I suppose yesterday when on one of my ‘observation’ ramblings… the topic of which was ‘time team’ and especially ‘Phil’… it’s long pleased me that his strong accent has not hindered his position on the show.

It seems so many times that anyone that displays any signs of an ‘r’ in their accent is likened to an ‘Adge Cutler’ band member… the country bumpkin worzel types and therefore completely uneducated.

Professor Colin Pillinger of the Open University…, he of the Beagle 2’s European Space Agency's 2003 Mars Express mission and born just outside of Bristol is another ‘yokel’ sounding academic, but are there many more.

It shocked me some time ago when stopping over in a hotel in Glencoe, some very enthusiastic visitors bound up in the local history said I sounded just like ‘Phil’… I still don’t know whether to take it as an insult or a compliment… were they inferring I was thick, as is so often the case if you have a country accent. ‘Benny’ from Crossroads being an example. If he’d have come from Oxford, with a Cass like accent, he’d never been cast in that part.

I think local accents are fascinating, and at most a pleasure to hear… though I’ll give Shakespeare a miss.

Not only has each county a distinct accent, but some towns do as well… I’ve been told in some Scottish coastal villages you can get a differing accent from one end of the street to the other…

I believe dialects are something completely different as they are almost another language, but much dependant on the environment you may be born into or work maybe.

Where do we get it from… will accents last… they seem less regional now… because of television maybe…

Norman - there were, in my youth, two distinct Walsall accents - and somewhere between there and Lichfield (half an hour on the Walsall Corporation No 16 bus) the accent changed from a basically West Midlands accent to one much closer to a Potteries accent.

Shamefully Gill… despite the countless times I’ve driven along the M5 M6, I’ve had to look up on the map to see where Walsall is… I can only think that having come off the M5 and onto the M6, I can relax, turn on the auto pilot and don’t worry or even change gear again until I reach Gourock… for the ferry to Dunoon.


It’s exactly what you describe that I find fascinating… the difference in accent within such a short distance. I used to run into Buckie (Banffshire) and got to know some of the locals, who often told me they could more or less tell what street someone came from by their accent… hard to believe.


Tell me, as I’m not too familiar with big towns etc, and on looking at the map for the surrounding countryside where I’d feel more at home, is there another accent for the ‘country bumpkin’ types… a maybe stereotypical smock dressed with a straw hat local yokel… if you get my drift. You see in my OP, when it was said I sounded like ‘Phil’… they later inferred I sounded a bit posh… I have family still living in Kent, where I was born that ask me to repeat myself as they like to hear the ooh arrs in my accent. And yet to me, they sound very London…

I guess what I’m striving to get at, in my usual cack-handed manner, is where you come from… where do you consider a ‘posh’ accent, and a ‘countrified’ accent.

"Countrified" - well, I suppose Shropshire accents sound that way to me.

"Posh" - They say "yes", not "ar" so I suppose some of the villages now are "posh" - though only by dint of putting property prices up to such an extent that none of us natives can afford to buy the dog kennel in our grandparent's back garden, and commuters from Brummagem have taken over. They are a poor imitation of the real "posh" people we used to have in the big houses. They didn't look down their noses at us (which the newcomers do, when their snouts are not deep in the trough)

Quote :

It seems so many times that anyone that displays any signs of an ‘r’ in their accent is likened to an ‘Adge Cutler’ band member… the country bumpkin worzel types and therefore completely uneducated.

That is very similar to the situation here, Norman. NZ doesn't have regional accents to any degree - you can't tell if a person comes from Auckland or Christchurch. Some Maori have a distinctive accent, but the only regional accent is from my home province of Southland where people roll their 'r's, possibly a relic from their Scottish ancestry. (Though the Scots turned up all over the place really and Dunedin was founded by Scots but they don't have a Southland accent.)

Our DP and Minister of Finance comes from a farm in Southland, and his accent was mocked a little at first as yokellish. I don't know if it has changed or people are just used to it (Southlanders do tend to lose their 'r's when they leave the province - my husband used to say mine returned as we closer to my home.) I do think perhaps some of the slow drawl does come from a slower way of life, but not from any lack of brainpower.

