A question for my UK cousins: What are the different British accents?

by Check_Your_Premises 79 Replies latest jw friends

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  Check_Your_Premises

  Since I have so many Brits and UK types in one place, I was wondering if you all could classify or tell me the names of the different British accents.

  I think most in the States could be grouped by region and then each region divided into regular folks and folks with cash.

  For instance in theStates, you basically have North East which is can be characterized by your classic New York or Boston accents. Your long o's are very long, "what are yoooo dooooooooin". When you say "car" you say "cah". A northeasterner with cash most likely will talk like a Kennedy.

  Southern accents have several variations based on geography. I think one of the peculiarities is that southerners tend to add syllables to some words, "Matthew" would be pronounced "Matth-a-yew". Some words have vowels removed.

  Midwesterners probably have the least interesting accent. You mostly get the distinctions when you go to certain geographic areas. Wisconsin, great north types tend to say the "th" sound as "t" at end of words and 'd' at the beginning. Chicago types have a peculiar way of pronouncing the short 'o'. "Mom" is pronounced as almost as "mam".

  California West coast types tend to sound more like stoned midwesterners. For instance "mom" is pronounced more like "mawm".

  So explain the different Brit/UK type accents to we "proudly-ignorant-of-other-people's-culture" Yank types.

  (and I don't want to hear any crap from the various Yankee accents nitpicking my description. Get a life. Learn to masterbate. Something. This thread is not worth your time to nitpick. It was barely worth my time to write!!!)
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  Englishman

  Here in the UK West Country, there's a tendency for Bristol folk to stick an "L" on the end of every word that ends in a vowel.

  So Canada becomes Canadal, idea becomes ideal, Samantha becomes Samanthal and so on.

  And..get this.. Bristol was originally Bristowe until some bright spark tagged an L onto that too!

  Englishman.
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  RichieRich

  Southern accents have several variations based on geography. I think one of the peculiarities is that southerners tend to add syllables to some words, "Matthew" would be pronounced "Matth-a-yew". Some words have vowels removed

  Wale, yu ken go to hale, mister.
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  LittleToe

  There's a regional dialect, complete with it's own nuances of vocabulary, for every county.
  Sometimes you can tell the difference bewtten two people who were raised in adjacent vilalges.

  I was raised in the Scottish Hebridean Islands, on the borders of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and in Buckinghamshire. I also have close friends from a variety of places around Glasgow and the West coast of Scotland, and some family near Manchester.
  The result is that my accent is completely screwed up, a real "Heinz '57" mix, which will sub-consciously adapt depending on whom I'm speaking to, but STILL not totally fit in.
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  City Fan

  My accent is Boltonian, like this guy: http://www.peterkay.co.uk/
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  a friend in need
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  Elsewhere

  A = Oooooay

  B = Boooooay

  C = Soooooay

  D = Doooooay

  etc...
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  Check_Your_Premises

  I guess the reason I ask is because I can only think of Irish ("It's Moy Oyland!"), Scottish ("Yesh Mish MonayPennay"), proper gent type English ("Right-0, I say, good show, I do believe I would like a spot of tea"), cockney ('aye guvna').

  And what are some of those goofy, rhyming euphemisms: Girls are "Richards" which is in reference to Richard the 3rd, because the "3rd" rhymes with "bird" which is slang for girl.
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  katiekitten

  Every ten miles or so the accent changes. Check out this site to hear a few.

  www.bbc.co.uk/voices/languagelab/

  apparently the good old BBC have a site where you can listen to all the regional accents, but I cant find it. My dad keeps telling me about it - he misses listening to english as he lives in Miami (I think they only speak Spanish there??!!)

  Peter Kay WAS my childhood! Everything he says is true - especially about the emergency chairs; and Uncle Nobhead.
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  Check_Your_Premises

  Actually Katie, your "70's dub child" thread is what got me to post this one. I picked up on all sorts of English lingo in your post.

  I have only been to England twice. I hung out in London both times. I got drunk with some Irish construction workers and we took turns trying to do the different UK/US accents.

  I would really love to just go to the UK and hang out for a few months. I love it there. Maybe it is all the Benny Hill and Monty Python I watched growing up. When I was there, listening to everyone speak, I kept expecting to see the "Ministry of Silly Walks" guy, or a bunch of people running very quickly chasing Benny Hill around.

  Don't misunderstand me though. I am also a history geek, and how could a person engage in any sort of study of history without running across the remarkeable historical contributions made by the people of the UK.