Accent

Mrs Jones A couple of years ago there was a radio reporter talking to some Afro Carribean girls from Hackney talking in a sort of West Indian/British patois.

They were describing to the reporter how and why they used it, and they were clearly extremely articulate in describing how they could speak either dialect as they chose, as many people do one way of speaking with friends and ordinary English.

Anniebach John Humphrys as well, the minute he gets back to Cardiff he sounds more Welsh.

Oh this reminds me of how I used to make a point of going to the Murray Bros of Hawick tent at Burghley Horse Trials every year, not just for their fabulous knitwear and cashmere bargains, but to hear the "soft Lowland tongue of the Borders" all around me! It used to make me so homesick.

Do Somerset, Devon, Dorset have county differences? Or is there such a thing as a "West Country" accent.
I think mum would have said there are definite differences

Eirel my mum was born in Bristol. The family moved to Kent when mum was about 11. She lived here the rest of her life. Others could still hear her "West Country" accent though they couldn't pinpoint it. Although my immediate family couldn't.

I was born in a "Last of the Summer Wine" village and lived there until I was 8 when we moved to the Wirral. At 16 we moved back to the original area and lived in West Yorkshire until 2003 when we moved to South Bedfordshire and then in 2012 to S.E. Hampshire. I think I have a mongrel accent with a bit from everywhere I have lived as I do have a tendency to pick up accents like a magnet. DH is a gruff Yorkshireman and everyone recognises his accent! I love accents and enjoy trying to guess where someone originates from. Pam Ayres has one of my favourites.

I am from Liverpool but have lived on the Wirral for over 40 years, I don't really have a Liverpool accent , my friends think I talk posh , I don't think I do , but I absolutely hate the way the Liverpool accent has been changed over the years and I blame Brookside, they massacred the genuine gentle Liverpool accent , think how The Beatles sounded, now it's lazy and awful to listen too, I worked in Liverpool in the 60's and never heard people talk the wY they do now,

When the charity shop I worked for had recycling collected by a Bristol firm I used to look forward to getting the lovely young driver to say 'carrrdboarrd' for me in broad Bristolian.
I'm easily amused!

I've lived in Devon for 50 years and consider I have a "nowhere" accent, but I can instantly recognise if someone has an accent from where I originate from - North London - Hertfordshire. I must admit I hear myself using Devon expressions though and find that in a group of say 10 people, maybe only 1 or 2 are 'proper Deb'n born and bred'!

Yes Ever agreed. Very different! But we still manage to communicate....sometimes!

I have a Belfast accent - a posh one, I think! But there's loads of different 'Northern Ireland' accents. Although when a crowd of us would visit out 'English' office, they thought we all sounded exactly the same. Some were from Ballycastle, Belfast and Newry - anyone on here from NI will know that these are very different accents!!

I too have moved around the country. Born and brought up in Derbyshire (but my parents were from Wales, and Norringham respectively.) Went to boarding school in Sussex at 11 where I tried hard to lose my accent as I was teased so learned to use a long 'a' where appropriate eg bath, path etc. Then movd to Hampshire and went to local school there. University in Yorkshire, then LOndon , and since marrying have live in the Midlands and Sussey - now back in E Midlands. Husband from Lancashire and my MiL thought I had a posh 'southern accent'! Still accused of being posh sometimes but don't think I sound it. My husband has almost lost his Lancashire accent but his sister still sounds it.

I was born in Birmingham and have lived here all my life, but when we moved to an area which was on the edge of the Black Country, I couldn't understand a word anyone said!

What I find interesting is that both our children were born and raised in a North Essex village and had N.Essex accents.
Our Daughter moved to Leicester when she was 18 (uni) and has lived their since, she now speaks with a pronounced Leicester accent.
Our Son moved to North Lincs. when he was also 18 (uni again), he married a local girl and has lived in N.Lincs since. His accent has hardly changed.
So why would one change and not the other ?. I guess the N.Lincs accent is closer to N.Essex than Leicester, so perhaps that has an effect.

When we moved down to Cleveland when my dad's pit closed, my mother came to get me from school on my first day to find that I had been perched on a table and asked to recite nursery rhymes in pitmatic, for the entertainment of the teachers!