There isn't a posh accent here, but we have an automatic respect for an British RP accent, I think, and assume they are speaking with authority.

Cheers, Caro.

I take your point ref RP accents assuming to be a voice of authority… I think a lot of emphasis is given over to ‘posh talk’ even in the not so expensive public schools.
It seems we can’t get far if we have a local or ‘rustic’ accent and yet we are inundated with TV newsreaders with a definite Scottish accent.

I had an internet argument with British people because I didn't think a Scottish accent could be called RP and they did. I can hear that some Scottish accents are posher/more educated than others, but I think RP by definition is a southern English accent. However I was talking to people who understood a lot about linguistics etc, so I suppose they must know. (Though I don't think I was quite convinced.)

I tend to agree with you Caro. My concept of an RP accent includes sounds which are, to my mind anyway, incompatible with any Scottish accent. House = hice, india = Indiar etc. If you go to 11 minutes in the link below, you'll hear James Douglas Hamilton, Earl of Selkirk, Eton and Balliol, Secretary of State for Scotland etc. They don't come any posher but although he has an educated and very upper crust accent it still isn't quite what I think of as RP. Am I living in the past and equating RP with the queen circa 1955 or has it changed? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmE3jlTqlcg&feature=player_embedded

Doesn't a Morningside accent sort of take the place of RP in Scotland?

Hamilton has a slight variation in his delivery from absolute RP but it's RP all the same. If you look at the phonetic analysis of "Queen's English" there's quite a bit of leeway allowed, and in fact the one person who has probably the most unique variant is the Queen herself. Her strangulated delivery, thank heavens, is not even close to being the epitomy of RP.

The guy who I always think of as the epitomy at least of the "R" in "RP" was Alf Ramsey, a Dagenham lad who upon being appointed England football manager arrived at an accent he felt was appropriate to his elevated station, though not suddenly as it transpired. If you follow his climb through the strata and listen to interviews with him as a player, then as a young Ipswich manager and later having been knighted for managing the 1966 World Cup team you can hear the progression from Daahg'num to Doggen'm.

Having searched for ages (the search function on the defunct BBC boards doesn't seem to work any more), I found it was more on the History board than the WOM this was talked about. They mentioned Neil McGregor, I think. Someone said, "So RP is essentially a social accent, but it's also conditioned by geography. The further you go from London and the South East, the fewer RP speakers you find." [The Scottish people mostly disagreed with this.]

I think to me it is not so much social as geographical. Unless a NZer has deliberately changed their accent (and I heard a Year 13 boy from a private school here once whose very posh accent put the Queen's to shame, and was cringe-making in the extreme to my ears) they can't really be considered to speak with an RP accent, just an educated NZ one. RP is an accent from England. Not Scotland, or Canada, or India or Ireland or NZ.

Caro wrote:

RP is an accent from England. Not Scotland, or Canada, or India or Ireland or NZ.

I'd agree with that, but even so in Irish, Scottish, NZ, Canadian or Australian or whatever accents you do find some accents broader than others. Which can be an indication of an expensive or inexpensive education. Hence we are back to class again, if only to a certain extent.

I love listening to Geoff Boycott on the cricket commentary, his accent, humour and expertise are brilliant. Whereas once the norm in cricket commentators was to sound like Blowers and Geoffrey would have had to change his accent to be accepted into the media. So we do see a change in acceptable accents, however slow it may be.

Islanddawn wrote:

Whereas once the norm in cricket commentators was to sound like Blowers

Arlott didn't change his Hampshire accent - and for decades, he was THE voice of cricket.
Trueman kept his Yorksire accent.

Heavens Urn, that is going back a way, I had forgotten about those two!

Arlott had a very proper RP BBC accent, or at least that is how it sounded and seemed to us down south. You are correct that Trueman didn't lose the accent. He was always extremely popular in Australia, and the Englishman of choice for any cricketing comments on TV. I think, because he kept his accent he was someone that Australians could relate to a bit more than others in the cricketing world at that time.

Arlott RP? Did you really think so? I would have said he had a good, solid Hampshire burr.

Me too. For RP to be RP it has to be an accent apart from that used by the lesser locals in the area, even in the Heim Keintees. Arlott's was a real Hampshire brogue and not an accent one would have heard declaring war on Germany at the time (the West Indies maybe, but not Germany).

