One Woman, 17 British Accents

[c.d.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyyT2jmVPAk

Being a Yank I can't vouch for how accurate this is but I did find it very entertaining. Plus I find her kind of cute. Like me some women in glasses. Yes, yes I am shallow.

c.d.

[martin wilson]

Very entertaining, and some pretty accurate accents there.
She missed out Black Country, which is the other part of the West Midlands.
My mate asked his girlfriend, who was from Manchester, why she never spoke to his mother.
She replied that in the five years they had been together she hadn't understood one word his mother said.
Understandable, we call Birmingham for example, Brummagem.
'I sid im yesterdee' I saw him yesterday.
I'm hearing it less and less nowadays, not sure why, but it's certainly unique.

All the best.

[Sam Flynn]

She missed out Black Country, which is the other part of the West Midlands.

Eddowes territory.

[Jon Guy]

Aren`t these actually dialects, and not accents ?

[Robert]

I thought Robbie Burns was an Ayrshire poet.

Anyway, Stanley Baxter was good :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2eOaOVAsMI

[Sam Flynn]

She doesn't get the North Wales accent right, as it's rather more guttural. This chap gives a pretty good rendition of a number of regional Welsh accents:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWWE4U7RPD4

North Wales at 1:06, but it's worth listening to the whole clip to appreciate the differences in accents throughout Wales.

[Sam Flynn]

Aren`t these actually dialects, and not accents ?

I'd say they were accents, Jon. The timbres and cadences are very different between each.

[Svensson]

I can pull a better London accent from my backside, and I'm German! Best London Accent ever is Brick Top in Snatch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcG3JRIF05w)

Also, no scouse. What an omission.

Apart from all that, I love it!

[Robert]

Gareth, which area of Wales would you say Talfryn Thomas's Mr Cheeseman was from?

[Jon Guy]

I'd say they were accents, Jon. The timbres and cadences are very different between each.

Hmm.. I remember being taught that countries had accents, and regions were dialects.
For example, you can have a Welsh accent, but not a Cardiff accent.

[Sam Flynn]

Hmm.. I remember being taught that countries had accents, and regions were dialects.
For example, you can have a Welsh accent, but not a Cardiff accent.

There is definitely a Cardiff accent, Jon, just as there is a Bristol accent, a Glasgow accent, a Birmingham accent, etc. Indeed, there are probably variations in accent even within cities (east v west, north v south).

Accents are how speech sounds, but dialects have more to do with vocabulary and grammar. The accent sings the song, but the dialect can change the words.

[Sam Flynn]

Gareth, which area of Wales would you say Talfryn Thomas's Mr Cheeseman was from?

Oddly enough, Rob, I'm going through a Doctor Who phase at the moment, and was only yesterday watching the first Pertwee adventure, Spearhead from Space, in which Talfryn Thomas appeared as a shifty hospital porter.

All the Internet sources say that he was born in Swansea, but which part of Swansea they don't say. Swansea's catchment area covers a wide radius, and he could well have been from one of the towns or villages in the Swansea Valley, where the accents are much thicker.

[Robert]

Thanks Gareth.

[Joshua Rogan]

Oddly enough, Rob, I'm going through a Doctor Who phase at the moment, and was only yesterday watching the first Pertwee adventure, Spearhead from Space, in which Talfryn Thomas appeared as a shifty hospital porter.

Talking of Dr Who, I only remember him properly as Tom Price from Survivors (the original version). It was thanks to that program that I spent half my childhood looking forward to the end of civilization.
Sorry, no idea where he was born though.

[Robert]

Joshua he was in a very funny BBC schools TV production of 'The Government Inspector' (Gogol) back in the 70s, with one Martin Howells among others.