Accents are being slowly but surely watered down by TV and mass communication with a diluted form of London speech spreading across the South.

It is generally true that the further north the person comes from the harder it is for southerners to understand them, although this does not seem to work the other way round.

There are exceptions, people from the Scottish Highlands speak clearly in a lovely cultured accent. However people from Glasgow can require sub titles.

woofboxer wrote:

There are exceptions, people from the Scottish Highlands speak clearly in a lovely cultured accent. However people from Glasgow can require sub titles.

HOIYOUYACHEEKYBASTURTYE!

I was once on a bus in Camberwell trying to get home to Westminster and when I asked the conductor if he was going past Victoria or Waterloo he replied 'Wantun?' in a very dead pan way. Being affable I tried to join in with him - 'Yes, I'm wanting to go to either.' - 'No', he frowned, 'One, Ten', one pound, ten pence.' How foolish I felt.

And I ended up in Waterloo.

Jim.

Harpo wrote:

Dw i ddim yn ffindo fe yn rhy anodd i deall y Saeson o gwbl, ond siarad 'da pobol Gogledd Cyrmu yn hollol amposib i fi. Wi'n faelu deall unrhyw gair bod nhw'n gweud, ychan.

I lived just outside of Aberaeron for a short while as child, before moving back to London. I also have some family in Swansea.

Last edited by Richard Bergman (2012-07-20 05:03:58)

Kingston1an wrote:

Norn Iron too.

Especially West of the Bann - too fast
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaadphJyy50

Aye. Crazy fast, even by a Glaswegians standards. I lived in Fermanagh for a while and worked through in Tyrone for a time. I picked up a twang within about a month just so as to be better understood. I really had to work hard to learn what most of the people were saying. All good fun.

Horace wrote:

Usually those who are claimed to be unintelligible are from the north.  Or at least north of London.

This is a myth perpetuated by Southerners and those Northerners who have relocated to London. Thatcher successfully played on this ugly phenomena and used it as an added edge to the class war. Of course, the reality was something different with the middle classes in the north enjoying significantly better standards of living compared to equivalents in the south, due to the cheaper housing and mortgage repayments.

Sadly, most Southerners seem not to understand the 'barren north' through sheer bloody ignorance.

Edit: I should have typed "some Southerners" instead of "most" that was a sweeping generalization too far.

Last edited by 4F Hepcat (2012-07-20 13:07:59)

Accents seem to be stronger the further north you go, there exceptions of course, the Scottish Highlands being one.

Lancashire, my county of birth seems to have the greatest diversity of accents per area in my experience. A Geordie (Newcastle) like accent in the north, Scouse (Liverpool), or Scouse tinged accent in the West, Mancunian (Manchester) in the East and the old Lancashire dialect in the middle to south of the county.

Jamie Carragher. Yuck.

His accent. It's exactly what you describe. Very harsh, Why don't these modern day Liverpudlians sound like those nice young Beatle boys did?

I don't mind the Liverpool accent really. In fact I like a certain harshness in a persons turn of phrase (not just the accent itself but the tone too), just like I do with my own but really there is a point where it just becomes... well... yuck!

4F Hepcat wrote:

^I agree, and the diaspora of the Liverpool accent into North Wales and also its harsh evolution in the last 40 years is interesting. However, the south also has great diversity in accents, but its rapture to Estuary English is the delta that we all must avoid. But perhaps the greatest crime, and the likes of Bleasdale have played an unwitting part in this game-plan, is to turn the scouse accent, once seen as a sign of ultimate creativity and coolness, into the accent of criminality.

And there are cities in the UK with much higher crime rates and black spots. Liverpool was guilty of being the first post-industrial city it seems, the others just arrived slightly later.

Aye. There's a guttural(?) quality to the accent in some areas of Liverpool, especially the outer fringe areas like Kirby, Huyton, Knowsley which is annoying to say the least, there's also a degree of affection in these areas which makes it worse. In the south of the city the accent is quite soft, like the Beatles.

The accent is a relatively new one as accents go I believe, developing at the end of the 19th century, a combination of Irish, Welsh and Lancashire dialects. Liverpudlians in the Victorian era, its heyday would have talked with a typical Lancashire dialect. Eee, by gum...!!!

Liverpool's decline started with the increasing automation of the docks, the main reason for its existence. It has lost a lot of heavy industry on the back of that too. Plessey, GEC, Triumph to name but a few who've gone.

Sad really. I like Liverpool, a city soaked in history both good and bad like all great cities.

Sorry, that was just a noise...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33t4D6Gcs5Y

One For Bop wrote:

Sorry, that was just a noise...

He evidently derives endless amusement from writing all his posts in that style.

I thought it was amusing the first 2 or 3 times.