"Pitmatic" - that's what my dad used to call our twang, DeeWBW. I'd forgotten! He was a Durham coal-face miner. I always feel a bit aggrieved these days that the Durham area tends to get swept out of the Geordie designation by our neighbours from Newcastle, but the word Geordie did come from Geordie Stephenson, inventor of the miners' lamp. The pitmen who used it were the original Geordies.

I like to hear different regional accents as it would be very dull if we all spoke like 1950's newsreaders but I really can't stand the MLE or Jafaican as favoured by many of the local "yout". They think it sounds cool but I think it sounds ridiculous.

North London with Hertfordshire overlays!

Yes, you already posted that yesterday DeeWBW! (I thought that 'pitmatic' rang a bell...)

Accents are amazing, aren’t they? I am from the pit area of Durham and, while the rest of England will think I am a Geordie, I’m not. I speak pitmatic. At the age of eighteen, I decided I didn’t want to speak like that anymore and, after about seven years of making sue my ‘ing’ words ended in ’ing’ instead of ‘n (‘going’ instead of ‘go-un’), I thought I had cracked it. Once a year, the ‘un’ sound would appear and I would choke on the pronunciation. Now, aged sixty three, people still think I am a Geordie and, oh, how I wished I hadn’t changed the way I was going to speak. I think it is ‘ahm’ sound I make for ‘I’m’ that still makes me a Geordie, so to speak and I’m pleased that the sign is still there.

But accent never truly leaves you. I’ve been living in Spain for ten years and am just in the process of returning to God’s country yet, five years ago, in Spain, I began talking with a man who was definitely from my neck of the woods and, within fifteen minutes, I was back there with ‘aye’, ‘man and even ‘traa (bye-bye)’. A great experience. I hadn’t lost it at all but simply hidden it away. I’ll soon be back there in god old County Durham and back to being my real self. Yippee!

Accents are amazing, aren’t they? I am from the pit area of Durham and, while the rest of England will think I am a Geordie, I’m not. I speak pitmatic. At the age of eighteen, I decided I didn’t want to speak like that anymore and, after about seven years of making sue my ‘ing’ words ended in ’ing’ instead of ‘n (‘going’ instead of ‘go-un’), I thought I had cracked it. Once a year, the ‘un’ sound would appear and I would choke on the pronunciation. Now, aged sixty three, people still think I am a Geordie and, oh, how I wished I hadn’t changed the way I was going to speak. I think it is ‘ahm’ sound I make for ‘I’m’ that still makes me a Geordie, so to speak and I’m pleased that the sign is still there.

But accent never truly leaves you. I’ve been living in Spain for ten years and am just in the process of returning to God’s country yet, five years ago, in Spain, I began talking with a man who was definitely from my neck of the woods and, within fifteen minutes, I was back there with ‘aye’, ‘man and even ‘traa (bye-bye)’. A great experience. I hadn’t lost it at all but simply hidden it away. I’ll soon be back there in god old County Durham and back to being my real self. Yippee!

Have lived in Rochdale for the last 20 years+ but people immediately ask where I'm from, as don't sound local. Aberdonian parents, grew up in Worcester/Hereford area and lived in London, Yorkshire and Cumbria. Think I speak RP. DDs were both born in Cambridge, moved to Canvey Island when they were small and stayed there for a couple of years before we moved to Morecambe Bay area, where they picked up the most revolting mix of Southend/Cumbria - the ugliest accent I ever heard!

Can you understand Kirsty Wark? Not all Glaswegians speak with a broad accent. Broad accents from anywhere, including exaggerated cut glass accents are more difficult to understand.

My English teacher insisted that we all learnt English as well as our native Norfolk. He said there were people in the outside world who wouldn't understand us otherwise! Also English was handy at job interviews. He was right. Outside Norfolk and to furreners I do have to 'tork proper' I am bi-lingual!

I cannot understand Glaswegian or Newcastle accents - which can lead to confusion as firms seem to think Newcastle is an accent to be trusted so base their call centres there.

I come from South Wales, but as I have lived in Oxford for over 40 years, I have just about lost my Welsh accent unless I am with a Welsh friend or if I go back to Wales when I immediately sound just like everyone else's,

Norfolk/suffolk. Always a talking point when I meet people. Some people love it but I get the feeling some people think I'm a bit of a country bumpkin.

Moved from ther 35 years ago and never lost it. It's especially bad when I go back.