If you want to be transported back to late Victorian and Edwardian England - and the multiplicity od accents and dialects that you could have heard back then - this is for you:
My favourite? The bloke from Hackney in the Middlesex section. It's how my grandad used to talk and it's almost totally gone today. The ones from Warwickshire, on the other hand, are recognisable. The Durhams, Northumberlands and Yorkshires are barely comprehensible.
Thanks for the link. Fascinating stuff.
One of the ones that's vanished most completely is the traditional Essex accent (and even dialect, though the vocabulary wasn't as varied as, say, Yorkshire dialect), which was pretty much a mild version of stereotypical Suffolk/Norfolk. There's some good examples on there. It's all gone very estuarine now, even in the north of the county.
A lot of my family are of Yorkshire agricultural stock, and the older rural generation (now long dead) had a quite an astonishing dialect, rich with its own vocabulary, grammar and turns of phrase, that at times seemed to transmute into some ancestral Anglo-Saxon-Nordic language. Obviously the Yorkshire accent (or rather, a whole family of accents) is still going strong, but the rural dialect was really something quite different. And lost quite quickly as well - my grandfather abandoned a life of smallholder-farming, to become a town-dwelling haulier. His accent was very strong, enough to easily identify which Riding he was from (and if you had an ear for it, it was clear which part) but it was positively urbane compared to his brothers who stayed on the land. It would be hard to imagine they grew up under the same roof.
Not quite gone, Mr E. Can "sort of" still be heard in the small towns and villages around Colchester, although I think Estuarine has more or less taken over in the town itself. Can still be heard at Essex cricket matches, too.
If you want to be transported back to late Victorian and Edwardian England - and the multiplicity od accents and dialects that you could have heard back then - this is for you:
My favourite? The bloke from Hackney in the Middlesex section. It's how my grandad used to talk and it's almost totally gone today. The ones from Warwickshire, on the other hand, are recognisable. The Durhams, Northumberlands and Yorkshires are barely comprehensible.
Thanks for the link. Fascinating stuff.
One of the ones that's vanished most completely is the traditional Essex accent (and even dialect, though the vocabulary wasn't as varied as, say, Yorkshire dialect), which was pretty much a mild version of stereotypical Suffolk/Norfolk. There's some good examples on there. It's all gone very estuarine now, even in the north of the county.
A lot of my family are of Yorkshire agricultural stock, and the older rural generation (now long dead) had a quite an astonishing dialect, rich with its own vocabulary, grammar and turns of phrase, that at times seemed to transmute into some ancestral Anglo-Saxon-Nordic language. Obviously the Yorkshire accent (or rather, a whole family of accents) is still going strong, but the rural dialect was really something quite different. And lost quite quickly as well - my grandfather abandoned a life of smallholder-farming, to become a town-dwelling haulier. His accent was very strong, enough to easily identify which Riding he was from (and if you had an ear for it, it was clear which part) but it was positively urbane compared to his brothers who stayed on the land. It would be hard to imagine they grew up under the same roof.
Not quite gone, Mr E. Can "sort of" still be heard in the small towns and villages around Colchester, although I think Estuarine has more or less taken over in the town itself. Can still be heard at Essex cricket matches, too.
The Alton, Staffs one reminds me very much of my farmer neighbour from where I grew up near Leigh. Haven't been back in a while, but as his son is now in his 70s, I guess that accent is likely on the way out.
I find myself in a dilemma teaching my bilinugal lad how to read. Do I teach him how to say "u" properly, or do I try to do the RP version (I'm not very good at it!)
I see the Scottish Mail headline is 'No End to Floods Misery' Funny - I distinctly remember being told by Dair that the unique way Scotland manages its waterways (unlike the idiot English) meant no floods in Scotland.
It did strike me as a rash claim by Dair at the time!
Bill Clinton stumped for his wife today. The old campaigner still has all the skill and charisma. The problem is the contrast with his utterly charmless wife. Seeing her after seeing him really rams home what a poor campaigner she is.
Mr Ears, it's the twang primarily, but men are still sometimes addressed as "bor" and women as "gel". With a hard G.
Twenty or so years ago while driving through Basildon I had a flat tyre and while waiting for help had a long conversation with an old chap with a pronounced Essex accent. He'd spent his life in a farm on the S side of the town and thought, I recall, that he was the last person in Basildon to talk that way.
Jargon, of course is what Norfolk boys do to get fit.
Mr Dugarbandier, I brought my Lancastrian wife down to Essex and, after our children had grown up, she returned to infant teaching. We used to joke that was a small cohort of Benfleet children who referred to a local landmark as Hadleigh Castle, with a short A, rather than as everyone else locally did, to Hadleigh Carstle
Speaking of accents. I remember in the very early 70s taking my then girlfriend (she'd never been out of the southeast) to Yorkshire and a shop in Ingleton. She asked the shopkeeper how much the Kendal Mint cake was. "That's 5 and that's 10." came the reply. She looked at me in total bewilderment as she couldn't understand the Yorkshire accent.
My father was born in Lancashire and my mother in Yorkshire. I was born in Lancashire and lived there until we moved to Yorkshire. I went to boarding school in Yorkshire for 10 years.
Coupled with the fact that I've spent most of my adult life in the USA, my accent was described 20 years ago by my brother-in-law as sounding like a mid-60s deejay.
Mr Dugarbandier, I brought my Lancastrian wife down to Essex and, after our children had grown up, she returned to infant teaching. We used to joke that was a small cohort of Benfleet children who referred to a local landmark as Hadleigh Castle, with a short A, rather than as everyone else locally did, to Hadleigh Carstle
I like it. Someone has to teach them to talk proper.
(We used to have a book called "Arfer tocrate in staffycher" at home)
As for the difference between an RP "a" (short) and "u" I'm still struggling. Like Chinese tones
I think I shall have to start calling our lads "youth" as a term of address. I still do with my brothers on occasion. "at orate, youth?"
My dad had (has?) the ability to slip in and out of broad potteries depending on the audience (he was a schoolteacher). He's moved to posh Cheshire now, and his older brother is no longer with us, so maybe not much chance for a demonstration any more.
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I find myself in a dilemma teaching my bilinugal lad how to read. Do I teach him how to say "u" properly, or do I try to do the RP version (I'm not very good at it!)
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14181395.Standards_commissioner_launches_full_inquiry_into_SNP_MP_s_financial_interests/
Corbyn reshuffle: "total disaster" says one senior figure as Benn's future in balance
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14181175.Corbyn_reshuffle___quot_total_disaster_quot__says_one_senior_figure_as_Benn_s_future_in_balance/?ref=mr&lp=4
Twenty or so years ago while driving through Basildon I had a flat tyre and while waiting for help had a long conversation with an old chap with a pronounced Essex accent. He'd spent his life in a farm on the S side of the town and thought, I recall, that he was the last person in Basildon to talk that way.
Jargon, of course is what Norfolk boys do to get fit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sssml-rAVfY
Coupled with the fact that I've spent most of my adult life in the USA, my accent was described 20 years ago by my brother-in-law as sounding like a mid-60s deejay.
(We used to have a book called "Arfer tocrate in staffycher" at home)
As for the difference between an RP "a" (short) and "u" I'm still struggling. Like Chinese tones
I think I shall have to start calling our lads "youth" as a term of address. I still do with my brothers on occasion. "at orate, youth?"
My dad had (has?) the ability to slip in and out of broad potteries depending on the audience (he was a schoolteacher). He's moved to posh Cheshire now, and his older brother is no longer with us, so maybe not much chance for a demonstration any more.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=81877&page=1