Question about British accents

Abso-bloomin- lutely!!! I'm originally from Manchester but had elocution training as ma was Scottish and hated the manc twang! Needless to say I've lived all over north west so now I have a "northern" accent but rarely identified as a Manchester gal. Liverpool has miriad accents too depending on which area as Manchester they have connotations of what type of person you are depending on where your accent puts you! Some snobbish some well dodgy! Is it not the same 'dahn sarf'?? In that londinium?

I recently read an article which said that the stronger accents associated with inner cities could well have developed due to the environment people lived in. Cities were noisy places with heavy industry going on all round, so people had to shout to he heard.

Also the pollution led to people’s nasal and lung passages being congested, hence dropping their ‘t’ and making the more guttural sounds connected to city accents. I thought that was all so interesting.

I live in Scotland, although was born and raised in Kent. I don’t really have much of an accent, which led to a Scotsman calling me a ‘White Settler’ the other day. Nice.

A fascinating question CanadaGran, London has always had several accents. My grand parents from North London had very clipped fast speech having no truck with those ‘saaf’’ (south) of the river, often mispronouncing words by changing the consonants: ‘nussink’ for nothing or ‘eswebody’ for everybody. The most noticeable vowel change was a long ‘ar’ for ‘ a’ as in ‘larst’. Granny spoke so quickly that she tripped over her tongue frequently. You never hear it now, Estuary English has taken over, which us north of the river disparagingly say comes from Essex!

yggdrasil

I lived for a while in Worcester. It was clear where people came from, the south of the city was Gloucestershire while the north was pure Black Country.

The north of Worcester city is about 25 miles south of the Black Country, which is recognised as having a rather singular dialect. Worcestershire has a Midlands sounding accent but Tay Black Country, believe me.

17:58Grandma70s

I have lived on the outskirts of Liverpool for a long time, and I can’t understand the accent if it’s strong. How anyone can find it pleasant is beyond me. I think it’s hideous!

I find some peoples behavior hideous, never accents. Many years ago I was at Disney land stuck on a whitewater raft with a loud, sweary, 'look at me' Brummie, the first time I'd really heard the accent in real life so that put me off the accent a little....until I had a manager with that same accent and he was as sweet as can be and now I think of him when I hear it and love it.

Me too JaneJudge. It will be very sad when they disappear under a cloud of generalised Estuary English.

and after all that drink they all understood one another, right?

I love regional accents

An academic linguist told me years ago the UK has more regional accents than any other country in the world. She had recently been to a wedding which proved this - Glasgow groom, West Country bride, and at the reception there were times when the two sides literally couldn’t understand each other. They got through with goodwill, smiling and plenty of drink.

Startingover I'm from the Wirral too and I don't think anybody has ever said they don't understand me, although my accent was never strong and I've lost most of it now. Every so often, people ask me if I'm from the Wirral because they've identified my vowels.

I can understand most Merseyside accents, although a few years ago, a bus driver in Liverpool city centre spoke to my son (born in Essex) and my son hadn't a clue what he was saying.

I’m a south west Londoner and you’d be amazed how many accents are in this one city. Even just south of the Thames the accent changes the more east you go within just a few miles

We all have our likes and dislikes. Anyone remember Janice on the ‘Six Five Special’ in the 60 s ? She had a strong Birmingham accent I thought was dire. Others probably loved it, no doubt. I don’t really like accents like Jacob Rees -Mogg’s, it makes me cringe but thankfully no one speaks like that here.

Hollysteers I agree with the raucous, loud change in not only a Liverpudlian accent but accents all over. People seem so uninhibited when speaking nowadays basically shouting all the time. Eg. Mobile phones in public. Sure we will have a nation with high level of hearing impaired in a couple of decades.

i rather miss the traditional London accent, very rarely heard now, occasionally in a few elderly emigres to essex perhaps.
it seems to have been pushed out by other cultural influences and the jafaikan affectation among the youth/yoof/youngers.

Maybe she wasn’t born and bred in Liverpool and move there sometime in her life that could account for it but having said that different parts of Liverpool have stronger accents it’s the same in every county in the UK. I am the same i NE England, now Newcastle Geordies, very very hard to understand but other Newcastle people have an accent but I can understand them. I suppose it’s the same in the US, Different state, different accents. Hope this helps. X

I’m from the Wirral and when I went to university in the late 70s, one or two of the young women in my halls of residence found it difficult to understand me. I didn’t consciously change my accent, but over the years it has become less obvious, although the vowel sounds learned as a child are still there. I lived in many different places during my career but recently moved back to my birthplace. I love going over to Liverpool; it’s such a vibrant, cosmopolitan city, although sadly it has more than its fair share of poverty and crime, for example. Some Liverpudlian accents are stronger than others. Accents can change over time depending on the influx/exodus of people to/from a place. What I find unfair, though, is the amount of snobbishness that still exists about the ‘Liverpudlian’ accent. Just because someone has a strong accent doesn’t mean they should be judged as ‘common’, ‘thick’, ‘lazy’ and other derogatory terms I’ve heard.

There are some UK accents so strong that I can't understand the speaker - Glaswegian and Liverpuddlian are the worst.

I was born in north Liverpool and I still find some of the accents very difficult to understand! Our family never had a very strong accent. However when I left the city and returned to education and began to take tutorial groups I had to speak "received" English for my overseas students to understand me. So my Liverpool accent went away. I can still do broad Liverpool when I need to.

I still miss the people and the humour.

The Liverpool accent differs all over some people have a strong accent others don't it depends where you live. The business we ran was on the Wirral it's the same there the accent differs. Halewood is the outskirts of Liverpool it actually comes under the borough of Knowsley.

???

LOUISA1523

Grandma70s

I have lived on the outskirts of Liverpool for a long time, and I can’t understand the accent if it’s strong. How anyone can find it pleasant is beyond me. I think it’s hideous!

?

Aren’t I allowed to think that? Why not? It’s just an opinion.

When I first came to Bristol many years ago one of the staff could tell which part of the City anybody came from by their accent. It’s not the same now though.

Grandma70s

I have lived on the outskirts of Liverpool for a long time, and I can’t understand the accent if it’s strong. How anyone can find it pleasant is beyond me. I think it’s hideous!

?

Accents can differ widely within just a few miles of where I live, so yes, I’d say that the same is very likely in other parts of the UK.

I live in Sefton which borders the city so am familiar with the accent. Nevertheless, I have to ask my friend to ‘translate’ if someone from the inner city speaks to us, particularly if they are speaking quite fast. She finds it hilarious!

Grandma70s

I have lived on the outskirts of Liverpool for a long time, and I can’t understand the accent if it’s strong. How anyone can find it pleasant is beyond me. I think it’s hideous!

& your accent is ……??? ?
Obviously lovely to all ears !