Yes but you know and are used to the various accents of England and Britain, whereas most Australians (back then) would barely recognise an Irish from a Scottish accent, little on the various English accents. Not unless it was really really distinctive accent like a Liverpool or Yorkshire anyway, but all the southern accents sounded very much the same to us.

That's true. That's why they're not really qualified to discuss what is or isn't an RP accent. It has a precise definition which itself is based on a familarity with the heard distinction. You are right that Australians now might be better at doing this (more exposure to British accents through the media), but they're often still way out of their depth when challenged to distinguish between British accents which Britons perceive as miles apart. The same, I'm sure applies in reverse too.

It would be like me (and probably you too) attempting to impart an opinion regarding an aristocratic Indian accent which exemplifies Maharaja status in Indian society. I might know such a thing exists but I'm buggered if I can hear it when Indians speak Indian!

Exactly Nordmann. I might try and find a recording of Arlott and listen again to see if I can now recognise an accent, it was a long time ago and I was young when I last heard him on the BBC Worldservice! MMM, it will be interesting to see if I can.

Here's one ID.
http://www.radioacademy.org/hall-of-fame-member/john-arlott/

No, he doesn't sound at all RP to me however this, from the British Library, suggests that either I am harking back to another age or the sounds of RP have changed from then. With the possible exception of the elderly lady these speakers just sound normal, reasonably educated people to me.
http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/case-studies/received-pronunciation/vowel-sounds-rp/
I've just been listening to some recordings I've made of discussions I've been involved in and, dear god, I sound awful. I will keep my mouth shut in future!

Thanks for that ferval. I've found one too which, I think, Gil as a cricket fan will appreciate anyway. It still has some lovely history in the clip even for those who aren't into cricket. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8dbTxGJI1w

But Gil and Nordmann are correct, he doesn't sound RP after all. I can hear a slight accent, though wouldn't have a clue that the accent was Hampshire unless it had already been said above.

I hate hearing myself too, in fact, I cringe whenever I hear an Australian accent now. I'm sure I don't sound like that, oh no no no..... not me. This way is best for speaking

Nah… I listened to it several times, a very slight accent to me but maybe because it sounded rather ‘dated’… but more likely it’s because I’ve become accustomed to the southern ‘bur’ as Gill puts it, and maybe that’s the way I sound. It’s odd though that the people I spoke to in Glencoe said I sounded like ‘Phil’ from the Time Team program, he comes from Wiltshire and lives in Salisbury… Salisbury is just a short ride away from me and in fact a ‘pilgrims’ trail passes my lounge window…


What about the Australian accent… how long have you been away from Aus ID. Do you detect a changing accent when you return or meet other Australians?


How do you feel about the rising/questioning voice at the end of sentences, I used to hear a lot of it from English kids in my taxi but thought it too much ‘a la Neighbours and Aussie soaps’??...

Drives me mad when I hear it.

I've been away almost 14yrs Norman. I hear Greek everyday and the only English I really hear is from UK now, via either radio or TV so I'm not used to hearing Australian anymore. We usually speak English in the house but you don't really hear your own accent so when I hear other Australians in the summer tourist season, it sounds

Hate the rising/questioning thingy at the end of sentences too, and I didn't even realise I would do it occasionally until well after I had left Oz. Have no idea where it came from but it seems to be only the last 20yrs or so that it began and now all Australians seem to speak like that. Ugh it sounds so whiney.

The "up at the end like a moggie's tail" is also common in (some) Welsh accents, isn't it?

That rising inflexion is certainly not confined to Australia - it's really quite widespread now, and I'm not even sure it originated in Australia. There was a programme on our television a few years ago where speech patterns and their development was discussed (the Queen's accent has changed quite a lot in the past 40 years). It claimed that young women's speech is the first to show a general change and that rising inflexion and other elements of their speech will be the norm in another 40 years. To me, it always makes people sound very young and therefore not as authoritative as I want my experts to sound, but if they are correct, then I suppose as the people using this age, we will find it perfectly normal.

