Accents

My family were born and brought up in Birmingham, my sister has lived in Australia for 48 years, my brother for 28 and they both still have their midland accents. I left Birmingham 20 years ago and still have the accent, if a little softer now (so I am told). However a few weeks ago I was asked by someone who didn't know me how long ago I left Australia!!!

My sister left the north east 43 years ago, to live in Germany, and people still can't tell us apart on the phone.

My sister left the North East nearly forty years ago to live in London.She still speaks with a broad Geordie accent.Her two children, who were aged 5 and 2
when they went with her, speak broad cockney of course, but consider themselves Geordie by birth.
My grandmother who like the rest of us was Geordie born and bred, could also speak broad Northumbrian, which is different from a Geordie accent.Both of her parents had come from ''up the country'' as she called it so she had been brought up listening to their accents.She normally spoke Geordie, but when she went to stay with her Northumbrian cousins she would start speaking with their accent and then go back to Geordie as soon as she came home.It used to drive my grandfather mad.

Good points, Joan. We moved around various areas before we reached the North West and my sons speak with an indefinable accent, uninfluenced, thankfully, by seven years in West Norfolk. Mine is indefinable Scottish because my parents corrected us if we ever sounded broad Ayrshire which is a very 'drawly' accent.

Growing up in industrial West Yorkshire I have a broad accent, which Heckmondwike Grammar School tried and failed to eradicate. I've been out of Yorkshire 35 years but being married to a Yorkshireman I still have my accent. Unless you try to lose it, you usually keep your own accent if you move away after puberty. It's the same with acquiring a second language - if you move to a new language area before puberty, you'll pick up the new language naturally - afterwards you have to learn it, and may always have a bit of an accent.

My two sons speak with Australian accents of course, but one, a high school teacher, is really posh, the other is not. Same schools, same everything - one of life's mysteries.

I used to speak German with a very posh accent, because I lived with an academic Viennese family for 18 months and they corrected every mistake or any 'Wienerisch' until I was fluent. I did notice that you often get treated better when you sound posh.

I used to lose my Yorkshire accent for a short time when I came home from Austria. This happened when I met my in-laws to be. I had met my husband in the January, but had already arranged a job in Vienna from Jan-April. We wrote and got together when I got back, decided to get married and meet the families. Well, I was still at that post-German speaking phase, sounded accentless and never quite got forgiven for it!!!

Being brought up on the Isle of Wight I began to acquire an Island accent which horrified my mother who promptly packed me off to elocution classes! DH had a Liverpudlian accent when he first came to London, but he's lost that too and apart from 'baath' rather than 'barth' I don't think you would guess his - or my - origins. Is this a good or a bad thing do you think? Would we have been judged by our accents when we were applying for jobs 50 years ago?

Back on track.
I've been in Scotland for more than 30 years and people still say ' you haven't got a scottish accent have you?' - why should I, I spent the first 30 years of my life with a very English accent and no reason to change; however I have picked up a load of colloquialisms in order to get by. My daughter who has a broad Australian accent and was bred but not born north of the border, was told today that she would still pass for a Scot. Mr Gally who has worked in Scotland for 35 years still can't get to grips with any accent other than his own - but he's a man. (no offence Pompa!). I think it's all in the ears of the beholder...

's alright *greenmosgiel', I already split it. (me me me! )

GA, all my kids read (past tense; don't know if they still do but it wouldn't surprise me) dictionaries for fun. I've got a photo of DD3 when she had fallen asleep with her cheek on her children's dictiionary and her thumb in her mouth, aged about seven. I think kids who really love reading can't get enough words sometimes!

I'm supposed to be on here checking out gas and electric prices.....but I can't get on to the comparison websites because I keep checking on what else has been posted. Must go - Scottish Gas is going to cost me too much and I'm poor enough. Sorry if I've split the thread!

Grandson wants a shaker Maker. John Lewis online has got a toy story one reduced. I'd better hoof it up the town to see if I can get in instore. Save the postage.

I'll be back.

No, no jangly stay and chat - it'll be much cheaper.

Sigh! My husband's off flying model aeroplanes, daughter's pre menstrual and son is still in bed.

I think I'd better phone a friend.

Or get some retail therapy. Yes! that!

I was born and brought up in Manchester on a large council housing estate and all my family speak with Mancunian accents - including the ones who left years ago, as I did. When I was three I learned to read and often say that Enid Blyton actually socialised me. I learned what was 'proper' through the exploits of the Famous Five and Secret Seven and this included speech. I tried very hard to speak well and, as I think I mentioned elsewhere, really did read a dictionary for fun. (Yes, I do know how weird that makes me.) As I left Manchester in my teens and lived in various parts of this country and abroad I never picked up an obvious accent and still speak in what my (English language) students describe as 'book' English. If I spend time with my family I can imitate a Mancunian accent and I confess I love to hear a northern accent still.

I dunno whether you're cross or not

right-o

Jangly - In a cross-border war, I don't know which side I'd be on. When the 6 nations rugby is on the box, I tend to shout for Scotland, so maybe I am now assimilated. Don't like it when rabid Scots blame England for everything, though, and I don't think the fat controller is right in pushing for independence. The whole country needs to stick together, particularly when money is tight, as it is now. You'd think the lessons of Iceland and Iceland would have taught him something useful. But he's a bit obsessed.

I'm not easily offended, and don't actually see anything you wrote that I could have been offended by. You are not trying, go back and do it again.

I have spent far more of my life in England than in Scotland, had an English granny, so am a real hybrid. The accent, however, betrays my birth.

Didn't mean to offend Elegran. Or start a cross border war.

The mean Scot jibe? Ive not found that true.

Serves me right for rising to that bait! . I think there are probably lots more things that really annoy us Scots, but I will deal with those on a case to case basis...

I know that is the one thing that really annoys Scotch Scottish people.

I'll go now...

I was winding you up!!

Scottish Scottish Scottish

I'm really sorry.

I was about to say that too, Annobel, thought of it while washing dishes after sending my previous post. There are Scotch eggs, Scotch whisky and butterscotch and you can scotch a rumour, but people and language are Scots. so are most other things Scottish.

Um - Jangly, 'Scotch' usually refers to the drink rather than the language or the person nowadays.