of mine sounds quite posh most of the time, but when she gets going suddenly she switches to Norfolk yokel, as that's where she was born. There are also times when people will automatically switch to different accents depending on where they are or who they are with.

 

[deltic1989]

My Accent is a mixed bag, My Mum is from Yorkshire, my Dad is from Liverpool so when I was younger there was a scouse twang in there, but as Ive grown up it's become more yorkshire with a bit of Irish thrown in when I get exited or annoyed (My late grandad was Irish). I love listening to peoples accents, when I was in the Navy I had a Geordie shipmate and he tought me all the Goerdie expressions, also I had a few West Indian (St Vincent, and Grenada) shipmates who had lovely accents. I can also sympatise with those who learn forgien languages and then come up against local dilects, I thought I was a reasonably good german speaker until I went to Munich and on the way I met a petrol station attendant who spoke in what I later found out to be a bavarian accent (discribed to me as the Gerodie's of germany by a friend lol)

 

[ACE1888]

Now I'm Cornish as you like, but i don't think I have a particulary strong accent, to me people from the Bristol area sound far more West Country than we do down here, the Farming Community down this way on the other hand do...

 

[Greenback]

It's a common mistake to confuse the Cornish accent with the Bristol or Somerset one.

 

[Minilad]

It's a common mistake to confuse the Cornish accent with the Bristol or Somerset one.

Oooh Arrrr You are right