I don't hear accents well - still capable of asking people in our info centre if they are Scottish when they are from Ireland. (Of course,m I can differentiate an Aussie or a South African accent, which perhaps everyone can't.) So if I hear a Scottish accent I don't see how it can be RP. What is the definition of Received Pronunciation, if it isn't in part that it is a southern English accent?

People on the radio in NZ 50 years ago had to have an RP accent or at least a poncy English-sounding accent of some sort, but they had to learn it. I don't know if they went home and took it off again, or if it became part of them.

Caro.

Gilgamesh of Uruk wrote:

The "up at the end like a moggie's tail" is also common in (some) Welsh accents, isn't it?

I've heard that somewhere before too. But I'm not sure that Welsh accents were ever common enough in Australia to influence the language. The dominant influence on accents in Australia has been, I think, Southern English English.

Caro wrote:

Having searched for ages (the search function on the defunct BBC boards doesn't seem to work any more), I found it was more on the History board than the WOM this was talked about. They mentioned Neil McGregor, I think. Someone said, "So RP is essentially a social accent, but it's also conditioned by geography. The further you go from London and the South East, the fewer RP speakers you find." [The Scottish people mostly disagreed with this.]

I think to me it is not so much social as geographical. Unless a NZer has deliberately changed their accent (and I heard a Year 13 boy from a private school here once whose very posh accent put the Queen's to shame, and was cringe-making in the extreme to my ears) they can't really be considered to speak with an RP accent, just an educated NZ one. RP is an accent from England. Not Scotland, or Canada, or India or Ireland or NZ.

Caro,

The search function on the BBC forum has never worked as to be usable. It only searched in the last two or three months but the five years of threads the search robot didn't utilise, as it was for a test they said. I mentioned it to the Host, that in that case this search option was in reality not workable.

From the Introductions on Historum: the Welcome thread from Triceratops:



Quote:

Originally Posted by CuriousHistorian Thanks. After all that, ouldn't find the post I was looking for!

Curious Historian,

BBC - History Messageboard - History Hub - To the Hosts, Moderators of the Historyboard.

See message 10 from Kathy Host. Along this way there is a method to search all the threads for an item the same as over here. And by clicking on a name you have still as before all the last posts of that name up to 2005 when the new dna messageboards started. The old history messageboard from 2002 till 2005 isn't visible anymore.

And also this from the same thread:

LW, and I forgot, if you have found your message via Google advanced and it appears, at least on my screen, in black and white and not easy to find out where it is located on the BBC history messageboard, I found out that if you erase the "/http" in the middle of the URL and submit again you have the original thread in the familiar blue colour background. And you find also out where it is located among the threads. Kind regards and with esteem from your friend Paul.

Whereas I can copy - mimic is the correct word but too close to mocking for my taste or inclination, any regional accent I hear, I am finding it harder to follow American dialogue. The Wire for instance on TV is fast dialogue that I found difficult to follow - and just about all American children on screen seem to swallow words.
I have had Americans ask me there where I am from as they could not place my accent. I tried not to be too cutting in reply... just a tad edgy shall we say.

I thought it was just me, but I too have become very aware of a new type of dialogue in the recent American TV shows… it is very fast, giving me reason to think how can someone form an opinion and reply so quickly, it’s a very false dialogue without expression… and in an American accent I find ‘grates’ on my ears. But then some say I sound like some carrot crunching country bumpkin… not so sure I like that.


I note that when I first moved here from Kent… I found the Dorset accent and more especially the Poole accent very hard to understand, and there seemed a marked difference between the Poole side of Poole Bridge to the other in Hamworthy where I worked in the boat building yards. Some of the old boys there were so full of oooh’s and arrr’s that even the local youngsters I worked with had difficulties with them.

So where do we pick up our accents… from our parents, our playmates at school or in a working environment… or do we subconsciously reconfigure our speech pattern to adopt an identity into which we now live and work… I have to say on a recent visit to Kent I was really taken aback at the accent which seemed completely alien to me now.

I suppose we can all mimic to some extent a comedic accent be it Welsh Irish Scottish Cockney or even the straw chewing country yokel… but what does your accent reveal about you.

Like you, Norman, I've moved about a fair bit - and if I go back to my former stamping grounds, my accent starts to reassert itself. A week in Ludlow and I'm broad Shropshire, a week in Newcastle (pronounced NEWcastle) and I'm potteries to the core etc, a week in Bilston - I'd be a Yam Yam to the life.

For reasons I don't understand, people seem to pick up accents from their place rather than their families. People who immigrate keep their accent to a fair degree (in NZ no one doubted my grandmother was Scottish but in Scotland they thought she spoke like a NZer) but their children have the accent of the rest of the population. People like my husband who lived his first five years in Kent and then a further one when he was 11 still speak with the accent of the place they arrive at. It's not usually a conscious decision to fit in, though may be in older kids.

There's a South African family where I live and their third child was born in NZ, but speaks with a SA accent and I can't ever remember hearing that before. He goes to a regular school and the family mix in the community, so I don't know why he's held their accent when it is not usual to.

(It's a little odd to think that my grandson is going to speak with an English (Sheffield) accent - with a little bit of Welsh and NZ, I suppose.)

As a scout leader I suppose it was natural for my children to come along with me on the various activities I organised and then when they became old enough my son joined the scouts and my daughter the guides… through this organisation I became involved in the local scout band and my kids joined as well bringing a few of their friends along as well.
My daughter had a friend around the corner that joined the guides at the same time so between her parents and self we shared the usual parental taxi run to and from the various activities the girls attended.
The girl’s father had a slight Irish accent, unsurprising considering he was born and lived there… her mother on the other hand was English born but moved to Ireland as a child, met her husband and they came back to England where they had their daughter… now the daughter had no accent at all, the father as I said a slight accent… but the mother… well she had enough accent for the whole of Ireland. So just where do we get it… the daughter would seem to demonstrate in that case, not from her parents, but more likely from her school friends, which I suppose must be where her mother picked it up as well… it seemed so odd to hear the father taking the Mickey out of his wife’s Irish accent when she was English.

Caro wrote:

For reasons I don't understand, people seem to pick up accents from their place rather than their families. People who immigrate keep their accent to a fair degree (in NZ no one doubted my grandmother was Scottish but in Scotland they thought she spoke like a NZer) but their children

It is no great puzzle, the children of immigrants go to school with all the other children of the community and together they are all taught how to speak and pronounce the language of the country correctly, including the local accent.

Edit. It is only adults who don't entirely lose accents as speach patterns are too set and ingrained. Whereas children are extremely flexible, like sponges really, and if taught early enough can absorb languages and pronunciations very easily.

An example. My husband speaks Greek with a Cretan accent because he learnt Greek from people with that accent, he speaks English with an Australian accent because he spent a lot of schooling years in Australia and that is where he learnt English. My children speak English with an Australian accent because, likewise, early school years were in Australia and they speak Greek, not with a Cretan accent like their father, but with the accent of this island, where they went to school and learnt the majority of their Greek. Whereas me, didn't learn a second language until almost 30yrs old and will never lose my Australian accent. Sigh.

But children of immigrants speak with the accent of the parents' new country long before they go to school or even pre-school. If I meet a three-year-old with English parents their speech is Kiwi. Almost without exception and even when you wouldn't think they have mixed a lot in the community. There seems to be an innate understanding that they need the speech of the community, not the family.

I suppose otherwise we would still all be speaking a Scottish dialect down here, and English in the rest of NZ.

Not really Caro, the children have the accent of the local community because that is still the majority of accent that they are hearing even before school, whatever accent their parents may happen to have. Children are raised constantly hearing radio, tv and everyone outside the immediate enviroment of a parent.

Not so sure about that. My daughter sounds just like me but was raised in the subcontinent - by servants for much of the time and she attended a local private Grammar school there but she has no local English accent or pronunciation whatsoever. Her eldest son has a Yorkshire accent like his dad and not Midlands where they live - and he often changes words when with me. The word lunch springs to mind though I have never remarked on the way he says it at home. I think many people slip into a speech form which is comfortable to them in the company they are with. Being a natural mimic I am very very careful about using it unless among close friends.

Ah but does your daughter speak the local lingo on the subcontinent with your accent or with the local accent P?

She doesn't really speak it. And there is no accent . Grammar, construction and vocabulary apparently define someones background. So I come out of that as arrogant, thick, foreign and female. There had better be no follow up posts on that remark, my friends.

I go along with the female bit. So much at least has been obvious from your posts. The rest sounds rather too subjective ...

Subjective - yes since I know only the imperative case of most verbs that I need to use. And just to confuse everyone apparently for years I used a double negative format so no one knew what the hell to do anyway. Can't say I've noticed any appreciable difference since I stopped doing that.

Female because of my posts? I'd have thought that my avatar might give a clue - but on reflection I suppose in this century it is not a sound indication.

I wouldn't not know what you mean by that.

And I can do that in foreign, too,

Priscilla wrote:

Female because of my posts? I'd have thought that my avatar might give a clue - but on reflection I suppose in this century it is not a sound indication.

Talking avatars, now that would be an interesting innovation!

I always cause a measure of confusion in France, because we had friends in Belgium and spent many summer holidays there, and acquired the Walloon habit of numbering - and, I'm told, a vile accent from an area where French, German, and Flemish (reluctantly) co-existed.

Still haven't figured your one out, f.

Looks like a geisha doing her hoovering.

Gilgamesh of Uruk wrote:

Like you, Norman, I've moved about a fair bit - and if I go back to my former stamping grounds, my accent starts to reassert itself. A week in Ludlow and I'm broad Shropshire, a week in Newcastle (pronounced NEWcastle) and I'm potteries to the core etc, a week in Bilston - I'd be a Yam Yam to the life.

Jil,

like you I moved a bit from one region to another, from near Ghent to near Ostend to near Bruges. And it are all three different dialects, although these from Ostend and Bruges don't differ that much as that one from near Ghent. Being nearly native speaker now in the three of them, I nevertheless think that I can only speak the first one from my youth and first school as the only one in which I can pronounciate all the fine tunings. As an example some five miles from my original town they already speak a quite distinguable dialect.

And as you, I can seamless go over from one dialect to another when in the other regions meeting with the locals. And all that with all the oddities and small nuances typical for that particular dialect. I can do that with German, English, French too, but then without the small nuances and oddities . And some native speaker can hear then from miles away that I am a Dutch speaking one. But as an exeption not the two Australian girls at Tenerife, who thought that I was a Nordman (Scandinavian one), who spoke English...

Kind regards from your friend,

Paul.

Caro wrote:

Having searched for ages (the search function on the defunct BBC boards doesn't seem to work any more), I found it was more on the History board than the WOM this was talked about. They mentioned Neil McGregor, I think. Someone said, "So RP is essentially a social accent, but it's also conditioned by geography. The further you go from London and the South East, the fewer RP speakers you find." [The Scottish people mostly disagreed with this.]

I think to me it is not so much social as geographical. Unless a NZer has deliberately changed their accent (and I heard a Year 13 boy from a private school here once whose very posh accent put the Queen's to shame, and was cringe-making in the extreme to my ears) they can't really be considered to speak with an RP accent, just an educated NZ one. RP is an accent from England. Not Scotland, or Canada, or India or Ireland or NZ.

Caro,

with the method I mentioned and the search term: Neil Mc Gregor I found only this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbhistory/NF2233812?thread=8148983

See the message 6 from Shivfan.

Kind regards,

Paul.

Caro wrote:

Having searched for ages (the search function on the defunct BBC boards doesn't seem to work any more), I found it was more on the History board than the WOM this was talked about. They mentioned Neil McGregor, I think. Someone said, "So RP is essentially a social accent, but it's also conditioned by geography. The further you go from London and the South East, the fewer RP speakers you find." [The Scottish people mostly disagreed with this.]

I think to me it is not so much social as geographical. Unless a NZer has deliberately changed their accent (and I heard a Year 13 boy from a private school here once whose very posh accent put the Queen's to shame, and was cringe-making in the extreme to my ears) they can't really be considered to speak with an RP accent, just an educated NZ one. RP is an accent from England. Not Scotland, or Canada, or India or Ireland or NZ.

Caro,

with the method I mentioned and the search term: Neil Mc Gregor I found only this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbhistory/NF2233812?thread=8148983

See the message 6 from Shivfan.

Kind regards,

Paul.